. A HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.. TORONTO MODERN ENGLANDAND WALE ^f^^lU.MC 5 ^ ^-^i^^r^c^^^ ' Vv, "cWltViiW"- o*TtfR > ER^^ g^ H S '^ A HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND GREATER BRITAIN BY ARTHUR LYON CROSS, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Nefo fSorfc THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 A.II rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1914. Norton oti J. 8. Gushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE THE aim of this book is to trace in a single volume the develop- ment of the English people from the earliest times to the present. The work has extended to a length which the author neither designed nor desired ; but the demands of a vast and complicated subject proved imperative. Even so, it has been found necessary to exclude no end of details, not only picturesque but important. On the other hand, every effort has been made to treat as fully as may be what has been selected for mention. Especial stress has been laid on those features which should be interesting to Americans, not necessarily to borrow Sir John Robert Seeley's distinction because they are entertaining, but because they touch fundamental American interests ; for example, the origin and development of the English Common Law, the causes of the American Revolution, and the growth of British Imperialism. Recognizing that history is an inclusive ' record of the thought and action of men in organization,' or, in other words, 'of the development of men as social beings,' the author has striven to present the various sides of activity, political, social, industrial, religious, and intellectual, which, in their collective capacity, the English people have manifested through the course of their long and wonderful past. Mindful of the significance of those historical forces which are as potent as they are baffling to measure and appraise, he has, nevertheless, sought to understand and delineate the men who have done so much to fashion their country's destiny. Since England has been the dominating theme, the title which has been chosen may seem not only overambitious but misleading as well ; however, an attempt has been made constantly to make evident the relation of the Welsh, the Irish, the Scots, the Indians, and the Colonials, as well as the continental Europeans to the development of England into Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and the British Empire or Greater Britain. A work of this character is of necessity built upon the labors of others ; as quaint old Robert Burton said centuries ago, it lights its candle from their torches. While specific acknowledgments are precluded, the general works made use of will be found in the lists for " Additional Reading," and the other sources of information will be apparent to scholars familiar with the subject. However, the author wishes to take this occasion to thank Messrs. Longmans, Green and Company lor their courtesy in permitting him to adapt vi PREFACE for his purposes the maps on modern England and India from Gardi- ner's Atlas. For the others, he is under obligations to the Macmillans. Those in black and white, from 2 to 7 inclusive, were prepared by Professors Coman and Kendall for their stimulating little History of England ; moreover, their chapter on the " Physical Characteristics of the British Isles," in the same book, suggested the plan of the introductory chapter of the present volume. Professor Edward Channing has furnished valuable advice at various stages of the undertaking ; Professor E. R. Turner carefully read the manuscript and has contributed generously from his extensive knowledge ; while Mrs. R. M. Wenley, who kindly read all the proof, was of immense assistance. Much help was rendered in various ways by Professors J. S. Reeves and J. S. P. Tatlock, by Dr. J. F. Scott, Dr. P. V. B. Jones, and Mr. J. R. Hayden. While they have done much to lighten the author's labors and have often kept him from stumbling, they should be absolved from all responsibility for any of his shortcomings. ARTHUR LYON CROSS. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, July, 1914. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE BRITISH ISLES : THEIR PHYSICAL FEATURES AND RESOURCES . . 1 CHAPTER II THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 11 CHAPTER III THE COMING OK THE ANGLO-SAXONS. THE "HEPTARCHY" AND STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY 25 CHAPTER IV THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS. THE DANISH INVASIONS. THE GROWTH AND DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ANGLO-SAXON MONARCHY 40 CHAPTER V THE STATE OF SOCIETY AT THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD . 62 CHAPTER VI THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS (1066-1154). THE STRENGTHENING OF THE CENTRAL POWER BY WILLIAM AND HIS SONS. THE INTERVAL OF ANARCHY IN THE REIGN OF HIS GRANDSON STEPHEN ... 76 CHAPTER VII HENRY II (1154-1189). THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER AND THE RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW 107 CHAPTER VIII RICHARD I (1189-1199) AND THE TRANSITION FROM ABSOLUTE TOWARD LIMITED MONARCHY. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 120 vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PAGE THE REIGN OF JOHN (1199-1216). THE Loss OF NORMANDY, THE QUAR- REL WITH THE CHURCH, THE BARONIAL REVOLT AND MAGNA CARTA 133 CHAPTER X HENRY III (1216-1272). THE STRUGGLE OF THE BARONS TO MAINTAIN THE CHARTER, TO EXPEL FOREIGN INFLUENCE AND TO CONTROL THE ADMINISTRATION OF KINGDOM. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN 147 CHAPTER XI EDWARD I AND EDWARD II (1272-1327). THE COMPLETION OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM . . 166 CHAPTER XII THE REIGN OF EDWARD III (1327-1377). THE BEGINNING OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. CHIVALRY AT ITS HEIGHT. THE GROW- ING IMPORTANCE OF THE COMMONS. THE INCREASE OF NATIONAL SENTIMENT. FIRST ATTACKS ON THE POWER OF ROME . . . 189 CHAPTER XIII LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS (1272-1377) . 210 CHAPTER XIV RICHARD II (1377-1399). THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY . 230 CHAPTER XV THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER IN THE ASCENDANT, AND "THE CONSTITU- TIONAL EXPERIMENT " IN GOVERNMENT. HENRY IV (1399-1413) ; HENRY V (1413-1422) 242 CHAPTER XVI THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. HENRY VI (1422-1461) . 254 CHAPTER XVII THE HOUSE OF YORK. EDWARD IV (1461-1483) ; EDWARD V (1483) ; RICHARD III (1483-1485) 265 CHAPTER XVIII THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM. HENRY VII (1485-1509) 278 TABLE OF CONTENTS ix CHAPTER XIX THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII (1509-1529) AND THE EVE OF SEPA- RATION FROM ROME 294 CHAPTER XX HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM RO^E (1529-1547) . . . 314 CHAPTER XXI THE HENRICIAN REGIME (1509-1547) .338 CHAPTER XXII THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER. EDWARD VI (1547-1553) . 348 CHAPTER XXIII THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION. MARY (1553-1558) . . . 358 CHAPTER XXIV THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT AND THE EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN (1558-1572) 369 CHAPTER XXV ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE (1572-1603) .... 384 CHAPTER XXVI ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND (1558-1603) 401 CHAPTER XXVII JAMES I AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION (1603-1625) 427 CHAPTER XXVIII CHARLES I AND THE PRECIPITATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE (1625-1640) 450 CHAPTER XXIX FROM THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR (1640-1642) 474 CHAPTER XXX FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR TO THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I (1642-1649) 486 x TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XXXI PAGE THE KINGLESS DECADE: THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PROTECTORATE (1649-1660) 509 CHAPTER XXXII FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON (1660-1667) . 529 CHAPTER XXXIII FROM THE FALL OF CLARENDON TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES II (1667- 1685) 547 CHAPTER XXXIV JAMES II AND THE " GLORIOUS REVOLUTION " (1685-1688) . . . 566 CHAPTER XXXV PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 588 CHAPTER XXXVI THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY AND THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR. WILLIAM AND MARY (1689-1694) . . . .614 CHAPTER XXXVII THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. WILLIAM ALONE (1694- 1702) 634 CHAPTER XXXVIII THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY. ANNE (1702-1714) . . . 650 CHAPTER XXXIX THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I (1714-1727) 676 CHAPTER XL THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE AND THE OPENING OF A NEW ERA OF WAR. THE FIRST PART OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II (1727-1748) 696 CHAPTER XLI THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE. THE CLOSING YEARS OF GEORGE II's REIGN (1748-1760) 718 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XLII PACK THE REVIVAL OF THE ROYAL ASCENDANCY. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III (1760-1770) . . .738 CHAPTER XLIII THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE END OF THE PERSONAL ASCEN- DANCY OF GEORGE III (1770-1783) 761 CHAPTER XLIV EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND TO THE EVE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 783 CHAPTER XLV THE YOUNGER PITT : THE NEW TORYISM AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM (1784-1793) 808 CHAPTER XLVI THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS (1793-1802) 831 CHAPTER XLVII THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON : FROM AMIENS TO WATERLOO (1802- 1815) 849 CHAPTER XLVIII FROM THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON TO THE EVE OF THE GREAT RE- FORM BILL. THE LAST YEARS OF GEORGE III, AND THE REIGN OF GEORGE IV (1815-1830) 867 CHAPTER XLIX ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 892 CHAPTER L THE EPOCH OF REFORM. WILLIAM IV (1830-1837) . . . .905 CHAPTER LI THE EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN AND THE TRIUMPH OF FREE TRADE (1837-1846) 927 CHAPTER LII THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE AND THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PERIOD OF WAR (1846-1856) 950 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER LIII PAGE THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME AND THE END OF AN EPOCH (1857-1865) 966 CHAPTER LIV A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY. THE POLITICAL RIVALRY OF GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI (1865-1880) 983 CHAPTER LV THE Two LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN (1880-1901) \ . . 1009 CHAPTER LVI VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1039 i CHAPTER LVII SKETCH OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD VII (1901-1910) AND OF THE EARLY YEARS OF GEORGE V (1910-1914) 1071 APPENDIX LIST OF PRIME MINISTERS FROM WALPOLE TO ASQUITH .... 1090 MAPS MODERN ENGLAND AND WALES Frontispiece FACING PAGB ROMAN BRITAIN 18 ENGLAND TO ILLUSTRATE THE GERMANIC SETTLEMENTS .... 30 POSSESSIONS OF THE HOUSE OF ANJOU 108 SCOTLAND (IN THE REIGN OF EDWARD FIRST) 170 ENGLAND TO ILLUSTRATE THE WARS OF ROSES 260 IRELAND (AFTER 1603) 482 ENGLAND TO ILLUSTRATE THE CIVIL WARS 490 SCOTLAND (AFTER 1603) 498 SPAIN TO ILLUSTRATE THE PENINSULAR WAR 854 INDIA IN 1857 .- 968 AFRICA IN 1910 1034 THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN 1914 . 1064 xiii A HISTORY OF ENGLAND CHAPTER I THE BRITISH ISLES: THEIR PHYSICAL FEATURES AND RESOURCES England and the British Empire. England is the cradle and pres- ent center of the British Empire, an empire which covers a quarter of the land surface of the earth and includes a population of fully 425,000,000 souls. This little country of England, with an area of about 50,000 square miles, barely larger than the state of New York, forms, together with Scotland and Wales, the island known as Great Britain. Ireland, lying to the west, is the only other impor- tant division of the United Kingdom, although the British Isles which compose it number no less than five thousand, with a total area of 120,000 square miles and a population of about 45,000,000. It will be the purpose of this history to trace -the course of events by which England and the adjacent countries became the United Kingdom, and by which the United Kingdom has become the greatest sea power ever known, has developed a foreign commerce larger than that of any other country of the world, 1 and has fashioned an empire with an extent of territory nearly a hundred, and a population almost ten, times its own. Importance of Physical Characteristics. In this remarkable development, physical geography has to be taken into account. Cli- 'mate, industrial resources, location and structure of mountains, posi- tion and character of rivers, situation relative to other countries, and the nature of the coast line have all been determining factors in British history. Climate. Climate is especially important. Extreme cold is a serious obstacle to the production of those things on which man is dependent for his existence ; extreme heat, on the other hand, checks active exertion by which character is developed and by which man is able to make the most of his surroundings. With respect to climate Great Britain has been particularly fortunate. The summers are long enough to ripen the crops, while the winters are not too long 1 Though, since 1900, its export trade has fallen below that of the United States. B I 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND or too severe seriously to interfere with outdoor occupations. Agri- cultural pursuits can be carried on in many parts of the country throughout the year ; there is rarely snow or ice enough to interrupt communications. Domestic animals thrive, though, by a fortunate chance, insects which trouble crops do not. The average difference between winter and summer temperature in Great Britain is less than 20 as contrasted with nearly 50 in central Russia on the east and Labrador on the west. Southern Ireland, which lies directly opposite southern Labrador, has the temperature of Georgia. The evenness of climate is to some extent due to the surrounding sea, which tempers extremes of heat and cold alike, while the mildness of the winter is further due to the circumstance that the prevailing winds aje from the southwest, bringing to the British shores the warmth of the gulf district of America. 1 Distribution of Rainfall. The moisture-laden winds from the southwest, which temper the climate, bring an abundance of rain which makes portions of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, as well as western England, unsuited for agriculture. In the case of England, itself, the moun- tains grouped and ranged along the western coast modify and dis- tribute the rainfall so that the greater part of the soil is well adapted for farming. It is this generous distribution of moisture which gives to English grass that deep rich green hue which is so striking to the inhabitants of dryer climates. Even the extremely wet regions of the western midlands are not without their advantages, since a dryer cli- mate which makes the threads brittle would be a great obstacle to cotton manufacture. The Island of Great Britain. The island of Great Britain re- sembles roughly a triangle resting on a short southern base and inclin- ing its eastern and western sides toward the northwest. It is bounded on the east by the North Sea, or German Ocean, and the straits of Dover ; on the south by the English Channel ; on the west by St. George's Channel, the Irish Sea, and the North Channel. Northern and Western England. England proper is separated from Scotland by the indentation of the sea known as the Solway Firth, by the Cheviot Hills, and the Tweed River. With an area of less than one half the British Isles it contains about two thirds of the population. There are two distinct divisions within the country itself which might be marked by a line from the mouth of the Humber to the mouth of the Severn, and thence down to the shores of the English Channel. North and west the country consists of mountains and moorlands. The Pennine range extends down, almost from the Scotch border to the midland county of Derby. Tucked into the northern corner between the Pennines and the sea is the Cumbrian group. The short broad peninsula, now known as Wales, is prevailingly moun- tainous, while still further south the heights of Devon and Cornwall \This influence was formerly attributed to the Gulf Stream; but that stream as a distinct body of water breaks up off Newfoundland. THE BRITISH ISLES 3 reach out along that narrow tongue of land which forms the southwest projection of England. For centuries, this western country, given over mostly to sheep pasture, lay remote and backward in comparison with the more favored district south and east of the line of demarcation. The tin mines of Cornwall, which date back to a time before the Roman occupation, form the only exception. Yet, even in the early centuries, the mountains were a benefit to their country. The Pennines formed a protecting wedge which served to split the waves of barbarian inva- sion and to prevent them from inundating the English plain : thus Carlisle on the west and Newcastle on the east became the keys of the Scotch border. Furthermore, aside from regulating the distribution of moisture, the western mountains have determined the course and the nature of the important rivers. By giving them long, gentle slopes they have admirably adapted them for commerce and irrigation. It is only necessary to compare the rivers of England with the short precipitous torrents of Greece or of Wales and northern Scotland, to realize the importance of the English mountain system. Nor does the Pennine system isolate one part of the country from the other, for three canals run through it east and west. England was early united, while political dissension and local independence have characterized the other countries. The conquest of Wales was much facilitated from the fact that, though the country contains many inaccessible fastnesses, it is easy of access from England. With the discovery of the use of steam in manufacturing the Pennine range w r as found to contain vast stores of mineral wealth. The neighboring region, in consequence, has be- come the center of industrial England, and the once solitary stretches of mountain side and vast expanse of moorland are now studded with smoking, busy cities, and swarm with life. A great plain watered with many rivers stretches down east of the Pennine range and circles around its base in the form of a hook. Manchester, in Lancashire, is the chief seat of the cotton manufacture, and Leeds, in Yorkshire, of the woolen. Birmingham and Sheffield are the headquarters for the production of iron and steel, while along the banks of the Clyde, the Tyne and the Wear, and the Tees are situated shipyards which supply not only Great Britain but many other parts of the world. The Cumbrian group of mountains, unlike the Pennine range, is of little industrial importance. It is, however, noted for the beauty of its scenery, containing many famous lakes, among them Lake Winder- mere, Derwentwater, and Conistonwater. The native population is scanty, and sheep raising is the chief occupation, though the district is a center for tourists as well as for summer homes, and the lakes furnish a water supply for many of the cities further south. The mountains of Cornwall, in the southwest, contain rich deposits of lead and tin, especially the latter, which have been worked for cen- turies. Southeast England. The structure of southeast England is markedly different from that of the north and the west. It is pre- 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND vailingly a plain varied with hills or uplands of limestone and chalk. There are four principal groups of upland ranges. The northern- most is known as the Oolitic range. 1 Starting with the Cotswold Hills on the banks of the Severn, this range runs northeast as far as the river Tees. The three other ranges lying further south are mainly of chalk formation. The northernmost includes the Chiltern and the East Anglian Hills. Next come the North and the South Downs, the former lying just south of the Thames, the latter skirting the shores of the English Channel. In earlier times this southeastern country was the most prosperous and progressive section of England. The reasons for the leading position which it enjoyed so long are easy to trace. It was the district earliest settled, it contained the greatest proportion of Teutonic stock, and its soil was the most fruit- ful in the land, thus enabling people to live closer together than in the more barren north ; so that they were better able to exchange ideas and had more means and leisure for education. Furthermore, they were in close communication with the Continent whither the medieval Englishman looked for trade, knowledge, fashions, and ideas. The industrial revolution of the late eighteenth century brought about a momentous change, and, with the exception of London, the center of progress and ideas has shifted to the midland country. Internal Communication. In order to understand clearly the political and economic history of a people it is necessary to know their means of getting about from place to place and of communicating with one another. In the early days before the Romans introduced their excellent road system, a system to which many of the Euro- pean highways of the present day owe their origin, Britain was largely a land of tangled forests and impassable marshes. At that time the ridgeways and the rivers formed almost the sole means of communica- tion. But even with the advent of roads and railways the rivers are still of great importance; they provide irrigation for the soil, they are utilized to furnish power for mills and factories, and, together with the canals which they supply, they continue to serve as a cheap and convenient means of transportation. English River Systems. There are three great systems ; the eastern flowing mainly into the North Sea, the southern emptying into the English Channel, and the western, which finds its chief outlet in the British Channel and the Irish Sea. Taken as a whole, the eastern system is the most important. It is commonly divided into four groups. Proceeding from north to south, the first is the Nor- thumbrian group which lies north of the estuary of the Humber. The Tweed forms the eastern part of the boundary between England and Scotland. 2 The Tyne has.for its chief port Newcastle, a great center 1 The name is derived from the Greek word for egg and refers to the character of the limestone of which it is mainly composed. 2 It gave its name to a type of woolen cloth which was first manufactured along its banks. THE BRITISH ISLES c J* for the distribution of mining products. 1 The second, or Humber group, takes its name from the Humber, fed by two rivers, the Ouse and the Trent, which with their tributaries bring the products of a large and wealthy district to Hull, the leading port of northeastern England. The rivers of the third group flow into the Wash, and for many reasons are comparatively unimportant. This large arm of the sea is bounded by a marsh with no harbors and no suitable sites for towns. The neighboring country, never adequately drained till modern times, was long the haunt of wild fowl and fish and the men who hunted them. The fourth and last division of the eastern group derives its name and importance from the Thames, the largest river of England and the chief waterway across the south country. It is two hundred and fifteen miles long and navigable for nearly half of its length. The harbor at its mouth is the finest in the whole king- dom, and in spite of the fact that the center of industry has shifted to the north, and that Bristol and Liverpool lie nearer to the American markets, London is still the leader in imports and second only to Liverpool in exports. The rivers of the southern group are relatively short and unimportant. On the west, two rivers call for special notice. The Severn, rising in the Welsh mountains, sweeps round to the east and south in the form of a bow, widening at the end of its course into the Bristol Channel. Bristol, its chief port, rose to con- sequence in the Tudor period, owing to its favorable situation with respect to the New World. It was from there that John Cabot sailed on his famous voyage of discovery, and it was there that many of the heroic seamen of Elizabeth's day made their homes. Yet, save for a small amount of wool manufacturing, the districts lying behind are mainly agricultural. Bristol, in consequence, had long ago to yield its preeminence as a port to Liverpool on the Mersey, the center of a district rich in manufacturing, in mining products, and pasture lands. The British Isles and the Continent. There was a time when the British Isles formed a part of the neighboring continent of Europe. This is evident from the comparative shallowness of the intervening waters. The Channel is so shoal between Dover and Calais that it is said that if St. Paul's cathedral were sunk at any point, its dome would stand out of the water. Another evidence is to be found in the similarity of structure between the different parts of the island group and those of the adjoining mainland. The rocky promontories of Scotland correspond to those of the Scandinavian lands, while the plains of southern and eastern England closely resemble those of the French and Dutch lands which they face. Importance of Insularity. The watery barrier, which has existed since England began to have a history, has been a significant element 1 Even as early as Shakespeare's day coal was sent to London by sea, whence the name "sea coal," and the fame of the city as a coal exporting center long ago gave rise to the adage " carrying coals to Newcastle." 6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in shaping her destiny. It has kept her out of reach of her greedy and powerful neighbors, thus enabling her to maintain her inde- pendence and to develop her ideals, manners, customs, and system of government in her own way. Most notably it has left her energies free for commercial and colonial expansion. In ancient and medieval times, when the population was scanty and means of resistance un- organized, peoples from the Continent forced their way in ; but since the eleventh century there has been no serious danger from this source. Even Napoleon, who reduced nearly all Europe, was unable to make his way into Great Britain. At the same time, Great Britain, es- pecially England, has not been too remote to feel the influence of the great continental movements such as the Crusades, the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, and the French Revolution. Most of these movements, however, had spent -their force when they reached her shores, and took there a very individual form, as we shall see. On the other hand, England has led in the struggle for constitutional liberty, and the supremacy of parliament over sovereign was estab- lished long before it was established abroad. World Position and World Trade. A glance at a map of the globe will show how centrally the British are situated with respect to the two great continents of Europe and America, and will help to explain their leadership in commerce. Indeed, one fifth of their present exports consist of things produced by other countries and distributed by British ships. Wool from Australia is carried to Ger- many, France, and the United States, and, in the same way, French silks are conveyed to Australia. Likewise, the raw cotton from America, India, and Egypt, on their way to the continent of Europe, as well as many oriental products destined for the United States, pass through British ports. It was only lately that England came into the circle of European powers. During the Middle Ages the bulk of the trade was with the Orient. Goods were taken across Asia by the overland route to the Mediterranean ; thence they were distributed to the different countries of Christendom by the ships of the Italian cities, admirably situated for the purpose. The advance of the Turks in the fifteenth century, which culminated in the capture of Con- stantinople in 1453, blocked the overland trade route to the east and made it necessary to discover new routes by sea. A momentous but unforeseen consequence was the discovery of the New World and the shifting of the seat of trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic seaboard. Italy had to yield to Spain, Portugal, France, the Dutch, and to England. Of these five new powers England ultimately forged to the front. One of the reasons was that by virtue of her insular position she was able to husband her resources, to hold aloof at will from the complications of European wars, and to devote her main energies to commercial and colonial expansion. With excellent harbors her seaports in time grew up to be important commercial centers Newcastle, Hull, and London on the east ; Bristol, Liverpool, and, THE BRITISH ISLES 7 in more recent times, Glasgow, on the west. A well-indented coast line is an indispensable supplement to a favorable geographical posi- tion. It was most fortunate for Greece, for instance, that her best harbors faced the Orient, the birthplace of the earliest trade and civilization ; while the fact that Italy turns her back to Greece explains why her western and southern coast came to be wealthy and pros- perous instead of the east. Great Britain has been blessed with a most accessible coast on three sides. England as a Producing Power. England is not only a distributing power, she is a producing and a manufacturing power as well. Here too, as has been shown in another connection, physical conditions have been most favorable. Her soil is well adapted for sheep raising, and sheep furnished not only food, but the material for clothes. With the introduction of machinery the country was found to contain vast stores of iron and coal. Cotton for manufacture was imported and wool was produced at home. The great productiveness of the country resulted in an overflow of population ; this led to colonization, and the . colonies in their turn created new markets. Wales. When the Teutonic tribes pressed into Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries, Wales remote and mountainous furnished a refuge for many of the British peoples who had been holding the more fertile eastern lands. Although they were soon isolated from kinsmen who inhabited the western coast north and south, all attempts to subjugate them failed until their conquest by Edward I in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. It was not until two hundred years later that the country was finally incorporated into the English parliamentary system. The rocky coast, the rugged mountainous surface, and the excessive moisture of the climate rendered the country unsuitable for agriculture. The barriers to communication, and the wilderness of the surroundings, produced a people fierce, independent, and disunited, who fought not only against England, but among themselves. At the same time, the beauty of the scenery tended to foster a romantic imagination and to develop a school of bards who sang with rare beauty and exaltation of senti- ment. Wales, too, profited by the industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and now derives its chief wealth from its mineral products : coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, slate, limestone. Cardiff is a busy town, noted for its export of coal and iron and for its docks. The coal of the Black Mountains is famous for its smelt- ing qualities. Swansea is perhaps the chief center for copper smelting in the world, and thither ore is brought for this purpose from many countries. The Cambrian range l is noted for its slate quarries. But the industrial area is limited, and the stretches of mountain districts, while they charm the tourist, reduce the average of population and wealth. Scarcely more than half the country is under cultivation, and 1 Not to be confused with the Cumbrian. 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND its total population is less than 2,000,000, not greatly exceeding that of Manchester and its adjoining towns. Scotland. Taken as a whole, Scotland is still less adapted for agriculture than Wales, only a fourth of its soil being devoted to that purpose. In the olden time when men depended largely upon that form of livelihood, the country was indeed badly off. The northern Highlands, bounded by a rocky coast and stormy seas, a country of rugged mountains and remote, inaccessible glens, sheltered a race fierce and turbulent, who eked out a scanty support from hunting, fishing, and sheep raising, and by cattle forays in which they plun- dered their neighbors, Scot and Englishman alike. Until the clan organization was broken up, in the eighteenth century, the Highland district, comprising about two thirds of the whole country, was re- garded as a forbidding, desolate waste inhabited by savages. For a long time, indeed, there was only one road across the Grampian Hills. At present the Highlanders live largely off the crowds of tourists and sportsmen attracted thither by the wild beauty of the scenery and the preserves of fish and game. The district to the south, known as the Lowlands, is inhabited by people of quite another type thrifty, in- dustrious, and austere ; touched, nevertheless, by strains of wild en- thusiasm and poetic impulse. The southern Lowlands, or " Border," consist mainly of hill and moorland adapted for little but sheep raising. The country is as rich in historical association and romantic legend as it is poor in resources. In course of time manufactures developed along the Tweed ; but Scotland's greatest industrial gifts are centered further north in the Lowland plain between the Border and the High- lands. The Firth of Forth on the east and the Firth of Clyde on the west furnish excellent harbors, and a line of communication has been carried straight across the island by a canal joining the two bodies of water. The neighboring districts are rich in mineral deposits. This combination of industrial resources and commercial facilities has led to a great development in manufacturing. The Clyde is the center of the world's shipbuilding, while Glasgow on its banks is the second city in the United Kingdom. Though the poverty and learn- ing of the Scot were proverbial as late as Dr. Johnson's day, the former soon ceased to be true, at least for this Lowland plain district. That Scotland was able to share in the great industrial development of England was due to political changes brought about largely by commercial necessity. In the time of Edward I, Scotland formed an alliance with France, and her interests and her civilization continued decidedly French for centuries. When James VI inherited the Eng- lish throne in 1603, she was joined with her southern neighbor and former enemy under a single king ; and finally, by the parliamentary union of 1707, the two countries became really one. Ireland. The position of Ireland and her physical characteristics have rendered her peculiarly unfortunate, politically and industrially, and have presented to England a problem which she has never been THE BRITISH ISLES 9 able to solve. She first entered the island as a conqueror in the twelfth century. Original differences of race early fostered an an- tagonism that was sharpened by religious opposition after the Refor- mation. England alienated Ireland by neglect and oppression. At the same time Ireland's situation made it strategically necessary for her conqueror to remain in possession. She was only brought to make tardy and grudging concessions after the subject people had become so embittered as to make reconciliation well-nigh impossible. Ireland's relations to England have done much to make her people miserable and turbulent ; but much has been due to natural disad- vantages. Her hills and mountains, though they encircle the coast, are too low to modify perceptibly the abundant rains brought by the ocean winds, and contribute rather to drain water into the central plain. With an average of over two hundred rainy days in the year, much of the soil is too wet for agriculture, and there are places which are mere bog and marsh. The abundance of rain, too, interrupts agricultural pursuits and renders the climate sultry and enervating. Ireland's mineral resources also are scanty ; the coal is of a poor quality and, situated mainly in the southeastern county of Kilkenny, is separated from the chief deposits of iron which are in Antrim in the extreme northeast. The total production of coal and iron is only about one per cent of that of England. Commercially, too, the country has been unfortunate. England lies in a position to intercept its continental trade ; many of its best harbors lie to the west and north, where, at least in early times, they did little good, and there is only one navigable river. Dublin, the capital, has a population of about three hundred thousand, and Belfast, noted for its linen manufactures and its shipbuilding, numbers four hundred thousand. But these are the only towns with a population of more than one hundred thousand, and there are, all told, only six with more than twenty thousand. Con- ditions, however, are favorable to pastoral pursuits, and, relative to its population, Ireland raises more live stock than any other country of Europe. Cork and Water ford are the great ports for shipping cattle to Bristol. Ireland's cattle trade, however, has been seriously affected by improved methods of transportation which has made American competition possible. Since the end of the last century, mainly through the efforts of Sir Horace Plunkett and the Agricultural Commission, a considerable industry has been developed in supplying England with poultry and dairy produce. Emigration began on a larger scale after the great potato famine of 1845, so that the population, which was then over 8,000,000, is now only half as much. But, what with the new industry, as well as cooperative banks and cooperative farming, the country has been more prosperous in the last decade than ever before, while the decrease of population has been smaller than for any ten years since 1841. On the whole, however, the union of Ireland with Great Britain, brought about in i8oi,has been attended with consequences far different from those which followed the union with Scotland in 1707. io A HISTORY OF ENGLAND General Summary. While Ireland has been to some degree an unfortunate exception, the British Isles in general have been greatly favored by nature in attaining the preeminent position they now occupy. They enjoy the advantages of a mild and even climate, of a central geographical position, of a coast line safe and accessible, and of mountains stored with minerals and situated so as to regulate the rainfall and form rivers adapted to internal communication. FOR ADDITIONAL READING i J. R. Green, A Short Geography of the British Isles (1903) : England, pp. 1-107 ! Wales, 216-227; Scotland, 245-317; Ireland, 362-375. The remainder of this excellent little book is devoted to the various counties of the respective countries. The best description for historical purposes ; but the tables of population are out of date. G. G. Chisholm, Handbook of Commercial Geography, pp. 216-254. A. C. Ramsay, Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain (1894), chs. XXIX, XXX, XXXIII-XXXV. H. C. Mackinder,' Britain and the British Seas (1892). The most recent work on the physical characteristics of the British Isles. A. Geikie, Landscape in History (1905), ch. IV. . 1 The editions are those accessible to the writer, preferably the most recent. CHAPTER II Means of Studying Primitive Peoples. Far away in the dim past Britain was inhabited by a race of men now extinct. Since no written records tell what they did and how they lived, their times are known as the prehistoric. It is beyond our power to reconstruct any account of this period ; but certain " auxiliary science^' as they are called in relation to history, throw light on the physical characteristics of these ancient men, their condition and customs, and the successive stages of their development. Archeology teaches much from a study and classification of the relics of tools, weapons, and places of habi- tation ; from human remains, anthropology attempts to determine what manner of men they were and their race relationships ; the strata in which such remains have been found enable the geologis,to suggest information as to the relative age in which they lived ; while, from such vestiges of their language as have survived, jphilologv, helps to de- termine their degree of culture and the other groups of people with whom they may have associated. Paleolithic Men of the River Drift. Ages ago, when Britain was still a part of the Continent, the earliest man appeared. Great changes of climate took place during his sojourn in the land ; generally it was colder than at present, though at times it must have been hotter, at least in summer. Not only have remains of reindeer been found, but also of lions, hyenas, leopards, and elephants, beasts now existing only in the tropics. With them were bison, bears, lynxes, and wild cats, animals that the spread of civilization has pushed to the wildest parts of our temperate zone ; also mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and Irish elks that no longer exist in any part of the earth. The race of men who lived among them has also passed away. Few if any human remains of this period have been discovered, and none in Britain ; but rude, unground weapons of chipped flint, unprovided with handles, found in the deposits of ancient rivers, prove that they ranged over a wide territory from India on the east, and northern Africa on the south, to Britain on the west. (From the form and size of their imple- ments and the places where they have been found, scholars conclude that they were a small race of nomad hunters, too rude to polish their weapons or to build themselves habitations, dwelling chiefly along the banks of rivers. They belonged to the most primitive type, the earliest stage of civilization, the^ld stone or paleolithic age. ^ 12 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Paleolithic Men of the Caves. In course of time they gave way to a new race still in the old stone age; for their weapons, though they had handles, were still of unpolished stone. While they did not understand the art of pottery, had no domestic animals, and knew nothing of agriculture, they represented a ^distinctly higher type than their predecessors. Their arrowheads were of flint ; but they formed" harpoon heads of antlers, they made needles of bone, and fashioned themselves clothes of skins sewed with reindeer sinews. They painted their faces with red oxide of iron, and wore amulets and necklaces of perforated shells, ivory, and teeth. They constructed bird snares, and speared fish with their barbed harpoons. They knew how to strike fire from flint and boiled water by means of hot stones. Frag- ments of bones found in refuse heaps show that they paid no- regard to their dead. On the other hand, they possessed a rare artistic faculty, carving pictures of animals and hunting scenes with great accuracy and spirit. Their art, their implements, and their manners and customs, particularly their unmindfulness of the dead, are strik;- ingly like those of jthe Eskimos. Triese facts, and traces of an Eskimo physical type found among the present inhabitants of western England, have led to a conclusion that there is a racial relationship between them and the ancient cave men who are in no way akin to their prede- cessors or any of their successors. The Neolithic Men. After another long interval, the men of the old stone age gave place to the men of the new. Their weapons, still of stone, were more skillfully fashioned and were ground and polished to give them a smooth surface and a keener cutting edge. An idea of the immense stretch of time that separates this era from that of the old stone men can be gained from the fact that Britain had be- come an island, and that many of the animals of the previous age had become extinct. The new race, understanding the rudiments of navigation, crossed the watery barrier in canoes, some at least forty feet in length. They brought with them domestic animals, horses, short-horned cattle, sheep, dogs, goats, and pigs. Mainly a pastoral people, it is possible that they cultivated the soil somewhat, raising chiefly wheat and flax, and that they spun and wove with the spindle and distaff and rude looms. It may be, however, that they still clothed themselves with skins and had no vegetable food except fruits, berries, and roots. But they knew how to fashion pottery from clay. Sinking shafts, they mined flint for their weapons. They did not dwell in caves, but constructed dwellings by hollowing out circular pits under ground, with an opening at the surface to admit light and air. Traces of log huts have also been discovered. These neolithic men were loosely organized into tribes. Evidently they often fought with one another ; for they had camps or stockades consisting of a space surrounded by ramparts of earth or stone placed behind a ditch and protected by a palisade of stakes. They buried their dead in long elliptical barrows or mounds which they constructed by planting THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 13 Stones upright in the ground, by laying others across their tops, and covering the chamber thus formed with earth. Numbers of these barrows still exist. The men who built them indicated their belief in a future life by burying tools and weapons with the departed that they might have them for use in the other world. The remains show these neolithic people to have been of jsmall stature with so-called dol- ichocephalic skulls ; that is, skulls long in proportion to their breadth. By means of physical tests, anthropologists have connected them with a small, dark race called the Iberians, which in early times inhabited the whole length of the northern and southern shore of the Mediter- ranean. Both in bodily structure and in the traces of their dialect they show a remarkable resemblance to a people still living in the Pyrenees the Basques whose language is quite different from that of their French and Spanish neighbors. But the same type more diluted, together with fragments of their speech and some of their superstitions, still survives in western England, in Wales, parts of Scotland and Ireland. Only one of the animals which we associate with their age the Irish elk is now extinct. The Men of the Bronze Age. The men of the new stone age were, in course of time, overcome by a race who differed from them essen- tially in physique, manners and customs, and language. 0?hey were much larger and stronger of body, and were round headed or brachi- cephalic!) The race of these invaders and the place of their origin has never been determined with any certainty. (It was formerly the practice to call them the Celtsland to assert that they formed a branch of a great family composed of the Greeks, Romans, Teutons, and Slavs in Europe and the Medes, Persians, and Hindus in Asia a family to which the name Aryan or Indo-European was applied. The view that there was such a family of peoples united by blood is no longer held ; and it has even been doubted whether these round- headed men of the bronze age were Celts at all. 1 Myths and Facts concerning the Celtic Invaders. Starting, it would seem, from the eastern part of the plain of central Europe, the new peoples, whom it has been customary to group together as Celts, poured westward in successive waves, the first of which must have reached Britain fully a thousand years before the Christian era. Old legends sung by the Irish bards in later times tell of their descent from two of the sons of Noah, Japhet and Ham. While, unfortunately, we can place no dependence upon these romantic stories, we are able to form some opinion about them and their manner of life from the abundant remains they have left : skeletons, burial places, habita- tions, tools, weapons, and ornaments. Moreover, since they sur- . vived into the time of written records, we learn further about them from inscriptions and from the accounts of old Greek and Roman writers. Britain first became known to the ancients from the Jin. . 1 Some contend that the Celts first appeared in the iron age. i 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND produced in the southwest. It has been asserted that the mines pro- ducing this metal were first worked by the Phcenicians, who were the greatest traders of antiquity ; but it is more likely that the Cassi- terides, or tin islands, which they visited lay off the coast of Spain. At any rate, the first certain historical notice of the island of Britain comes from Pytheas, a Greek mathematician and explorer, sent out by the merchants of Marseilles about 330 B.C., in the interests of trade development. His work, unhappily, survives only in extracts cited by writers who were hostile to him. About two centuries after Pytheas, Posidonius, a tutor of Cicero, tells us more. The fullest account is furnished by Cgsgi IlL-his Cnmme.ntarie.'^ Yet all these early historic notices of the Britons are fragmentary at best, and have to be pieced out by what we knew of the Gauls. Waves of Invasion. The Celts were fair haired and tall. They understood how to mix copper and tin to produce bronze, a material so superior to stone that its users have been placed a stage higher in the social scale than the stone men. Before they were conquered by later comers they had reached a third stage in civilization by learning to employ iron in their industries. They burned their dead and de- posited their remains in round instead of long barrows. Under the common name Celts are included no less than three groups of peoples who followed one another from the Continent. The first comers were the Goidels or Gaels, who were later pushed north and west, where their descendants still survive in Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the west highlands of Scotland. Their language is the Erse and Gaelic. The Brythons, for whom they made way, are the ancestors of the modern Welshmen and of a portion of the inhabitants of the west coast of England. Welsh was spoken in Cornwall till the eighteenth century, and it is said that the shepherds of Cumberland still count their sheep in that language. The rear guard of the Celtic bands was formed by a group of tribes known as the Belgae. They bore the brunt of the Roman attack and occupied the eastern and southern parts of the country till the Germans finally absorbed or destroyed some of them and drove the remainder to join their kinsmen in the west. While they exercised a comparatively slight influence on their con- querors, traces of their institutions have survived and deserve to be considered briefly. Religion. Caesar says that the Celts " held much the same beliefs as other nations do," and describes their gods, for whom they had strange, uncouth names, under the Roman ones, Mercury, Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva. Like most primitive people of the so-called Aryan group, they worshiped the forces of nature as gods. They created lesser divinities for particular localities, identifying each grove, stream, or spring with its appropriate guardian spirit, and peopled the land with fairies, dwarfs, and elves. Living in wild and unfriendly surroundings, in the midst of dense, gloomy forests and treacherous, inaccessible fens, exposed to storm, thunder, and lightning, their THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 15 attitude was naturally one of wonder mingled with fear. Much of their worship was designed to placate the ferocious or malicious powers to which they were exposed. They offered human sacrifices, and at various seasons of the year, to mark the changes of the sun, they held festivals in which fire played a large part. They believed in wishing wells and cursing stones. The mistletoe, which still figures in our Christmas celebrations, they venerated for its miraculous prop- erties. Druidism. The first comers, the Goidels, probably borrowed from the older Iberians their priestly system and ceremonialism known as Druidism. The Druids were a highly privileged body, who ranked with the nobles and were exempt from all public_b_urdens. They conducted the sacrifices, practiced magic, foretold the future,licted as judges, and were the custodians of learning, human and divine. On account of their methods, of their reputed wisdom, and the fact that they were close corporations choosing their own successors, they were all-powerful... Dwellings, Camps, Stone Circles. The old Celts lived in huts constructed of logs or of reeds woven together and plastered with mud or clay. These were often placed in marshes or lakes on piles or artificial platforms for purposes of defense. In hilly places they had camps consisting of circular inclosures protected by ditches and by earthen breastworks covered by rows of pickets along the top. The most famous of these is Maiden Castle near the modern Dor- chester. But the most striking monuments dating from this early age are the great stone circles, 1 very likely used as sepulchers or possi- bly, as was formerly believed, for temples. Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, the most celebrated of these, now consists of a confused mass of huge boulders ; but in its original form it must have been a wonderful evidence of the skill and devotion of the builders. Characteristics, Social and Political Organization. These ^ld_ Celts were a rude, hardy folk, but hospitable and kind in their bois- terous way. Their serious occupation was war, and their diversions rough games and immoderate eating and drinking. New-born children, it is said, were plunged into streams to test their endurance, and were offered their first bread on the point of their father's sword with the prayer that they might be valorous in battle. A few of their customs have come down to us. They shaved their faces or plucked the hairs out by the roots. They were fond of elaborate headdresses, so elaborate that they had to use rests of wood to keep them in shape when they lay down. In the earliest times we find them tattooing or painting their bodies, a practice which long sur- vived among the northern peoples, the Scots and the Picts. 2 The latter, once known as Caledonians, lived in northeastern Scotland, 1 The date of these stone circles has never been determined. There are indica- tions, however, that they are as late as the bronze age. 2 From the Latin pictus, painted. 16 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and possibly got their later name from the fact of their being the last to retain the custom. The Brythons, at least, made themselves necklaces from amber and gold, and swords and shields of bronze. They sometimes buried weapons and ornaments with the dead to be used in the future world. Before Caesar's time they had come, in the southeast, to use iron weapons and to construct war chariots of wood, which in fighting they manipulated with great adroitness. (At first their only form of social and political organization was the family, consisting of all the descendants, for several generations, from a single ancestor.) The kindred, among whom the tie of blood was very strong, chose their ablest male to lead them in war and to rep- resent them in peace. As time went on, these families were united into tribes, from which the most capable male member was selected as king. Each free tribesman had his own land and slaves, the right of bearing arms and of assembling with his fellows under the direction of the tribal chief to discuss affairs of common concern. The tribes, as such, usually held in bondage groups of the conquered or Iberian race, who cultivated the soil in common and yielded a portion of the prod- uce to their masters. Their legal system was very primitive. They had no police and no courts, as we understand the term. Their judges were merely umpires or arbitrators who had no power to compel the acceptance of their decrees. In case of injuries or murder they awarded fixed sums, varying according to the nature of the offense and the rank of those involved. These were paid to the injured party, or, in the case of his death, to his relatives. This compensa- tion, however, known among the Germans as wergeld, might be re- fused ; in which case revenge was sought by the blood feud. In mat- ters of debt, if the arbitration was rejected, the aggrieved person might seize the goods of his adversary or fast by his door till shame forced him to yield. Trade and Industry. In their earliest trading the Celts used cattle and bars of iron and tin for standards of value ; but, as early as 200 B.C., they seem, in the southeast, to have had gold money fash- ioned on Greek models. 1 In the absence of roads they made use of rivers and the tops of ridges as trade routes. The Thames and the Severn were especially important, and evidence of temples erected to Lud, their god of commerce, survive in the names Ludgate Hill in London and Lydney on the Severn. Their greatest trade was in tin, which they carried from Cornwall overland to the southeast coast, thence in ships to the shores of Gaul, whence it was taken overland again to the Rhone and floated down in ships to Marseilles. Pytheas noticed no towns, but some are reported in the time of Caesar, and soon London " was crowded with merchants." ^By this time their agricultural and pastoral industries had greatly developed.^ Besides tin, they came to export cattle, hides, grain, and also slaves and huge 1 This is all the more notable from the fact that the later Anglo-Saxons never had a gold coinage. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 17 dogs, the latter used by the Gauls in war and by the Romans for hunt- ing. Their imports were chiefly manufactured articles of iron and bronze, cloth, and salt. But this does not mean that they did not manufacture, to some extent, themselves. They were fond of bright colors, and we are told that they wore clothes of various hues, getting the dyestuff from the bark of trees. They excelled in enamel work, and they made many of the gold ornaments which they wore, as well as the iron weapons and chariots which they used in war. Such trade and manufactures as the Gauls carried on were greatly extended by the Roman occupation. Caesar in Britain, 55 and 54 B.C. By the first century before the Christian era Rome had come to control all the lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. Signs of decay, however, were already manifest, and party strife was acute. Moreover, Gaul was not only independent, but menaced the safety of the mighty but declining Re- public. Its conquest was undertaken by Julius Caesar, in 58 B.C., and achieved after a series of brilliant campaigns lasting nearly eight years. In the course of these military operations he discovered that the Gauls were receiving aid from their kinsmen in the neighboring island of Britain. Accordingly, he determined to put an end to further danger from this source by invading and overcoming the British Celts. At least that is the usual explanation, though it has been sug- gested that, since he was a party leader, he felt the need of wealth and plunder to reward his followers in Rome, and that he was attracted to Britain by the hope of developing trade and securing plunder in the form of tin, gold, silver, pearls, and slaves. At any rate, after gaining from merchants such scanty information as he could, and send- ing one of his officers to spy out the land, he set sail, late in August, 55 B.C. His force consisted of two legions aggregating about 10,000 foot soldiers ; his cavalry, delayed and roughly handled by adverse winds, was unable to get ashore. Owing to the lateness of the sea- son and the fear of the autumn gales, Caesar returned to Gaul, after a brief survey of the neighboring country and some skirmishes with the tribes round about who made a vain effort to resist his landing. Second Invasion, 54 B.C. The ensuing winter was devoted to building ships and collecting men and supplies for another campaign. By July he was ready with 800 vessels and a force variously estimated from 20,000 to 34,000 foot and horse. 1 This time he marched inland and forced a passage of the Thames by a ford above London, which the British had sought to obstruct by driving sharpened stakes under the water and along the opposite bank. The soul and center of the resistance was Cassivellaunus or Caswallon, chief of the Catuvellauni, whose center was at St. Albans. Partly by his own military skill and partly because of the disaffection of the tribes whom Caswallon 1 Either number is striking enough in view of the fact that William the Con- queror had only 700 ships, and that the largest army Edward III ever took to France during the Hundred Years' War did not exceed 10,000 men. i8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND sought to unite, Caesar reduced him to submission and forced him to allow his eastern neighbors to elect a king from their native line which he had dispossessed. The Romans secure a Foothold in Britain, 43 A.D. Nearly a century elapsed before the Romans again took up the conquest of Britain. Caesar's last years were occupied in securing his supremacy in the Roman state, while his successor, Octavius, devoted his whole energy to building up the Empire on the foundations of the Republic overthrown by Julius. Moreover, neither he, nor the Emperors who followed for some years to come, were especially anxious to extend the Roman boundaries. The possession of Britain was not regarded as a military necessity, while the expense and trouble of occupation would, it was thought, outweigh any possible addition of revenue. For many years Cunobelinus, grandson of Cassivellaunus, and famous as the original of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, ruled in southeastern Britain. His capital was at Camulodunum, the modern Colchester, in the land of the Trinovantes which his kin had again subjugated. On his death a pretender appeared, who fled to Rome for assistance. In ancient times conquering foes seem to have been most punctilious ; they almost invariably, if the accounts be true, required an invitation to undertake an invasion. At any rate, Claudius, who was then Emperor, was ready to seize any pretext for intervention in British affairs. He was a Gaul by birth and consequently interested in the concerns of that part of the world, while, furthermore, he was anxious to celebrate the triumph which always followed a Roman conquest ; so he sent his general, Aulus Plautius, in 43 A.D., against the sons of Cunobelinus. The Emperor himself even came over in person at the final stage of the campaign. Camulodunum was taken, Britain was made a province, and Claudius got his triumph. It was the task of succeeding generals to extend the Roman sway to the remote regions of the west and north. A few incidents during the occupation, which lasted for nearly four centuries, stand out as picturesque and important. The Suppression of the Druids and the Insurrection of Boudicca. VThe Druids were particularly active in opposing the extension of Roman influence) Solely from reasons of political necessity, for the Romans were usually tolerant of other religions, the then governor, Suetonius Paulinus, undertook to suppress them in 61 A.D. On his approach they took refuge in the little island of Mona (now Anglesey) , off the Welsh coast. But there was no escape. The Roman historian Tacitus vividly pictures the final scene : "On the shore stood the forces of the enemy, a dense array of arms and men, with women dashing through the ranks like furies, their dress was funereal, their hair disheveled, and they carried torches in their hands. The Druids round the host pouring forth dire imprecations, with their hands up- lifted toward the heavens, struck terror into the soldiers by the strange- ness of the sight, insomuch that, as if their limbs were paralyzed, they exposed their bodies to the weapons of the enemies without .X 'GOLD." -V'^ '-'"/ Gl,Wm West 5 4 Longitude 3 from 1 Greenwich 1 East ] iY 4 CO.,tHSI! J N.Y. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 19 attempting to move." Finally recovering from their panic, the Roman soldiers " bore down upon them, smote all that opposed them to the earth," and destroyed their sacred grove. A garrison was established " to overawe the vanquished." Meantime, events were happening in the east which forced Suetonius to hurry back toward London ; the Roman government had become unbearable. Excessive levies and financial extortion on the part of capitalists and taxgatherers stirred the righteous wrath of the Britons. The climax came when Boadicea, or Boudicca, widow of a chief of the Iceni, a tribe occupying the present Norfolk and Suffolk, was brutally treated for trying to preserve the heritage of her daughters. Stung by injustice and injury, she raised a revolt of her people and those round about who were already chafing under grievances. Camulodunum, now a col- ony of Roman veterans, was overcome and reduced to ashes, nor was Suetonius, who arrived ahead of his troops, able to protect Lundinium and Verulamium from a similar fate. Fully 70,000 Romans and their supporters are said to have been massacred. As the victorious Britons were returning from the destruction of Verulamium, Suetonius at length felt strong enough to strike. In a battle somewhere in the neighborhood of London he crushed the enemy and slaughtered num- bers of a host of 80,000, including women and children who followed the army. Boudicca escaped her captors by taking poison. The vengeance of Suetonius was ruthless. " He made a desert, and called it a peace." Yet, in the long run, the uprising had the effect of soften- ing the rigors of the Roman administration. Agricola. Under the governors who followed, inaction alternated with military suppression till the advent of Agricola (78-84) who /knew how to rule as well as conquer \ Allowing that our account of Hiim comes from his son-in-law Tacitus, his rule unquestionably marks the highest point of the Roman supremacy,- He aimed to extend the Imperial sway to the extremest north and even to Ireland. Convinced, however, that conquests were useless, unless existing grievances were rooted out, he applied himself with energy to the reform of the adminis-^ tration. He replaced uncertain and heavy burdens by~Just and^equal assessments ; he did away with monopolies and abuses, especially in connection with the corn supply for troops ; he removed incompetent officials ; he fostered~education and the use of the Latin language ; he encouraged the building of temples, courts of law, and dwelling houses. Romanization proceeded apace, and many natives assumed the toga. But primitive peoples are prone to imitate the faults rather than the virtues of the more civilized, and more luxurious forms of living were adopted, which led to a decline in the vigor of the subject race. Agri- cola never got to Ireland ; but he pushed steadily north, and he secured the lines of the Tyne and Solway and of the Forth and Clyde by a series of forts. He even penetrated beyond the Tay and defeated the wild Caledonians, in 84 A.D., at the battle of Mons Grampius, the site of which has never been identified, though it was somewhere on the 20 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND threshold of the Highlands. The Emperor Domitian cut short his career as conqueror by recalling him. It is said that he was jealous of the fame of his general, though he may have felt that he was under- taking an impracticable task. Agricola's last achievement was to send a fleet to circumnavigate the Island, thus for the first time deter- mining its true geographical character. Roman Walls. Under his successors, though his northern line of forts was strengthened in 140-141 A.D. by a turf wall made of squared sods, no attempt was made to hold the country beyond the Tyne and the Solway. Meantime, about 123-124 A.D., under orders of the Em- peror Hadrian, a similar turf wall had been put in to reenforce the southern line of forts. The remarkable stone wall, usually known as Hadrian's wall, was probably not built till the time of Septimius Severus, who, though much broken with age and gout, came over, in 208 A.D., to deal with risings in the north. The wall in its completed form, parts of which still remain, was a very elaborate affair, studded with watch turrets, gate towers, and stations for garrisons. The Last Two Centuries of Roman Occupation. During the last two centuries of the Roman occupation Britain was in a very unsettled state and often proved a thorn in the flesh of the Empire. Under a weak ruler there was disorder and confusion ; strong, ambitious gov- ernors, on the other hand, sought independence, or aimed to use the country as a basis of operations for seizing the Imperial crown. Saxon and Frankish pirates began to infest the eastern shore as early as the beginning of the third century, and, in the fourth, the northern High- landers, now called Picts, reenforced by Scots coming originally from Ireland, became a constant menace to the border. To meet the pirates a new officer, the Count of the Saxon Shore, was created, but the first two counts used their position to set up an independent rule instead of protecting the coast. The Roman power was finally re- stored, in 296, by Constantius, 1 father of the famous Emperor Con- stantine, founder of Constantinople. Meantime, the Empire had been entirely reorganized under Diocletian (284-305). It was divided into four prefectures; these again were subdivided into dioceses, Britain forming one diocese of the prefecture of Gaul. The civil administra- tion of the whole country was in charge of a Vicar or Vice-prefect. The diocese of Britain was in its turn subdivided into four provinces, each under a presses or consularis. There were three military com- manders : the Count of Britain, who seems to have been supreme over the Duke of Britain, who commanded in the north, and the Count of the Saxon Shore. End of the Occupation. Even thus effectually reorganized, the Empire was unable long to withstand the double strain of revolt from within and pressure from without. In Britain, one Maximus set him- self up as Emperor, in 383, and, within four years, was strong enough 1 The story that he married a daughter of the King of Colchester the "Old King Cole" of the nursery rhyme is apparently a myth. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 21 to march on Rome, although he was defeated in northern Italy on his return. In 407 another pretender, Constantine, led the British legions into Gaul and, though he was overthrown, his troops were never marched back. Meanwhile, the German barbarians overran the Empire. In 410 Alaric captured and sacked Rome. Honorius bade the Britons henceforth defend themselves. They proved unequal to the task, and before the close of the century had to yield the greater part of their territory to the German tribes who swarmed across the Channel in constantly increasing numbers. General Nature and Advantages of the Roman Rule. The Roman occupation of nearly four hundred years left few enduring traces on the history and life of Britain. While this may be explained to a large extent by the thoroughness of the later Teutonic conquest, it was partially due to the fact that few of the Latin stock came to found homes. The remoteness, the climate, the gloomy skies, and the tur- bulence of the nation repelled colonists. Settlement was confined to soldiers, government officials, merchants, and traders. The few who took up large estates worked them mainly by natives. In spite of occasional outbursts, it was comparatively easy to hold the more accessible parts of the country in subjection, because of the enervat- ing effects of the Roman civilization and because of the feuds among the subject peoples. As a Roman observer said : " Nothing helps us better against the strongest of the tribes than the fact that they never agree." vHowever, the period of Roman rule was not without its advantages.') For some time, it furnished a fairly effective protec- tion against external foes and held in check the warring tribes within. The concerns of the subject peoples were regulated by the Roman law, a fusion of principle and practice superior to anything the world had yet seen. The application of a uniform legal system made for unity. A decree of Caracalla, in 212, conferred the privilege of Roman citizenship on all free-born provincials. Although due mainly to a desire to increase the Imperial revenue, it also contributed powerfully to break down provincial differences in Britain as well as elsewhere. While the general administration was kept in Roman hands, the Brit- ons were given some training in local self-government by allowing 'them membership in the district councils which were intrusted with the building of temples, erecting fortifications, and laying out streets. Theaters were constructed, which, in spite of their corrupting influence, made for education and culture. Remains "of museums, baths, public buildings, and private dwellings show how far they had progressed in the art of living and in the comforts of civilized life. Aqueducts provided many communities with an abundant water supply, and the Romans had a very superior system of heating by means of hypo- causts, or hollow pipes heated from an arched fire chamber below. Commerce and industry throve, protected by peace and wise laws and fostered by the building of roads and the growth of cities. A network of roads, so skillfully constructed that they have survived to excite 22 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND our wonder, even in the present day, provided alike for communica- tion, the transportation of troops, and for transaction of all kinds of government business, as well as for the distribution of wares. The route of Watling Street from Dover to Chester can still be traced. Most of these roads, although few of them can now be identified by name, ran through London, whose commercial importance was fore- shadowed thus early. York was the chief military center, with Chester second. Gloucester, Colchester, and Lincoln were colonies of Roman veterans. Bath had already become famous for its springs. Among the chief British industries were pottery making, basket weav- ing, and the mining of lead, iron, and copper. In addition, there were goldsmiths, silversmiths, iron workers, stone cutters, sculptors, archi- tects, and eye doctors who pretended to cure defects of sight with lotions. While city life had reached a comparatively high degree of development, conditions were still mainly rural. For example, one Roman ruler sent eight hundred ships of wheat to feed his garrisons in Gaul. In the intervals of farming the owners of estates hunted wolves and bears. British Christianity. One most significant result of the Roman occupation was the introduction of Christianity. Legend tells that St. Paul, and even the disciple Peter, visited the land. One of the most beautiful stories is that concerning Joseph of Arimathea, who provided the sepulcher for Christ's burial. It was believed that he fled to far-off Britain, bringing the holy grail or the cup from which the wine at the last supper was drunk, that he founded the famous abbey of Glastonbury, marking the site by planting his staff of thorn which grew into a tree and blossomed every Christmas morning in honor of the sacred day. But while these lovely and inspiring tales enrich our literature, they rest on no historical foundation. Christianity was gradually introduced by Roman soldiers, merchants, and officials, and from the mission stations in Gaul. The Britons are first claimed as subjects of Christ by Tertullian and Origen, two church fathers writ- ing in 208 and 239, respectively, while the first evidence of any organ- ized church is marked by the presence of three British bishops at a synod held at Aries in Gaul in 314. Within a century and a half the Teutons came and thrust a " wedge of heathendom " between the Christians of the Island and the Continent. During the long years when they were cut off from the mother Church at Rome they devel- oped forms of worship and government distinctly peculiar to them- selves in many respects. When they are next heard of, there was a British and a Scotch-Irish Church. The former held sullenly aloof from the conquerors, the latter spread from Ireland to western Scot- land, reached down into England and across the Continent, and be- came for a time a powerful rival to the Roman missionaries in convert- ing the pagan German peoples. Both branches of the Celtic Church were independent of the bishop of Rome. Both differed from the Roman usage in their method of computing the date on which Easter THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 23 fell. Both, too, had a peculiar form for the clerical tonsure: while the Romans shaved the crown in a circle, the Celts shaved the front of the head from ear to ear. In some respects the two Churches differed not only from the parent Church, but from each other. The British had their own special form of baptism. On the other hand, among the Scotch-Irish the supreme governors were the priest abbots of the monasteries, while the bishops, subject to their authority, confined themselves to ordaining priests, consecrating churches, and doing missionary work. Evils and Disadvantages of Roman Rule. While the Roman rule brought many advantages to Britain peace, prosperity, increased unity, improved communications^ civilized arts, and Christianity - it brought burdens and evils as well. For one thing, it introduced Jtaxes and exactions, always burdensome, and often destructive and Crushing. A tribute, or land tax^ took from a tenth to a fifth of the products of the soil. The natives had to provide for the Roman^ Droops, to entertain them at various stages of their constant marches, and to furnish labor for keeping up roads and bridges. In addition, traders were_ taxed _on their stock; a twentieth of all inherited prop- erty had to be handed over to the State ; a poll tax was imposed on all handicraftsmen and laborers ; a percentage was claimed on all goods sold at the markets ; and customs duties were levied on all imports and exports. Worst of all, these revenues were not collected by responsible officials, but were let out to tax farmers who paid a fixed sum and squeezed what they could from the unfortunate payers. Money was lent at exorbitant rates. Perhaps worse than the financial burdens was the system of conscription which took men from their homes, usually for life, to form a part of the great military machine. " We pay a yearly tribute of our bodies," wrote one Briton in a pathetic narrative. For some time the service required was, as a rule, in far-off lands, though, later, the Roman army had to recruit more and more from local levies. Then the strange vices which came in with the conquerors had a disastrous effect on those who come in closest con- tact with them, while those more remote were excluded from any participation in affairs. Both causes operated to kill independence and patriotism. In a word, as has been well said, the mass of the people unlearned the rude military virtues which had once been theirs, and, prevented from assimilating the administrative system of their rulers, they were unable to develop such germs of self-governing capac- ity as they had originally possessed. With the withdrawal of the legions, Roman political institutions, laws, language, and manners soon passed away, and then it was too late for the natives to complete their own national edifice from the point where they had so long ago been stopped in their work. In Britain, as elsewhere, the tendencies preparing the way for a successful barbarian invasion had been long at work ; heavy taxation, conscription, and exhausted^evgnues had bred discontent ; private ambition and local feeling were stronger than 24 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Imperial loyalty ; and the barbarians, enlisted in increasing numbers, were favorable to those outside who were knocking at the gates. At last the barriers gave way, and the enemy pressed in. FOR ADDITIONAL READING B. C. A. Windle, Life in Early Britain (1897) ; a good popular account, through the period of the Saxon occupation. W. B. Dawkins, Early Man in Britain (1880), chs. VI and following; some of the author's views have been superseded. John Beddoe, Races in Britain (1885). C. I. Elton, Origins of English History (1890) ; chs. IV, V deal with the Celts ; chs. VI, VII, prehistoric times ; ch. XI, the Roman period; ch. XII, the Anglo-Saxons to about 597. A valuable work. J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (1904) contains valuable information mingled with details chiefly useful for the special student. E. Conybeare, Roman Britain (1903) embodies results of recent studies in brief and readable form. I. Taylor, The Origin of the Aryans (1892) ; ch. I, on the Aryan controversy, discusses the development of views on racial origins to the date when the book appeared. For more recent views, see Ripley, Races of Europe (1899). H. D. Traill, Social England (new illus. ed., 6 vols., 1901). A cooperative work containing a mass of information on the non- political aspects of the subject, with bibliographies at the ends of chapters ; I, ch. I, for Celtic and Roman conditions. Sir James Ramsay, The Foundations of England (1898), I, chs. I, II, the Celts ; chs. III-VIII, the Romans. A detailed narrative with copious references to the sources. Charles Oman, England before the Norman Con- quest (1910), chs. I-X. This is the first of a series of seven volumes by different hands, covering the history of England from the earliest times to the present. The volume is especially valuable as presenting the results of the recent work of T. Rice Holmes, in Ancient Britain and Casar's Invasions, and of F. I. Haverfield in The Romanization of Roman Britain. Thomas Hodgkin, A Political History of England (1906), chs. I-V. This is the first of another series, devoting twelve volumes to the political history of England. There is a useful annotated list of authorities, pp. 493-508. C. Gross, Sources and Literature of English History (1900) is a work of unique value, containing the only complete bibliography covering the whole period from the earliest times to 1485. CHAPTER III THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. THE "HEPTARCHY," AND STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY The Britons after the Withdrawal of the Romans. After the with- drawal of the Romans, the Britons seem to have resumed their old tribal organization, although for purposes of defense they chose a com- mon leader (Gwledig), who combined the functions of the old Duke of the Britons and Count of the Saxon Shore. For years they fought a losing fight. " The barbarians drive us to the sea ; the sea throws us back to the barbarians ; we have only choice between the two methods of death, whether we should be massacred or drowned," they complain in a touching appeal to a Roman general in 446. But, for good or ill, the Roman connection with Britain had been forever broken. Before a century had gone by, the Island had so far passed beyond the impe- rial ken that the strangest stories were circulated about it. Britain, wrote the historian Procopius, in the sixth century, " is divided into two parts by ' the men of old.' On the eastern side of that wall all is fresh and fair ; neither heat nor cold extensive ; fruits, harvests, men abound ; a fertile soil is blessed with abundance of water. But on the western side things are altogether different, so that no man can live there even for half an hour. Numberless vipers and serpents and other venomous beasts abound there, and so pestilent is the air that the moment a man crosses the wall he dies." According to another story, believed by the vulgar, Britain was a home for the spirits of the dead, and certain boatmen were exempt from tribute to the king of the Franks for rowing them across the Channel. The Coming of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. - Within four years from the appeal of 446, if the legendary date can be accepted, a body of Jutes, under their mythical leaders Hengist and Horsa, effected a landing on the little island of Thanet, off the coast of Kent. Tradi- tion asserts that the British ruler Vortigern took them into his service as allies against the Picts and Scots, and that after assisting him to repel his northern enemies, they revolted against him. Probably Vortigern is a myth, though no doubt British leaders called in German auxiliaries. At any rate, some time about the middle of the fifth century the Jutes established them^ves_jn^Kjent J and their arrival marks the beginning of a series of invasions culminating in the conquest of the Island by a body of German peoples whose racial traits, laws, and customs form the basis of those which prevail to-day, not only in Great Britain, but in every land where the English language is spoken. Two other 25 26 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tribes joined the Jutes in the westward movement the Angles and the Saxons. Their original home was in the coast country stretching from the eastern shore of the present Denmark to the mouth of the Rhine. A wild and dreary country it was, too, " shagged with forests or deformed by marshes " and bordered by a stormy ocean. The inhabitants, strong in local instincts, all belonged to the same German or Teutonic stock. We have no description of the three peoples with whom we are most concerned at the time of their migration, and have to draw our conclusions mainly from what earlier and later writers tell us of the Germans in general. Earliest Accounts of the Germans at Home. Among others, Julius Caesar, half a century before the Christian era, set down a few fragmentary but invaluable comments, and a hundred and fifty years later the historian Tacitus wrote a much ampler account. Among the most northern of the German peoples, the Scandinavians, a rich mythology has been preserved in their eddas or legends, first reduced to writing in far-off Iceland after the lapse of centuries. These throw additional light on the religion of the ancient Germans. They were pagans, worshiping the forces of nature ; they had their great gods, whose names have been preserved in the days of the week. Supreme over all was Woden (Wednesday), from whom ancient kings derived their descent. The name of his wife has survived in Friday. Thor, from whom Thursday takes its name, was the god of storni and agri- culture, whose chariot rumbling over the clouds caused the thunder, and who produced the thunderbolts by the blows of his mighty hammer. Tiu, the god of war, gave his name to Tuesday. Frea, the god of love, fruitfulness, and plenty, was the giver of rain and sunshine and had a wondrous boar to draw his car, " whose golden bristles lighted up the night like day." Besides these great gods, their imag- inations created all sorts of strange beings : valkyrs, or swan maidens, who rode swiftly through the air, carrying the messages of the gods ; norns, who determined the fate of men ; giants, like the mere-fiend Grendel ; fire-breathing dragons ; kobalds, mischievous demons of mines ; nixies or water-sprites ; tiny prankish elves ; and other spirits good and bad. Many of the modern fairy stories are drawn from the actual beliefs of our forefathers. These old Germans rarely had temples, but worshiped in sacred groves. Sometimes they reverenced a particular tree or set up a wooden column. After death the valiant warrior was supposed to go to Valhalla, and live forever amidst con- stant feasting and fighting, the highest joys they could picture. The cowardly and selfish went to the cold and joyless underworld, presided over by the goddess Hel. While we hear of priests, they had nothing like the organization or influence of the Druids. Worship was very rudimentary, and human sacrifices, usually of prisoners, are not un- heard of. The Germans who came to Britain soon left their paganism for Christianity, but many of their practices have survived. The feast of the Resurrection takes it name from Eastre, the goddess of THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 27 dawn and the returning year, and children still follow the pleasant custom of hunting colored eggs on that day. Christmas falls within their Yuletide when they celebrated the winter solstice, or the time when our northern lands are turned farthest from the sun. The burn- ing of the Yule log is supposed to have originated in their old bonfire in honor of Thor, once a sun god. And from them we learned to decorate our Christmas trees. The Germans as described by Caesar and Tacitus. Political Organization. The Germans, as described by Caesar, were a rude .people who spent their whole time in hunting and warfare, clothed in skins and living chiefly on milk, cheese, and flesh. In his time, the chiefs distributed the land annually to tribes and families, forcing them to take a new piece every year so as to promote equality and to dis- courage agricultural pursuits. They had no common magistrates in time of peace, and, in time of war, followed warriors who volunteered to lead them against an enemy. In the time of Tacitus they had ad- vanced to a settled form of agriculture, and, although the bulk of the land was still owned by the tribes and families, there are traces, at least, of individual ownership. Tacitus tells us of a well-defined politi- cal organization. First there was the tribe or state. Some were governed by kings, but those in the far-off north were governed in times of peace by a council of chiefs who prepared measures for the assembly consisting of all the free men of the tribe. They usually came armed to their meetings, which were mainly to decide questions of war and peace. Proposals that pleased them they greeted by clashing their spears; their dissent was expressed by inarticulate mur- murs. The tribes were divided into districts presided over by chiefs elected in the tribal assembly. These districts were settlements made by groups of families which had originally sent a hundred warriors to the host and an equal number to the judicial assembly. All except the more important cases were decided in these district assemblies by the people themselves ; for the chief was in no sense a judge, but merely a chairman to voice the opinion of the majority. Each dis- trict was composed of groups of kindred forming a free village com- munity. They had no cities, but dwelt in little groups planted where a meadow or a spring offered an inviting spot. Each household had its own dwelling place surrounded by a plot of ground which was the property of the father of the family. The arable land owned by the kindred group was reallotted every year at the meeting of the commu- nity. While some of these villages may have been under the control of a chief, it is generally supposed that most of them managed their own affairs a primitive example of the modern town meeting. They cultivated in common and used only a portion of the soil each season, allowing the remainder to rest or lie fallow. Meadows and woods were common to all. Ranks among the Early Germans. Society was graded into ranks or classes. In many states there was an hereditary nobility claiming 28 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND descent from the gods. The nobles enjoyed personal distinction, but no political privilege, by virtue of their descent. The bulk of the inhabitants were freemen, distinguished from the lower orders by their long flowing hair, their right to bear arms, their right to attend the tribal and district assemblies, and their right to share in the annual allotment of their village lands. Below them was a class of half- freed slaves or f reedmen ; they cultivated the lands of others and they might be called upon for military service. While they could not share in giving judgments, they might testify in the courts, and their lives were protected by a wergeld. Lowest of all were the bondmen ; some bound to the soil which they tilled for their masters, some household servants. Their lives were absolutely at the disposal of their masters, to whom any one else who injured them was answerable. Each chief had a body of select companions or oomites, whom he supplied with horses and weapons and who fed and drank at his rude but plentiful table. In return, they fought by his side in time of war and helped him to while away the idle hours of peace. From these companions certain grades of Anglo-Saxon nobility descended. Personal Characteristics. Very striking in their appearance were these old Germans with their stern blue eyes, their ruddy hair, and their huge bodies, capable of great exertions in war and chase, but " impatient of toil and labor." In their intervals of war they passed their time in hunting, feasting, games, or in " sluggish repose," leaving all work to women and servants. Their excesses in eating and drink- ing were prodigious ; indeed, they regarded it as no disgrace to prolong their orgies for days at a time. Deadly quarrels were frequent. Their passion for games of chance was so intense that they would often stake their freedom on a single throw of the dice. However, they were hospitable to strangers, they had a high veneration for women, and their family life was simple and wholesome. Such were the ancient Germans and such were the characteristics personal, social, and polit- ical that the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons transmitted to their new island home. Causes of Migration. The impelling cause for their migration seems to have been desire for more land^ due to their hunting and pastoral pursuits, to their wasteful system of agriculture, and their general roving instincts. Moreover, they were hard pressed by the tribes constantly sweeping upon them from the east. Hemmed in to the south, they naturally chose the sea route down the Frisian and Flemish coast made familiar to them by over a century of desultory plundering raids. The Franks and Alemanni, who lay nearest to Britain and were subject to equal pressure, were diverted from any such conquest by the opportunities for service in the Roman army, by the prospects of rich booty and the sunny, fruitful lands of the south. The Jutes and the Saxons. The Jutes who occupied Kent never expanded very far. A dense, gloomy forest Andred's Weald confronted them on the west ; to the south a wide expanse of fen coun- THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 29 try, later known as Romney M^rsh, stnnH in their way, and the Thames River, with its marshy banks, cut them off from the north. The bulk of the lands south of the Thames fell to the lof of the Saxons. In 477 a band of South Saxons, under their chief ^Ella, landed on the coast at Selsey and appropriated to themselves the modern county of Sussex. At the fortified town of Anderida, near the present Pevensey, they met with a stubborn resistance, and after taking it they " slew all that were therein, nor was there henceforth one Briton left." They, too, were limited in their conquest by Andred's Weald to the north and east. In 495 Cerdic and his son Cynric again the names of the leaders are only traditional landed on the shores of Southamp- ton Water. Their followers, known as the West Saxons, reenforced by some Jutes, soon overran what is now the county of Hampshire. They met their first notable check at Mount Badon, near the mouth of the Severn, about 516. The British leader on this occasion was Ambrosius Aurelianus according to later legend, no less a person than the celebrated Arthur about whom so many romantic stories center. After a time the West Saxons worked their way up to the Thames, but were stopped in their advance down the valley by the tribes who had pushed in from the eastern coast. The strip of coast between the Thames and the Stour fell to a band of Saxons who were able, after dogged fighting, to gain the two cities of London and Colchester and to found a kingdom. They came to be known as the East Saxons, a name which survives in the modem Essex. The Middle Saxons, stretching further inland along the northern bank of the Thames, stood "between them and their West Saxon kin. The latter, turning west after their failure to secure possession of the lower Thames valley, gained a decisive victory in 577 at Deorhamover three British kings of Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester. This vic- tory was of the greatest importance, for it gave them control of the Severn River and enabled them to cut off the Welsh massed in Devon and Cornwall from those lying north of the British Channel. Ceawlin, their leader, at this time, pressed north, " capturing many towns and untold booty " ; but a decided defeat some miles south of Chester, coupled with a revolt of the mixed population of Saxons and British settled in the Severn valley, stopped the growth of the West Saxon power for over two hundred years. However, they had had the ad- vantage of two great river valleys, of the Roman roads, and a compara- tively open country to spread over ; and, in spite of their temporary reverse, they held a territory more extended than any other power south of the Wash and the Fens. The Angles. By far the greater part of present England was occupied by the Angles, who gave their name to the country Angle- land or England and whose migration was so complete, it is said, that their native country was left a desert. Although details are lacking, they seem to have become settled in their new homes in the sixth century in groupings that can be determined roughly. Lying 30 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND between the river Stour and the Wash were the East Angles, made up of the North Folk and the South Folk. North of the Humber, and stretching beyond the borders of present Scotland, were the Northum- brians, consisting of two peoples, the Deirans and the Bernicians. Along the Trent, running into the heart of the midlands, were the Middle English, and still farther west, on the British border, were the men of the Mark or Mercians. Tribal Grouping at the Close of the Teutonic Invasions. Leaving the minor tribes out of account, we have now noted the settlements of the various peoples who came to compose what was formerly called the " Heptarchy," or seven kingdoms though the number varied and the name has little significance ; three kingdoms of Angles .- the Northumbrians, the East Angles, and the Mercians ; three king- doms of Saxons, the East, South, and West Saxons ; and Kent, the kingdom of the Jutes. To the north and west were the Celts, mingled with remnants of earlier peoples. Northeast Scotland w r as the country of the Picts, while, about the time the Angles were settling themselves in the east, a band of Scots came over from Ireland and planted them- selves on the northern banks of the Clyde. The Scots and Picts were finally united under one king in the ninth century. Stretching down the coast from the Clyde to Land's End were a series of British or Welsh tribes known, respectively, as the Strathclyde, the South, and the West Welsh. Later, the Northumbrians succeeded in cutting the Strathclyde peoples from their brethren, the South Welsh. These northern Celts united in a loose confederacy, calling themselves the Kymry, a name which has lived in the Cumbrian mountains and the county of Cumberland. Slightness of Roman or Celtic Influences on Anglo-Saxon Britain. The Romans left very slight permanent influences on the country ; the Teuton invaders had gone from their homes comparatively un- touched by the brilliant if decaying civilization of the great Latin race. So the manners and customs and forms of government of the English were to a large degree Teutonic, not Roman nor even Celtic. The invaders found a British people enjoying some degree of culture, advanced in trade, living in cities, and cultivating large estates. But they either exterminated them or drove them into the inaccessible west. Coming by sea in small numbers and disconnected bands, hampered in their progress by dense forests and treacherous marshes, they could be better resisted, and so had to fight long and stubbornly and to destroy the natives before they could prevail. Moreover, coming to found homes, those whom they spared were mostly women and slaves. All indications go to show this: the few British words that survive are mainly for domestic utensils and everyday things ; the medieval towns are to be traced from the fortified centers and from the rural settlements of the Anglo-Saxons the tuns, hams, and thorpes and not from the vills and cities of the partly romanized Celts. Many of these latter communities were utterly destroyed, and GERMANIC SETTLEMENTS ?>.-, R'ru}* " -ft/~\0 HOLY ISLE 1 . " \^S^-r-T.iri CMNDISFARNE) Angles ' ^ *" ' " 4 Longitude 3 from 2 Greenwich 1 East 1 EMMAY CC. ,', .T. THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 31 have only been excavated in recent times, like Calleva (Silchester in Hampshire) and Uriconium, " the white tun in the valley," the site of the modern Wroxeter in Shropshire. The original sites even of Deva (Chester), Eboracum (York), and Canterbury (Durovernum) were only centuries later repeopled. Union into Larger Kingdoms and the Introduction of Christianity. -Two main features mark the period following that in which the invaders were getting settled in their new homes. One is the union of the various incoming tribes of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons into larger kingdoms ; the other is the introduction of Christianity among the heathen Germans. The West Saxons, for instance, were originally composed of many smaller groups, the Dorsaetas, Somersaetas, and Wiltssetas, to mention only a few, and the same may be said of the other kingdoms. Also, the temporary war chiefs of the migration period were either exalted into, or subordinated to, permanent chiefs or kings. The formation of larger kingdoms marks an effort on the part of the larger and stronger tribes to obtain control over the whole Island. This is true of Northumbria in the seventh, of Mercia in the eighth, and of Wessex in the ninth century. The progress toward unity was helped and hindered in many ways. It was helped from the fact that the conquerors all belonged to the same race, and had sub- stantially the same religion, language, and social and political organiza- tion. To balance these elements of unity there were serious obstacles : the piecemeal, slow, and scattered nature of their migration and settle- ment ; the lack of communication ; and the love of local independence, or " particularism," characteristic of the German for generations to come. However much these circumstances may have helped or re- tarded, the early combinations were due mainly to two causes : the subjugation of weaker by the stronger, and the union of neighboring tribes for defense and conquest. But(Christianity proved to be the greatest of all the unifying and civilizing forces.) The form which was to prevail, that ol Rome, was introduced in the southeast, while Scotch and Irish missionaries worked their way in from the north and west. Although the latter were for a time serious rivals to the Roman missionaries, they helped prepare the way for the form to which they ultimately bowed. Augustine converts .flSthelbert of Kent. The first ruler to attain a leading position in England was ^Ethelbert, King of Kent (560-616).. The tribes north and west were busily engaged in making head against the Celts on their borders, while, protected by Romney Marsh, Andred's Weald, and the Thames, ^Ethelbert was able to develop his powers until he was strong enough to go forth and make himself lord of all the lands south of the Humber. Lying nearest to the Continent, he was the first English king to enter into relation with the peoples across the Channel. The most notable result was his marriage with Bertha, a Frankish princess. Bertha was a Christian, and though ^thelbert was a heathen, he allowed his wife to bring a bishop to her 32 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND new Kentish home, and gave her the deserted Roman church of St. Martin's as a place of worship. No doubt all this had its influence on her husband and his people, but their conversion was actually brought about by a mission from Rome. The Pope at this time was Gregory the Great (590-604). Already, as a young man, he had seen English boys as captives in the slave market at Rome. Attracted by their fair faces, blue eyes, and silky, golden hair, he asked whence they came. He was told that they came from the country of the Angles. " Right," said he, " for they have angelic faces." On asking further the name of the province to which they belonged, he was told that it was Deira. " Truly," he exclaimed, " they shall be withdrawn from the wrath of God l and called to the mercy of Christ." From that time, according to the legend, so beautiful that one hopes it may be true, he seems to have been determined to convert the land of the Anglo-Saxons to the Chris- tian faith. So, in 596, he selected a monk, Augustine, and a band of followers to perform the work. It is easy to see why he chose the country of ^Ethelbert. The King of Kent was the leading ruler in southern Britain, he was the best known on the Continent, and the husband of a Christian. After a long journey through Gaul, Gregory's emissaries crossed the straits of Dover, and, in 597, landed at Ebbs- fleet in Thanet, where, over a century before, the heathen Jutes, bent on a different kind of a conquest, had first secured a foothold. Augustine sent word to the King that they brought him a joyful mes- sage. He at length received them, sitting in the open air, fearing if he entered a house, they might overcome him by magic spells. The monks approached him in a procession, singing a litany and bearing a silver cross and a picture of Christ painted on wood. His first reply was that, although their promises were fair, their words were new and of uncertain import, and he could not forsake the beliefs which he and those about him had so long followed. Nevertheless, he allowed the holy strangers to comd and dwell in his royal city of Canterbury, and, on Whitsunday, 597, he consented to be baptized. It is said that 10,000 of his people followed his example. Though we are told that the King exercised no compulsion, this, like other wholesale conversions of those days, must have been due to obedience or loyalty rather than to conviction. Augustine, after the conversion of ^thelbert and the men of Kent, went to Aries, where he was consecrated archbishop. He then returned, repaired Christ church, another of the old Roman churches, and from this time to the present day the Archbishop of Canterbury, with his archiepiscopal seat at Christ church, has been the head of the Church of England. End of the Kentish Supremacy and the Decline of Christianity. Gregory had planned an elaborate scheme of church government with two archbishops, one at London and one at York, each with twelve bishops subordinate to him. This scheme, however, came to nothing. 1 Latin, de ira. THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 33 All that Augustine was able to do was to establish two episcopal sees, one at Rochester in Kent and another in London in the land of the East Saxons. The Pope had also instructed him to enter into rela- tions with the British Christians who had always held sullenly aloof from the Anglo-Saxon conquerors. The Archbishop held two con- ferences with the British bishops, one on the banks of the Severn, where he received them grandly sitting under a spreading oak. They not only refused to acknowledge his supremacy and alter their cus- toms, but even to join in the work of converting the land. It was to no purpose, says tradition, that Augustine, offering to contend with them by a sign from heaven, healed a blind man after they had failed. Their stubbornness was due partly to the lordly air and high claims of the representative from Rome, but there were more weighty rea- sons ; they clung to traditions dear to them by centuries of usage, and they would have none of a faith adopted by those whom they had such cause to hate. Augustine died in 604 and ^thelbert in 616. (His reign is notable, not only for the spread of his dominion and for the introduction of Christianity, but for the first book of laws issued by an English king.^ These laws are merely a record of existing customs, somewhat amended by Christianity, and relate chiefly to offenses and penalties to be imposed. The death of ^Ethelbert marked the end of the West Saxon supremacy and the temporary decline of Chris- tianity. His sons, and the petty kings of Essex, relapsed into heathen- dom. Raedwald of the neighboring East Anglians, who had only gone so far as to admit Christ among his other gods and had been prevented by his wife and counselors from going farther, now threw off his allegiance to Kent and for a time became the leading ruler in the Island. The Rise of Northumbria. Meantime, the Northumbrian^ had come to the front and developed a power that was destined to be_ predominant for over a century. In 588,jjEthelric, King of Bernicia, succeeded in gaining control of the nval kingdom of Deira. On his death the rule of the united kingdoms north of the Humber passed to his son ^Ethelfrith, known as " the devastator," from the extent and ruthlessness of his conquests. He first secured his northern border by a victory over a combined force of the Picts and Scots near the head- waters of the Tyne, and then advanced west against the Welsh, whom he overcame in a battle near Chester at a date variously given as 607 and 613. Legend tells that two thousand monks from Bangor appeared to pray for their countrymen, whereupon the Northumbrian King ordered an attack upon them, declaring : "If they cry to their God against us, they too are our adversaries, though they bear no weapons, since they oppose us by their imprecations." Twelve hundred, it is said, were slain. Be this as it may, the battle of Chester, ranks with that of Deorham (Dyrham) in importance; for it had the result of putting off the Strathclvde Welsh from the inhabitants of the country we now know as Wales} Thus the solid Celtic western wall had been 34 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND broken into three parts. ^Ethelfrith did not long survive his triumph ; for Raedwald of East Anglia, with whom Edwin, one of the sons of the displaced king of Deira, had taken refuge, defeated him and slew him at a battle on the river Idle in 617. The Supremacy of Edwin (617-633). His Conversion. Edwin thereby became supreme over the united Northumbrian kingdoms. He extended his rule to the north, and established a fortification from which Edinburgh (Edwin's burh) takes its name. He also made himself the leading power in mid-Britain and allied himself with Kent by marrying ^Ethelburh, daughter of ^thelbert, and sister of the reigning King. She was instrumental in bringing about his conversion to Christianity ; for he only obtained her hand on condition that she bring with her her chaplain Paulinus and enjoy the free exercise of her religion. Paulinus urged the King to adopt the Christian faith. He promised to do so, after a narrow escape from death, if he should succeed in gaining a victory over the West Saxons with whom he was at war. When his arms prevailed, he held a meeting of his Witan, or Council, to discuss the question. History has preserved the lofty, simple words of one of his ealdormen. " So seems the life of man, O King," he said, " as a sparrow's flight through the hall when a man is sitting at meat in winter tide with the warm fire lighted at the hearth, but the chill rainstorm without. The sparrow flies in at one door and tarries for a moment in the light and heat of the hearth fire, and then flying forth from the other vanishes into the wintry darkness whence it came. So tarries for a moment the life of man in our sight ; but what is before it we know not. What after it we know not. If this new teaching tell us aught certainly of these let us follow it." Coifi, a heathen priest, was more material. He declared himself willing to reject the old gods because they had never done him any good, and, after the question had been decided, he mounted his war horse, hurled a spear against a pagan temple, and then assisted to set it afire. This was in 627. Edwin not only extended his sway over a considerable portion of the Island, but he maintained such peace and order " that a woman might walk from sea to sea and no one would do her harm." But his enemies in the end proved too strong for him, and Christianity contributed to his undoing. Caedwalla, King of North Wales, formed a combination with Pgnda of Mercia, a stout old pagan, and the two overthrew him, in 633, at Heathfield near Doncaster. Oswald becomes King of Northumtria. The Scotch-Irish Mission. On the death of Edwin the two Northumbrian kingdoms for the moment fell apart again. But they were soon reunited by Oswald, a son of the Bernician ^Ethelfrith. During the time of Edwin he had been in exile chiefly at lona,, a little island off the west coast of Scot- land, where there was aTamous monastery founded toward the close of the sixth century by the Irish Saint Columba. Oswald labored to convert his kingdom to the .Scotch-Irish faith which he had adopted at lona. The field was clear, since the Church of Rome had made THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 35 little headway, especially in Bernicia. But the first missionary who came was an austere man who failed to win the hearts of the Northum- brians. On his return he was rebuked by Aidan, a gentle and holy man. The monks at once decided that Aidan was the man to go in his place. He established a see and a monastery at Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle, on the Northumbrian coast, not far from the royal residence at Bamborough. While as abbot he directed the devotions, study, and industry of his monks at JLindisfarne^Jie also preached and taught the people. Since at first he could speak no English, Oswald stood generally by his side to interpret what he said. Many stories are told of the piety, humbleness, and charity of these two men. On one occasion when they were celebrating an Easter feast, a silver dish full ' of dainty meats was brought in. Then the King's almoner entered and said that the people outside were clamoring for food. Oswald at once ordered the meats to be sent out to them and the dish to be broken into bits and distributed among them. Aidan seized his hand and cried, " May this hand never decay." According to tradition, it was cut off at the time of his death and preserved unwithered at St. Peter's church in Bamborough. Although Oswald was a strong and valiant warrior as well as a man of piety, he was not long able to maintain head against Penda, who led an army against him and defeated him at Maserfeld in 642. Oswald was slain and miracles were performed by earth soaked with his blood. Oswy, a younger brother of the former king, came from lona, and, starting as Oswald had done in Bernicia, was able to make himself ruler of all Northumbria, though Deira was for a time independent under its old kings. Oswy was able at last to make way with old Penda at the battle of Winwaed Field in 655. This triumph accelerated the work that the Scotch-Irish Church was doing, for heathen Mercia was won and the East Saxons were recon- verted. The Roman Church, however, had not been idle. It had secured a foothold in East Anglia, in 627, and in Wessex, in 635. A clash between the rivals was bound soon to come. Synod of Whitby, 664. Triumph of the Church of Rome. The Celtic missionaries were scholarly, devout, zealous, and took hold of the people, but the church which they represented lacked unity and organization, the very qualities which were the peculiar strength of the mother Roman Church. About this time, Wilfrid, a young Nor- thumbrian noble whom Oswy's queen had educated, returned from a pilgrimage to the Eternal City. Full of enthusiasm for the older system, he labored strenuously to make it prevail. At length, in 664, a synod was arranged in the King's presence, at Whitby. Wilfrid was chosen to present the Roman claims. The opposing party was led by Colman, at that time Bishop of Lindisfarne, for Aidan had died thirteen years before, v The main controversy was over the date of Easter) In the course of the debate Wilfrid asserted that the Roman custom was that of Peter to whom Christ had intrusted the keys of heaven. This decided Oswy, who declared that he would take the 36 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND side of Peter, lest " when I come before the gates of heaven, he who holds the keys should not open unto me." Organization and Extension of the Church under Theodore, 669-690. - The results of the Roman victory at Whitby were momentous and far-reaching. It brought England into contact with the civilization of continental Europe and led to the formation of what had been a mere group of mission stations into an organized church. The man to whom this work is chiefly due was a learned Greek of Tarsus, Theodore by name, whom the Pope sent out as Archbishop of Canter- bury! He arrived in 669 and wrought unceasingly for over twenty years till his death in 690. He found only seven bishoprics and only three bishops to fill them. Two of them were contending for the see of York and the other had bought the see of London for money. In the teeth of great opposition, Theodore divided these large sees until he left fifteen in effective working order. In 673, he held a synod at Hertford, notable as the first assembly of the whole English Church. A number of wise measures were enacted, and it was decided to hold annual synods. This was not carried out, though such meetings came to be held from time to time. To bring the Church into closer touch with the people, Theodore greatly extended the parochiaL system.^ The center of Church life in primitive times was the bishop. To each was allotted a single church, and he had in his household a body of young men whom he taught and sent out to preach and teach in their turn. But, corresponding to a need for more regular ministra- tions, as time went on, the lords of large estates began to settle priests ontheir lands, and the little townships or hamlets did likewise. While Theodore did not originate the system, he did much to foster its growth. Much as he did for the(unity and extension of Church government,} the indefatigable Archbishop did not confine himself to this work. Assisted by the Abbot Hadrian he founded a school at Canterbury, where boys were taught arithmetic, astronomy, Latin, Greek, and the Scriptures. Then, indirectly, he did much to raise the standard of morals. A "penitential " of this time that is, a work, contain- ing a list of sins and The penalties to be imposed if not actually written by him, was based largely on answers to questions submitted to him. The Monks and Their Work. The religious and educational work of the Church in early England was largely done by the monks who had established Christianity in the Island. Monks include both hermits and anchorites who lived apart even from each other, and those who, though withdrawn from the world, dwell together in a community. Only the latter played any great part in English life. There were communities of men, and double monasteries. In the latter case each sex had its separate group of buildings, but was under the ministrations of the same priests. In the Anglo-Saxon period these orders were mostly Benedictine, following the rule of St. Benedict (480-543), a holy man who founded a monastery at Monte Casino in AOj*- 4LJL<- THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 37 northern Italy. He taught men to work with their hands as well as their minds. His followers were pledged never to marry, to obey their superiors without question, and to accumulate no wealth for themselves; in other words, (they were bound by the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience^ While the individuals remained poor, the monastic communities became immensely rich. Enjoined to labor as well as to pray, they entered into waste places, cut down the forests, drained the swamps, built dwellings, and cultivated the soil. Work, even when primarily for the glory of God, is bound to produce material results. Aside from their manual labor they studied and copied manuscripts and taught the youth. To us it may not seem the highest courage to flee from the throbbing life of the world and its temptations instead of overcoming them. Moreover, these monks, as their wealth increased and their pioneer work was accom- plished, became weak, idle, and corrupt. Nevertheless, after all is said, they were a great power jor good.. Life was hard, brutal, and vicious, and the gentle, pious men and women who devoted themselves to study, work, and prayer were shining examples in an age when greed, ignorance, and blood-thirstiness were all too common. The literature of the times is full of the doings of monks and nuns. A most interesting figure is that of Ealdhelm, known in the Anglican calender as St. Aldhelm. A member of the royal house of Wessex, he became a pupil of Hadrian, rose to be Abbot of Malmesbury, and did much to spread learning among the West Saxons. Not only was he an exceptional classical scholar ; but he had great gifts as a com- poser and singer. It is said that when he found the country people unwilling to stay in church after the music in order to listen to the sermon, he would intercept them on a bridge which they had to cross and sing to them. Gradually as he caught their attention he would talk to them of sacred things. The Venerable Bede (673-735). Yet by far the most renowned and attractive figure among these early monks is the venerable Bede (673-735), the " father of English history." His Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or " Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. >J K extending from 55 B.C. to 731 A.D., is notable not only for being the Jkst truly historical work prnHiirprl by an F.nftlkhrpRn. but for a grace of style and temper tnar~is~~aTT but unique. Although primarily a church history, it deals incidentally with temporal affairs, and, indeed, is almost our only authentic source for the period of the seventh and early eighth centuries. As a boy Bede was sent to the monastery of Jarrow on Tyne, and passed his life there. He says, " He gave his whole energy to meditating on the Scriptures, and, amid the obser- vance of the monastic rule and the daily ministry of singing in the Church, ever held it sweet either to learn or to teach or to write." Humble and devout, he became the most learned man of his day. Among other things he helped to found the court school at York, where Alcuin, the friend of Charlemagne, studied, and through him *WM^>^{ tfw^A 38 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND contributed to spread learning over the Western Empire. He labored to the end on a translation of .the gospel of St. John ; for he said he did not wish to leave his boys in ignorance. The story of his death has been preserved in a beautiful letter of one of his pupils Cuthberht. Influence of the Church. The influence of the Church at this time was manifold and boundless. Its organization furnished a model of unity in the midst of separation and disorder. Its synods brought men together and broke down provincialism and prejudice. It contributed at least somewhat to raise the standard of morality, and preserve and spread learning. It fostered industry, agriculture, and the arts, while the men dug, builded, and studied, and the women spun, wove, and embroidered. Moreover, extending their efforts beyond their own land, many Englishmen became famous and heroic apostles to their kinsmen in the low countries and the German lands farther east. End of the Northumbrian Supremacy. Oswy of NiirJLhiinibria died in 670. His successor Egfrith was defeated and slain by the Picts, and from that time Northumbria ceased to be a leading power. Internal strife, hostilities on the northern border, and the enmity of _Mercia_pmyed too much for it to withstand. The kingdom lingered on into the ninth century till it was destroyed by a new enemy, the Northmen ; but it would be useless to try to make headway through its confused and tumultuous annals. Suffice to say that during the eighth century there were fourteen kings, of whom many were deposed and none died peacefully. But the period of Northumbrian ascen- dancy is marked by the conversion of the north and midlands and by the establishment of the supremacy of the Church of Rome with all which that implied. Supremacy of Mercia. JEthelbald (716-757), Offa (757-796). During the eighth century the leading position in England was taken by Mercia. ^thelbald (716-757), a nephew of Penda, made himself supreme as far north as the Humber, and for nearly a quarter of a century was an important factor in political and Church affairs. But he was defeated by the West Saxons, at Burford, in 752, and was " miserably murdered at night by his own bodyguard " five years later. After a short interval he was succeeded by Offa. who had a difficult task before him; for, after the battle of_Burford. not only the West Saxons, but the East Angles and the Welsh broke away. After more than twenty years of hard fighting he succeeded in re- covering his supremacy south of the Humber and in subduing and absorbing the Welsh on the western border. He built an earthwork, known as Qffa's Dyfeg- from the mouth of the Wye to the mouth of the Dee, marking roughly the line of the Welsh border at the present day. He gave his daughter in marriage to the representative of one branch of the West Saxon royal house, and drove a rival claimant from his territories. He was on terms of intimacy with Charlemagne, and more than one sign indicates his influence with the Papacy. Pope THE COMING OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS 39 Hadrian described him as the king of the English nation ; he made the Pope a grant, in 787, which is regarded as the origin of Peter's pence ; and he received the first and only papal legates who ever came to England till the time of Edward the Confessor. He succeeded in pgtflhliarii'nor qr)^aThhi^hnpric af T.irVifipld. This archbishopric, which scarcely outlived the King, is the only archiepiscopal see which has ever existed in England outside of Canterbury ancTYork (founded in 735). Off a made laws forjns_peopje, which, though they are no longer extant, were dfawn on by Alfred the Great for his later and more famous compilation. The Mercian King was also liberal in his grants to monasteries, and, in spite of a legend that he was a despoiler of churches and in spite of one or two stories of his ruthlessness, he was a religious as well as an efficient ruler. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Caesar in his Gallic Wars and Tacitus in his Germania describe the conditions of the early Germans on the continent in about 50 B.C. and 100 A.D., respectively. Among the descriptions in later works are : Pasquale Villari, The Barbarian Inva- sions (1902), bk. I, ch. II; F. B. Gummere, Germanic Origins (1892); Hannis Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution (1892), I, bk. I, chs. I, II; Wm. Stubbs, English Constitutional History (sth ed., 1891), I, chs. II, III. Taylor's work is a compilation very clearly written, but exaggerates the Germanic origin of English institutions. Stubbs, although superseded in places, is still the authoritative comprehensive work on English constitutional history in the medie- val period. For the invasions and the early history of the Anglo-Saxons, the most valuable general sources are Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, to 732, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which in one version goes to 1154. Each work has been translated many times. Inexpensive editions are those of J. A. Giles in Bohn's Standard Library (1843) and (1847), respectively. The best modern narratives are J. R. Green, The Making of England, A.D. 449-829 (1881) ; Ramsay, Foundations of England, I, chs. IX, XI-XIII ; Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, chs. XI-XVIII ; Hodgkin, Political History of England, chs. VI-XV (bibliography, pp. 493-508). For the introduction of Christianity see H. O. Wakeman, History of the Church of England (1908), chs. I-III, and William Hunt, History of the English Church, chs. I-XII. Wakeman 's is the best one- volume work. Hunt's is the first of a series of nine volumes by different authors forming the standard work on the subject. Each chapter is provided with a fairly full bibliography. F. Makower, Constitu- tional History of the Church of England (Eng. tr., 1895), sees, i, 2, 3, is valuable for the constitution of the early Church in England. An invaluable work of reference for the whole period is the Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols. 1885-1900, with 6 supplementary volumes bringing the work up to 1912. The ample biographies are accompanied by good bibliographies. In 1908-1909 a cheaper edition in 22 volumes was issued. CHAPTER IV THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS. THE DANISH IN- VASIONS. THE GROWTH AND DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ANGLO-SAXON MONARCHY Rise of the West Saxons. Laws of Ine. Not long after the death of Offa, the Mercians were forced to yield their supreme position tothe West SaxonSj. While the West Saxons developed a great streiigthT" they owed much to the handicaps which the Mercians had to contend with, to the fact that the latter were an inland people surrounded on all sides by enemies, and that they were an agglomeration of at least five tribes separated from one another by rivers, marshes, and forests. The West Saxons had started on a career of conquest, generations be- fore, with the brightest of prospects, but they had been held back largely by internal dissensions. These were due to struggles between two rival royal lines and to the restlessness of petty under-kings by whom the subject districts were ruled. It was only occasionally in the early times that a really notable man came to the front. Greatest of these after the warrior Ceawlin (50.3) was Ine (688-726), celebrated for his commanding position in the south and for his code of laws. These, dating from the period between 690 and 693, are the " earliest extant specimens of West Saxon legislation . ' ' They are largely amend- ments of existing custom and are chiefly an enumeration of crimes and their penalties. One provision, however, prohibiting the sale of bond- men of English blood beyond the seas, is markworthy. Ine was a truly pious man ; he fought valiantly and governed well ; but his later years were embittered by a rising of the aethelings or princes with royal pretensions. Discouraged by this, and influenced, perhaps, by the efforts of his wife to convince him of the vanity of earthly pomp, he abdicated and went with her on a life pilgrimage to Rome, where he died. Nearly a century was to pass before the West Saxon power again took the lead. This time its supremacy among the Anglo- Saxons was destined to be lasting. Many reasons explain this. There began in the ninth century a line of kings, who were, almost without exception, effective rulers and indomitable warriors, and who were sup- ported by the Church which, desirous of union among the diverse tribes in order to carry on its work, saw the best prospect for such a union under the strong West Saxon house. Then the coming of the North- men, who were more than once victorious, furnished a common enemy to draw the Anglo-Saxons together in united resistance. Also, the 40 THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 41 Northmen aided the cause of the West Saxons by destroying the rival kingdoms which had hitherto impeded their advance. Egbert establishes the West Saxon Supremacy. The beginning of the West Saxon supremacy dates from the accession of Egbert, who was the son of an under-king of Kent, but was descended from a branch of the House of Cerdic. About 796 he was driven out of Eng- land and went to Frankland ; and for some three years he " dwelt in honor " under the protection of Charlemagne. From this greatest of medieval warriors and rulers he learned invaluable lessons in the art of fighting, while from his Empire he gained his first idea of a great united rule. On the death of the king who had sent him into exile he returned, in 802, and was accepted as ruler by the West Saxons. In the teeth of resistance he steadily extended his power. He reduced* the Mercians to submission, the people of East Anglia sought his " " peace and protection, 77 he recovered the Kentish kingdom of his father, and forced the Northumbrians'to take him for their~tord. t * He also made the Welsh acknowledge his lo~rdship. J ~ During Tiis last years he had to fight off attacks of the Northmen, who had first appeared in the reign of his predecessor. This work occupied practically the whole energies of Egbert's son and of his four grandsons, the last and greatest of whom wasAlfred^ The Northmen. ^The Northmen, or Danes, as the Anglo-Saxons called them, are often known as the " vikings " or rovers. They inhabited the peninsulas of Denmark. Norway, and Sweden, and re- sembled in many respects the north German tribes, who had harassed the shores of Britain from the third to the fifth centuries. They were heathens, sea rovers, and pirates, and passed their time mainly in plundering and fighting. Organized in smallbands under petty chiefs they had their headquarters in the innumerable nords, inlets, and creeks which -indent the Scandinavian coast. Their boats were small, open affairs, high at the prow and stern, and propelled by oars, usually fifteen on a side. 1 Often they bore a single mast and a sail which could be set up to help the oarsmen when the wind was right. Necessity as well as inclination forced the Northmen to take to the sea, for Charlemagne's conquest of the Saxons blocked any chance of ex- panding south by land. They followed two routes : a northern, by way of the Shetlands to Ireland, and thence to the extreme south coast of England ; a southern, by way of the Frisian and Flemish coast. Of those who took the latter course some crossed over to England, others made for the French and Spanish coasts or for the Mediterra- nean. In the tenth century one band, under their leader Roilo, se- cured a foothold in northern JFrance r and established a settlement which developed into the powerful duchy of Normandy. At first they conducted merely disconnected plundering expeditions, then they made settlements, and finally established kingdoms. 1 Some of the later ones, however, held as many as a hundred and fifty men. 42 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Danes in England. In 793, they landed on the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, burned the monastery, plundered the church, killed some of the monks and took others prisoners. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the event with simple, pathetic eloquence : " The ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne through rapine and slaughter." In addition, we are told, " This year dire fore warnings came over the land of the Northumbrians, and miserably terrified the people, there were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings ; and fiery dragons were flying through the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens." During the course of the next century, the invaders secured territorial settlements in northern and eastern England, overrunning Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. In 7 9 5, they landed in Ireland, where, in 83 2, they established a kingdom with a capital at Armagh. As has been seen, they proved a serious menace to the West Saxons from the time of Egbert. They not only infested the southern and southeastern coasts, but, during the reign of his son, they penetrated inland, and even took London and Canterbury. A raid into the land of East Anglia, in 870, is notable for the grew- some martyrdom of their king. St. Edmund, as he came to be, refused to divide his treasure with the Danish chief, to renounce his religion, or to become a vassal. Forthwith, he was tied to a tree, scourged, then shot through with arrows and beheaded. Long after, a shrine was built to commemorate his martyrdom at Bury, now known as Bury St. Edmunds. This was while yEthelred, a grandson of Egbert, was ruling the West Saxons and straining every nerve to drive the Danes out of his territory. In 871 he died from wounds. His victories, and one was notable, had been overbalanced by many defeats. Alfred the Great, 871-901^ ^Ethelred left two sons; but they were under age and the time was not one for children. Alfred, who had so ably assisted his brother, was chosen to succeed him as King of Wessex and Kent. 871 was truly a stormy year in English annals. Within the first five months, nine pitched battles were fought, not to speak of skirmishes. At length, the Danes became tired and consented to a truce. Northumbria and East Anglia were in their hands, and Mercia was soon to fall. In 874, they set up in that country " an unwise king's thegn ... an Englishman by race, but a barbarian in cruelty." That the kingdoms of Wessex and Kent were defended against them and organized to form a center for the ul- timate recovery of the whole island was due to Alfred, the hero of the English race, whom Ranke, the father of modern historical study, describes as " one of the greatest figures in the history of the world." He was born in 848. From his infancy he was marked as a child of special attainments and charm. There is a pretty tradition that his mother once showed her children a beautifully illuminated Anglo- Saxon book which she would give to the one who would first recite the poem it contained. Alfred gained the prize. Two journeys to Rome when he was still very young must have fired his imagination and THE ASCENDANCY OF THE WEST SAXONS 43 given him food for dreams. Latin, the language of learned men, he began to study after he was twelve. His later youth was spent in hard and stern duties. He was only twenty-two when the whole burden of defending the kingdom fell on him. For a few years after the truce Wessex was free from the Danes ; but, in 876, Guthrum. who had made himself King of East Anglia, landed on the south coast, overran the modern Dorsetshire, and seized Exeter. This was the darkest time in the annals of the West Saxons. Alfred retreated to the fen country of Somerset, 1 where he established a fortress at Athelney, an inac- cessible island in the marshes. After he had brought together the men of Hampshire; Wiltshf rp j nr r l f the family of Ash, and Nottingham, the ham of the family~oT~Nott. Originally, most of these villages seem to have been free or independent. The settlement consisted of a line of houses along a street, the parent of the modern High Street. Each house was surrounded by a plot of ground which supplied such garden produce as they understood how to raise. Stretching out beyond the village street were the lands that the villagers used for tillage. Each freeman was entitled to a certain amount, usually a " hide," supposed to contain about one hundred and twenty acres. In the original allotment a hide was not assigned all in one place but scattered in strips, in order that each might share in the good land and the bad land alike. Owing to lack of stock and farming implements, each man helped his neighbors and was helped by them in turn, a practice which has survived in the barn raisings and corn huskings of modern rural communities. To avoid exhaust- ing the soil, crops were rotated by what is known as the " three-field system." One part of the land would be planted with wheat or rye, another with oats or barley, and a third would be allowed to lie fallow. In the third year the fallow land would be planted and another field would be left fallow, and the crop would be varied in the third field. During the interval between planting and harvest, rude temporary fences were constructed to keep out the cattle. After the crops were gathered, the fences were taken down and the cattle turned in to graze on the stubble. Besides the arable land, of which each freeman owned a definite share, there were common meadows and pasture lands for the whole community, and wood lands as well. In the woods fuel was cut, and swine roamed about, feeding on acorns and on whatever else they could find. (~At stated seasons the qualified freemen assem- bled in their tun-moot, or townmeeting, to transact such business as came before them."} Here officers were elected, chief among them the jeeve^ who presided over the affairs of the community and went with four chosen men to the meetings of the hundred and shire. Here local by-laws were framed, rules of cultivation were settled, arrange- ments were made for looking after the roads and keeping the peace ; but no judicial decisions were undertaken. The Manor as an Agrarian Unit. As time went on, most of these villages lost their independence and passed under the control of lords. The lord's steward or bailiff took the place of the elected reeve as president of the moot, and the freemen became dependent cultivators. A number of things tended to increase the number of subject com- munities. Famine and pestilence impoverished many ; then the wars, notably those waged by the Danish invaders, forced freemen to yield the title to their lands in return for protection. Then the increase 64 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of conquests westward tended to swell the number of such dependent villages. The kings rewarded their followers with lands, and they settled cultivators upon them. Although landed estates with village communities in subjection upon them, existed from the beginning of the period, being merely the old Roman villas under new lords, the numbers had greatly increased by the eleventh century, when they came to be known as manors. They usually consisted of two parts. One part, commonly known as the demesne, consisted of the land cultivated directly for the lord by slaves or by serfs. This was also called " inland," although it might be scattered among the other strips. The " outland " comprised the holdings of the serfs, usually limited to a yard or virgate (thirty acres or a quarter of a hide) each, although certain persons called " cotters " had no more than five acres. The serf received not only land from his lord, but also stock, cattle, and farming implements, and some household furniture. In return, he paid part of his produce in rent and was called upon to labor in the lord's lands during some days in the week and at intervals dur- ing the plowing and harvest seasons. Manorial Jurisdiction. On the eve of the Conquest the lords had come to administer justice on their estates. They acquired this power from grants of " sac and soc," which some authorities date from the time of ^Ethelred, and others from a period as late as Edward the Confessor, but probably they are at least as early as Cnut. The old township court was now a judicial body under the lord's steward or bailiff. Following the introduction of Christianity, parishes were organized, each under a priest, and these parishes were roughly co- terminous with the townships or manors. The parishes gradually came to exercise many of the activities of the old towns, which either never passed to the lords, or were acquired back from them or devel- oped independently. The secular activity of the parish government reached its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was with the experience of the parish system in their minds that our New England forefathers shaped our town system. Boroughs and Cities. Another growth of this period is the borough and city. Usually in England the word town is synonymous with borough and is to. be distinguished from a township or village. The former had a larger population and enjoyed peculiar organization and privileges. The most characteristic feature was the wall 1 ; then the borough usually had a court of its own and a market. The origin of most of these boroughs is shrouded in obscurity. Some have tried to trace them from the Roman municipalities, but without success. Although there are certain analogies between the Roman and the medieval Anglo-Saxon town, they are mere analogies. As a rule, the name and character of the institutions are quite different. The Roman towns were centers of a highly developed urban life, 1 Hence the name "burh," a fortification. THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 65 while the medieval town was frequently little more than an agricul- tural and fishing center ; indeed, the burghers often had farms outside the walls. The Germans had a superstition against settling in a walled town, and frequently we can trace the growth of one of these modern towns beside the ruins of an ancient Roman city. While the sites were sometimes determined by the older Roman settlements, these boroughs seem usually to have originated in the wars against the Danes during the ninth and tenth centuries. Sometimes, however, a town grew from the union of many neighboring townships, or de- veloped from a settlement around a monastery or a castle or where a crossing of roads or the ford of a river provided a favorable site for a market. Gradually, these towns acquired charters confirming old privileges or granting new ones. Centuries passed before they be- came, strictly speaking, corporations; that is, organizations in which the governing body was, in the eyes of the law, a fictitious or ideal person. A city is merely a borough where a cathedral is The Hundred. - Until the courts of the boroughs and manors came into being, probably not before the eleventh century, the hundred was the center for all judicial purposes. Although we find no trace of the name before the tenth century, the thing itself evidently dates back beyond the German invasion. The hundreds seem to have been originally districts of the tribal kingdoms, most likely the district allotted to a hundred warriors or a hundred heads of families. Each had an assembly which met once a month. It was the duty of the presiding man, the reeve or hundred elder, to collect the dues from the hundred, to secure performance of military service, and to keep order. His judicial position was not the same as that of our modern judge ; for he merely acted as the mouthpiece of men qualified to attend the court the priest, reeve, and four men from each township or manor, as well as the free landowners and the nobles or thegns of the hundred. The jurisdiction exercised was criminal as well as civil. In the be- ginning, we find the groups of kinsmen responsible for the conduct of their members ; in cases of murder or serious injury they had the privilege of waging, or the obligation of submitting to the feud or private warfare. But before the end of the period, the community had established its position as arbiter, and an elaborate compensation had been arranged " wergeld " for murder or injury, and " bot " for other damages. It was only when such satisfaction was refused that the kindred had a right to wage war or seize the possessions of the one who was at fault whence the maxim which became current : " Buy the spear off your side or bear it." For its share in securing justice, the State came to claim a fine, known as a " wite," from the offender. Procedure in the Hundred Moot. Procedure was as follows : The offended party made a formal demand before the public meeting or the presiding officer. The accused was obliged, under penalty, 66 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to answer the charge and had to deposit a pledge to abide by the decision of the court. If he admitted his guilt, it was the duty of the meeting to determine the penalty. If he determined to contest the accusation, he denied it with a formal oath, usually supported by a number of oath helpers, varying according to the rank of the accused or the gravity of offense. Sometimes, in cases where land or cattle were involved, documents might be produced or witnesses to answer set questions. When the crime was too serious or the accused was- too notorious to find oath helpers, or when he was a foreigner, he had to proceed to the ordeal ; that is, submit his case to the judgment of God. In the case of the fire ordeal the accused had to carry a piece of red-hot iron, weighing one pound, a distance of nine feet. His hand was then bandaged, and if it healed in three days, he was declared innocent. For especially grave cases there was the threefold ordeal when the iron weighed three pounds. Another form of test was the hot-water ordeal, where the accused had to plunge his arm up to the wrist in boiling water and remove a stone. Here, too, there was a threefold ordeal, according to which he had to plunge his arm in up to the elbow. The cold-water ordeal is little heard of in Anglo-Saxon times, though it was much used later for trying witches. For this test the accused was undressed, bound, and lowered into the water by a rope at his waist. If he sunk a certain depth, he was innocent ; if he floated, he was guilty. All this was based on a belief that pure water would not receive a guilty person. The " corsned," or sacred morsel, was the form usually applied in the case of a priest. He was given an ounce of consecrated cheese or bread to swallow, his guilt or inno- cence depending upon his ability to perform the feat. Since the people regarded the decision in each case as given by God, it partook of a religious ceremony. The accused prepared himself by a three days' fast and by taking the sacrament. If the test failed, the assembled multitude declared the penalty fine, slavery, outlawry, or death. Imprisonment was not used as a form of punishment. Although the hundred continued to meet once a month all through this period, it lost much of its power from the creation of borough and manorial jurisdictions within its borders. The Folkmoot and the Shire. Before the union of the tribes the highest form of political and judicial organization was the folkmoot. At this assembly the great landowners, the freemen, and the priest, reeve, and four men from each township met twice a year under their ealdorman or chief. Here the business of the folk was transacted. Since questions of war and peace were decided, they met armed, and often proceeded against the enemy directly from the meeting. Here certain judicial cases were settled, those involving the different dis- tricts, and those too important for the different districts to settle, as well as those where justice had not been done in a lower court. After the tribal communities had been united into kingdoms, districts began to appear midway between the hundred, or smaller jurisdiction, and THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 67 the kingdom. These came to be called shires. Shires originated at different times in different parts of the Island. In the south, the kingdom of Wessex was divided probably on the lines of the ancient tribal state. After the smaller kingdoms, Kent, Essex, and Sussex, were incorporated, they too were reduced to shires. North of the Thames, the two kingdoms of East Anglia, Norfolk and Suffolk, were treated in the same way. The remainder of the midlands were arti- ficially divided after the country had been won back from the Danes. Usually an important town or fortification was selected and the shires grouped around it. For example, Leicester formed the nucleus of Leicestershire, Derby of Derbyshire. The shires in the extreme north Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, were formed after the close of the Anglo-Saxon period. Each shire had an assembly, or moot, in which the procedure was much the same as in the earlier folkmoots, except that judicial business, at least in some of the Danish districts, passed from the assembly to a com- mittee learned in the customary law the twelve senior thegns. Besides transacting judicial business the shire moot collected revenues and raised military levies. At first, each shire was under the control of an ealdorman, or earl, chosen by the king with the consent of his wisemen. As time went on the shire moot came to be presided over by a shire-reeve or sheriff. The sheriff started merely as a king's officer ; he was his bailiff or steward, employed to collect the rents of his estates in the shire. In course of time, he came to preside over the court and to command the military forces, though he continued to be appointed and dismissed by the king at pleasure. The bishops represented the Church, and since they were the only learned men of the time, they were of great assistance. They participated in all busi- ness except trials where a death penalty was involved. The Witenagemot. The highest body in the land was the Witen- agemot, or moot of the Witan or wisemen. In theory it was a union of the ancient folkmoots ; but in fact it came to be restricted to the great officials whom the king assembled about him the ealdormen, the bishops, and the thegns or nobles. All freemen were entitled to attend, but they gradually ceased to exercise their right; means of communication were too poor to make it possible for those that lived at a distance to come, and the increasing size of the body diminished the importance of those who were able to appear. Since no system of representation was devised, the Witenagemot came to be an as- sembly of notables or a royal counciL Its business was to assist and advise the king in devising such rude legal measures as were framed, to give their consent to land grants, and to the naming of ealdor- men and bishops. It was they who named the kings though they were limited in their choice to the ablest male next in descent in the royal family and, on rare occasions, they even deposed an unworthy ruler. The Witenagemot was usually strong when the king was weak and weak when he was strong. 68 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The King. The king, whose eligibility always depended on his membership in a certain family, after his choice by his people in later times practically by the Witan was, during the heathen period, lifted on a shield, but in Christian times consecrated by the elaborate ceremony already noted in the case of Edgar. It was his function to preside over the Witan and over such assemblies, or synods, of the Church as were held. He led the levy, or fyrd, in war ; he enforced the public peace, and he carried out the decrees which he made with the consent of his Witan. He was bound to a considerable extent by the recorded laws and the traditional customs of the people ; he was limited by the National Council in certain respects, and his power of giving effect to his prerogative was hampered by lack of means of communication and by deficiency of administrative machinery ; but, in general, the Anglo-Saxon kings enjoyed large powers without being absolute monarchs. Rulers like Edgar and Cnut were able to rule almost absolutely without causing any perceptible friction, but that was probably because they were able and just monarchs. Revenues in Anglo-Saxon Times. In those days of simple con- ditions the expenses and income of the State were small and irregular. The latter were paid chiefly in produce and personal services. The king and his officials had a right to maintenance for themselves and their retainers on their progress through the country, and goods could be seized for the royal needs; this right, known as feorum fttltum, corresponded to the later purveyance. The most common form of public service was the trinoda necessitas, or threefold obliga- tion of serving in the army, of repairing roads and bridges, and guard- ing fortresses. When one of the king's followers died, he had a right to the heriot a payment of horses, armor, and sometimes money, fixed according to rank. In theory, this was simply a return of the military equipment with which a chief originally endowed the members of his comitatus. A commoner form of the heriot was the best beast or chattel which the heirs of a serf paid his lord. The king also had rents and other dues from towns on the royal demesne ; he received certain court fees and fines, and, in the case of lords who died without heirs or were guilty of grave offenses against his authority, forfeitures of landed estates. He was also entitled to harbor dues and tolls on trade, to wreckage and treasure-trove. The Danegeld has already been described. Evidences of the Growth of Royal Power. Many evidences of the growth of the royal power can be traced through the tenth century ; for example, from the time of Alfred, plotting against the king's life becomes a treasonable offense, punishable by death. Originally, the King's Peace was a personal affair, and when it became general, it was at first limited to special places and special seasons to the four Roman roads, rivers, and all navigable streams, and to Christmas, Whitsuntide, and Easter ; but as time went on it came to extend over the whole country at all times, and the popular courts came to be THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 69 more and more his courts. Another evidence of growth of the royal power is the right to dispose of lands without the consent of the Witan. Ranks in Anglo-Saxon Society. The question of ranks in Anglo- Saxon society is obscure and complicated. One thing is certain, that there were only a few of the very highest class. At the time of Edward the Confessor's death it has been estimated that there were two archbishops, twelve bishops, eleven abbots, five or six earls, and twenty-four king's thegns. Thus the political power of the realm was in the hands of less than sixty men. Of the nobility the earl was the highest in rank. While his name is derived from the Danish " jarl," he was the lineal descendant of the ancient ealdorman ; he had, however, come to rule over a district embracing not one, but many shires. Next to the earl was the thegn, who, originally a minister or servant in the household of a king or great lord, had re- ceived endowments of land and had risen to the dignity of a territorial noble himself, liable to special military obligations. Yet, unlike the later feudal vas'sal, the thegn's lands were given him as a reward for past services and not as a condition of future services ; his title to his estate was absolute, subject to no qualification. Thegnhood was open not only to this ministerial class ; for even a merchant, if he " throve so that he fared thrice over the wide sea by his own means," could attain the rank. Besides the king's thegns there were the lesser thegns of great earls. The normal minimum holding was five hides of land. The ceorls, or simple freemen, who stood on the next lower rung of the social ladder, were a comparatively small class at the close of our period. They paid fixed rents and services for the lands which other- wise were theirs, even to hand down to their heirs ; they served in the fyrd, and had a right to attend the various courts where justice was administered and business transacted. Below the ceorls were various classes of servile dependents, personally free but debarred from political rights, usually bound to the estate of some lord by services, generally onerous and uncertain, for the lands that they held. The Decline of the Royal Power. The most striking political fact at the close of the period was the weakness of the central government. By a steady increase and consolidation of territory and by a steady absorption of national powers the kingship had risen to its highest point under Edgar (959-975). But as the kingdom grew in size the power of the rulers declined in strength. This was due partly to the incompetence of the succeeding kings, but still more to the condi- tions they had to face. Although the country was small it was hard to reach points far removed from the court. The only way the king could govern the outlying districts was by representatives, and the only means he had of paying them was by land grants ; once they became landowners in a particular district, their interests naturally came to be more closely attached to the neighborhood than to their nominal lord. Then, at a time centuries before any conception had arisen of the newspaper, the railroad, the telegraph, or even the post 70 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND office, each little group of people lived in and for itself. So the manors, the borough courts, and the jurisdictions of the territorial magnates came to be the real centers of power. Cnut only recognized, he did not create, a situation when he divided the country into great earl- doms. But it was the power wielded by these magnates that helps to explain the weakness and anarchy of Edward's reign. So, on the eve of the Conquest, we note the conflict of two opposing tendencies. On the military side there are two armies : the shire levies, under the king's representative, the sheriff ; and the armies of the thegns and earls, nominally the king's, but which could be used for private purposes. On the judicial side there were the popular courts of the hundred and shire, constantly encroached on by those of the borough and manor. As to lands, there were the lands held by the king, the nobles, and the people by the old folk right, but constantly decreased by special grants, defined by book or charter, giving the grantee pow- ers of holding independent of the old customary law. In general, it may be said that, while the Anglo-Saxons had contributed to those who came after principles and methods of local self-government, they had failed to furnish the necessary complement, a strong central government without which local freedom could easily degenerate into anarchy. It was reserved for their conquerors to supply what was lacking. Anglo-Saxon Literature. The earliest literature among the Anglo-Saxons reflects the characteristics of the race and is profoundly influenced by their surroundings. It is marked by love of the sea, a sense of gloom and mystery, by the fierceness and boastfulness of the primitive man, tempered and ennobled by courage and loyalty. It is expressed usually in alliterative verse, a form characterized by the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of two or more words or accented syllables in the same line ; as, for instance, " Then marched from the moon under misty slopes." Heavy, slow, and often uncouth, their poetic style is vigorous and sometimes grand. 1 Their greatest achievements were in the form of the epic, where an action is narrated in poetic form, to be sung by glee men in the halls of thegns. Of these, Beowulf is the earliest and the only one which has survived in anything like completeness. The material may have been brought by the later Angles from their continental homes ; but it was not worked up into the shape in which we have it till the eighth century. It recounts the glorious deeds of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, his slaying of Grendel the marsh fiend, 1 Here, for instance, is a picture of the time before the Creation : "There had not here as yet, save cavern-shade, aught been ; but this wide abyss stood deep and dim, strange to its Lord, idle and useless ; on which looked with his eyes the King firm of mind, and beheld those places void of joys, saw the dark cloud lower in eter- nal night, swart under heaven, dark and waste, until this worldly creation through the word existed of the Glory-King . . . The earth as yet was green with grass ; ocean covered, swart in eternal night, far and wide the dusky ways." THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 71 and his mother the " she- wolf of the abyss " and of the fire-vomiting dragon. Other poems, such as the Battle of Finnsburg and King Wal- dere's Lay, exist only in fragments. Besides the epics there are some lyrics or poems that deal with sentiments and feelings, and softened by a melancholy which some have supposed due to Celtic influence. The Wanderer contains a pathetic lament over the hero's lost friend and lord and his present loneliness. Contrasted with this poetry is that which owes its inspiration to the Church and the Scriptures. One of the most beautiful stories in Bede is that of Caedmon, a rude, unlearned cowherd attached to the monastery of Whitby. He had no gift of song, and often at the merry-makings of his companions, when the harp was passed to him, he would leave and return to his stable. On one such occasion a figure appeared to him in his sleep and bade him sing. At first he said he could not, but finally at the bidding of the stranger he began to sing verses in the praise of God. The next morning he rose and told his dream to the steward of the abbey, who took him before the abbess and divers monks. After hearing his story, they related to him a passage of the Bible, which he rendered into wonderful verse. He was made a brother of the monastery, and, as Bede tells us, " he sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis : and made many verses on the departure of the children of Israel and their entering into the land of promise, with many other histories from Holy Writ." Another early Anglo-Saxon poet* was Cynewulf . All that is known of him is inferred from the writings attributed to him. From these it appears that he was a wandering Northumbrian minstrel of the eighth century, who in his youth rejoiced in hunting, the bow, and the horse, who received many golden gifts for singing in the halls of the great. In his old age he turned to graver things. He wrote four poems on the lives of Christ and the Saints, and very possibly was the author of Riddles, a series of conundrums for the reader to guess, and of the Phcenix, an account of the fabled bird. Closing with an allegorical application to the death and resurrection of Christ, this latter form is adorned with exquisite touches descriptive of the beauties of nature. Next to Bede's History, the greatest prose work of the period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Beginning with meager annals the work was, in the eighth century, greatly expanded under Alfred's direction. From his time it was continued independently by at least half a dozen religious houses, one version reaching to 1154. In spite of errors and omissions, its bold and simple, but quaint and graphic entries furnish the chief source of information for much of the period. Art and Building. Like other people in medieval times, the Anglo-Saxons were notable for their skill in illuminating manuscripts and in embroidery and weaving. We hear how the shuttle, " filled not only with purple but with all other colors, flies now this way, now that, 72 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND among the close spread threads," and how they " glorified the wool work with groups of pictures." Alfred brought in goldworkers from abroad, though his own people were not without ability in the fashion- ing of metals. Bede tells us that the founder of his monastery had to send for glassmakers from France. However, the Anglo-Saxons were unversed in the masons' art, for they seem to have built with wood. The stone church at Canterbury is undoubtedly a relic of British- Roman times. Except perhaps in the north, none were built of this material in the Anglo-Saxon period until Edward the Confessor. With him, under Norman influence, those grand and stately edifices begin to appear which fill us with awe and reverence even to this present day. Westminster Abbey, though built on an earlier site, was his peculiar creation. The simpler sort of houses consisted of a single room and were surrounded by a hedge. Sometimes they had an upper chamber, called a " solarium," though this was not common. The homes of the greater folk consisted of a hall surrounded by separate buildings which were used for bedchambers, or " bowers," as they were called, for " household offices," and for the housing of cattle. The more pretentious were roofed with tiles. Inclosing the whole was a wall usually of earth. The walls of the hall were usually covered with tapestry, and harps, armor, and weapons were hung about on pegs. The fire was in the middle of the floor, and the smoke escaped through an opening in the roof. Wood was the customary fuel, though coal was apparently not unknown. Benches, sometimes covered with carpets and cushions, constituted the chief furniture. At one end of the hall was a raised platform where those of higher rank sat. Chairs were few and were generally the seats of kings and great persons. Beds were usually mere sacks of straw laid on branches. They were often built in recesses and covered with a curtain. Since there was no sitting room but the hall, the chamber where the women sat, after they had served the cup to the lord's guests, was the bedroom. Here they spun and wove, here they sewed and embroidered. Manner of Living. At a time when there was little to read and when means of communication were few and % inadequate, the pleasures of feast and song bulked large. Breakfast was commonly at nine, dinner, or noon-meat, at three, and supper, or evening food, at an uncertain hour. Bread was a great staple. Among their other articles of food were milk, butter, cheese, fish, poultry, and meat. Vegetables, on the other hand, were few, and in the winter there were none. Bacon was very abundant. For months in the year salt meat was the only kind to be had, since cattle could not be kept over the winter. Such meat was usually boiled, though they understood how to broil, roast, and fry. Table manners were as yet very primitive, for there were no forks and few table knives. After dinner the hands were washed, the tables, which were mere temporary affairs, were taken away, and drinking began. Ale, mead, or wine were passed about, and the company listened to story-telling and music, or danced. The THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 73 common musical instruments were the harp, poetically known as the glee wood, the cithern, the pipe, and the horn. Feasts often ended in quarrels. Games of chance were another source of diversion. Chess was probably introduced by the Danes ; indeed, it was over a game of chess that Cnut slew his brother-in-law. Though singing and playing were regarded as desirable accomplishments, wandering gleemen did not enjoy a very high status, and besides singing and playing performed tricks and cracked jokes from hall to village. The villagers were some- times regaled with exhibitions of dancing bears, and on holidays made merry with games, such as running, leaping, and wrestling. Hunting and hawking were favorite pastimes even with kings like Alfred and Edward the Confessor. The clergy showed such a fondness for these and kindred pursuits that an ecclesiastical canon was passed under King Edgar, declaring " that no priest be a hunter or fowler, or player at tables, but let him play on his books as becometh his calling." Owing to the badness of the roads, people went about mostly on horse- back, though carts or chariots, usually two-wheeled, were sometimes used for traveling. Inns were so infrequent that halls and monasteries entertained freely, and hospitality was even enjoined by ecclesiastical laws. Ale houses, on the other hand, were overcommon and were much sought by the humbler folk, who had little else to do during the long, dark days. Lesser priests, too, frequented them to such an extent that their superiors had to pass laws against the practice. Merchants usually traveled in companies, and carried tents under which they stopped at night. Public Health. Plague, pestilence, and famine were dread visi- tants of early and medieval England, though not as frequent or destructive as on the Continent. Epidemics entered the land from time to time from the east, like the yellow plague which appeared in south England, in 664, and spread north. It later reappeared and so thinned the monks of Jarrow that the little boy Bede was the only one left to join the abbot in the responses. Local epidemics were more frequent and less destructive. They were usually fevers due to famines from failure of crops and cattle. Trade. The early villages and manors were almost altogether self-sufficing ; they usually raised their own food and made their own clothes. . At first there was little buying or selling; each man worked for the other members of the community and was supplied by them in turn. Salt was about the only thing brought from the outside. Various things, however, came to be needed, such as iron for plowshares, and this, and the fact that some articles came to be produced better in one place than in another, led to the gradual development of trade. An enactment of Ine's aims to distinguish the honest merchant from the robber. " If a far-coming man," so reads the law, " or a stranger journey through wood out of the high- way, and neither shout nor blow his horn, he is to be held for a thief and either slain or redeemed." Most little towns had a market, 74 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and before the close of the period fairs were coming to assume a posi- tion of importance. For some time after the coming of the Teutons sea-faring life ceased, and there was in consequence little oversea trade. As early as the time of Offa, however, it is recorded that English merchants had joined bands of traveling pilgrims and imported, with- out paying duty, articles of gold and silver, and a letter from Charle- magne to Offa, offering protection to certain English traders in France, is regarded as the earliest English commercial treaty. But it was the Danish invasions which first revived the art of shipbuilding. Alfred, says the Chronicle for 897, " commanded long ships to be built to oppose the invaders." These ships were primarily for war, but they had their effect on commerce. In Alfred's time the chief inter- course was with France and the Mediterranean, though his embassies to Jerusalem and India may have enlarged the commercial horizon, while the coming of the Danes opened communications with the trading settlements of the Northmen. Scattered indications occur from time to time of the growth of an import and export trade. By the close of the tenth and the early part of the eleventh century, wine, fish, clothes, pepper, gloves, and vinegar were brought from France, Flanders, and the Empire. From the north and northeast came furs, skins, ropes, masts, weapons, and iron w r ork. The mer- chant in ^Elfric's Colloquies or Dialogues, a Latin reading book for boys, which appeared about the year 1000, relates that he brought from oversea brocade, silk, precious gems, gold, wine, oil, ivory, bronze, copper, sulphur, and glass. Many of these commodities came originally from the Orient, whence they were conveyed overland to Constantinople, or rather to the Bosphorus, and shipped to Venice or some other Italian port. Thence they were taken overland to Flanders to be finally shipped across the Channel. In return, the English exported mainly metals, such as tin and lead, wool, and slaves. The slave trade was carried on extensively in spite of the efforts of the Church to stop it. Gregory's missionary zeal had been inspired by the sight of Anglian captives in the slave mart at Rome. Ine's laws imposed a penalty on those who sold their countrymen beyond seas, and later enactments prohibit such selling, at least to heathen lands. But Bristol was a great center for the trade, even after the Conquest, and it was well into the twelfth century before the iniquitous traffic was stamped out. Such was England on the eve of the Conquest. William, who now entered as master, was to inflict much misery ; but he was to contribute much to its power and prosperity. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Political and legal institutions are treated in Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, chs. III-V; Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History (1911), ch. I; Wakeman and Hassall, Constitutional History, I, chs. IV-VII; A. B. White, The Making of the THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 75 English Constitution (1908), pt. I, chs. I-III. The latter work, the most up-to-date of any of the constitutional histories here cited, has on p. xxv a fuller list of works for further reading. Traill, Social England, I, ch. II, deals with all aspects of Anglo- Saxon history and life. Ramsay, Foundations, I, chs. X, XXX, treats briefly the same subject. Ch. II in Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law (1898), vol. I, is an excellent statement of the main features of Anglo-Saxon Law. Pol- lock and Maitland's treatise .is the authority in the period it covers - to the time of Edward I. Wm. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1896), I, bk. I, is devoted mainly to economic conditions. This work is valuable for the whole period up to the middle of the nineteenth century. The daily life of the Anglo- Saxons is described in Thomas Wright, Homes of Other Days (1871), ch. I. For a brief account of Anglo-Saxon literature see Moody and Lovett, A History of English Literature (1908). This is perhaps the best one- volume work covering the whole period of English literature. H. A. Taine, History of English Literature (tr. van Laun, 4 vols., 1873), I, bk. I, ch. I, is very stimulating ; but not always to be relied upon. j. A. Jusserand, A Literary History of the English People (3 vols., 1906-1909) , vol. I, bk. I ; a charming and scholarly treatment. The Cambridge His- tory of Literature (vols. I-X, 1907-1913) is a cooperative work which contains a mine of information ; vol. I, chs. I-VII (bibliography, 419-445), is devoted to the Anglo- Saxon period. For further references see Moody and Lovett's reading guide, 385 ff. For a discussion of Anglo-Saxon feudalism see Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897), 150-172, 303-313, and G. B. Adams, American Historical Review, October, 1901, pp. 11-36. For an epoch-making article on Anglo-Saxon land law see P. Vinogradoff, "Folkland," English Historical Review, VIII, 1-17. For selec- tions from the Anglo-Saxon laws, chiefly in English translation, see Stubbs, Select Charters Illustrative of English Constitutional History (7th ed., 1890), pp. 60-76. CHAPTER VI THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS (1066-1154). THE STRENGTHENING OF THE CENTRAL POWER BY WILLIAM AND HIS SONS. THE INTERVAL OF ANARCHY IN THE REIGN OF HIS GRANDSON STEPHEN William secures London and is crowned King of England. After his victory at Hastings many weeks passed before William reached London. He was delayed by sickness ; he chose a roundabout way by the seacoast to secure his communication with Normandy, and he lingered somewhat in the vain hope that Englishmen would come to submit to his authority. When he at length reached the southern bank of the Thames, he wisely made no attempt to cross the river in front of the strongly walled city, but sought a ford higher up at Wallingford. In this way, too, he was able to cut the city off from all aid west or north. The men of London had elected Eadgar the ^Etheling to succeed Harold ; but on William's approach they gave up all hope of resistance, and, headed by the ^Etheling, went forth to meet him and offered to take him for their king. As soon as a stronghold had been prepared for his reception the future Tower of London the Conqueror rode into the city, and was crowned on Christmas Day a _g5 December, 1066, in Edward's Abbey. The event was marred by a~ woeful accident, ominous for the future. The Nor- man guard outside, mistaking the shouts of the assemblage within for cries of resistance, began to fire the neighboring buildings. A panic resulted, which caused William for once in his life to show fear. William redistributes the Lands of the Conquered. After the coronation more submissions followed, chief among them those of Edwin and Morkere and of Waltheof. William made them liberal promises, but held them at court as hostages, hoping thereby to get a hold on the midlands and north of England. Before proceeding to extend his conquests he took steps to organize what he already held. Courts were set up ; a charter, confirming the old liberties enjoyed under King Edward, was granted to the men of London; friends and supporters were rewarded and foes punished. The lands of those who had fought against him were seized and divided among himself and his followers. Likewise, he appropriated the Crown lands and the private estates of Harold. Those who submitted were allowed to keep their lands, but only on payment of heavy fines. Henceforth, there were to be no lands held in absolute or allodial ownership; every landlord must hold directly or indirectly of the 76 THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 77 King. Much spoil fell into William's hands, and from it he distributed rich gifts to the Pope and the churches in France as a reward for lending divine sanction to his enterprise. William establishes his Power throughout England, 1067-1071. For the next four or five years after his accession the Norman Con- queror was occupied in putting down risings and overcoming resist- ance to the extension of his authority. The first outbreak occurred in 1067 while William was absent in Normandy, and was a manifesta- tion of bitter discontent against the alien rulers, who " built castles wide throughout the land and the poor people distressed." The re- bellion centered in Kent and Hereford. His representatives had practically restored order before William could get back ; but during the year 1068 he was occupied in almost constant fighting. He managed first to subdue the west, where the people rallied to the sup- port of Harold's mother and Harold's sons. Among his confiscations were the lands which form the basis of the present Duchy of Corn- wall, an appanage of the Prince of Wales. The north gave the most serious trouble. It began in 1068 and came to a head in a great rising in the following year. Eadgar the ^theling, who had taken refuge with King Malcolm of Scotland, was put up as king, and a body of Danes assisted the native English and Scots. When William was at length able to break up their combination and to scatter his enemies, he took care to stamp out all possibility of further resistance. Marching from the Ouse to the Tyne and back, he ruthlessly destroyed everything that lived or could sustain life, and every building, so that the vale of York was a waste and ruin for years to come. Some of the desert places he granted to his followers, but a few of the English leaders were allowed to make their submission, and Waltheof was married to William's niece, Judith. From York, the Conqueror led his army across to Chester in the dead of winter. Everything the rigor of the season, the rough and unknown way, and even an at- tempted revolt of his foreign mercenaries was overcome by his irresistible will. His pitiless devastation remains an indelible blot on his character ; but it accomplished its purpose, for neither he nor his sons had to face another general rising of the English. A few of the more desperate made a final stand in the island of Ely in 1071. They were led by Hereward the Wake. 1 the hero ofJ^ingsleVsJamous novel. William had to come in person " with land fyrd~ahd ship^ ~iyrcr" to rout him out. Hereward himself escaped. Edwin and Morkere, who had submitted to William on his way to London, and who, joining the northern rising, had been pardoned more than once, at last met their fate. They had slipped away to join the insurgents ; but Edwin was slain on the way and Morkere was taken and ended his days in prison. At Ely the dying resistance of the native English breathed its last gasp. Eadgar the yEtheling had again fled to Mal- 1 Wake is generally interpreted to mean "Watchful," though some connect it with the name of a local family of some note. "J{^v-e 78 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND colm, the husband of his sister Margaret. To avoid further danger from this quarter William marched north in 1072, met the Scotch king at Abernethy, and arranged a treaty by which Eadgar was ex- pelled. During the remaining years of his long life he only emerges twice, when he accompanied William's son Robert on the first cru- sade, and when he fought against Henry I at Tinchebrai in 1106. The Rising; oftbe flqr^na^ Eafls, 1075. William's future diffi- culties came fronHiis own following. In 1075 Roger, son of the Earl of Hereford, and Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, rose against their King. Their pretext was that he was an usurper, their real grievance that he held jiiem under too strict control. Waltheof was draw r n into the conspiracy! TKougn he seems to nave disclosed the plot and cer- tainly gave himself up without taking arms, he was afterwards be- headed. 1 Roger got off with the lighter Norman penalty of imprison- ment for life, while Ralph eluded capture. William's Method of maintaining his Hold over the English. Once his arms had triumphed, William had to solve the_twofold_prob- Jem of holding the English in subjection and of keeping al:heck on his Norman followers. In the case of the English, he continued the practice, begun after his victory over Harold, of seizing the lands of those who resisted his authority and handing them over to Normans who would take good care to defend them. Each lord, too, had to furnish a contingent of soldiers in proportion to the size of his grant. The feudal army, thus constituted, proved a powerful weapon in the King's hands. Secondly, he secured every district which he con- quered by a castle garrisoned with his own men. Before the end of his reign, one of these strongholds frowned upon every town of im- portance in the Island. Yet he did not rely on force alone. He attached the English to himself by protecting them with good laws. Gradually they came to see that even stern rule and oppressive taxes accompanied by peace and prosperity were better than lax rule where anarchy had full play. The popular support once gained proved a stanch prop for monarchy for over a century. Checks on the Baronage^ The baronage were held in check, partly by force of Circumstances, partly by William's courage, energy, and wise foresight. Though he granted enormous estates to some, the lands composing them were scattered throughout the land. Yet this was due to accident rather than to design, to the piecemeal char- acter of the conquest, and to the fact that they had been so held under their former owners. Intentionally, however, he broke up the four great earldoms which had been such a source of weakness to the kings of the later Anglo-Saxon period. If he granted broad lands and quasi-regal rights, which came to be known as jaaJcUjjie^unsdictions, to some trusted officials such as the Earls of Kent,_Hereford, Chester, 1 The usual story is that Judith coveted his land and that William wanted to rid himself of "the last of his English earls;" but the death sentence was in accord with the Anglo-Saxon law of treason. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 79 Shrewsbury and the Bishop of Durham, this was for the defense of his borders. In general, iFwasThis aim to keep the administration in the hands of the sheriffs, and to reduce the earls to a merely titular position. By retaining the local machinery and also by keeping up the national militia, he held a strong counterpoise to baronial rule and the feudal army. JWilliam and the Church. Another body of men whom William attached to himself were ffie Churchmen, and, so far as possible, he sought to detach them from secular interests. During the Anglo- Saxon period the Church had been closely bound up with the ordinary system of government. Bishops had been appointed by the King, with the consent of the Witan ; bishops had sat in this body and in the shire court; also, with some exceptions, cases involving clergy- men and Church business had been tried there. William changed all this. He appointed great prelates on his own authority, and he issued an ordinance providing that henceforth ecclesiastical persons and causes should not be tried in the secular courts, but in those of the bishop. In so doing he was, he thought, acting in the interests of the Church and also of himself. He hoped to free the clergy from the control of those whose lives they were seeking to reform and save, and, by drawing them away from the laity, to bind them more closely to him as King. The result, in the long run, was un- fortunate ; it tended to foster an exclusive privileged class, and opened a quarrel between two conflicting jurisdictions which lasted for centuries. Clerical Appointments. In his episcopal appointments, with one notable exception the saintly Wulfstan of Worcester, deservedly remembered for his efforts to suppress the slave trade William displaced Englishmen for Normans. Yet these foreign prelates stood as stoutly against the baronage as their predecessors would have done to preserve their lands and privileges. To fill the office of Archbishop of Canterbury, the King chose Lanfranc, a sagacious and learned Italian, who had studied law in his native Pavia. Later, he entered the Church and went to Normandy, where he made the abbey of Bee famous as a center of learning. He won William's favor by his wit and good humor. The Duke had ordered him to depart from Bee for opposing his marriage with Matilda. As he was riding away on a lame horse he met the author of his exile and said : " I am going out of the province, in accordance with your order, and if you will kindly give me a better horse I will obey your command more speedily." William was so pleased that he forgave him and made him Abbot of his new foundation at Caen, whence he promoted him to Canterbury. Doubtless William's motives in excluding Englishmen were partly political, to fill their places with his sup- porters. Yet there was more to it than that. The Anglo-Saxon Church had not kept pace with those of the Continent in learning, and was low in morals as well. Aided by the advice of his new councilors, 8o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND William worked sincerely to secure bishops and abbots who would work for better things. In some cases the choice was unfortunate ; for instance, in that of the harsh and oppressive Thurstan of Canter- bury, who, when his monks refused to accept a new form of chanting, called in his Norman archers and shot them down even at the altar. It is good to know that William removed him when the matter came to his ears. In general, the influence of the new dynasty was dis- tinctly good for the Church. Clergymen who lived under monastic rule were forced to put away their wives ; parish priests who had wives might keep them, though no more married priests would be chosen. Monasteries once more became the centers of learning and culture. Many new churches and abbeys were built in the Norman style of architecture. In order to increase the influence of bishops, many of their seats which had hitherto been in country villages were re- moved to populous towns. Relations with the Papacy. While William had given as one of the reasons for his invasion the desire to vindicate the power of the Papacy against Stigand and while he desired to be the Pope's cham- pion and friend, he was prepared to resist to the utmost any papal encroachment on his authority or independence. In 1074 Hildebrand, who had long been the power behind the throne, became supreme pontiff as Gregory VII. He was one of the greatest advocates in history of papal authority, and, particularly, of the three Cluniac reforms: celibacy, simony, and investiture. The latter question did not come up for settlement till the reign of his sons, but William was of one mind with Gregory on the matter of clerical marriages and the sale of church offices. On the other hand, as against the claims of the Pope, he laid down three principles which defined the position of English sovereigns for some time to come. These were : that no Pope should be recognized or no papal letters should be re- ceived without his permission ; that no decrees of ecclesiastical as- semblies should be passed without his consent ; and that no tenant in chief of the Crown should be excommunicated without his orders. His son William Rufus would admit no papal legate without a royal license. Yet, if William was arbitrary in his relations with the Church he did not abuse his powers ; but sought to protect its rights and to raise the tone of its life. The Old Anglo-Saxon Laws retained with a Few Innovations. Really a conqueror, William's constant assertion was that he came to rule as the legitimate successor of the old royal line ; and, as far as possible, he allowed the English to retain their manners, customs, and institutions. This is seen in his legislation : "I recommend that all men have and hold the law of Edward with those additions which I have ordained for the advantage of the English people." His innovations were few; chief among them the ordinance separating the lay and spiritual courts. Then, he did away with death penalties, though the mutilations he allowed in their stead must have been far THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 81 more cruel. A new form of ordeal, the judicial jx^mbat^jvas intro- duced mainly for the benefit of his Normans. A curious device for their protection, which came to be used as a means of royal extortion, was the responsibility of the hundred or presentment of Englishry. It provided that if a man were murdered, the hundred where itTiap- ~ pened had to pay a heavy fine, unless they could find the assassin or prove that the victim were an Englishman. Another innovation of William was the enactments regarding the forests, for the so-called .forest laws of Cnut^are a forgery of the twelfth century. William and his sons were passionately fond of hunting and reserved large tracts of land for their pastime. These lands were usually, though not necessarily, wooded ; but any tract of Crown land reserved for royal hunting was called a forest. We are told that William " loved the tall stags as if he had been their father : " however, there were many considerations beside mere love of sport, that made his suc- cessors cling so tenaciously to their forest rights. They yielded the Crown a revenue for rights of cutting wood and pasturing, chiefly of swine, were sold ; they gave the king an excuse for keeping a large force of armed men which could be used for a royal army in time of need ; finally, they took large areas out of the pale of the common or traditional law so that the king had at his disposal special courts and special law as tools of his arbitrary will. William's penalty for hunting the royal deer was loss of eyes, while Cnut's (which probably reflect conditions shortly after his time) prescribe the penalty of death for killing a stag. The process of afforesting, which withdrew much land from cultivation, was a serious grievance to the people. In recent years much of this land has been sold or turned over to agriculture. That which remains as Crown land still furnishes a considerable item of public revenue. The Domesday Survey, 1085. If William gave his people good laws, he was determined they should pay for them ; one of the most frequently reiterated complaints of the reign is that of Jieayy taxation. An important item of revenue was the Danegeld of two shillings a hide, which was revived in 1084. (in order to estimate the resources of the country for purposes of taxation we find him having " much thought and deep speech" with his Witan at Gloucester, in 1085, over the state of the country and its population.} In consequence, he determined on a great survey or official inquiry; the results of which were embodied in a report known as the Domesday Book. Many guesses have been made as to the meaning of the name, the most generally accepted being that it arose from the belief that, like the great Day of Judgment, the survey would spare none. The Chronicle records in 1085 that the King : " Sent his men over all England, into every shire, and caused them to ascertain how many hundred hides of land it contained, and what lands the King possessed therein, what cattle there were in the several counties, and how much revenue he ought to receive from each. He also caused them to write down 82 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND how much land belonged to his archbishops, to his bishops, his abbots, and his earls, and, that I may be brief, what property every inhabitant of all England possessed in land or in cattle, and how much money this was worth. So very narrowly did he cause the survey to be made, that there was not a single hide nor a rood of land, nor it is shameful to relate that which he thought no shame to do was there an ox, or a cow, or a pig passed by." The methods employed by the royal commissioners were to visit not only the shires, but every hun- dred in the shire and to take testimony on oath from those best quali- fied to give it, the landowners, the priests, the bailiffs and six villeins from each township or manor. The four counties of Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland were not included. Besides getting the information he sought, the Conqueror has left to posterity, in the Domesday Book, " a great rate book or tax roll, a land register, a military register, a census of population, and topo- graphical dictionary." But it must be said that, suggestive as it is for the economic and political conditions of the time, it raises fully as many questions as it answers. The. Oath on Salisbury Plain, 1086. The importance of the great gemot which William held on Salisbury Plain in the following year has doubtless been much exaggerated. We are told that " there came to him his Witan and all the landsittende (land owning), men of substance that were all over England, whosesoever men they were and all bowed down to him, and became his men, and swore_oaths of jgalty to him that they would be faithful to him against aH men." This has often been cited as one of the sources of strength of the Nor- man kings : that in this assembly the landowners were all bound by a direct ojth toJWilliajiL, But no innovation was introduced, for, doubtless7~such oathshad been exacted all through the reign ; moreover, it is quite unlikely that all the landowners in England could be brought together at this single assembly. 1 Last Years and Death, 1087. Of William's last years little re- mains to be said. He had to face revolt from Robert, his eldest son (known as " Curthose" from his short, squat figure). Robert was a young man, affable, courageous, and skillful in athletics and martial exercises, but lavish, weak, and dissipated. Discontented because his father denied him power corresponding with his station and ex- pectations, he was egged on by many unruly nobles who hoped to profit by discord, and by the King of France, who was always looking for a chance to extend his territories. His first outbreak occurred in 1087, provoked by a jest of Robert's brothers, William and Henry. They were with the King on one of his expeditions against a local 1 Two errors are prevalent with regard to William. According to one, the cur- few was introduced by him as a special measure to keep the English down ; but it existed earlier ; it was, indeed, a police measure throughout medieval Europe : nor did he introduce the Norman-French language into the English law courts; that probably did not occur until the reign of Henry III, over a century later. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 83 enemy. William and Henry occupied the rooms above Robert and as a joke poured water through the floor. During the night the in- sulted Robert decamped and attempted to seize the castle of Rouen. After two or three years of wandering and desultory fighting, father and son were reconciled, but Robert was always ready when occasion offered to cause his father trouble. The King's final campaign came in the summer of 1087. In the course of a border war with Philip of France he met with an accident, at the capture of Mantes, which proved fatal. He was taken back to Rouen, where he lingered six weeks. Before his death he divided his kingdom, assigning Normandy to his eldest son Robert, and England to William Rufus. To Henry he gave 5000 pounds of silver with the prophecy, it is said, that in due time he would get all his father had. William was buried in his foundation of St. Stephen's at Caen, but not before a knight had been satisfied, who appeared at the service and claimed the land on which the abbey stood as unjustly seized from his father. Character and Rule. William, the conqueror of England and founder of a new line of kings, was a man to inspire awe. Of more than average height and exceeding stoutness, heavy voiced, and of enormous strength, he was a " very stern and wrathful man, so that none durst do anything against him." He was harsh, despotic, and avaricious, " took from his subjects many marks of gold, and many hundred pounds of silver, and this with or without right and with little need." He sold his lands to the highest bidder, and if another came, he ruthlessly set aside the earlier claims. He built castles and garrisoned them ; he appropriated much land for his forests. But withal he was " a very wise and a great man," and more honored and more powerful than any of his predecessors. He was " mild to those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure to those who withstood his will," and if he was a foreign conqueror, he preserved the forms of the old English system, and if he was " sharp sighted to his own interest," the establishment of his power was good for Eng- land; for he put an end to those disruptive tendencies which stood in the way of national organization and laid the foundations of a strong, orderly government which is the necessary basis of freedom, prosperity, and progress. Englishmen saw that his supremacy was a necessary safeguard, both against the lawlessness of the self-seeking nobles contending for supremacy and the anarchy of the discontented people. " Among other things the good order that William estab- lished is not to be forgotten ; it was such that any man, who was him- self aught, might travel over the kingdom with a bosom full of gold unmolested, and no man durst kill another, however great the injury he might have received from him." William could show himself pitilessly cruel on occasion ; but it was for a purpose and not from mere caprice. On the other hand, his friendship for men like Lan- franc and Anselm, who figures so largely in the next reign, shows that his austerity was tempered by gentler traits. 84 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Results of the Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquest was deep and far-reaching in its results. In the first place, it brought in a new line of foreign kings who were, for three successive reigns, men of vigor and energy, and who were supported by an armed force bound to them by close and special ties. Thus fortified, they not only crushed out the local differences which had marked the earlier period ; but, by preserving whatever was best in the old system, they paved the way for the combination of central unity and local inde- pendence which survives to-day as the most characteristic feature of the English government. Although their aim was primarily to strengthen their own position, the peace and order which they pre- served made for progress. Moreover, the infusion of a new racial element, combining the vigor of the primitive Northmen and the alertness of the latinized Frenchman, tended to vivify and broaden the sluggish and narrow national character. Finally, by bringing remote England into closer connection with the Continent it opened the way for the intellectual and cultivating influences of the centers of older and higher civilization. 1 Anglo-Norman Feudalism. Doubtless the most significant change of all was the introduction of a well-organized form of feudal tenure where feudal tendencies only had hitherto existed. Feudalism is a greatly overworked word used to describe conditions, by no means identical, which prevailed in England, France, and Germany from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. It has been well said that, applied to this period, it means as much or as little as the term " representative government " would mean when employed to describe the forms existing in any of our modern countries. " Feudalism comprises both a system of land tenure and a system of government " ; it was the form of political and social organization which, by the eleventh century, had become general among the peoples of western Europe. It was an arrangement by which the various relations between man and man were determined according to the amount of land held by one or another. At the top of the scale stood the lord or suzerain in whom the title or ownership of the land was vested. Those to whom he gave the use of it were called vassals ; lord and vassal were each bound by specified obligations, the lord to protect and defend his vassal, the vassal to render service to his lord. The commonest form of service rendered was military. Usually there were several intermediate lords and vassals between the suzerain and the small cultivator. In a thor- oughly feudalized state the king was at the top of the scale. As a matter of fact, however, the greater lords held themselves practically independent of their nominal ruler and led their own armies and judged and taxed their own dependents. Feudal elements had existed in Anglo-Saxon England. The thegns or manorial lords granted lands in return for service, and exercised jurisdiction over their dependents ; 1 But see Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, 648-651, who inclines to minimize the benefits of the Conquest. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 85 but their relation to the Crown was not feudal ; they received lands not as a condition of future service, but as a reward for past services. Their ownership was absolute ; for, although they furnished armies for their King, they did not do so by virtue of any contract or agreement based on their land grant. What William did was to fuse these ele- ments into a single whole. He made himself the supreme landowner of every foot of English soil. Each new grant was made conditional on service rendered, and every Englishman whom he allowed to remain in possession had to yield his title to the King and promise service likewise. Generally the grant was made in return for an agreement on the part of the landlord to furnish the King with a specified number of fully armed knights to serve him in his foreign campaigns for a stated period each year usually forty days. If the grant were large enough, the tenant in chief would subdivide the land, and this process might be repeated again and again. The unit of service was called a knight's fee. It was usually five hides in extent; but might be larger and might be smaller, depending on the value of the land. In later times the knight's fee was estimated on the basis of its annual income, first 20 and then 40. Feudal Incidents, and Other Obligations. Certain obligations came to attach to all military tenures. The overlord had the right of acting as guardian and of collecting the revenues of the estate, during the time when the heir was under age. This was known as wardship. When the young lord entered into possession, he had to pay a fine_ known as relief. By the right of marriage, the lord could determine when an heiress might marry, and might demand payment for allowing her to take a husband of her own choice. These rights were defensible when land was granted in return for military service; for during a minority the estate contributed no defender to the land, and it was decidedly against the King's interest to allow an heiress td marry an enemy or a weakling. Escheat was another right reserved to the sovereign, by virtue of which the estate reverted to him when the line to whom it was granted died out. Then the King could claim the right of forfeiture for any offense which a vassal might happen to commit against feudal law. These obligations attached to a military tenure were called incidents.. Besides the incidents, there were certain payments, known asaids^jvhich the lord could claim at crises. During the twelfth century, threeof these became customary: oneJor knighting .the King's eldest son, another for marrying his eldest daughter, and a third to ransom him in case he fell into captivity. Another effect of feu- dalism was to^devetop a form of inheritance, known as primogeniture, by which the lands came to descend to the eldest son. The old Anglo- Saxon custom of equal division among heirs, known as gavelkind, was not suited to a system where the main function of an estate was to furnish an instrument of military defense, and it did not survive to any extent, except in Kent. The feudal theory even came to exercise an effect on the royal succession. Although the form of election 86 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND continued, the .crown began to be regarded more as a hereditary posses- sion, and one of William's sons even tried to hand it over to his daugh- ter. William carefully avoided the evils of continental feudalism, where the landlords were independent rulers and the King was naught. By establishing, as he did, feudalism as a form of land tenure, and by preventing it from becoming a system of government, he made it a source of strength rather than weakness ; for he was supreme landowner as well as King, and got thereby much revenue and an additional army. Royal Revenues. The Magnum Concilium. It was partly because he wished to pose as the successor of Edward, partly because he wished to have resources independent of his feudal vassals, that William kept up the national taxes, the national militia, and the national courts. Besides the feudal revenues and the Danegeld, he had the county farm, a lump sum paid in by the sheriffs, who in their turn collected the rents from the royal manors in their county and fees from the courts of the hundred and shire. Further sources of Crown revenue were profits from cases settled in the Great Council, and cer- tain miscellaneous receipts, such as those from forests and mines, murder fines, royal licenses to Jews, and taxes, later called tallages, from towns on the royal domain. The old National Assembly (of the great men of the realm) continued to meet usually three times a year on Easter at Winchester, on Whitsuntide at Westminster, and on Christmas at Gloucester. But some changes were introduced ; for instance, the name was changed ; it came to be spoken of as the Great Council (Magnum Concilium) or King's Court (Curia Regis). Also, where it formerly consisted of Englishmen, it now consisted largely of Normans. Finally, although practically all of the same classes attended as in Anglo-Saxon times, the bishops and great landed nobles came, not by virtue of their office, but as tenants in chief of the Crown. Although in theory their old powers were retained, in fact the King was practically supreme in legislation and taxation. All judicial cases that were not tried in the private courts of the manor or borough, or in the courts of the hundred and shire and the church courts went to the Great Council. Indeed great men and great causes were tried here in the first instance. The Conquest and the Manorial System. The new feudal organi- zation was not without its effect on the manorial system and the de- pjendent cultivators. In the first place, it tended to alter the character of the latter's military obligations. Formerly, he had owed labor services and rent to his lord and military service as a king's subject. Now he was called on to render military duties through his lord as a condition of cultivating. Knight's fees came to approximate to manors, forming parts of the larger or including one or two more of the smaller. A second result was to accelerate the downfall of slavery. The influence of the Church must not be forgotten, par- ticularly in improving the slave's lot and in doing away with traffic be- yond the seas; but the gradual disappearance of slavery itself was THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 87 largely due to the feudal theory, which had no place for any being absolutely without rights. The feudal law, among other things, allowed slaves escaping to town to have their freedom, if they remained a year and a day. The towns, however, seldom welcomed fugitive serfs, and made use of the laws mainly to protect burgesses against old claims. The Ma.nor as a Judicial and Agrarian Unit. As time went on, the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor increased more and more, and developed under three distinct aspects. This process of development was probably not complete before the close of the thirteenth century. Civil cases, where the law of the land was involved in connection with freemen, w r ere dealt with in a session of the tenants, known as the court baron, where two freeholders had to be present. Where serfs or villeins alone were involved and the common law did not enter, the session was called a court customary, from the fact that the cases were decided according to the custom of the manor. Criminal cases were dealt with in a session known as the court leet. The manor was usually the unit of private jurisdiction. There was no system of great seigniorial courts, as on the Continent, where appeals were regularly carried from the lord's lower courts. \However, there were a few 'Vhonours " or_" liberties " that originated before the Conquest in a royal grant to ^pme great noble, with jurisdiction over several manors or hundreds) In general, the power of the sheriff was en- couraged as a counterpoise to the great barons, and it increased with the decline of the earls and the withdrawal of the bishops from the shire courts. But the sheriffs became in their turn local magnates, and were, in course of time, largely superseded in their judicial, ad- ministrative, and military duties by the King's judges, by justices of the peace, and by the lords lieutenants. The lord of a manor was represented in his judicial and administrative business by his steward or bailiff, and often did not live continuously on any one of his estates. The manors were still isolated rural communities, as they had been in the previous period, and continued so for centuries to come. The tenants rendered their services of labor and paid rents chiefly in produce. Little or no money was yet in local circulation. Methods of agriculture remained primitive, and there was much unclaimed or waste land. The older districts of the southeast, which were the most fertile, contained the greater part of the population ; the north and west were wild, barren, and sparsely settled. It is estimated that less than half the present area capable of cultivation was in use. Nearly half the total crop was wheat, though the product of oats and barley was considerable. There were some vegetables, but no root crops. The system of scattered holdings and common cultivation still prevailed. Marling was the only w T ay of fertilizing the soil. Orchards were frequent, and thirty-eight vineyards are mentioned in Domesday Book. Bees were kept to a considerable extent because the honey was used for sugar, and dairy produce and poultry formed staple 88 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND articles of diet. The state of public health was probably better than on the Continent. There was some leprosy, though not as much as is sometimes supposed. Skin diseases, due to the absence of fresh vege- tables and the excessive use of fish and meat, were common. There was no St. Anthony's fire so prevalent in France, for black bread made from rye was not eaten. Towns after the Conquest. The great majority of the towns, about three quarters, indeed, were agricultural. Most of the eighty mentioned in Domesday Book were merely villages. The flourishing centers of trade as a rule were the seaports. London and Southamp- ton controlled the trade of southern England with the Continent ; Norwich was the center of the eastern traffic and Bristol of the trade with Ireland. Many towns, such as York, Lincoln, Winchester, and Oxford, developed from early fortifications. From one point of view, though temporarily, the towns suffered from the Conquest, when the population fell off about one half. The reason for this was that castles were established in their midst or rebuilt, the townsmen were burdened with garrisons, and often their houses were cleared away to make room for fortifications. Nevertheless, the ultimate result of the Conquest was favorable to town growth. Foreign commerce was extended by closer relations with the Continent and internal trade was fostered by the better peace that the strong kings of the Norman line were able to impose. The Population and Classes. The population at the period of the Conquest was probably about 300,000 families or 2,000,000 souls. In round numbers, the agricultural population was divided by tenure into 10,000 nobles and gentry, of whom 1500 were tenants in chief; 35,000 small freeholders; 200,000 serfs of various degrees of depend- ence ; and 25,000 bondsmen. The remainder of the 300,000 were made up of burgesses and lower clergy. Most of the tenants in chief, and even of the more considerable under tenants, were Frenchmen ; but the two races soon fused by intermarriage, and the distinction between Englishmen and Frenchmen came to be the one between the King's subjects on either side of the Channel rather than one between Saxons and Normans settled in England. Language and Literature. French chiefly was spoken at the King's court, in the castle and the manor house, while English was the tongue of the humbler folk. Laws, charters, writs, records of judicial decisions, and the writings of the learned were in Latin. It was not till the thirteenth century that French came to be the language of the statutes and to be employed by the legal class. The expulsion of the Anglo-Saxons from the higher offices in Church and State checked the growth of a literature in the native tongue, though one version of the A n- glo-Saxon Chronicle was continued to 1 1 54. The story of the victory of Senlac was recorded nearly a century after the event, by Wace of Jersey in his French epic, the Roman de Rou, a history of the Norman '"'".ing house. The style is simple, direct, and unadorned, for Wace THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 89 was a historian rather than a poet. The Normans as a race were practical and serious rather than romantic, and most of their writing in this period is either religious or historical. Lanfranc, among other things, wrote a treatise against the heresy of Berengar of Tours. Anselm, who succeeded him, wrote a long series of philosophical, theological, and devotional works, which combine, to a rare degree, acumen and originality with spiritual elevation and sweetness. A prevailing interest of the time is shown in the number of lives of saints which appeared. The historical writers are, in the main, mere annal- ists, copying their earlier matter from their predecessors, and chiefly valuable for their rather bald records of their own day. Among them are Ordericus Vitalis, a monk of Evereul ; Florence, a monk of Worces- ter, Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and William of Malmesbury. Ordericus wrote with some imagination and vividness, though he was inaccurate in detail and chaotic in method. William of Malmes- bury was the first writer since Bede to organize his material and to discuss cause and effect ; in other words, he was the first of the Anglo- Normans who was a historian rather than a chronicler. Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welshman, collected old Celtic legends and is the source of ijJuch medieval romance. From him, in part, the stories of Arthur and Merlin were handed down, and to him we owe the plot of Shakespeare's King Lear. _. Anglo-Norman Architecture. Although a new architectural move- ment was on foot at least as early as Edward the Confessor, it received a marked impulse from the Conquest. Almost invariably the Normans began rebuilding the cathedrals and abbeys of the conquered Saxons. Both peoples used the so-called Romanesque style, but, while the older edifices were of wood, in most instances the new church buildings were of stone. Very simple, austere, and impressive they were, with their low square towers and , round arches supported bv heavy piers and columns! Their vast proportions were not so much to produce an impression of grandeur and strength as for a practical reason ; they feared for the endurance of their mortar. Early in the twelfth century the introduction of a new type came with the appearance of the pointed arch. This new style came to be known as the Gothic or Early English. It did not at once supersede the Romanesque ; for the old and the new continued side by side all through the century. Even more notable, was the development oj castle building. The Anglo-Saxon strongholds were simple mounds of earth surrounded by a moat and a palisade. The Normans introduced the square rectangular keep or tower of stone. Gradually, as the art of defense progressed, outer walls were added and were strengthened by gate towers. Projecting galleries were built w r ith openings in the floor to command the ditch which was dug as a further defense. Within the inclosure other towers were built to sweep the invaders by a cross fire. Siege engines were at first very primitive and ineffective, so the chief way to reduce a castle was by starvation. The earliest castles, during the twelfth 90 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and thirteenth centuries, were fortresses rather than places of residence, and castle guard was an obligation due from lesser men to the barons and the King. There was little advance in domestic architecture dur- ing the period immediately following the Conquest. Commercial development, too, must have been slow at first ; for the silver penny for some time was the only coin struck. William Rufus, 1087-1100. Character and Policy.- The new King, William II, was crowned by Lanfranc in London without any for- mal election. He was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age, short and corpulent, and of great bodily strength. He got his name of " Rufus " from his ruddy face. Owing to the Conqueror's policy of excluding his sons from any share in the government during his lifetime, his successor came to the throne quite inexperienced in public affairs. One of his few redeeming features was the respect which he retained for his father's memory, and Lanfranc, during the two years that he continued to live, held him in some restraint. William showed considerable abilities as a soldier and in keeping the people on his side. He could be generous on occasion, and was not very cruel for the age in which he lived. On the other hand, he was capricious, unable to stick to any principle or policy, and inordinately wasteful. 1 (The King's prodigality explains his greediness in extorting money and supplies from his subjects) it is related that people fled to the woods when he drew near, to save what they could. Worst of all was the_viciousness pLhis personal life and his blasphemy. His father had been so austere in his morals and so strict in the* observance of his religious duties that the contrast was all the more striking. Even the fashions indi- cate the departure from the simpler and soberer ideals of the past reign. The courtiers began to let their hair grow long, Curled and bound with ribbons ; they wore garments like women ; they affected a feminine, mincing gait, and adopted shoes with long curved points like rams' horns or scorpions' tails. They passed their nights in " drinking and revelry," and it was said of William that " he every morning got up a worse man than he lay down and every evening lay down a worse man than he got up." He " openly mocked at God and the saints," and he favored Jews, who had first come over in his father's time from Rouen ; not, however, in any broad spirit of tolerance, but to annoy Christians, and to use them like sponges to suck money from his v subjects and to squeeze it from them into his own coffers. He did not regard it as wrong to break his word to his own people or to foreign princes ; yet, in accordance with the new artificial code known as chivalry which was just coming in, he observed scrupulously every promise which he made as a knight and a gentleman. 1 A well-known story, which may or may not be true, illustrates his reputation as a spendthrift. His chamberlain once bought him a pair of boots. William asked the price ; when he was told three shillings, he contemptuously ordered the servant to take them away and bring a pair worth a mark of silver. The servant brought a cheaper pair and pocketed the difference. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 91 Resistance of the Norman Barons. The English seemed to have welcomed him at his accession ; but the Norman lords who had estates on both sides of the water preferred the rule of his weaker brother Robert, and broke out in revolt early in 1088. Robert was too much occupied with his duchy of Normandy to come in person, and the rebel forces were led by the Conqueror's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. William, partly by his energy, partly by the support of some of the barons whose estates were wholly in England, managed to overcome his enemies. A chief source of strength was the support of the English people, to whom, in an assembly where he had laid " his necessities be- fore them and entreated their assistance," he had promised " the best law that had ever been in this land ; all unright gelds he forbade, and to each man he gave his woods and his hunting." Once triumphant, he imitated the discretion of his father, welcomed the submission of his enemies, and was particularly mild to those who might be danger- ous. Already, at his coronation, he had sought popularity in another quarter by gifts to the Church and poor. In 1091, he made terms with Robert by which each agreed, in the event of the other's death without heirs, to unite the dominions of both. This same year he received the homage of Malcolm of Scotland, and, in 1092, in the teeth of the pro- tests of the Scotch King, proceeded to annex Cumberland. Ranulf Flambard. Meantime Lanfranc had died in 1089, and William's rule changed for the worse. He took as his chief adviser Ranulf. or Ralph, known as "Flambard." the " Fiery Torch that licked up everything." Although of humble birth and loose personal habits, Flambard was audacious and aspiring. By virtue of his business ability he had won the favor of the Conqueror and risen to the position of royal chaplain. As Rufus's chief minister or treasurer he managed all the financial and judicial business of the realm, and was rewarded in 1099 with the bishopric of Durham. His name is associated with systematically fleecing the estates of royal tenants. While he did not originate, he carried to greater lengths than ever before the exactions known as feudal incidents, requiring particularly exorbitant reliefs from incoming heirs. More than this, he extended his extortions to the possessions of the Church, shamelessly selling offices and keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant in order to collect their revenues for the king. The see of Canterbury was not filled for four years, and at the close of the reign three bishoprics and eleven abbeys were at rent. Anselm made Archbishop of Canterbury, 1093. In 1093, William was overtaken by a serious illness, and, face to face with death, he momentarily repented of his evil ways. " He made many promises to God in his trouble, his own life he would lead aright, and God's churches in protection and peace keep, and nevermore for fee sell them : and all right laws would he among his people have." As an earnest of his upright intention, he was prevailed upon to fill the archbishopric of Canterbury. The man selected was Anselm good and upright, of great learning, and " amongst the most noted of his time." A 92 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND native of Aosta in southern Burgundy, he became a pupil of Lanfranc at Bee, succeeded him in the office of prior, and later rose to be abbot. Doubtless the greatest scholar in theology of the period, he was much interested in education, even of young boys, and once administered a wise reproof to an abbot who sought to spur his pupils by flogging. He accepted the high office with the greatest unwillingness. The pastoral staff was literally forced into his hands and he was carried bodily into the chapel for consecration. He stood for high ideals, and realizing that by nature and training he was unfitted for the rough work before him, he protested to the bishops and nobles that they were " seeking to yoke a young unbroken bull to a weak old sheep," adding, " the Church plow needs a better matched pair than that." Events proved his foresight ; a conflict was inevitable. He was right in contending that the Church which stood for the moral and edu- cational improvement of man should be independent of unscrupulous and self-seeking laymen. The baseness and profanity of the King cannot be too much insisted upon, but underlying all of William's unworthy motives was a principle that future history would justify. The Church was not a purely spiritual institution, and its bishops and other officials were not purely spiritual ; they controlled large estates and larger powers, which must be subordinate to the central powers if national independence and unity and order were to be preserved. Conflict between the King and Archbishop. The King soon re- covered from his illness, " repented of his repentance," and resumed his evil courses, his tyranny, and his profanity. " The Lord," he said, " will get no good of me for the ill that he sent me." Anselm stood squarely against him, and a series of struggles arose. They all contributed to the main issue as to whether the Archbishop and the Church which he represented should be independent of royal control. He resisted William's attempt to seize certain lands belong- ing to the see of Canterbury, he refused to contribute more than 500 marks for a Norman war for which the Red King was preparing, and he sought to hold a synod for the reformation of manners. Moreover, there were two rival candidates for the Papacy, and Wil- liam refused to recognise Urban II, whom Anselm supported. The conflict became acute in 1095, when the Archbishop asked permission to go to Rome to get his pall, or symbol of archiepiscopal authority, from Urban. William refused because it would commit him to the candidate whom he had never accepted. In the same year a council was held at Rockingham to decide whether the Archbishop's duty to the King and to the Pope conflicted. Although no agreement was reached, Anselm boldly declared that he would render to Caesar the things that were Caesar's, and to God the things that were God's. He showed his composure by falling asleep while the King was deciding what answer to send him. The King then sought to gain a point by sending secretly and acknowledging Urban, but he failed to get Anselm to accept the pallium from his own hands. The Archbishop took it THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 93 from the altar in the usual way, although he did agree to observe the laws and customs of the realm, in so far as he could without prejudic- ing his allegiance to the Holy See. After another conflict, in 1097, over his refusal to furnish a contingent for a campaign in Wales, Anselm obtained the grudging permission of the King to go to Rome. With a pilgrim's scrip and staff he left the country, never to return until a new king was on the throne. The First Crusade, 1096. Meantime, a movement was on foot which relieved Rufus of danger from his brother Robert during the remainder of his reign. Peter of Amiens and Urban II were preaching a Crusade, the first of many, to recover the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks who had taken the city in 1077. Among the nobles of western Europe who joined in this enterprise was the Duke of Normandy. So poor that he often had to stay in bed for lack of clothes, he mortgaged his duchy to his brother Rufus in return for 10,000 marks. He took with him many younger sons and allies who from lack of estates were likely to foment discord, and left William free to pursue his plans undisturbed. Among his companions was the restless Odo of Bayeux, who died at Palermo. The year that the Crusade was preparing, 1095, a rising occurred in England under the powerful Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland. Notwith- standing troubles in Wales, where he was much occupied during the reign, William was able to put it down. In contrast to his mildness in 1088, he punished the ringleaders with merciless severity. Mowbray, to be sure, got off with imprisonment, but those who were implicated with him were brutally mutilated. Death of William Rufus, noo. --The Red King's last years were spent mainly in trying to extend his power in the Norman duchy which he was holding in pawn. But England, shocked by his wicked- ness and burdened by taxation, was growing weary of him. In August, noo, he was shot by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, a peculiarly fatal place for the line of William the Conqueror, since two others besides Rufus met their death here. It seems most likely that the shooting was accidental, though Walter Tirel, a favorite courtier, was charged with murder. The event was said to have been foretold by all manner of visions and portents. William's epitaph in the Chronicle is a scathing estimate : " He was very powerful and stern over his lands and subjects, and towards all his neighbors, and much to be dreaded, and through the counsels of evil men, which were always pleasing to him, and through his own avarice he was ever vexing the people with armies and with cruel taxes, for in his days all justice sank, and all unrighteousness arose, in the Light of God and the World. He trampled on the Church of God ... for he desired to be the heir of every one, Churchman or layman . . . and in fine ... all that was abominable to God and oppressive to men was com- mon in this island in William's time ; and therefore he was hated by almost all his people, and abhorred by God as his end showeth, in 94 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND that he died in the midst of his unrighteousness, without repentance or any reparation made for his evil deeds." Against this can only be set the good peace that he kept. When it was found that he was really dead, the nobles of the hunting party fled to Winchester, each to look after his own interests. His body was brought to the city by the foresters and buried without religious rites. Henry I, 1100-1135. His Charter of Liberties. Henry, the Con- queror's youngest son and the one in whom he had the greatest con- fidence, was one of those who hastened to Winchester. He managed to seize the keys of the royal hoard. In spite of the claims of his elder brother Robert, he was accepted by the leading men on the spot and was crowned soon after at Westminster. In order to attach his people to him the new King, besides taking the customary coronation oath to rule with justice and mercy, issued a Charter of Liberties, in which he promised to do away with the evil customs of his brother's reign. The Church was to be free, and no profit was to be taken from vacant bishoprics and abbeys. Reliefs from lay barons were to be just and lawful, and the King was to charge nothing for licenses to marry. Widows were not to marry against their will. The guardian of the person and lands of a minor should be the mother or such other relative as should seem just. As the King dealt with his tenants so should they deal with those under them. All the King's men were to dispose freely of their money, and, if prevented, their relations or other qualified persons might dispose of it. Just fines were to be taken from offending tenants in place of the excessive exactions of the two Williams. Military tenants were to be freed from all payments and labor except armed service. Firm peace w r as to be established and maintained, and the laws qf Edward the Confessor, with the Con- queror's improvements, w r ere to be retained. The new King, however, was firm on one point : the forests were to be retained as the old King had had them. Such was." the parent of all later charters." It marks the first check on the despotism founded by the Con- queror and carried to such a height by the Red King. Although its promises were often broken, the fact that Henry felt it even worth while to make them is significant, and they were used as the precedent in exacting from King John over a century later the momentous b' ody of concessions known as Magna Charta or the Great Charter. \ As a further guarantee of his intention to undo the wrongs of his brother's reign, Henry recalled Anselm, filled vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and sent Flambard to the Tower. He chose for his wife Edith, daughter of Malcolm and Margaret of Scotland and niece of Eadgar the ^Etheling. ) In this way the Norman was united to the old English line. Although the barons looked at the alliance with contempt, it pleased the people. As a concession, however, to Norman usage the Queen's name was changed to Matilda. Rising of the Barons, 1101. Within a month after Henry's coronation Robert returned from the Holy Land. He had only been THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 95 home a short time when he was induced to invade England and contest with Henry for the crown. Flambard, who had escaped from the Tower, was particularly active in egging him on; but probably the representations of his Norman vassals resident in Eng- land carried the most weight. If the Church and the people had not stood by Henry, he would have been forced to yield. As it was he gained a victory by diplomacy rather than force. After Robert had succeeded in landing unexpectedly at Portsmouth, in 1101, he met him at Alton and persuaded him to give up his claims to the English throne in return for a yearly pension of 3000 marks and a concession of all but one of his Norman possessions. The brothers further agreed each to name the other his heir, and to assist one another in the punishment of traitors. Henry, thus strengthened, at once pro- ceeded against those who had been unfaithful to him. Chief among them was Robert of Belleme, Earl of Shrewsbury. He was forced into premature revolt by grave charges of misgovernment and oppression, was overcome and driven out of the country, in 1102, forfeiting his vast English possessions to the King. Henry was now supreme at home, and for " three and thirty years he ruled England in peace . . . nor in all those years durst any man hold a court against him." Henry's Conquest of Normandy, 1106. But Normandy was ruled by the unstable Robert, and formed a refuge for the disaffected who might at any time organize another invasion into England. More- over, English subjects who had estates in Normandy were constantly exposed to attacks from Henry's enemies, and Robert was either unwilling or unable to protect them. Making use of complaints against these disorders, Henry finally led an expedition across the Channel in 1106, defeated his brother's Norman army at Tinchebrai, took Robert prisoner, and appropriated the duchy, which remained an English possession for nearly a hundred years. The Duke Robert was taken to England and held a prisoner till he finally died in Cardiff Castle in 1134. Robert of Belleme, the main cause of the trouble, was pardoned, but seized six years later, and he also died in prison. By " the only generous indiscretion of his life " Henry refused to take in custody the young son of Duke Robert, who served as a weapon in the hands of the King's enemies till his death in 1128. Compromise with Anselm, 1106. This same year, 1106, was marked by a final agreement in the matter of filling episcopal offices. There were several stages in the process, election, homage to the King for temporal possessions, investiture the conferring of the ring and the staff, which were spiritual symbols of the bishop's marriage to the Church and his assumption of the pastoral office and consecration. Anselm, on his return, had refused to repeat the homage for the lands of Canterbury which he had rendered to Rufus, and he also refused to consecrate bishops who had received investiture in his absence. As an obedient follower of the Pope he could do nothing else ; for during 96 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND his exile he had attended a Lateran Council in Rome, which had for- bidden clergymen to receive lay investiture or do homage to a layman. Henry was firm and Anselm was firm ; repeated embassies were sent to Rome, and finally the Archbishop went himself. At length the Pope suggested a compromise by which the King agreed to allow the ring and staff to be conferred by the Church, on condition that each can- didate render homage for his land. The victory was really the King's, for by refusing to receive homage he might block any episcopal ap- pointment that he chose. From this time it came to be the custom for the dean and chapter of each cathedral to elect its bishop, but, owing to the fact that elections had to take place in the royal chapel or in the presence of royal officials, the King really dictated the choice. Henry's Last Years. During the remainder of the reign, although Henry had to deal with many risings and continual disorders in Nor- mandy, his chief interest was centered in notable improvements and innovations in the machinery of government. Aside from this, the most notable event of his last years was his attempt to settle the suc- cession. In 1 1 20 his son and heir, William, was drowned in the " White Ship," crossing the Channel. It was a gay party who paid the penalty of drunken revelry with their lives. Henry, if report be true, fell to the ground when he heard the news, and never smiled again. The only heir left to him was his daughter Matilda, married to Henry V, em- peror of Germany. On the death of her husband she returned to England, and, although a woman had never ruled the land, Henry in 1127 made the barons swear to accept her as his successor. In 1129 he married her to Geoffrey, the son of his enemy, the Count of Anjou, although she was twenty-seven and he was only a boy of sixteen. The barons had to swear allegiance to her again after her marriage, while after the birth of her son Henry, the oath was repeated to him in 1133. Geoffrey proved a troublesome son-in-law, and while trying to bring him to terms, Henry died in Normandy in 1135. His death is said to have come from eating too heartily of lampreys or eels, his favorite dish. He was sixty-six years old, an advanced age for those times. Henry's Character and Policy. Henry was a man of scholarly tastes, from which he got the name " Beauclerk." Although affable and witty he was cold and calculating, holding constantly in check the violent temper so characteristic of his family. Slow to make up his mind, he was quick and decided in action. With ready insight he saw that he must hold down the turbulent barons, keep on good terms with the Church, and attach the people to himself if he was to rule as a strong king. By the orderly system of judicial and financial admin- istration which he developed he was actuated by thrift and a desire to increase his resources, but he laid the foundation on which the wisest of his successors built, and which have contributed so much to the stability of the English nation. Extortionate he was and cruel at times. The Chronicle says of an early period of his reign, " It is not easy to describe the misery of this land, which it suffered at this time THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 97 through the various and manifold oppressions and taxes that never ceased nor slackened." On one occasion forty-four thieves were hanged in a single judicial session, and, in 1124, ninety debasers of the coinage were " foully mutilated." But he gradually won for himself the name of the " Lion of Justice," and the Chronicle, no friendly witness, said at his death, " He was a good man, and great was the awe of him ; no man durst ill treat another in his time : he made peace for men and deer." Successful in war, he was at heart a statesman rather than a warrior; the necessary development of England justifies his campaign against Wales and Scotland, and the protection of his sub- jects across the Channel and its close connection with English affairs made the reduction of Normandy inevitable. While " selfish aims dictated " his policy, he " gave peace and order to his people," and the result of his rule was " better than that of many who are called benefactors." Administrative Machinery. The Curia Regis and the Exchequer.^ It was after Henry had got the baronage and Church in hand that he began to develop a system of transacting the business of government which did so much, not only to increase the wealth and power of the Crown, but to improve the condition of the country and people as well. In this work he was greatly assisted by Roger, created Bishop of Salis- bury. 1 First as Chancellor, and then as Justiciar, he organized the Curia Regis, or King's Court, which served -at once as an advisory body, a tribunal for important judicial decisions, and a treasury board. This body was smaller than the Great Council of the King's tenants in chief, and sat longer and more frequently. It was composed of the great officers of the royal household : th^e Chamberlain, the Constable, the Butler, and the Steward. These officers Tiad originally acted~ as servants to the King, had made his bed, had groomed his horses, poured his drink, and provided his meals. These duties had, in course of time, become purely honorary, had been handed down from father to son in certain great families, and were regarded as positions of great dignity. Another class of members were the chief ministers or servants of the Crown : the Tusliciar. the Chancellor, and the Treasurer. The justiciar acted as Regent during the King's absence, as his rigTit-hand man when he was in the country, and presided over the Curia Regis. The Chancellor or royal secretary was keeper of the royal records. He got his name from the fact that he originally sat behind the cancelli or bars of a screen. Gradually he became a very important official, was custodian of the Great Seal which had to be affixed to all the most important documents, and was consulted in the transaction of all important business, and, in course of time, came to take the place of the Justiciar.as the king's chief minister. The Treasurer kept the royal hoard. \To these three offices, new men, usually of the clergy, were appointed and were looked at askance by the older nobility^) In 1 He had first attracted Henry's notice when an obscure Norman priest by the quick and businesslike way in which he had said mass on one of the royal journeys. 9 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND addition to these; two groups of more or less permanent members, certain important men were selected from time to time from the Great Council. 1 The members of the Curia Regis held two financial sessions a year, one at Easter and one at Michaelmas (29 Septem- ber), when they met the sheriffs from the various counties, received their rents, and went over their accounts. For the sums paid in at Easter the sheriff received a tally, which was a stick notched in the side and marked, each notch indicating a certain number of pounds, shillings, or pence; after notches had been cut, the stick was split lengthwise, the Government keeping one half as a check on the sheriff. (The court in its financial session was called the " Exchequer," from the Latin word for chequers) The officials sat about a table and made up their accounts by means of counters. In moving these counters to and fro they looked as if they were playing chequers. 2 Another way of extending royal power over the local districts was by sending officials into the different counties, who sat with the sheriffs in the cases in which the King was concerned, i.e. Crown pleas ; listened to complaints ; and conveyed the King's wishes to his people. Another, and perhaps originally their most important duty, was to see to it that the taxes due the King were properly levied and collected. These traveling representatives of the Crown were called itinerant justices. The Towns under Henry I. In spite of the extension of the central power through the Curia Regis, the Exchequer, and the itinerant justices, Henry I encouraged the growth of towns by allowing them a measure of self-government. The borough courts were active in the exercise of their duties ; many boroughs farmed their own taxes. London and Lincoln dealt directly with the Exchequer, while, before the close of the reign, London was granted the right of electing its own sheriff. As yet the towns were small and unimportant, still supple- menting their scanty trade and industry by tilling the lands outside their walls. There was little foreign commerce. The eastern port towns received wines and some articles of luxury from the Normans and the cities along the Rhine. Chester and Bristol sent corn and luxuries to Ireland in return for furs, hides, and cattle, and Englisji .sheep supplied the wool for Flemish towns. London was still so rural that it suspended the session of its hustings court during the harvest season, and is described by foreigners as a city of wooden houses with thatched roofs, with narrow streets, " and at night infested with savage dogs." But the privileges granted by the King, and the peace and good order attracted Norman merchants and Jews, who, though unpopular, continued in the royal protection. From these small beginnings may be traced the growth of these centers of trade and local self-government that came, within a century or two, to play such a part in the public life of the land. 1 The Great Council itself was sometimes known as the Curia Regis. 2 The name does not come, as some have said, from the fact that the table was covered with a checkered cloth. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 99 English Life in Henry's Time. On the whole, the life of the period seems to have been easy and joyous. Chivalry was coming in with its artificial distinctions ; but class feeling was much less marked than elsewhere, the common people were contented with their lot. Hos- pitality, charity, and love of sport prevailed, and the country could with truth be called " Merry England." " Nowhere," we read, " are faces more joyous at the board, or hearts more eager to please." If London was small and unpretentious, it was the center of jolly pastimes, with its cockfights, football games, archery matches, foot races and water sports, and occasional skating. Hunting, feasting, and love of dress are a favorite theme of attack by austere ecclesiastics. In the small villages pilgrimages to local shrines, the visits of wandering minstrels, and the numerous saints days furnished constant occasion for merrymaking. In the monasteries there was much good cheer, some- times we hear of dinners with as many as sixteen courses, washed down with copious draughts of wine, cider, and beer. The Monastic Revival. In monastic life, however, this period witnessed the beginnings of an earnest revival. From the early part of the previous century new orders had come into being, as vital pro- tests against the declining ideals of the Benedictine and the Cluniac monks. Chief among these reformed orders was that of the_C_ister-_ cians. Simplicity and austerity were its ideals. Garments were to be ot Ihe plainest and coarsest sort, church ornaments were to be of simple brass, iron, and painted wood. Its houses were to be in lonely and desolate places. The professed brethren were to devote themselves to study, while lay brothers were to do all the manual labor. In 1128 the Cistercians came to England, and in the succeeding years estab- lished many houses, chiefly in the north, partly because the south was already occupied by the older orders and partly because they preferred the remote and unpeopled districts. Every one has heard of Melrose Abbey in Scotland and Fountains in Yorkshire, only two among their many houses. By the middle of the twelfth century there were fifty Cistercian houses in England. Their chief industrial pursuit was cattle and sheep raising, and the wool of the Cistercians became a_ famous article of export. The order of St. Gilbert of Sempringham, which came in aooui 1139, was for both men and women. Its founder was an Englishman, a wealthy and holy man of Lincolnshire, who, in spite of great asceticism, is said to have lived to the age of a hundred and five or six. Among the other orders which appear at this time, were the Augustinians, or Black Canons, and the Premonstratensians, or White Canons. Two military-religious orders, founded as a result of the crusading movement, also found their way into England the Knights Hospitallers, who furnished succor to sick and needy pilgrims on their way to the Holy City, and the Knights Templars, who guarded the roads to the Holy Land. Altogether, well over two hundred new houses were founded in the reigns of Henry and his two successors. With increasing wealth abuses crept in. The Cistercians, for instance, ioo A HISTORY OF ENGLAND are accused of avarice, idleness, luxury, but we must not forget the services they rendered in reclaiming waste lands, furthering useful arts and trades, preserving and spreading learning, administering charity, and setting up standards of living which, even if not always observed, were a protest against the brutality and coarseness which they saw about them. For a period of nearly twenty years following Henry's death such voices were sorely needed. Stephen received as King of England, 1135. On the death of Henry I there were three candidates for the throne : Matilda, his daughter, and the two sons of his sister Adela Theobald of Blois and Stephen of Boulogne. Of these three, Matilda had unquestionably the best title, she was the nearest heir, her father had named her his successor, and the barons had sworn to accept her ; but Matilda's sex told against her, as did her arrogant temper and her marriage with the representative of the Angevin house, long the declared enemy of Eng- lishman and Norman. Theobald, although accepted by the Normans, was not recognized in England, and being a timid and cautious man, he withdrew from the race. Stephen hastened to England. He was promptly accepted by the citizens of London in return for his promises to maintain peace and to respect the liberties and privileges of the city. He had still stronger support in the bishops. At Winchester, of which his brother was a bishop, he came to terms with them, granting the Church concessions in the matter of elections, and jurisdiction greater than it had ever enjoyed on English soil. He then, by promises equally lavish, sought the alliance of King David of Scotland, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, Matilda's half brother. In addition to the Corona- tion Charter with its customary vague assurances, he issued another in the following year, 1136, containing Histinrf. promises |n earh nf the three estates : he would not use Church land for gain ; he would do away with the wrongs committed by the sheriffs ; he would surrender the forests made in Henry's reign ; and " observe the good laws of Henry and Edward the Confessor." His Character and Problems. Personally, Stephen was a man of the most popular and engaging qualities, athletic, brave, generous, and affable, but totally incompetent to deal with the problems which confronted him. He was unable to fulfill the promises which he had so rashly made, he was not keen and foreseeing enough to anticipate the opposition which the nobility, turbulent and self-seeking as ever, were bound to manifest. He excited animosity by bringing mercenaries into the land; he weakened his position by creating new earls and allowing them to build castles. Aiming, like /Ethelred the Redeless, to increase his supporters, he only added to his difficulties. In the words of the Chronicle: "The more he gave them, the worse they always carried themselves toward him." In the very first revolts directed against him he showed himself too easy to punish disaffec- tion even after he had put it down. " When the traitors perceived that he was a mild man and a soft, and a good, and that he did not . THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 101 enforce justice, they did all wonder. They had done homage to him, and sworn oaths, but they no faith kept." His Attacks on Roger of Salisbury and his Family, 1139. Like all easy men, he was capable of sudden acts of violence and rashness of the direst consequence. Such a blunder he committed by a foolhardy attack on Roger of Salisbury and his family. (Between them they controlled the financial and judicial business of the Government.^ Old Roger, although he held no office at this time, was the leading councilor of the realm. Roger, his son, was Chancellor. Nigel, a nephew, was Bishop of Lincoln. To be sure, they affected almost royal state, attending councils with armed bands, fortifying castles, and accumulating great wealth as well as power. Suddenly Stephen ordered them to surrender all their castles into his hands, and when they refused, arrested all the family, except Nigel of Ely, who fled to the stronghold of Devizes. Stephen only secured the castle and the person of Nigel by threatening to hang Roger the Chancellor.' The King may have been moved to proceed against the house of Roger by the intrigues of rival barons, he may have feared that they were com- bining against him in favor of Matilda, he may have been merely jealous of their increasing power and pretensions, but his action was Disastrous in itsconsequences. It threw the financial a^H judicial isystem into a confusion from which it did not recover till the next reign, and ilalienated the Church, to whose position the King owed his support. Even his own brother, Bishop Henry, declared against him. The situation was particularly critical. Already Stephen had had to face revolts in Norfolk and Devon, a rising in Wales, and in 1138 David of Scotland invaded England to secure the earldom of Northumber- land for his son Henry. He was met near Northallerton by an army gathered by the dauntless energy of the Archbishop of York. As it was accompanied by a car bearing the banners of the patron saints of the three northern churches of Beverley, Ripon, and York, the engagement is often called the " Battle of the Standards." After a fierce con- test, in which the English arrows " buzzed like bees and flew like rain," the Scots were defeated and retired across the border. Yet in a treaty made the following spring, April, 1139, the King yielded prac- tically what David had invaded England to obtain. Meantime, the southwestern counties had risen at the instigation of Robert of Glouces- ter, who had thrown off his allegiance and fled abroad, alleging that Stephen was a usurper and had not kept his promises to him. The Coming of Matilda and the Beginning of Civil War, 1139. Such was the situation when, in the autumn of 1139, Robert and Matilda appeared in person. Their arrival converted the unrest, already manifest, into a civil war which lasted for fourteen years. The disputed succession was only a pretext which the barons seized to foster disorder and thereby to gain power and profit for themselves. " All became forsworn and brake their allegiance, for every rich man built his castles, and defended them against him, and they filled the 102 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected to have any goods by night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their feet and smoked them with foul smoke ; some by their thumbs, or by the head, and they hung burning things at their feet. They put a knotted string about their heads and twisted it till it went into the brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads, and thus wore them out. . . . Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. . . . They were continually levying an exaction from the barons . . . and when the wretched inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they, and burnt all the barns, so that well might- est thou walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find a man seated in town, nor its land tilled." " Then was corn dear and flesh and cheese, and butter, for there was none in the land wretched men starved with hunger some lived on alms who had been erewhile rich : some fled the country never was there more misery, and never acted heathens worse than these. At length they spared neither church nor churchyard, but they took all that was valuable therein, and then burned the church and all together. Neither did they spare the lands of bishops nor of abbots, nor of priests, and every man plun- dered his neighbor as much as he could. If two or three men came riding to a town all the township fled before them, and thought that they were robbers. The bishops and clergy were ever cursing them, but this was nothing for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and reprobate. The earth bare no corn, you might as well have tilled the sea, for the land was all ruined by such deeds, and it was said openly that Christ and his saints slept." As another writer of the times put it, " In olden days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did that which was right in his own eyes ; but in England now it was worse ; for there was a king, but impotent, and every man did what was wrong in his own eyes." The Progress of the War. The two years following the arrival of Robert and Matilda were marked by a bewildering series of raids, sieges, and ravaging of towns ; but, in 1141, the King was defeated at Lincoln and captured by Earl Robert, and his son-in-law Ralph, Earl of Chester. He was sent a prisoner to Bristol, and Henry of Winches- ter since 1139 papal legate came to terms with the Queen, on condition that she should consult him in all matters of importance and leave in his hands the appointment of all bishops and abbots. Matilda was received in Winchester with solemn state, and other im- portant places surrendered themselves into her hands. The Lon- doners, who at first had protested, were obliged to yield also. But Matilda showed herself oppressive and unbending, she exacted a heavy THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 103 tax, and canceled all the concessions which Stephen had made to the citizens. Incensed at such treatment, they took arms, drove her out and opened their gates to the partisans of Stephen. The legate Henry deserted her cause and returned to Winchester to hold it for the King. Matilda led a force against the city, but Henry slipped out and brought an army led by Stephen's queen and William of Ypres, his captain of mercenaries, to its relief. Hard pressed between the forces within and without, the Empress was obliged to withdraw, and in attempting to cover her flight Robert of Gloucester was captured. Before the end of the year he was exchanged for Stephen. With the balance thus restored the fight went on. But year after year Matilda lost ground. The death of Robert, in 1147, deprived her of her chief support, and, in the following February, she retired to Anjou and gave up the struggle. Yet her retirement neither gave peace to England nor a clear title to Stephen. Her son Henry was now fifteen years old ; he had already been in the country twice, once from 1142 to 1146, and again in 1147, an d was soon to return again to contend for his heritage. Then the barons in their own interests were determined to continue the carnival of misrule : " they remained each man to pursue his own policy and fight his own battles. Every lord of a castle was a petty king, ruling his own tenants, coining his own money, administering his own justice." The infamous Geoffrey de Mandeville, who had changed sides half a dozen times, received his death wound in 1144. " Un- shriven he had passed away, laden with the curses of the Church, and his body no man might bury." Still there were many more equally bad, if not so well known. Geoffrey of Anjou conquers Normandy. One great source of encouragement to the party opposed to Stephen was the conquest of Normandy by Geoffrey of Anjou. Steadily refusing to take any part in the English complications, he had been persistent in his attacks upon the duchy since the death of Henry I. At first he made little progress, but at length his perseverance was rewarded; Rouen, the last great fortress to hold out, fell in 1 144. Louis VII, King of France, recognized his victory by investing him with the dukedom, and before the close of another year he had stamped out the last embers of resist- ance. Treaty of Wallingford, 1153. Geoffrey died in 1151, not yet forty years old. Already, some months before, he had handed over the duchy of Normandy to his young son Henry. His death added to Henry's possessions the lands of Anjou and Maine. By marrying, 1152, Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine and divorced wife of Louis of France, he acquired a vast territory comprising one third of the ancient Gaul. His united possessions now reached from " the Channel to the Pyreness." After making a truce with Louis and others who had leagued themselves against this startling increase of power, he set out for England. Stephen made an effort in which he was defeated, mainly through the influence of the Church, to secure io 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the English succession for his son Eustace, " an evil man " who " did more harm than good wherever he went." For a time Stephen struggled on doggedly; but when Eustace died, in 1153, the poor King really had nothing left to fight for, since his younger son seems never to have been considered as a candidate for the throne. Consequently, a truce was arranged followed by a pacification at Win- chester. According to the treaty, commonly known as the Treaty of Wallingford, Stephen was to continue as King during his lifetime, while Henry was recognized as his heir, and provisions were made for putting an end to the disorders which had so long prevailed. Crown lands were to be resumed, foreign mercenaries were to be banished, all castles built since the death of Henry I were to be destroyed, and Ste- phen was to consult his prospective heir in all important acts. Ste- phen died in 1 1 54, and it was left to a young man of twenty-one to mend the evils which had come upon the land during the nineteen years' rule of a man who was as generous and kindly as he was weak. Anarchy. Extent of the Devastation. During the civil war and the anarchy which accompanied it certain districts suffered more than others. This was particularly true of the Thames valley, of the southwest, and some of the midland counties. Here, when the war was at its height, the conditions must have been dreadful. It is pictured with grim pathos by a chronicler of the time : " With some men," he says, " love of country was turned into loathing and bitter- ness, and they preferred to migrate to distant regions. Others, in the hope of protection, built lowly huts of wattle work round about the churches, and so passed their lives in fear and anguish. Some for want of victuals fed upon strange and forbidden meats, the 'flesh of dogs and horses ; others relieved their hunger by devouring unwashed and uncooked herbs and roots. In all the shires a part of the inhabit- ants died in herds from the stress of famine, while others, with their wives and children, went dismally into self-inflicted exile. You might behold villages of famous names standing empty because the country people, male and female, young and old, hath left them ; fields whitened with the harvest as the year verged upon autumn, but the cultivators had perished by famine and the ensuing pestilence." Results of the Reign. At first sight, the reign of Stephen appears to be nothing more than a period of anarchy and suffering,- but it brought the people a useful lesson, or reenforced an old one/that the rule of a strong King, harsh and despotic though he might be, was to be preferred to the unrestricted sway of local magnates. ) Viewed in this light, the reign contributed as much to strengthen the central government against feudal independence as the work of a William the Conqueror or a Henry Beauclerk. It was only when peace and order had been secured in place of anarchy that freedom and self-government could be depended upon. On the other hand, the barons were not the only force that threatened the unity and security of the land. The prevailing uncertainty, and the aim of the contending parties to secure THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS 105 the support of a powerful and influential institution, brought the Church into a position of prominence that later kings had to reckon with. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Freeman, Norman Conquest, IV, V, is still valuable for an exhaustive account of the events from 1066 to 1154, though Freeman was inclined to minimize the effects of the Conquest, and many of his findings have been reversed by recent investigators. Briefer and more modern narratives are to be found in Ramsay, Foundations of England, II ; H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angcvins (1905), chs. I-VI, and G. B. Adams, Political History of England (1905), chs. I-XI. Both of the latter works embody the results of recent scholarship ; and Davis pays much attention to the non-political aspects of the period, presenting in ch. VI an interest- ing picture of conditions under the Anglo-Norman kings. Taylor, Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, I , bk. II, chs. I-II ; Wakeman and Hassall, Constitutional Essays, chs. II, III ; Taswell-Langmead, English Con- stitutional History, chs. II, III ; and White, Making of the English Constitution, pt. II, and pt. Ill, chs. I, II, contain brief accounts of the constitutional aspects of the subject. A more detailed treatment will be found in Stubbs, Constitutional His- tory, I, chs. IX, XI. Good brief accounts of feudalism are given in E.. Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages (1891), ch. XV; G. B. Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages (1898), ch. IX, especially valuable; Seignobos (tr. E. W. Dow), Feudal Regime; and J. H. Robinson, History of Western Europe (1902), ch. IX. The feudal incidents are discussed in detail in Pollock and Maitland, English Law, I, bk. II, ch. I, and J. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (1913), pp. 52-77. Pollock and Maitland treat Norman and Anglo-Norman Law in I, bk. I, chs. Ill, IV. For the Church, see Wakeman, chs. V, VI, Makower, sees. 4, 5; and W. R. W. Stephens, English Church (1901), chs. I-VIII. For social and industrial conditions, see Traill, Social England, I, ch. Ill ; Free- man, Norman Conquest, V, ch. XXIV ; Cunningham, English Industry and Com- merce, I, bk. II; W. J. Ashley, English Economic History (1892), I; and Mary Bateson, Medicctial England (1904), pt. I; R. E. Prothero, English Farming, Past and Present (1913), ch. I ; the most recent and authoritative work covering the whole period of English agriculture. References to sources and for further reading : Davis, 534-544 ; Adams, Political History, 448-458 ; and White, p. xxvi. Selections from the sources : Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History (1901), nos. i-n, especially i and 7. THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS, 1066-1154 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR = Matilda of Flanders 1066-1087 Robert, Duke WILLIAM RUFUS, HENRY = Matilda Adela = Stephen of of Normandy, d. 1125 William, d. 1128 1087-1100 1100-1135 d. inS i Blois William, Matilda = d. 1120 d. 1167 = (i) Emperor Robert of Henry V Gloucester (2) Geoffrey of Anjou STEPHEN, Henry, II3S-HS4 Bishop of Winchester (2) HENRY II, 1154-1189 1 Illegitimate. 106 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND THE KINGS OF SCOTLAND, 1066-1153 DUNCAN I MALCOLM III = Margaret, DONALD BANE, 1094-1097 1058-1093 d. 1093 DUNCAN I, EDGAR, ALEXANDER I, Matilda, DAVID I, 1093 1097-1107 1107-1124 d. 1118, 1124-1153 m. Henry I, d. 1135 CHAPTER VII HENRY II (1154-1189). THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER AND THE RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW Henry II, Founder of the Angevin or Plantagenet Line. The line of which Henry II is the first representative continued in unbroken succession for _two hundred and forty-five years. It is sometimes known as the Angevm dynasty, from the fact that Henry on his father's side descended from the Counts of Anjou ; sometimes as the Plantag- enet, from the emblem of Geoffrey of Anjou, a sprig of broom (Latin, planta genesta) which he wore in his hat. The new ruler, a boy barely turned twenty-one, took up again the good work begun by his grand- father, which had been all undone by nineteen years of anarchy .^ It was his task to subdue the barons under the royal hand, to check ^ the growing power of the Church, to bring its members within the con- trol of the State in worldly things, and to attach the people to their ^ sovereign by protecting them from oppression and by advancing their welfare. If he did not reach his goal, he took the right road and guided the course of events so far that the way was set for the future. Henry's Character and Appearance. Although of middle height, Henry's square frame, his long, muscular arms, his round head crowned with closely cropped red hair, his fiery, freckled countenance, his eyes dear and gray, but bloodshot and flashing like balls of fire in moments of anger, marked him as a man of striking appearance. Careless in dress, he was temperate in meat and drink, of feverish energy and uncommon endurance. When not engaged in war or State business, he was either hunting and hawking or deep in a book or in conversa- tion with some of the learned men whom he delighted to gather about him. Even during mass he was busy whispering with councilors or drawing little pictures. He never sat except at meals or when he was on horseback. He was constantly on. the lookout for information ; he never forgot a face he had once seen or a fact that had once struck his attention. He spoke only French and Latin, but he knew some- thing of every language " from the Bay of Biscay to the Jordan." Subject at times to ungovernable fits of passion, he was generally good-humored and very easy of access. His Original Interests not Primarily English. Although Henry had spent four years of his youth in England and had paid occasional visits besides, he came to the throne practically a foreigner, and appar- ently never learned to speak the English language. Indeed, England 107 io8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND was only a part of the numerous territories which he ruled. At first his only interest in the land was to use it as a source of supply in defend- ing and rounding out his possessions across the Channel ; but after he had undertaken the work of developing his English resources he became more and more interested in the work for its own sake, while his original end receded into the dim future. Nevertheless, the con- flicting interests and local jealousies of the many states which he sought to control, the intrigues of the French kings who drew profit by stir- ring up strife against him, and the later dissensions of his sons absorbed so much of his time and energy as to keep him abroad more than half of his reign. This makes it all the more notable that his most enduring work was done in England. Thomas Becket. He turned his hand first to recovering what the Crown had lost under Stephen, he resumed crown lands, he destroyed adulterine or unlawful castles, he appointed sheriffs who would carry out his will, and he set in motion the administrative machinery which had come to a standstill on the death of old Roger of Salisbury. Of all the appointments which he made, that of Chancellor was fraught with the greatest consequences. This official in those days ranked below the Justiciar and the Treasurer, but as secretary of the royal household he was brought into closest contact with the sovereign and had many important duties to perform ; he had the custody of the royal seal, he drew up all important documents, he kept the legal records, and had charge of the King's chaplains and clerks. Thomas Becket, whom he selected, was the son of a Norman merchant settled in London. Brought up in the household of Archbishop Theobald, he received the usual ecclesiastical education, but had distinguished himself rather as a man of affairs than as a scholar or theologian. He first endeared himself to Henry by his " most subtle management " in inducing the Pope to reject Stephen's efforts to secure the succession of Eustace. Thomas was a striking contrast to his master : he was fifteen years older ; he was tall, dark, and handsome ; he dressed with the greatest care and elegance, maintained a large and lavish household, and dis- pensed sumptuous hospitality. Yet he and Henry became fast friends ; they worked together > they hunted together, and, on occasion, they romped like schoolboys. But immersed as he was in worldly busi- ness and luxury, and so martial that he more than once rode in the King's armies, the life of Thomas was so pure that even his enemies found no word to say against him. The Opening of the Conflict between Becket nd Henry, 1163. A time came when the firm friends were turned into bitter enemies. In 1161 Theobald died. Henry, wishing to secure a truety agent to assist him in curbing the power of the Church, determined to appoint Thomas to the vacant Archbishopric. The Chancellor resisted stoutly ; for it was his nature to champion to the utmost any cause which he undertook, and he realized that as head of the English Church he would be bound to come into conflict with the royal policy. His DOMINIONS OF THE HOUSE OF ANJOU 2 Longitude from Greenwich 2 THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 109 scruples, however, were overborne, and in May, 1162, he assumed the office of Archbishop of Canterbury. He resigned the chancellorship and all his worldly interests and suddenly became an ascetic of the most extreme type as well as a most ardent defender of Church privilege. Not many months passed before he broke with the King. Curiously enough, the first quarrel arose over a point which did not concern the Church at all. Henry demanded that the sheriffs should pay into the royal treasury a certain " aid " or fee which they had been accustomed to collect from the shires in payment for their work. Thomas, at a council held at Woodstock, in 1163, took the part of the sheriffs, and thus became the first English subject on record to resist his sovereign on a question of national taxation. This opening breach was followed by many others in rapid succession, all of which involved questions at issue between Church and State. The Archbishop demanded back land which had been taken from his see in times past, and even excom- municated without royal leave one of the King's tenants in chief. But the climax was reached in the struggle over criminous clerks. The Criminous Clerks. In Anglo-Saxon times cases concerning the Church and the clergy had been tried in the courts of the hundred and shire. William the Conqueror, in separating lay and spiritual jurisdiction, had failed to draw a definite line between the two classes of cases ; but he and his sons had apparently kept the clergy under the control of their courts in matters of temporal concern. J[n the trou- blous time of^ Stephen the Church courts had greatly extended their powers, andTamong other things, claimed the exclusive right to judge the offenses of clergymen, even it committed against the law of the land: In so far as they were the moral and religious guides of the time, one can understand why they should try to keep their persons and goods out of the reach of men whom greed or revenge might prompt to con- trol them. But there was another side of the question. Since the sentences of the Church courts were very light, unscrupulous men took advantage of the clerical privileges, easy to obtain, in order to shelter themselves from penalties which their crimes deserved. Obviously, the increase of a class of persons exempt from the law of the land would be a serious menace to the security of the State and to the authority of the Crown. This was what King Henry was determined to prevent. Two or three cases arose at this time of clerks found to be guilty of murder and robbery, and Becket not only refused to have them re- tried in the King's courts, but even to allow adequate sentences to be pronounced against them. The King summoned a council at West- minster and ordered the bishops to agree that clerks accused of crime should be called before the King's courts to answer the charges ; if well grounded, they should be tried in their episcopal courts in the presence of a King's justice, and if guilty, they should be handed over to the lay courts for punishment. The King did not ask that clerks should actually be tried in his courts. But the bishops, led by Thomas, refused to concede even what the King required. On being asked if they no A HISTORY OF ENGLAND would obey the customs of the realm, they agreed only with a quali- fication, " saving their order." Thereupon the King dissolved the assembly in anger. Finally, after the bishops one after another had weakened, Thomas assented without any qualification. The Constitutions of Clarendon, 1 164. In order to make the under- standing definite, Henry summoned a Great Council to meet at his hunting lodge at Clarendon, in January, 1 164, and directed some of the oldest barons of the realm to draw up~ "the" 1 ' customs " as they had existed in the reign of Henry I. These customs which Henry II presented to Becket and the bishops for acceptance, are known as the " Constitutions of Clarendon." They were grouped under sixteen heads and(aimed to settle all questions at issue between the King and the clergw However, they went far beyond the original question in dispute ; indeed, far beyond any claim that Henry had ever made. Their provisions not only brought the criminous clergy under the cognizance of the King's justice, but defined the 7 relations between the royal aild ecclesiastical courts, and drew into the King's tribunals many cases involving church property and large court fees. Also they sought IP define again the relations between the sovereign and the Pope. {(Their general aim was to put the Kmg~at the head of the T^ng- TTsh Church and to subordinate the clergy to his will ; to make the law of the land dominant over the law of the Church^) Only a small field was left to the courts Christian : offenses of a minor nature concerning the clergy alone ; crimes of the laity involving spiritual punishment ; cases relating to marriages and wills, defamation of character, usury, and the like. Resistance and Flight of Becket, 1164. Although Becket, after stout resistance, accepted the Constitutions, he apparently never intended to keep his promise, on the ground that they were against the law of God. In fact, he applied for a dispensation from the Pope absolving him from his agreement. The King, whose anger was great, found an occasion to test the Archbishop's obedience. Thomas was very stiff-necked, but Henry was so captious and violent that the Archbishop despaired of maintaining his position, and finally fled one night in a pelting rain. Adopting a disguise, he took ship across the Channel, reached the domains of the King of France in safety, and secured an audience with Alexander III at Sens. The ambassadors of the King had already preceded him. The Pope was in a delicate position. The Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, was supporting a rival or anti-pope, and Henry had stood loyally by him, while the attitude of Louis VII was doubtful. On the other hand, Becket was the champion of the Church. Consequently, he tried to delay an answer. When Henry heard of his attitude, he proceeded to seize the revenues of Becket and to send his relatives into exile. Thereupon, Pope Alexander, while he did not formally condemn the Constitutions, absolved Becket from observing them except so far as was consistent with his holy orders. For six years, from 1164 to 1170, the quarrel THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER in continued, Becket striving with might and main to force the King to recede from his position. The Murder of Becket, 1170. A crisis came in 1170, when the King determined to crown his son Henry as his successor. Becket, who had refused several offers of mediation and had been liberally excom- municating the King's supporters, was stung to fury by the fact that the coronation ceremony was to be performed by Roger, Archbishop of York. Louis VII, too, was offended because his daughter, the consort of the young prince, was not crowned with her husband. In order to evade an interdict that had been prepared against him, the King met Becket, and promised him amends for the slight in the matter of the coronation, while Thomas, on his part, promised to return to England. As none of the essential points at issue were settled, the reconciliation proved a hollow one, and the Archbishop went back to his see with dark forebodings. He made matters worse by suspending and excommunicating a number of those who had assisted in the recent coronation and who were holding archiepiscopal lands. Henry received the news with a furious outburst of passion. " My subjects are sluggards, men of no spirit," he roared; " they keep no faith with their lord, they allow me to be made the laughing-stock of a low-born clerk." At once four knights hastened to Canterbury, and after a heated interview with Becket, they followed him to the cathedral and murdered him within the precincts of the holy place. His body was found covered with a coarse haircloth shirt and scarred with scourging. Within a few days of his death, it was said, miracles began to be wrought at his burial place ; in less than three years' time he was canonized by Alexander III, and his shrine became the most popular of English centers for -pilgrims until it was destroyed at the Reformation. Stead- fast and courageous he was, and his royal adversary persecuted him in mean and petty ways, even if he did not intentionally cause his death ; but the cause for which the Archbishop contended the exemption of the clergy from State control and the supremacy of the Church in important matters of temporal concern was a political, not a reli- gious one. Though he met a martyr's fatej(Thomas waged his struggle as a politician and not as a saint) His death brought to his cause a greater victory than he would ever have been able to gain had he lived. Public opinion held Henry accountable for the base deed for which he was only indirectly responsible, and he was obliged to seek recon- ciliation with the Pope at the expense of concessions and on terms very humbling to his royal pride. Henry in Ireland. State of the Country. While Henry was wait- ing to see what the Pope would do, he turned his attention to Ireland, first granted to England by Adrian IV in 1154- The Irish, developing in comparative isolation, had attained a degree of culture and a fervor of religious life far in advance of their social and political development. Their zealous missionaries had carried their faith even to the wildest parts of the German lands, they had beautiful legends and sweet- ii2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tongued bards, they excelled in the illumination of manuscripts ; but their Church was only slowly subject to episcopal control, the people were still in the tribal stage, and law and the means of keeping peace and order were sadly lacking. The kings of the five provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Meath, Munster, and Connaught " fiercely battled like bulls for the mastery of the herd," while the petty chiefs were constantly warring against one another. Cattle were the chief standard of value, houses were primitive and clothing was scanty, and there was a dearth of arable land and mineral resources. Most of the trade was in the hands of the Danes settled at Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, and Limerick, who sent their ships laden with skins and hides to the Eng- lish and French ports and brought back corn, wine, and trinkets. In 1166 Diarmait, King of Leinster, hard pressed by rivals, appealed to Henry for aid. Though too much occupied to go in person, the Eng- lish King allowed him to enlist volunteers among his subjects. Chief of the recruits was Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as " Strongbow " because he was a redouHtable warrior ~~ In addition, there came men from England, Wales, and from across the Channel, restless and needy adventurers, eager for any stirring or profitable undertaking. Strongbow having stipulated with Diarmait that he should marry his daughter and become his heir, aided him to triumph over his enemies. The death of Diarmait in 1171 opened such a pros- pect of pow r er for the English Earl that Henry became jealous and recalled him. King and vassal met in Gloucester and crossed over to Ireland with a force of about 4000 men. During his stay in the coun- try from October, 1171, to April, 1172, Henry was able to secure the sub- mission of most of the native chiefs and kings as well as of the prelates of the Irish Church, and held a synod at Cashel where many measures of reform were passed. . But although he left Strongbow with various English officials to represent him at his departure, the latter served rather to limit the authority of the ruler of Leinster than to maintain peace and order. Indeed, owing to extensive confiscations of land, the English intervention added one more element of discord to the troubled country, and left jt " as it were, a shaking sod." Henry's Submission at Avranches. "Benefit of Clergy." After leaving Ireland, Henry crossed to Normandy, and at Avranches came to terms with the papal legates and received absolution. He swore that he had not instigated the murder of Becket, that he 'would sup- port Alexander III and his successors, that he would allow appeals to Rome to all who would guarantee not to undertake anything against his kingdom. The Constitutions of Clarendon and the matter of the criminous courts were passed over in silence ; for in this connection he went no further than to agree to do away with any customs introduced against the Church in his time. As a matter of fact, his courts con- tinued to claim control over most of the property cases in which the Church was involved, while clergymen accused of criminal offenses claimed exemption from the lay courts "_benefit of clergy " it was called for centuries. THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 113 The Revolt of 1173. No sooner had Henry become reconciled with the Pope than he had to face a dangerous revolt headed by the young Henry, whose succession had been established by his corona- tion only three years before. Back of this revolt lay many causes of discontent. The King had provided magnificently for his three eldest sons. Henry was recognized as heir of England and Normandv. Richard as Duke of Aquitaine, and Geoffrey was to be rnarried to the heiress of Brittany, but the King was cautious and niggardly^ He refused them authority and revenues equal to their high pretensions. Then Louis VII was anxious to keep the family embroiled, in order that he might increase the possessions of France. Queen Eleanor was on bad terms with her husband, while the feudal barons on both sides of the Channel were restive under the King's firm rule. The occasion was furnished by the attempt of Henry to provide for his youngest son John out of the Angevin provinces, which Prince Henry claimed as a part of his heritage. By means of liberal promises the King of the Scots as well as many petty under sovereigns in Flanders and elsewhere, were drawn into the combination against the English King. All the support on which he could count was that of a few faith- ful servants, his mercenaries, the Church with which he had been reconciled, and the common people who preferred heavy taxes to another carnival of bloodshed and anarchy. Furthermore the Eng- lish King and his ministers acted with promptness and decision, while his opponents were divided by selfish and conflicting aims. Crushing of the Rebellion. The rebellion broke out in 1173, and it was not till the summer of 1174 that Henry gained the upper hand in his continental possessions. Meantime, his Justiciar and other faithful followers had been facing, with a fair degree of success, both English revolts and invasions from Scotland. Two days after his landing, a royal force led by Ranulf de Glanville, later celebrated as one of England's most famous jurists, succeeded in defeating and cap- turing the Scotch king William the Lion at Alnwick. Before taking the field in person Henry went to Becket's tomb to do penance : clad in a woolen robe, barefoot, he knelt, kissed the spot where the holy martyr had fallen, and received eighty stripes on his bare back from the assembled prelates and monks. In return for this and certain concessions he received final absolution. The capture of William put an end to the English rebellion ; but abroad his sons were still in arms : Louis VII, too, had seized the occasion of his absence to make war again, but he dared not face Henry on his return, which occurred directly after he had settled matters in the English domains. Before the close of September, the young Henry, Geoffrey, and Richard all submitted to their father. He was very forgiving and even granted them generous allowances. William the Lion at Falaise did liege homage, and, as an earnest of his good faith, gave up many hostages and castles. In crushing this rebellion Henry, for the only time in his life, used mercenaries on English soil. Never again in that country ii 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND did subjects rise against their sovereign until nobles, clergy, and commons were united over a generation later in a great national rising. Henry's Last Years and Death. Across the Channel events did not result so happily. The King of France, the feudal barons, and two of his sons, Richard and John, troubled King Henry to the end of his days. His other sons, Prince Henry and Geoffrey, died in 1183 and 1 1 86 respectively. A chief source of difficulty was the question of the succession. The original plan had been to give Henry England, Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, to Richard Aquitaine, and to Geoffrey Brittany. John was to be made Lord of Ireland, and was sent over to take possession in 1185; but he showed himself absolutely incapable, he affronted the chieftains who came to visit him by pulling their long beards, he squandered on amusements the money which his father gave him, he seized the land of the natives to confer it on un- worthy favorites, and was soon recalled. Still the King cherished his project and the Pope agreed, sending him a crown of peacock's feathers entwined with gold. Brittany was held for Geoffrey's heirdom shortly after the death of his father. Richard succeeded to the pre- tensions of his deceased brother Henry, and refused to yield to John any of his original heritage in Aquitaine. John, thus unprovided for, came to be called "Lackland." In 1188 Richard joined Philip II, who had succeeded as King of France in 1180, and demanded that Henry II recognize his succession and consent to his marriage with Philip's sister Alais, to whom he had been betrothed since childhood. Henry, old, discouraged, and sick, had to consent to their terms. When he found the name of John among those who had joined his enemies, he was heart-broken. Turning on his bed, he muttered, " Now let all things go as they will, I care nor mote for myself, nor for the world." He was taken to Chinon, the place where his eyes had first seen the light, and died within two days, repeating in his last hours, " Shame, shame on a beaten king." It is said that the attendants plundered his apartments and even his corpse, which was only covered from naked- ness by a young man who threw a cloak over it. Henry's Constitutional and Legal Reforms. From this sad end to a still sadder struggle with treacherous and undutiful sons, it is a relief to give a survey of those aspects of Henry's work which have given him deservedly a place among England's greater kings. In spite of its tragic ending, and although he showed lamentable lack of judgment in dealing with his sons, his foreign policy was in one sense successful, for he held his vast possessions intact to the day of his death. But it is in the field of domestic legislation, and preeminently in that of legal reform, that he marked an epoch in progress. His Norman ancestors had begun the work of shaping the law as it exists to-day in the English-speaking world : they had wrought to make it the law of England rather than the law of Kentishmen, Mercians, or West Saxons ; they had wrought to break down or prevent the growth of special privileges, to unify conflicting customs, to introduce trained UAMvw^, THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 115 judges, organize courts, improve methods of procedure ; in short, to construct that system of common law, or law based on custom, usages, and court decision, and the methods of administering it which it has been the work of succeeding centuries to perfect in detail. So Henry II did not originate this work, but he contributed so much toward the process of development that his reign was truly " a critical period in the history of English law." Not only did he undertake far-reaching reforms, but(he determined the momentous fact that the law of the land should be English and not Roman, as was the case in other Euro- pean countries.) The legal and constitutional edifice begun by William I and Henry I was demolished during the anarchy of Stephen's reign, and Henry II had to rebuild practically from the foundations. The Political and Legal Problem. Although Henry II had the interests of his subjects somewhat at heart, his foremost aim was political^ to strengthen the royal powers at the expense of the Church and theThaToris. To this end he reorganized, strengthened, and con- solidated the old courts, established new ones, and, as a means of outbidding his rivals, introduced novel and improved methods of procedure, in criminal and civil causes. As a result, before the close of his reign the King's courts and judges, instead of being exceptional resorts for great men and great causes, had come to exercise, as a matter of course, a vast and steadily increasing jurisdiction. This meant much for the future of English methods. When Henry and his judges began their work, law and procedure were as yet confused, conflicting, and disorganized. Anglo-Saxon law was still administered in the hun- dred and county courts. Aside from private and inadequate compila- tions, the law was practically unwritten, and the Anglo-Norman offi- cials who administered it, even though they might be willing to respect local customs, understood them imperfectly at best. Manorial, borough, and other special courts enjoyed great powers and privileges. Obviously if the royal power continued to increase, it would seek to bring order out of this chaos. If a more logical and uniform system could not be fashioned out of the existing native elements, help might be sought elsewhere. Henry II prevents the Roman Law from becoming the Law of Eng- land. Beyond the Alps just at this time a code, long in disuse, was coming to life again that from its universal character, its logical struc- ture, and its rational arrangement, was admirably suited to meet the needs of the youthful countries of western Europe. This was the law of the old Roman Empire, or Roman law, codified by order of the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century. It was a fusion of the prac- tice and principles of a people of unparalleled legal genius and of un- paralleled administrative experience. Although it had fallen into oblivion during the period of formation of the new Germanic states on the ruins of the Western Empire, the twelfth century witnessed its revival at the recently established University of Bologna. Students began to flock to Italy, and doctors of law gradually made their way to u6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND France, England, and the Germanic Empire. In the reign of Stephen, for example, we find one Vacarius teaching in the household of Arch- bishop Theobald. The same century also marks an epoch in the devel- opment of the canon law, or law of the Church of Rome. Between 1139 and 1142 Gratian published his celebrated codification known as the Decretum. In the thirteenth century the Roman civil law secured a permanent foothold in France, in the fifteenth century we find it domiciled in Germany. Scotland also, to a large degree, took up the new system, but, except in the ecclesiastical and chancery courts, it never obtained any considerable or abiding hold in England. It is due to the work of Henry II that it did not. In other countries no single system existed able to dispute the superior claims of the intru- sive guest. But Henry II, in his efforts to make his authority supreme and absolute, so simplified and unified divergent practices that by the time the Roman law was in a position to make itself felt in the Island, the common law was too widespread and too firmly founded to be supplanted by any alien rival. Henry II brings the Jury System into General Use. The story of how Henry did his work is too long and the details are too involved to be told here. One or two points only can be considered. Henry recog- nized that if his system of justice was to prevail, it behooved him to in- troduce better methods than those already in vogue. His measures witness how completely he outbid his rivals. ^For instance, he brought into general use juries for accusing criminals and for deciding disputed points at law the parents of our modern grand and petty juries) Curiously enough, this bulwark of English liberty, long regarded as an Anglo-Saxon heritage, was of royal and foreign origin. Starting from the inquest, a device of the Frankish Emperors who sent round officials to gather information on the sworn testimony of the communities they visited, the system, much developed on French soil, was brought to England byJWilliani the Conqueror from his Norman home. He and his sons employed it for various purposes, amongother things to get information in judicial cases where the royal interest was involved. At first allowed to privileged subjects as an exceptional favor, Henry extended it to all. We are already familiar with the clumsy methods employed by the Anglo-Saxons to bring criminals to account and to decide questions of disputed ownership. By the ^presentment jury, consisting usually of twelve men from each hundred and four from each adjoining township, criminals were brought to account by men sworn to voice the common report of their vicinage. Inquisition or recognition juries or assizes 1 enabled men to determine their Tights of possession against an intruder by forms of procedure juster and more summary than they had ever before dreamed of. By a decree of his it was first made possible to defend a title by the testi- mony of those who knew the facts of the case, and to avoid the brutal 1 The word "assize" has many meanings: a royal enactment, a form of trial, an early form of jury, a judicial session. THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL POWER 117 and inconclusive trial by combat. Writs were devised *by which such cases could be drawn into the royal courts, which, in spite of their many shortcomings, gave speedier and more impartial hearings than those whose jurisdictions they invaded. The Development of the Jury. It should be borne in mind that Henry's juries were strikingly different from the bodies familiar to us. Members were at first chosen for their knowledge of the facts in the case to be decided, though gradually they came to supplement their personal knowledge by information acquired by a private examination of documents and men not in the panel. The separation of the wit- nesses from the jurors was a process of slow growth, for it w r as not till the fifteenth century that the former came to testify in open court. ^Moreover, the earliest trial juries inquisition or recognition juries, as they were then called dealt only with civil cases/^ In criminal cases the jury introduced by Henry II, and employed under his suc- cessors, was concerned only with the presentment or accusation of offenders whose ultimate fate was still decided by the ordeal. But this form of test practically disappeared when Innocent III, in 1215, forbade the clergy to participate in trials where it was used. So, under Henry III, new juries were introduced to decide on the truth of the facts presented by the accusation jury. Oftentimes, however, the new jury might be the original body of accusers acting in the new capacity. If an accused man were formally condemned by a trial jury, he for- feited his possessions to the State ; otherwise he could only be put to death. It rested with him to say whether he would submit to a jury trial " put himself on his country," as it was called in technical lan- guage. Often a felon, sure of his condemnation, in order to save his goods for his family, would prefer a painful death rather than stand a painful trial. As a means of forcing him the terrible peine forte et dure, only abolished in 1772, was employed. The prisoner was stripped naked, laid on the floor of a dungeon, pressed with heavy weights, and fed on bread and water till he died or submitted. Strange to say, the old forms of procedure remained on the statute book long after they had become practically obsolete ; trial by battle was not abolished till 1819 and compurgation not till 1833. The jury is mentioned in the Constitutions of Clarendon of 1164, but we get more detailed informa- tion concerning it in the Assizes, or royal ordinances of Clarendon and Northampton of 1166 and 1176, respectively. Henry II's Reorganization of the Courts and Administrative Re- forms. Aside from the introduction of the jury into general use, there were many other instances of Henry's legal and administrative activity. (He restored the Curia Regis and Exchequer founded by Henry Ly In 1178 he marked off from the farmer a body of two clerks and three laymen to hear cases in which the Crown was concerned and those of his subjects which were too important for the local courts. This is the parent of the later courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas. Then he marked England anew into circuits and sent out itinerant justices n8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to represent him in the courts of the hundred and shire. He held certain notable inquisitions, or official inquiries, to obtain information on important points. One held in 1 166 aimed to ascertain the amount of military service due from his tenants in chief. Another, in 1170 the Inquisition of Sheriffs undertook to find out what abuses the sheriffs and other officials had been guilty of during the King's four years' absence from England. As a result of this inquiry, fifteen were turned away, probably not only on account of extortion and oppres- sions but because the King wanted to replace them by men more de- voted to his interests. In i i8i,byjiis famous Assize of Arms, he took steps to reorganize the military forces in a more serviceable way by providing that every free subject of the realm should arm himself according to his property. In this way he provided another check on the power of the great territorial lords ; he showed his people that he was to depend upon their services rather than upon mercenaries. It is interesting to notice that in determining each man's liability according to property he made use of the sworn testimony of neighbors. One of the few unpopular measures that can be laid to his door is his severe regulation of the forests. Although really an absolute King, he had the wisdom to summon his Great Council and to issue his most important enactments in their name. In this way he secured the approval of his great tenants in chief by seeming to consult them, and broke down their local differences by associating them together in common efforts. The Revenue. ^As a financier, Henry II was apparently less suc- cessful than in any other branch of his administration ._) He was always on the lookout for money, but he was capricious and often despotic in its collection. He failed to devise any permanent productive system, and it has been estimated that his income was less than that of his grandfather. Certainly it was less adequate to his needs. One source of additional revenue came from the increased royal courts. The old Danegeld ceased to be levied soon after his accession, and in its place he imposed a new tax, known a,s the donumin the counties and the auxilium in the towns. ^Henry^Lhad added another feudal tax known as scutage; it was a tax on each knight's fee, which the King might impose in lieu of military service. Henry II greatly increased the practice because it gave him funds for mercenaries to use in his con- tinental wars. One form of taxation first met in his reign is a tax on irirnrnes and personal property. The first levy of this sort waslmposeH' in 1188. andis known as the Saladin Tithe because it called for a tenth of the revenues and goods oF subjects to assist in the recovery of Jerusalem, captured in the previous year by the great Mohammedan warrior, Saladin. Again the liability of each person assessed was determined by a jury of neighbors. {These juries, employed to repre- sent the community in judicial ana financial business, came, before many years had passed, to be called together in one place to assist the King and Great Council in the government of the realm. With that step parliamentary government beganA IIQ Summary of the Work of Henry II. Such was the work of Henry II. As a ruler of many peoples, French and English, he was able to hold together vast dominions against opposing forces. In England .he achieved great and far-reaching results. He restored, extended, and defined the organs of central government and increased the~powef oTtHe Thrown against the barons and the Church, and instituted a series of legal reforms irom which English-speaking people receive benefit even TcMlay. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay, The Angevin Empire (1903), chs. I-XIV. G. B. Adams, Political History, chs. XII-XVI. Davis, Norman and A ngevin England, chs. VII-IX. Kate Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (1887), I, chs. IX-XI; II, chs. I-VI; a full and interesting narrative. Mrs. J. R. Green, Henry II (1892) ; a good brief account. The Constitutional side of the subject is treated in Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. II, ch. Ill ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. Ill ; Wakeman and Hassall, Constitutional Essays, ch. Ill ; Stubbs, English Constitutional History, I, ch. XII ; and Pollock and Maitland, I, bk. I, chs. V, VI. R. L. Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (1912) ; the most recent and scholarly work on the subject. Refer- ences for further reading same as ch. VI. Selections from the sources: Adams and Stephens, nos. 12-20. THE EARLIER ANGEVIN KINGS, 1154-1272 HENRY II=Eleanor of Guienne, d. 1204, 1154-1189 divorced wife of Louis VII 1 Henry, d. 1183 Richard I, 1189-1199 1 Geoff rey = d. 1186 = Constance of Brit- tany 1 John= "99- 1216 = Isabella of An- goul&me Eleanor Arthur, d. 1203 HENRY 111= 1216-1272 = Eleanor of Provence m Joan, Alexander II of Scotland 1 Eleanor, m. Simon de Montfort Richard, King of the Romans, d. 1271 EDWARD I, 1272-1307 Edmund Crouchback, d. 1295 Margaret, m. Alexander III of Scotland THE KINGS OF SCOTLAND FROM 1153-1286 DAVID I (see p. 106) Henry, Earl of Huntingdon MALCOLM IV, 1153-1165 WILLIAM THE LION, 1166-1214 ALEXANDER 11= Joan, sister of Henry III 12141249 ALEXANDER III, m. Margaret, daughter of Henry III, 1249-1286 133 CHAPTER VIII RICHARD I (1189-1199) AND THE TRANSITION FROM ABSOLUTE TOWARD LIMITED MONARCHY. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY Twofold Nature of Richard's Reign. On 3 September, 1189, Richard, surnamed Coeur de Lion, or the Lion-Hearted, was crowned King of England. He was thirty-two years old and had been recog- nized as Duke of Aquitaine for eighteen years. The third of Henry II's sons, he was the eldest who survived him. " A knight errant " had " succeeded a statesman," but the change was not at first very marked, because, with the exception of a few months, in 1189 and 1194, the new King was absent from England throughout this reign of nearly ten years, and the government was carried on by ministers who sought, in the main, to continue the policy of Henry II. The reign, then, has to be considered from two points of view : one deals with personal exploits and adventures, with his part in the Third Crusade, with his later imprisonment in Europe, his career in France and its dramatic close. The other side relates to points of constitutional advance, notably the growth of the representative principlein the^SYsterrTof administration employed by the central go vermnentTIrr the local centers. His Personal Character. Richard had many faults : he was an undutiful son, he was lavish in expense, unscrupulous in extortion, violent in passion, and had little interest or capacity in problems of statesmanship. But much can be said in his extenuation. He lived in a rude and stormy age, his father, though he loved his sons and sought their advancement, was often both petty and violent in his treatment of them, while from their boyhood they were a prey to the intrigues cf designing persons. Richard, too, had his good impulses and redeem- ing features. He was a " splendid savage " with the virtues and vices of the medieval hero. He was warm-hearted, generous, and forgiving toward his enemies, particularly to his younger brother John, even though he was moved as much by contempt as by Christian precept. Then much of the money which he squeezed from subjects he devoted, not to his personal use, but to a cause that was regarded as the highest in which men could engage, the winning of the Holy City from the enemies of Christ. " What more can kings desire," sang a troubadour of the time, " than the right to sa.ve themselves from Hell flames by puissant deeds of arms." As a general, both in the tactics of a partic- THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 121 ular battle and in the strategy of a campaign, he was regarded as the genius of his age. In spite of his knightly figure, he was two inches over six feet, lithe and graceful, in spite of his courage and warlike temperament, he was nervously organized and not robust in health. His romantic nature, his fondness for poetry and music, mark him as a Frenchman rather than an Englishman. A troubadour, Bertrand de Born, gave him the name " Yea and Nay," but his code of good faith was as high as the standard of the times. Beginning of the Reign. Coronation and Massacre of the Jews. In the settlement following Henry IPs death he forgave and took into favor those who had adhered to Henry, while those who had taken his own side of the quarrel had their estates confiscated for dis- loyalty. In an interview with Philip II of France the two monarchs pledged themselves to start for the Holy Land in Lent of the coming year. Richard's coronation, a magnificent affair, was marred by a cruel massacre of the Jews, who had come to London to present the King with gifts. The massacre spread to other parts of the realm, that at York being particularly atrocious. The movement against the Jews, inspired by hatred of their extortion and by the superstitious zeal awakened by the pending crusade, was joined by that class of violent and disorderly persons who are always seeking a chance for plunder and bloodshed. Richard's Departure for the Third Crusajjfi. Richard began at once after his coronation to raise" funds for the Crusade and to provide for the government during his absence. The faithful Glanville was allowed to resign, if he was not actually deprived of the Justiciarship, and had to pay a large sum of money into the bargain. His office was acquired not long after by William Longchamp, whom Richard had first chosen to be Chancellor and Bishop of Ely. He was ugly, stunted, and lame, but able, industrious, and thoroughly devoted to his master's interests. Securing a commission as papal legate, he became as pow- erful in spiritual as in temporal affairs. But he stood almost alone in representing the interests of Richard, who made the mistake of leaving John and his half-brother Geoffrey, both bitter enemies, in Normandy. They soon crossed to England and caused him endless trouble. On the other hand, he took with him some of his most trustworthy servants, Glanville, Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hubert Walter, destined to play a leading role in this and the subsequent reign. Then Richard sold everything he could, offices, lands, privileges, and favors. Some men paid to resign offices, others to acquire them. He announced that he would sell London if he could get a purchaser. He excused men from accompanying him on the crusade in return for money pay- ments, and even sold back to William the Lion of Scotland the con- cessions that old Henry had wrung from him at Falaise. Richard crossed to France in December, 1189. It was a formidable task which be and Philip had undertaken. Practically all the strongholds of Palestine were in the hands of Saladin (or Salah-ed-din, " honor to the 122 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND faith "), the powerful ruler of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Fred- erick Barbarossa, Emperor of the Germans, had already lost his life in the cause. Proceeding by the way of the Mediterranean from Marseilles, Richard was delayed in Sicily and again at Cyprus, and did not reach the scene of the righting until June of 1191. The French King had arrived before him. Although they both succumbed to sickness, they managed to secure possession of Acre in July. Shortly after Philip returned home. He made his illness the pretext, but he was already alienated from Richard, who had thrown over his sister Alais and married Berengaria of Navarre. More particularly, he was anxious to look after his affairs at home. With his other allies the English King marched on Jerusalem and twice managed to get within striking distance of the city. But the exhausting march, the heat, the dearth of supplies, and the persistent harassing of the enemy had sadly reduced the Christian forces, while the commanders were at odds among themselves. Much against Richard's will they turned back. As he faced the city for the last time he is said to have covered his face with his shield, declaring that he was unworthy to look upon the holy place which he was unable to recover. Treachery of John. Expulsion of Longchamp. Meantime, very disquieting news arrived from England where John, shortly after his landing, had become involved in difficulties culminating in open war with the royal representative. For a time things went his way. In October, 1191, he brought the Great Council together ; they proceeded to depose Longchamp and to declare John heir to the throne, in the event of Richard's death without issue. The motives leading up to the struggle were petty and personal, but the results were important. While the dismissal of the Justiciar, who had made himself very un- popular during his master's absence, does not mark the first step in the direction of ministerial responsibility, the act certainly added to the Council's prestige. Further, the citizens of London, in return for aiding the victorious party, apparently received a recognition of their " commune," involving considerable rights of self-government. And, finally, the Church was encouraged to revive its claims to free canonical election. Philip, after his return, sought further to embroil the situa- tion by offering to John Richard's continental possessions ; but John's mother, Eleanor, induced him to reject the seductive proposal. Capture and Imprisonment of Richard. Richard, after his retreat from Jerusalem, succeeded in capturing a caravan train from Egypt and in relieving Joppa hard beset by the Saracens. Then he fell ill of a fever, Saladin chivalrously sending him snow and fruit to soothe his suffering. After his recovery he arranged a truce for three years by which the Christians retained the coast from Acre to Joppa and the right of visiting the holy places. In October, 1192, he left Pales- tine, never to return again. On his voyage home he landed near the head of the Adriatic, and as he wandered through the territories of Leopold of Austria whose enmity he had incurred at Acre, he was THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 123 taken prisoner. It is said that he was recognized when his servant offered gold bezants for food. Leopold was forced to hand him over to the Emperor, Henry VI, who, besides itching for ransom, nursed a number of grievances against the English King. Philip and John were overjoyed at the capture ; but the prospect of a ransom of 150,000 marks and Richard's promise to do homage for England and his other lands induced the Emperor to agree to his release. There seems to be little basis for the beautiful story of his discovery in captivity by his favorite minstrel Blondel. In April of 1193 the Queen mother and the Justiciar, Walter of Coutances, 1 began to collect the money for the ransom ; they demanded an aid from clergy and laity of one fourth of rents and movables without exemption even of church plate. Orders like the Cistercians who had no plate had to give wool instead. Richard in England, March to May, 1194. John and Philip were baffled in their efforts to prolong Richard's captivity and seize his kingdom, for the ransom was paid. Though Richard was received with greatest enthusiasm by his subjects, he only remained in the coun- try from March to May, 1194, and employed most of his time in selling again the offices and honors already sold to provide for the Third Cru- sade. Disloyalty furnished him a good pretext, but he spared the lands of John, and when his brother crawled at his feet, told him he was but a child who had been ill-advised, and gave him a good dinner. ^ In addition to sales and confiscations, Richard levied heavy taxes to carry on a war of revenge against Philip, and departed never to return again.) The Administration of Hubert Walter, 1194-1198. For the next four years the Government was in the hands of Hubert Walter, Arch- bishop of Canterbury and successor of Walter of Coutances_as lusticiarT llewas a nephew 1)1 the great Glanville and had been trained in the methods of Henry II. Intrusted with the task of keeping order and supplying Richard's constant demands for money, the credit for the constitutional and administrative progress of the period is due to him. Like so many of the notable prelates of the next four centuries, he was primarily secular in his interests. Lavish, and even charged with extortion and avarice, he dicTmuch to conciliate the middle classes, to give the small landowner a share in the management of the shires, to extend the jury system and make it more representative, and to confer self-government on important towns. 2 His instructions to the itinerant justices in 1194 and in 1198 introduced important reforms. The justices in 1194 were ordered to provide for the election, in each shire, of four crowners or coroners to decide what were Crown pleas, and to reserve them for the royal judges. The suitors, or those en- 1 The successor of Longchamp. 2 In 1194 a charter, the oldest surviving, was granted to Lincoln, allowing the citizens to elect their own magistrates. In this same year, and_ again in 1199, a charter was granted to London : in neither is the commune mentioned which John conceded in 1191, but the citizens apparently kept their mayor; for Magna Carta in 1215 confirms their right to elect such an official. 124 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND titled to attend the county court, were to be the electors. The Arti- cles of the Eyre of this year, together with those of 1198, provided that the presentment juries hitherto appointed by the sheriff should be se- lected by four knights chosen in the county court. Moreover, these juries who formerly confined their activities to criminal accusations, were instructed to investigate and report on all sorts of royal business. In 1195 Hubert issued an order that every one over fifteen years of age should take an oath to keep the peace before knights appointed to act as custodians of the peace ; as yet these knights had no judicial power, but they were predecessors of the later justices of the peace who came to play such an important part in English history. Most of the Justiciar's other measures were not so successful. He tried, for instance, to introduce a uniform system of weights and measures and to prevent the frauds of cloth workers and cloth merchants. In 1197 Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, refused, in a Great Council, to contribute to a sum to equip three hundred knights to serve abroad for a year. There was no substantial ground for Hugh's action, knights were sup- posed to serve for forty days, and this was merely asking for a less number for a larger period, which amounted to the same thing. But the King and Justiciar had to bow to public opinion, and a precedent of successful resistance to an unpopular tax was established. In 1198 a carucage of five shillings a carucate was levied. 1 In this case the juries of assessment were elected in the county court. Meanwhile, in 1196, Hubert Walter had to deal with a demonstration in London led by William Fitz Osbert, or " Longbeard," described as an advocate of the poor. Mad with zeal for justice, in his position of alderman he at- tacked his colleagues for favoring the rich at the expense of the lesser sort. Alarmed at his agitation, they charged him in their turn with sedition and a conspiracy to sack the houses of the wealthy. He took sanctuary in the Bow Church, but Hubert Walter smoked him out by setting the church on fire, and dragged him to Tyburn gallows at a horse's tail. The monks of Canterbury, who owned the church, complained to the Pope charging the Justiciar with sacrilege. Inno- cent III demanded that he give up his secular office, and Richard I, incensed at the successful resistance of Hugh of Lincoln and be- cause the carucage of 1198 did not bring in a more satisfactory revenue, agreed to remove him. Hubert Walter was succeeded by Geoffrey Fitzpeter in the office of Justiciar ; but he reappeared again as Chan- cellor in the next reign. Richard's Death, 1199. Results of the Reign. Richard spent his few remaining years fighting King Philip of France. It was in the course of these wars, mainly over boundaries, that he built his famous Chateau Gaillard, a " Saucy Castle," on the Seine. In 1199 he was mortally wounded by the bolt of a crossbow while besieging the Castle 1 This comparatively new tax stood in place of the old Danegeld and could be more exactly calculated. A carucate was the amount of land which an eight-ox team could plough in a single season and was estimated at 100 acres. THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 125 of Chaluz belonging to his vassal the Viscount of Limoges. A peasant plowing the land of the Viscount had turned up a golden ornament to which Richard as overlord laid claim. The archer who had wounded him was brought before the dying King. " It is thou," said he, " who didst slay my father and my brothers, now slay me also. I do not fear thy tortures." The chivalrous King pardoned him, but he was afterwards, by the order of the King's sister, mutilated, flayed, and torn asunder by wild horses. Richard's worst traits, his hot tem- per and his avarice, grew on him in his later years. 1 The charge that he constantly neglected English interests for those beyond the seas can to some extent be met. While the highest religious ideals of the age prompted him to go on the Third Crusade, reasons, likewise of weight from the contemporary standpoint, determined the wars with France. He regarded his French possessions as an essential part of his kingdom. Commercially they might have been of as much value in French as in English hands ; but they yielded large revenues to their overlord ; and Richard could not see, any more than his successors could see, that they were a source of weakness rather than strength to England. CYet the wars which he waged abroad contributed to English constitutional development, the need of money developed the machinery of represen- tation, and at the same time awakened forces of opposition which later made use of this machinery against the Crown.^ The Secular Character of the Period of Henry II and His Sons. Perhaps the most striking feature of the age of Henry II and his sons is its worldly or secular character. The death of Becket brought to an abrupt pause an intellectual and moral revival which, under the influence of the higher clergy and the monks, had shown its force as early as the reign of Henry I. Some scientists there were, like the learned Adelhard of Bath who had translated Euclid, and written a work on the Causes of Things (De Rerun Causis), and like Robert of Crickland, who abridged Pliny's Natural History. But science was mainly subordinated to theology and, for that reason, made little progress. Partly owing to the number of quacks, notably in medicine and astrology, but most of all because of the superstition of the age, men of science were under suspicion and justified their pursuit of for- bidden knowledge by curious apologies, generally to the effect that it aided in the comprehension of theological subjects. One plea is unique: " Science is useful in this vale of misery because it teaches us to live rightly in the midst of this perverse and wicked generation." At first, too, classical scholars had to take an apologetic attitude; we are told that " even in the classics there were thoughts which de- served the attention of the serious mind." But although Paris and Chart'res were centers of classical learning, and John of Salisbury, the foremost scholar of his time, was an enthusiast on the subject, it 1 Fulk de Neuilly once bade him give in marriage his three evil daughters, pride, avarice, and luxury. He replied with biting wit that he would give his pride to the Templars, his avarice to the Cistercians, and his luxury to the bishops. 126 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND had to yield the palm to law and logic. English schools were founded slowly and were mostly connected with cathedrals, monasteries, and parish churches. Chief among these latter was that which Archbishop Theobald gathered about him at Canterbury. Here were gathered together a circle of young men of promising legal and political talent. Thomas Becket was of course the most famous of them all, but John of Salisbury was the finest scholarly product. His Policraticus or Statesmen's Guide Book deals primarily with principles of govern- ment and philosophy; but many digressions make it practically an encyclopedia. Having incurred Henry's anger, he left the country and in 1176 was made Bishop of Chartres. It was Theobald who in- troduced the study of the civil law into England; he brought over Vacarius, who was silenced by Stephen. Learning at Henry II' s Court. In spite of the materialistic and bigoted character of the age, Henry II and many of his family were well-educated, alert, and interested in learning. This is true even of John, the blackest -of the dark sheep ; for the story that he got this reputation from having once borrowed a book of the Abbot of St. Albans is unjust. Many learned men, though more particularly his- torians and legal scholars, surrounded the King. There was much intercourse with foreign countries, diplomatic, ecclesiastical, and scholarly. Many letters have survived to attest this. While they contain much news, they are, unfortunately, polished and conventional rather than gossipy and spontaneous. Decline in Moral and Religious Enthusiasm. The number of lettered laymen in the royal service was greater than ever before. (Yet the clergy continued to manifest more interest in law, politics, and administration than in the pursuits proper to their sacred calling. The same mundane spirit was manifest in the country at large. The monastic revival was beginning to spend its force.) Even during the stormy nineteen years of Stephen's reign, one huncfred and fifteen reli- gious nouses had been founded ; during the thirty-five years that Henry II ruled, there were only one hundred and thirteen. This decrease in the number of new foundations w r as accompanied by a decline in morals and religious fervor. The Cistercians, for example, were accused of pride and avarice, sins perhaps more lamentable than the more customary monastic failings, sloth and gluttony. One or two efforts, at least, to extend canonical rules of life and to widen the area of reli- gious education failed. Such standards as existed were rather revivals from the past. The Carthusians, who were striving for re- form on the Continent, only came to England in the last years of Henry II, and their houses were few and unimportant. Legal and Historical Writing. As one might expect, the writings of the period were mainly of a legal and historical character. In the reign of Henry II appeared a Treatise concerning the Laws and Cus- toms of the Kingdom of England, notable as the first systematic treat- ment of the subject ever produced in the country. It was formerly THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 127 ascribed to Henry's great Justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville, though it is quite possible that the author was his nephew Hubert Walter. While historical writing was at a standstill during the first half of the reign, the murder of Thomas Becket called forth no less than ten biographies of the martyr. In 1172 began the so-called " Chronicle of Benedict of Peterborough " entitled the Acts of King Henry and King Richard. It was probably written by Richard Fitzneal, Treasurer, and Bishop of London, to whom we owe the Dialogue of the Exchequer, describing the organization and procedure of that celebrated financial body. The Acts of King Henry, and its continuation by Roger of Hoveden form the most valuable record of this period. This and the other late twelfth century chronicles differ greatly from the earlier ones : they are annals, bare notes of events ; but they are written by men in the midst of affairs, busy statesmen and diplomats, and not by solitary monks. Then they reach out beyond the boundaries of England and deal with what is going on in Europe and with the Orient which the Crusades had opened to western Christendom. However, there is one striking exception. The only work that is really historical, that tries- to grasp events and to interpret their meaning, William of Newburgh's History of English Affairs, was the production of a canon in a remote and lonely Augustiman L priory in Yorkshire. His comments on the men and affairs of his time are marked by excellent judgment. More- over, he was the first tojienounce the mass of fable which that unblush-^ ing romancer Geoffrev'oTMonmouth passed off as history, a fact which has led a learned scholar to name him "the father of historical criticism." Walter Map and Giraldus Cambrensis. Two writers who throw vivid lights on the conditions in which they lived were Walter Map and Gerald de Barri. The former was a versatile, many-sided man of great learning. His only surviving work, Courtiers 1 Triflings, is an interesting scrapbook on all sorts of subjects with the dominating aim of satirizing the Church and clergy and the follies and vices of the court, as John of Salisbury had, with a more thundering voice, de- nounced them in his Statesmen'' s Guide Book some years before. Gerald de Barri, or Gerald the Welshman (Giraldus Cambrensis) as he is more commonly called, wrote a valuable and lively account of the conquest of Ireland, as well as topographical descriptions both of that country and of his native Wales. Although his works on Ireland are manifestly hostile to the natives and full of wild and horrible tales, they are one of the few historical sources for the period. Gerald pro- duced various other vivacious and racy works on many subjects, and has been called the " father of English popular literature." These works were all in Latin. First in the reign of John, Layamon, a simple Worcestershire priest, in his Brut^or legendary history of B*rutus and Britain, set himself " to tell the noble deeds of Englishmen " in the English tongue. This was the first seed of a noble national literary revival which came to fruition in Chaucer's immortal Canterbury Tales two centuries later. 128 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Rise of the Universities. land's oldest and best known seat "prominence, although it was not formally knnwrf a.* a. " University " till the reign of his grandson jlenrv II \ f One of the most notable fea- tures of the twelfth century is the rise of ihe universities. The earliest teachers, in England as elsewhere, were in schools attached to monas- teries, cathedrals, and occasionally to a royal court. Gradually, how- ever, groups of students began to gather in this place or that to hear some man famous for learning or eloquence. As time went on, groups, sometimes of masters, sometimes of scholars, organized themselves into corporations or gilds called universities. Originally meaning any body of men in a collective capacity, the term uniiiersitas came at length to be restricted to those combined together for learning or teaching. The aim of such organizations was to regulate conditions of membership and methods of instruction. At Bologna, the uni- versitas was one of scholars, at Paris it was composed of masters. The University of Oxford traces its origin to an expulsion of English .students from Paris about 1167^ There had been teachers at Oxford before this date, but they had taught merely in a private capacity. 1 In 1 1 86, Giraldus, who read his Topography of Ireland to the students of Oxford, speaks of doctors of different faculties and of scholars of various ranks, rich and poor. In 1192, it is said that the clerks were so nu- merous that the city could scarcely hold them. At Cambridge, too, there are evidences in the twelfth century of teaching given in con- nection with religious foundations. The University proper seems to owe its origin to one of the town and gown conflicts common in early times, which led to a migration from Oxford in 1 209, though it was not till 1318 that the younger institution secured formal recognition. Conditions at the Universities. The conditions were at first very primitive. The students lodged with the townsmen, and the masters lectured wherever they could, sometimes in the open air with their classes sitting about them on the bare ground. During the course of the thirteenth century houses began to be established for communities of poor scholars. These have developed into the modern colleges with organized bodies of masters, fellows, and scholars. Studies were grouped under various heads liberal arts, theology, law, and in some universities medicine, each with its faculty or recognized hier- archy of teachers and governors. The faculty of arts gave instruction in the seven liberal arts, divided into ihetriyium., which included grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, and the cjnadrimum including geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Growth of Towns since the Conquest. The progress of boroughs and cities'was marked by new and important stages during the reign of the sons of Henry II. It should be recalled that, while their origin 1 The story that the famous canonist Vacarius, whom Theobald called in and whom Stephen silenced, lectured there rests on no adequate evidence. He prob- ably taught at Canterbury. THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 129 is obscure and by no means uniform, already before the Conquest they were distinguished by certain well-recognized characteristics : they were walled ; they were under a special peace ; they enjoyed cer- tain market rights ; and they paid a lump sum known as firma burgi (or farm of the borough) in place of the dues and taxes customarily collected by the sheriff. While the Conquest subjected them to in- creasing oppressions and exactions, the greater prosperity which it brought in its train, from wider markets and the advent of foreign traders, enabled them to purchase protection and privileges from kings strong enough to maintain them. The concessions thus secured were recorded in charters which either confirmed old liberties and privi- leges or conceded new ones. Those to London were the rrtost impor- tant and were much in advance of the others, for which they serve to a large extent as models. William I's grant to London, though in legal form, was not, strictly speaking, a charter ; it was little more than a promise in general terms that the liberties and property of the city should not be disturbed. Henry I, however, in 1 100, granted a charter containing distinct concessions ; in return for 300 a year he aban- doned all revenues from Middlesex, in other words the farm of the county; he allowed the citizens to appoint their sheriff and to hold their court ; he exempted them from trial by battle, from special tolls and exactions as well as from a number of general imposts ; and fines, or amercements, were limited in amount. No notable gains came under Henry II. He granted many charters ; but as a rule they did nothing more than confirm liberties enjoyed in his grandfather's time. He was jealous of the growth of any jurisdiction that might lessen the power and revenues of the central government ; while he had no need, as his neighbors the French kings had, to nurse the growth of the municipalities as a counterpoise to the feudal nobles. Nay, more, certain instances occur where he caused men to be fined for setting up organizations to control local government or trade without a royal license. The reign of Richard I, however, marked a distinct stage in the progress of English municipal autonomy. In the first seven years of his reign no less than nine charters were granted. The main aim was doubtlessTo get mr>npy } though some see in his policy an intelligent recognition of the signs of the times. Perhaps the most interesting concession was one in which he had no part. It was made to London by John and Walter of Coutances, in 1191, to secure the aid of the City against William Longchamp. It took the form of the grant of a commune, or communa, an organization well known in France but as yet new to England. (^A. commune in the general sense meant any union for the advance of civic liberties ; in the special sense it means a collective feudal person, a corporate organization with the legal position and independence of a feudal vassap Whether London was granted a commune in the restricted sense, on the French model, has never been determined. If so, the organization did not survive long into the thirteenth century. It was not confirmed by Richard, nor i 3 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND by John himself, until the barons inserted a clause on the subject in Magna Carta. But that clause was included in subsequent reissues of the Great Charter. The right to have a mayor, however, dates from 1191. Henry FitzAylwine, the first mayor, held office for life. By Magna Carta the right ~ol annual election was conceded. In the Lord Mayor, the board of aldermen, and the common council subse- quently added, the government of the city is vested to-day. The Gilds. Side by side with the municipal governments other organizations grew up with the primary aim of controlling commerce, trade, and industry. These gilds, as they were called, were in the orig- inal medieval sense private voluntary societies for mutual help and pleasure. {Some were merely social or religious in character^ The gilds merchant, the aim of which was to further the trading privileges of members and to exclude from competition all non-members, _date from_t]ie eleventh century and became very numerous in the twelfth. In course ^oTtime these gilds merchant came to control a larger num- ber of the town governments, and even in many cases to take their place. They were wealthy and exclusive bodies ; it was this fact that led the handicraftsmen, according to a widely accepted view, to or- ganize associations of their own known as craft gilds. The earliest known body of this sort is that of the weavers, who received a charter from Henry I. In the course of the twelfth, and the following century, the bakers, the fullers, the grocers, the butchers, the clothiers, and many other mysteries or crafts came to have their separate organiza- tions. The central government and the municipal authorities seem to have looked on their growth with some disfavor, or were, at least, very jealous in guarding their rights of granting them licenses. Henry II imposed fines on no less than eighteen adulterine or unlicensed crafts in a single year ; though if they paid their fines, he made no at- tempt to disturb them. John was more shifty. In 1201 the citizens of London bought from him the privilege of turning out the weaver's gild. Having received the money, he turned to the weavers and got them to pay him to take them under the royal protection, thus nullify- ing the privilege which he had just sold. It would seem that the oppo- sition existing between the aristocratic merchants and the humbler craftsmen has been exaggerated. At any rate, a common motive of the latter in organizing craft gilds was not so much hostility to the gilds merchant as a desire to raise their own standards of production and conditions of labor. London never had a gild merchant ; but her craft gilds grew in wealth and importance, and, under the name of livery companies, both craftsmen and merchants came to take an im- portant share in the government of the city. Markets and Fairs. Foreign Trade. Growth of London. With the growth of trade and industry there was also an increase in the number of markets where local products were disposed of, and of fairs, held at less frequent intervals, to which people, foreigners as well as natives, came from, far and near to buy and sell. Naturally, there was THE CLOSE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY 131 much rivalry between neighboring markets, involving disputes as to their respective rights. Some were settled peaceably, in other cases the contending parties resorted to club law. An amusing encounter took place in 1201 when the brothers of St. Edmunds at Bury came with six hundred armed men to Lakenheath, where their rivals, the monks of Ely, had set up a market. Their prior was so frightened that he " would not come out of his house " to prevent the seizure of his goods which he only recovered later through the Exchequer. There was also rivalry between the great seaports, between Bristol and Chester, for instance, for the control of the trade of Dublin. London at this time was steadily increasing its trade relations with the merchant cities of northern Germany and the low countries. In 1194 Richard, supplementing an earlier concession of Henry II, granted to the citizens of Cologne a gild hall in the city, and probably the hall, known from the fourteenth century as the Steelyard, 1 which came to be the headquarters of the Hanseatic merchants, dates from this period. With the extension of trade and the increase of wealth con- siderable building was undertaken. The_first English " building act 4 " in the form of an ordinance of the London Council T was promulgated in 1212. It is very striking for its precautions against fire. Wooden 'houses^ were to be replaced by stone^at dangerous points such as the market place. Thenceforth no thatched roofs were to be allowed, only tiles, wooden shingles, and lead might be usedl A tub of wafer musFrje placed before each building, and cooks and bakers might not work at night. About the same time, the wooden bridge across the Thames was burned and was rebuilt of stone. Rural Life. Among the rural classes the customary services seem to have grown lighter than in the period immediately following the Conquest, and (the tendency is more marked to substitute rents in money and kind in their place^ If these rents are somewhat heavier than in the past, it was due to the fact that the tillers of the soil were beginning to share in the general prosperity. Even at that, some pay- ments were successfully resisted, as when the cellarer and the men of the Abbot of Bury had to give up a forcible attempt to collect reap- silver, by a body of old women who berated them with hard words and threatened them with saucepans. Some villeins rose from the ranks, like the great scholar Grosseteste, who, a generation or two later, became Bishop of Lincoln. In general, however, the lot of the villein was a hard one, and there was ordinarily little hope of bettering it. It is only occasionally that one hears of a mild, generous landlord like St. Hugh of Lincoln. (The Assize of Clarendon contains a pro- vision to prevent serfs from taking orders, while the Franciscan friars who came to England early in the reign of Henry III were forbidden by their rules to admit them.) They were occasionally sold apart from the land as late as the thirteenth century. Toward the end of 1 It got its name from the fact that here cloth was marked with a leaden seal to show that it was properly dyed. i 3 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the twelfth it is recorded that the Canons of Osney bought one man for twenty shillings, another for four pounds and a horse. Leprosy and skin diseases prevailed. Lack of drainage and ventilation, the diffi- culty of communication, alicf the necessity of living on safted fish and meats made the winters in the rural districts cheerless and unhealthy. In spite of hard conditions, Henry II and the ministers who carried on his work had wrought well ; their administration and judidal__re- forms, aided by-time, had welded Saxon and Norman into a united English peopleT By their foreign policy the King andTus son Richard Tiad~secured for England a recognized place among the powers of Eu- rope. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay, Angevin Empire, chs. XV-XXII. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, chs. XI, XII. Adams, Political History, chs. XVII, XVIII. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, chs. VII-IX. Stubbs, Historical Introduction to the Rolls Series (ed. Arthur Hassall, 1902). This volume, made up of Bishop Stubbs' introduction to certain of the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain, commonly known as the "Rolls Series," embodies some of the soundest work on the period. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. II, ch. IV, sec. 3. Taswell- Langmead, ch. III. Social and intellectual conditions. Traill, Social England, I, ch. III. Norgate, II, ch. II. Stubbs, Lectures on Medieval and Modern History (1900), VI, VII ; two brilliant and learned lectures on "Learning and Literature at the Court of Henry II. " Bateson, Medieval England, pt. II. The standard work on the universities is H. Rashdall, The Universities of the Middle Ages (2 vols., 1895) ; II, pt. II, is devoted to the English universities to 1500, with particular reference to Oxford. For a brief account of the origin and development of boroughs see D. J. Medley, Manual of English Constitutional History (3d ed., 1902, sec. 61). The Church. Wakeman, chs. VI, VII. W. R. W. Stephens, ch. X. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, no. 21. CHAPTER IX THE REIGN OF JOHN (1199-1216). THE LOSS OF NORMANDY, THE QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH, THE BARONIAL REVOLT AND MAGNA CARTA Reign of John and Henry III. In 1199, after years of intrigue against his brother Richard and against Richard's next lineal heir, Arthur, son of Geoffrey, John at length attained the crown. ^His^ reign and that of his son, Henry III, mark the most important consti- tutional crisis in England's history. Ever since William the Norman " overcame the Saxon Harold, the monarchy, save for a temporary lapse under Stephen, had been marching along the road of absolutism. In spite of Richard's absenteeism and greed, in spite of the forces of oppo- sition which were silently shaping themselves against the royal power, his able ministers were apparently maintaining it as strong as Henry II had left it. The King's Courts were supreme over all others, the sovereign drew his revenues both from feudal dues and national taxes, and commanded the military services of feudal vassals as well as of subjects. The people, as a whole, still preferred the rule of a strong if exacting sovereign to the manifold and capricious exactions of many lords. It looked as if the thirteenth century might witness a growth- in the same direction which had been so marked in the twelfth. Yet John was not long on the throne before a storm arose which nearly shook him from his seat, a storm which continued to rage at intervals through the following reign. The barons who led the fight failed in their effort to transfer the balance of power from the Crown to their own body. Nevertheless the result was momentous. /John's grand- son, Edward I, found it necessary to recognize limitations to the royal power which transformed an absolute into a constitutional monarchy.} Moreover, during the course of the struggle an_organization came into being that was gradually to voice the will of the nation in such limita^ tions, sharing in the government and ultimately controllingjt. T?his__ was the English Parliament. ~ The actors in the great movement were not consciously contending for what they brought about. The 'battle, or series of battles, was fought on specific issues, and many of the men who led the attack against John and his son were petty or even selfish in their aims. Al- though the people suffered, and joined in the resistance, the leaders were the barons and the bishops aiming to safeguard their rights, chiefly feudal, recognized by coronation oaths and conceded and de- i33 134 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND rived by grants of successive sovereigns, notably by the famous charter of Henry I. The chief responsibility for precipitating the crisis must be laid at the door of King John. A mere baronial move- ment might not have been formidable, as past experience had proved. But John^by his lack of foresight, his cruelty, oppression, and vicious- ness, managed to antagonize all three classes of his subjects, and, by uniting the opposition, to insure its triumph. His son, a more worthy man, by his arbitrariness, his extravagance, and his favor to foreigners, reanimated the opposition and widened the breach. To some degree circumstances, rather than either John or Henry, were to blame; the existing sources of supply were inadequate to meet the growing needs of the State, and in order to secure sufficient revenues it was necessary to demand more than the customary services and taxes, a demand that was bound to be resisted. To increase the revenues .and meet the inevitable discontent, to mold the representatives of the subjects as willing instruments of the royal will, would have been a difficult problem for any ruler. Character of John. Contemporary writers were nearly unani- mous in their denunciation of John. To Matthew of Paris " he was a tyrant rather than a king, a destroyer rather than a ruler, an oppressor of his own and a favorer of strangers, a lion to his subjects, a lamb to his enemies and foreigners." William of Newburgh described him as " nature's enemy," while Giraldus Cambrensis declared " that of all tyrants of history " he " was the very worst." Truly he was " burden- some to rich and poor." There was no truth or sincerity in him. He was a " mean reproduction of all the vices of his ancestors, with many others besides," and " through thirty years of public life, we search in vain for any good deed, one kindly act to set against his countless off endings." A younger son, greedy of lands and power, he plotted against his father and against his brother. He was ungrateful to them and to the ministers who faithfully served him. One glaring case among many occurred in 1209, when he allowed William Marshall to swear allegiance to the King of France and then tried to bring him to judgment for treason. He was cruel, too, beyond measure. He had the archdeacon of Norwich seized, loaded with chains, and crushed beneath a cope of lead for warning men against serving him when he was excommunicated by the Pope. He is said to have wrung 10,000 marks from a rich Jew of Bristol by causing a tooth to be drawn every day until the unfortunate man yielded at the end of a week. John was subject to attacks of rage when, it was said, he was so con- torted with fury that he could scarcely be recognized. When forced to concede Magna Carta, though'he appeared gay and smiling in public, when he was alone " he gnashed his teeth, rolled his eyes, caught up sticks and straws, and gnawed them like a wild man." He was fond of the pleasures of the chase and excessive in his forest exactions. He was very extravagant and self-indulgent, he gambled heavily, he adorned himself with jewels and fine clothes, he loved rich wines and THE REIGN OF JOHN 135 costly meats. He led a sinful life and sought to atone for it by alms- giving. Some kings in history, equally immoral personally, have ruled ably and well. He manifested an ill-timed levity on solemn occasions and was often strangely apathetic at crises. This gained him the title of " John Softsword." When the French were despoiling his terri- tories in the winter of 1202 he kept the Christmas season " faring sump- tuously every day and prolonging his slumbers till dinner-time." Yet he was personally brave and not unskilled in arms. At times he showed a certain fitful energy, and was possessed of a certain low cun- ning. But his lack of foresight, his neglect of opportunity, and his rashness led him to situations, political, diplomatic, and military, which almost invariably ended in defeat. The historian Qreen's characterization of him as " the most able and ruthless of the Ange- vins " cannot be sustained. The Three Critical Events of John's Reign. Many circumstances combined to assist John in attaining the throne. He was thirty-two years old, in the prime of his manhood. Arthur was a boy of twelve, and, more than once, a child had been passed over in favor of a mature member of the royal family. Moreover, Richard had designated John as his successor. The three leading Englishmen of the time, Hubert Walter, Geoffrey Fitzpeter, and William Marshall, as well as his mother Eleanor, lent him the personal weight of their support, and England, Normandy, and Aquitaine declared for him. On Ascension Day, 27 May, 1199, he was crowned at Westminster Abbey by Arch- bishop Hubert Walter. Within a few months Arthur was obliged to do homage, and Maine and Anjou, which had hitherto held out for him, recognized John as lord. But a combination of impolicy and mis- haps soon plunged the new King into difficulties. Three successive crises mark the remainder of the reign. First, in a struggle with Arthur, backed by Philip of France, though he was able to dispose of his nephew, he lost all his continental possessions except Aquitaine. Next, in a conflict with the Papacy he ended by making a complete submission to Rome. Finally, a series of breaches with his subjects came to a head in a great combination of all classes headed by the barons which resulted in the great charter of liberties known as Magna Carta. I. The French War and the Loss of Normandy. Even after John had been recognized as King the situation across the Channel was fraught with menace. Arthur had submitted, but he was still not without supporters. Philip Augustus, one of the most astute kings who ever ruled France, wanted to extend his power at John's expense and was quite ready to use the claims of his rival as a pretext. Moreover, there was a growing sentiment in parts of northern France against continuing under English rule. In the face of all this, John committed the first of a series of blunders which led to the triumph of Philip. In the year 1200 he divorced his wife Isabel (sometimes called Avice) of Gloucester and married Isabel of Angouleme. By this act he antagonized not only the powerful family of his discarded i 3 6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND wife, but a large section of the Poitevin nobles as well ; for the new Isabel had been betrothed to Guy of Lusignan, one of their number. In order to anticipate any resistance from the family of Guy, John seized some of their castles, charged their supporters with treason, and offered to fight them with hired champions. The Lusignans appealed to Philip, who, early in 1202, summoned John to appear be- fore a court of his peers at Paris. On his disregard of the summons, Philip declared his fiefs forfeited, and proceeded to make war on his Norman possessions. Intending to keep Normandy for himself, he invested Arthur with Brittany, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. John in one of his spasmodic bursts of energy captured his nephew while he was impiously besieging his aged grandmother in the castle of Mire- beau in Poitou. After Hubert de Burgh refused to obey the King's order to put out the eyes of the young prisoner, John, so the story goes, came in person to the castle of Rouen, whither Arthur had been re- . moved, and had him stabbed and thrown into the Seine, April, 1203. Whether true or not, Arthur disappeared and rumor attributed the crime to John. Without formally charging him with the murder of his nephew, Philip continued the war with added vigor. One by one, John's strongholds opened their gates to him, and, one by one, John's vassals came over to his side. In March, 1 204, weakened by assaults and the battering of its walls, Chateau Gaillard, the strongest fortress in Christendom, finally yielded. On 24 June, Rouen, " the uncon- quered city," surrendered, and the great duchy of Normandy passed out of English hands. Maine, Anjou, and Touraine had already been secured by the French, and Poitou soon followed. Aquitaine held to England, partly because the Gascon merchants feared to lose their wine trade, partly because they were as alien to the King of France as to the King of England, and clung to the latter from the likelihood of a less rigorous rule. The loss of the French possessions was of tremendous significance. Withdrawn from their Norman support, the English kings were brought " face to face with their subjects," while the barons, on their side, broken off from their Norman connections, were drawn more and more to make common cause with the English people. It would have been well if Aquitaine had gone too ; since, thereby, future troubles, and possibly the great war which occupied the two succeeding centuries, might have been avoided. For John the loss in prestige was immense, and had no small share in bringing to a head the movement resulting in the crowning event of his reign. This was foreshadowed when, in the spring of 1205, he called for a levy to recover his lost dominions and was forced to give it up in the teeth of a strenuous popular resist- ance led by Hubert Walter and William Marshall. II. The Disputed Archiepiscopal Election, 1205. The death of the great Archbishop this same year was most unfortunate for John, and for two reasons. In the first place, it robbed him of an experi- enced and faithful councilor whom he could ill spare, though, in view THE REIGN OF JOHN 137 of their recent quarrel, he failed to realize this, and hailed the news with the joyful exclamation : " Now am I for the first time King of Eng- land." More important still, the attempt to fill the vacant see gave rise to complications which led to the King's second great humiliation the submission to the Papacy. The younger monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, began the trouble by meeting in secret and choosing the sub-prior Reginald as Hubert's successor. But the King, in spite of any forms of free election which had been conceded, had always claimed a deciding voice in the selection of bishops and archbishops. Moreover, in the case of Canterbury, the bishops of the province had usually, since the reign of Henry I, been consulted. In the course of the dispute all three parties sent appeals to Rome. The Pope, at this time Innocent III, one of the greatest statesmen and diplomats who has ever occupied the papal chair, was constantly alert to extend the powers of his office. In spite of the fact that the majority of the monks, fearing the royal wrath, had in the meantime held a new election and chosen a man put forward by John, Innocent made no attempt to de- cide between the rival candidates ; but, rejecting them both, ordered a fresh election. This was in 1206. Notwithstanding the efforts of the King, the choice fell upon the papal candidate Stephen Langton, regarded as " the most illustrious lecturer of theology of his day," and as preeminent in character as in learning. He was an English- man, who, though he had lived long at the Roman curia, proved him- self to be a sincere patriot. The Struggle between King and Pope. John was beside himself with rage. Yet, instead of resisting the election as an invasion of his prerogative, he proceeded to denounce Langton as an obscure individ- ual of whom he had never heard, though he had previously spoken of him in the highest terms. He refused to admit him, seized the prop- erty of the monks of Christ Church and the Canterbury estates, and forbade appeals to Rome. Thereupon, in 1208, the Pope laid the land under an interdict ; by this the church doors were closed, all services except baptism had to be held outside and the dead could only be buried in unconsecrated ground. John sought to avert the impending blow by vain bluster, threatening to drive all ecclesiastics out of the country and to tear out the eyes of the messengers from Rome. Many of the bishops found it wise to flee, much of their property was confiscated, and even the monks and lower clergy were persecuted and pillaged. At length, the King found it necessary to issue a proclamation to pro- tect their property against the excessive zeal of his followers, though, it is reported, that when a highwayman robbed and murdered a priest, he said, " Let him go, he has only killed one of my enemies." After a series of futile negotiations Innocent finally, in 1209, declared John excommunicate, though the sentence was only proclaimed in France, not in England. John's Position becomes Critical. During the course of this and the two following years we find John chiefly occupied with Wales, i 3 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Scotland, and Ireland. He made some head against Llywelyn ap Jowerth, prince of North Wales, though he was unable to place any binding restrictions upon him. However, he secured a recognition from William the Lion which put Scotland practically in the position of a vassal state. He achieved still greater results in Ireland. Thither he led an expedition in person, he received homage from the native chiefs, he overcame, punished, or drove out his enemies among the Anglo-Irish lords, introduced and extended English laws, mapped the country under English rule into twelve counties, and set up a new coinage. Says one of the chroniclers, " All men bore witness that never since the time of Arthur was there a King so greatly feared in Wales, in Scotland, or in Ireland." l But such triumphs as he had gained were offset by the loss of his French possessions and by the fact that he was under the ban of the Church. Though he professed neither to fear God nor to regard man, the term of his momentary suc- cesses was nearly over. The Welsh broke out again into revolt and his English subjects turned more and more against him. Wars and embassies were so costly as to require more than could be wrung from the Church and the Jews. He made matters worse by seizing the castles and hostages from those he suspected, until he had almost as many enemies as he had barons. Then appeared a poor half-crazed hermit, Peter of Wakefield, prophesying that by Ascension Day, 1213, John would be no longer King. Thoroughly frightened, he sought to strengthen himself and to avert the impending danger by conciliation. He caused the harsh execution of the forest laws to be softened, he provided for a relaxation of restraints on continental trade and for a better administration of justice throughout the land. On the Con- tinent things were going badly; his nephew Otto IV had been excommunicated for encroachments on papal territory, and his brother- in-law, Raymond VI of Toulouse, was under a similar ban for shelter- ing Albigensian heretics. John's Surrender to the Pope, 1213. With his prospects steadily darkening, John felt it necessary to resume negotiations with the Pope. Innocent's terms were, in substance : that he should accept Langton as Archbishop ; that he should restore all bishops, monks, and others ; clerk or lay, who had been deprived during the late struggle, and make them full compensation. The alternative was deposition. John held off, until Innocent, to bring pressure upon him, authorized Philip of France to invade England and deprive him of his kingdom. The French King, seeing a possible chance of putting his son Louis on the English throne and making the country a vassal state, eagerly made preparation. He pretended, however, that his sole aim was to defend the Church and to punish John for his murder of Arthur and other crimes. John made frantic efforts to meet the threatened attack ; 1 Seeking to strengthen his possessions by oversea alliances, he even went so far, in 1212, as to send an embassy to the Mohammedan emir of Morocco, offering, according to a later but untrustworthy legend, to embrace that religion. 139 but, finding that he could count on little support from his subjects, decided to yield. On 13 May, 1213, he met the papal legate Pandulf at Dover and accepted the hard terms. Two days later, of his own accord, he took the further step of surrendering his kingdom to the Pope. He received it back as a fief, did homage to Pandulf, and prom- ised, for himself and his heirs, to pay an annual tribute of 1000 marks. He probably felt that nothing else would check the threatened invasion and counteract the growing disaffection of the barons. To many the step " seemed ignominious and a heavy yoke of servitude ; " and, some years later, Matthew Paris denounced it "as a thing to be detested for all time." Yet it may be questioned whether this represented the prevailing view. The state of vassalage was not, in those times, regarded as degrading. English kings since the Conquest had held their continental possession as fiefs of France, and even the lion-hearted Richard had agreed to yield all England in fief to the Emperor. The contemporary Walter of Coventry doubtless voiced the attitude of reasonable sober men when he wrote : John " by his act provided pru- dently both for himself and for his people, for matters were in such a strait, and so great was the fear on all sides, that there was no ready way of avoiding the imminent peril perhaps no other way at all. For when once he had put himself under apostolical protection, and made his realms a part of the patrimony of St. Peter, there was not in the Roman world a sovereign who durst attack him, or invade them, in- asmuch as Pope Innocent was universally held in awe above all his predecessors for many years past." It was the getting into the diffi- culty rather than the way he extricated himself that was most detri- mental to King John, and, in some respects, to his successors. It furnished the Papacy with a precedent for interfering in disputed elections, while the ill usage of the clergy alienated a class hitherto generally on the side of the Crown. Nevertheless, his submission to Rome was a confession of defeat, and he had been forced to admit as Archbishop a man who shortly became the guiding spirit of the oppo- sition. Still, Ascension Day passed safely, John set up a marquee in which he gave a banquet, and poor Peter was hanged. Now that he was a vassal of the Holy See, Innocent prohibited Philip from waging war on him. Langton arrived in July and solemnly absolved him from his excommunication, but the interdict was not yet lifted, for the va- cant benefices were still unfilled and the compensation due the clergy had yet to be settled. III. The Opening of the Struggle with the Barons, 1213. John's efforts to revenge himself against Philip brought to an issue the third and final crisis of the reign. Directly after his submission he began to prepare an expedition to Poitou. The barons refused to follow, mainly on the ground that he was excommunicate. When the ban was removed, they took the ground that their tenures did not bind them to serve abroad. The chief opposition came from the northern barons; but Stephen Langton frustrated the King in his design of i 4 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND punishing them. While there seems to have been no legal ground for their latter contention, they had many and excessive causes of discon- tent. They received promises in plenty, but little else. On 20 July John renewed his coronation oath, with its assurances to love and defend the Holy Church, to renew the good laws of his predecessors and annul all bad ones, to judge all men according to just judgments, and to restore every man his rights. Further, when, 4 August, a Great Council was summoned to St. Albans to assess compensation for damages due the clergy, though nothing was settled on that point, the Justiciar, Geoffrey Fitzpeter, promised to observe the good laws of Henry I, and all sheriffs and other officers were ordered to abstain from injustice for the future. Still again, at a council at St. Paul's on the 25th of the same month, Stephen Langton laid a copy of Henry I's charter before the assembled clergy as a model on which reforms should be undertaken by the King. Geoffrey died in October. Though he was not a great statesman or thoroughgoing patriot, having suggested some of John's most vexatious exactions, he was an efficient adminis- trator and seems to have had rare ability in faithfully serving his master, while working for conciliation and against excesses. But John, alienated by his recent attitude, greeted the news of his death with the remark : " When he gets to hell let him salute Hubert Walter whom I doubt not he will find there. Now by God's feet I am for the first time King of England." But England now became, in the words of Matthew Paris, " a ship in storm without a helm. The beginning of tempest was the death of Hubert ; after the death of Geoffrey the country could not even breathe." Existing Grievances. First, there were the grievances purely feudal, some dating from the past, such as forcing heiresses into un- equal marriages, extorting excessive reliefs and scutages, and abusing the right of wardship. Others bore on the non-feudal classes as well. Taxes were excessive and arbitrary. Carucages and impositions on movables increased in frequency and amount. Then there were the exactions from the Jews, and fines, some without a shadow of justice. One case is recorded in the treasury roll of 1201 of two men of Dover, who owed a fine " because they had been out with Count John," that is, for supporting him in his rebellion against Richard in 1193. Demands for foreign service were not unusual, though Henry II had usually provided mercenaries paid from the scutage. These reasons led to the resistance under John. In the first place his demands were more frequent. In the second place men were alienated by his capri- ciousness and futility. In 1201, and again 1205, he had levied men for foreign service and then dismissed them with a fine, while in 1202-3 he had failed to accomplish anything with the force he took abroad. Finally, the interest of Englishmen in foreign service was growing less and less. For some time it had been the custom to divide estates be- tween the English and French branches of baronial families, and now all but Aquitaine had passed out of English hands. The successful THE REIGN OF JOHN 141 resistance of Hugh of Lincoln some years before was significant of the changing feeling. John, too, had allowed his royal baronial supporters to oppress the people. We do not know how many actually took arms against him ; but, certainly for the first time since the Conquest, the great majority failed to range themselves on his side. In spite of the recent reconciliation with the Papacy, the Church could not forget what it had suffered while the fight was raging. In 1207, John's own half-brother, Geoffrey of York, had gone into exile because he would not submit to the taxes imposed upon his province. In short, England was suffering under " all the evil customs which the King's father and brother had raised up for the oppression of the Church and the realm together with that which the King himself had added thereto." The Winning of Magna Carta. Such was the situation when John, gathering such forces as would follow him, started, February, 1214, to invade Poitou. After gaining a few momentary successes he was obliged to retreat before the French forces, since the Poitevin barons would not fight for him in the open field. While he was planning his next move, his hopes were utterly dashed by the failure of a great coali- tion which he had arranged. On 27 July an army led by his nephew, Otto the Emperor, by his half-brother, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, by the Counts of Flanders, Boulogne, Brabant, and Holland, and the Duke of Lorraine was met and defeated by Philip as it was hastening down to attack France on the northern border. John was obliged to make peace, 18 September, 1214, after which, isolated and humiliated, he returned to England in the following month. Unmind- ful of his precarious situation he brought matters to an issue by de- manding a scutage from the barons who had refused to accompany him to Poitou. Thereupon, the hardier spirits united, it is said, at St. Edmunds under pretense of a pilgrimage, demanded the con- firmation of Henry I's Charter, and took an oath to wage war on the King in case he refused their terms. All through the winter the negotiations went on. John put off a definite answer as long as he could, employing the interval in trying to circumvent his adversaries by various subterfuges. He sought to detach the clergy by a charter granting freedom of election to cathedral churches and monasteries. Then he demanded from his subjects an oath of allegiance against all men, with a particular provision that they should stand by him against the barons. He began to collect mercenaries, appealed to the Pope, and even, on Ash Wednesday, 1215, took the cross. But all his twist- ings and doublings availed him nothing. The barons, fearing that he might overreach them in the end, sent him their demands in detailed form at Oxford, where he happened to be staying. They went far be- yond what they had originally asked. John furiously swore that they were " idle dreams without a shadow of reason " and that he would not make himself a slave by any such concessions. Thereupon, they decided to wage war, and renounced their allegiance on the ground that the King had ceased to observe his feudal obligations. They 142 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND chose Robert Fitzwalter as commander with the title of " Marshall of the Army of God and the Holy Church," and marched down and oc- cupied London. John, finding that almost no one but his mercenaries would stand by him, and that Stephen Langton, really in sympathy with the baronial cause, would not excommunicate his enemies, was forced to yield. After some further parley the barons met him at Runnymede 15 June, 1215, where he set his seal to the Great Charter. Magna Carta, its Meaning to the Men of John's Time and to Future Ages. This document has been described as " the greatest and most enduring landmark of English constitutional liberty the first of its creative statutes." But the importance of Magna Carta is due rather to the use that was afterwards made of it by the champions of popular rights than to what was actually desired by the men who framed it. It was secured by the barons primarily in the interests of their own order, to safeguard their feudal privileges against the encroachments of John and his royal predecessors. Many guarantees of popular government and popular liberty, subsequently traced back to the Charter, are not to be found among its provisions. For example, it does not say that there shall be no taxation, except by the voice of the people. Parliament as the representative of all classes of the realm did not yet exist. Moreover, the two most effective means by which the common man is protected against legal injustice to-day, trial by jury and habeas corpus the latter a device to prevent holding a man in prison without cause shown are not worked out in anything like their modern form. Another notable fact is that five sixths of the population of England at that time were villeins whose chief grievances were at the hands of the manorial lords. Very little is done for them. More than a third of the sixty-three clauses into which Magna Carta came to be divided relate to tenants in chief, while the bulk of the rest concern under-tenants, Churchmen, merchants, and other free classes, comprising together a sixth of the inhabitants. One provi- sion restraining the King's right of issuing writs of prcecipe, calling cases to his courts, would have been a serious clog on justice had not a means been found to evade it. Some provisions, too, are not as un- selfish as they seem. As an instance, that which declares that mer- chants shall have the right to come and go freely in the kingdom was really in the interest of the upper classes who were then the great pur- chasers. Certain great general principles were embodied in the mo- mentous document ; namely, that property shall not be taken from the subject for public use without compensation, that punishments shall not be cruel or unusual (although the Bill of Rights had to declare on this point again nearly five centuries later), that fines were not to be excessive, and that justice was to be open to all, freely and fairly ad- ministered. Still, machinery had to be devised to make these prin- ciples operative, and there were long stretches of English history when they and their service were practically forgotten. Shakespere in his THE REIGN OF JOHN 143 great drama King John, while he touches on most of the striking events of the reign, does not mention Magna Carta at all. The Real Significance of Magna Carta. In what then does its significance consist ? It consists not so much in any of its particular provisions as in imposing the first restrictions upon royal absolutism, in establishing the principle that the King must observe the Law. The law which the barons had in mind was the feudal law, to which they and the King were the contracting parties. The principle of con- tract, or of reciprocal obligation definitely defined between the parties to an agreement, is an essentially feudal principle ; and it is necessary to bear in mind that that dying feudalism left this priceless contribu- tion to the cause of English liberty. While there is no evidence of a strictly popular rising against King John, while the barons led the movement primarily in their own interest, they united with them the Church, they kept the mass of freemen from supporting the sovereign, and consequently, to some degree, undertook the business of these two classes as well as their own. In this sense only is the oft-quoted state- ment of Bishop Stubbs true, that " the Great Charter is, then, the act of the united nation, the Church, the barons, and the commons, for the first time thoroughly at one.". Summary of the Provisions relating to Each of the Three Estates Separately. Its provisions have been most conveniently grouped under two main heads : first, provisions relating to the rights and priv- ileges of the three separate estates as political classes into which society was divided ; secondly, provisions relating to these classes as a whole. I. The following provisions relate to the Church, the barons, and the commons, respectively, i. The Church is to be free and to hold its rights entire and its liberties uninjured, particularly in the election of bishops. 2. The baronage is promised many concessions. Feu- dal abuses in the matter of reliefs, wardships, marriages, and the col- lection of debts shall be renounced. No scutage or aid beyond the three customary aids shall be imposed except by the Common Council of the tenants in chief. The same conditions which the King agrees to observe toward his immediate vassals shall be observed by them in dealing with their mesne or under-tenants. 3. Concessions to the commons 1 refer to all freemen or freeholders below the rank of nobles. Part of the concessions are to groups and part to individuals. Ancient liberties and free customs are guaranteed to London and other towns. The ancient rents of the counties are not to be increased. Merchants are to come in and go out of the kingdom free from all evil tolls and by the ancient and rightful customs. All goods seized for the King's use are to be paid for. Those bound to render labor services to the King shall have the alternative of paying money. Summary of Provisions relating to the Three Classes as a Whole. The provisions relating to the kingdom as a whole have mainly to do 1 On the Continent the term was restricted to the members of organized civic communities. 144 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND with judicial reforms. Common pleas, or suits between subjects, are not to follow the King's court, but to be held in one fixed place. Crown pleas, criminal prosecutions carried on in the name of the King, must be conducted by judges properly qualified. The writ of prcecipe is not to be used. The two most celebrated provisions, teeming with significance for the future, are those contained in clauses XXXIX and XL. The former provides that " no freeman shall be arrested, or detained in prison or deprived of his freehold, or outlawed, or ban- ished, or in any way molested, and we will not set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land." It is generally thought by modern scholars that the provision concerning judgment of peers was introduced by the barons to secure their exemption from accountability to the King's judges. It has survived in the right of peers in certain cases to be tried by the law of the land. In that sense the provision was reac- tionary rather than progressive. Moreover, the law of the land at that time recognized forms of trial other than and quite different from jury trial. Clause XL declares : " To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice." It was not for centuries that the writ of habeas corpus, that was to make this clause fully operative, was developed. But the germ of great principles is to be found in this and the preceding provisions. Some modifications are made in the harsh forest laws which had been a growing burden since the Conqueror. All forests made in John's reign were to be disafforested, all forest abuses were to be inquired into by twelve sworn knights, and forest laws were to apply to those only who lived within their 'bounds. Of the tempo- rary clauses of the Charter the most important provided for the dis- missal of foreign mercenaries. Means of Enforcement and Future Importance of Magna Carta. To insure the inforcement of the terms of the charter a committee of twenty-four barons and the Lord Mayor of London were appointed who were authorized to levy war on the King until any transgression of which he might be guilty should have been amended. This machinery for securing its observance was the 'weakest thing about it, for there could be no peaceful progress under any such arrangement. It was soon given up, and before the century had passed we find a body in the making to whom, in due course of time, the maintenance of its great principles was intrusted. Such was Magna Carta : "in form a grant from the King to his people, in reality a treaty extorted from him by his barons, acting with the clergy and the commons." One great cause of its enduring sig- nificance is that it kept off from speculative problems and dealt with actual conditions ; it aimed not so much to create new liberties and privileges as to define those already existent and to guard against their infraction. As a wise historian has said, the Great Charter is " not the foundation of English liberty, but the first, clearest, most united, and historically the most important enunciation of it"; truly "it THE REIGN OF JOHN 145 was the revelation of the possibility of freedom to the medieval world," and " the maintenance of the Charter was henceforth the watchword of English liberty." The Baronial War and the Death of John, 1216. Although, for the moment, steps were taken to carry out its provisions, John had made concessions which he could not afford and did not intend to keep. Moreover, certain of the extremists among the northern barons, the " Trans-Humbrians," had refused to enter into the agreement at Runnymede and continued in arms. In August, 1215, John prepared to renew the war ; he strengthened the royal castles, sought out allies, and engaged mercenaries. Thereupon, the barons made ready to depose him. The Pope, who, since John's submission, was on his side, had, already before the sealing of the Charter, ordered the excommuni- cation of the disturbers of the kingdom. Then, in August, he issued a bull declaring the Charter null and void on the ground that it had been extorted by force, and forbidding the King to observe it or the barons to enforce its observance. Finally, he suspended Stephen Langton for refusing to carry out his sentence of excommunication. The leaders of the baronial opposition now took the extreme step of trans- ferring their allegiance to Louis of France, " begging him and praying him that he would come with a mighty arm to pluck them out of the hand of the tyrant." But during the winter months of 1215-1216 they showed the greatest lassitude, while John, with one of his spasms of fitful energy, harried the land from the south of the Thames to the Scottish border. In spite of papal prohibition Louis landed at Thanet, 21 May, 1216, two months after John had returned from his victorious northern campaign. The English King retreated before the invader to the border of Wales, where he remained inactive until the end of August, when he marched into the east midlands, ravaging as he went. On 19 October, he died at Newark, of an illness brought on partly by his recent exertion, partly by an excess, it is said, of overeating. Turning, in his last hours, to the Church which he had slighted all his life, he confessed, received the last sacrament, and, by this own request, was buried in the habit of a monk in Worcester cathedral. So passed the worst of the Angevins. Among many prophecies foretelling the downfall of his line is the beautiful legend of Fulk the Good of Anjou, who once succored a leper who turned out to be an angel and foretold that his descendants should flourish to the ninth generation. John was the ninth of his line. No king of England has since borne his name, but his very vices and incapacity precipitated the downfall of absolutism and the rise of constitutional liberty. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. The most recent detailed account of the reign of John is Kate Nor- gate's John Lackland (1902). Stubbs, Historical Introductions, and his Constitutional History, I, ch. XII, are both valuable. Other accounts may be found in Ramsay, i 4 6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Angevin Empire, chs. XXIII-XXXI; Adams, Political History, chs. XIX-XXI; and Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, chs. XIII-XV. For a discussion of the constitutional significance of the reign of John and Henry III, see G. B. Adams, "The Critical Period of English History," American His- torical Review, July, 1900. This is developed in his Origin of the English Constitu- tion (1902). Edward Jenks, "The Myth of Magna Carta," Independent Review, November, 1904, pp. 260-273, is stimulating but exaggerated. The standard work on Magna Carta is W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta: A Commentary (1913), which contains an historical introduction, also the text of the Great Charter, both in Latin and in English translation, and an elaborate commentary on each clause. The text of Magna Carta may be found also in translation in Adams and Stephens, no. 29. CHAPTER X HENRY III (1216-1272). THE STRUGGLE OF THE BARONS TO MAINTAIN THE CHARTER, TO EXPEL FOREIGN INFLUENCE, AND TO CONTROL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE KINGDOM. CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN A Further Stage in the Transition from Absolute to Limited Mon- archy. The long reign of Henry III marks a further stage in the transition from an absolute to a limited constitutional monarchy. This fact must be kept steadily in mind, otherwise the period will seem one of the dreariest and most complicated in English history. On the one side stood a King, of pure life and refined tastes to be sure, but mean, petty, selfish, unstable, and un-English in his interests; on the other, a body of barons thwarting him at every turn, devising clumsy and unworkable schemes to restrict his power and to obtain control of the administration in their own interests. They failed in their immediate aim, but it was due to their efforts and the royal in- capacity that Magna Carta was made a reality, that the nation as distinct from the King came to realize its needs and its power, and that the first steps were taken to develop a body for voicing its will. The Expulsion of the French, 1217. Less than two weeks after his father's death, Henry, a boy of nine years, was crowned at Gloucester. Early in November the leaders of the King's party met at Bristol and elected William Marshall, E^arl of Pembroke, Regent of the kingdom rector regis et regni. With him were associated as councilors Peter desJRoches, Bishop of Winchester, and the papal legate, Gualo. Peter, a wily Poitevin, had been an adherent of John and was to give the king- dom trouble for years to come. A poet of the time describes him as skillful at accounts but lazy in turning the leaves of the Bible, as loving lucre more than Luke. The new reign, however, opened with the brightest of prospects. The Regent was a stanch and devoted man, and he and the legate proceeded to win the general confidence by voluntarily confirming the Charter which had only been wrung from John by armed force. The French still occupied a part of the country, but Louis was under the ban, while the Church was lending its power- ful support to Henry's government. Moreover, the King's very youth and innocence were a source of strength. The barons had risen, not against the royal office, but against an unpopular and oppressive King. Now that he was no more, most of them turned gladly from a foreign invader to a ruler of the native line. The legate proclaimed i47 148 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND a crusade against the French, and in the war which followed Henry's supporters wore white crosses. After his forces had been defeated at Lincoln in May and in a sea fight off the Thames in August, 1217, Louis was ready to leave the country. The first battle is known as the " Fair of Lincoln," because the English gained such an easy victory. The second marks an epoch in English naval tactics ; it is the first case on record of their maneuvering to get the weather gage. From their position on the windward side they sorely distressed the enemy by throwing missiles and quicklime. After the departure of the French Prince the Charter was again confirmed and a new Charter of Forests issued. While some changes were made in this and in the previous confirmation, it was, in time to come, though often renewed and con- firmed, never materially altered. Early Years of Henry's Minority, 1217-1224. The fair prospects under which the new reign opened did not remain long unclouded. Gualo, who had the good of the country at heart, was soon succeeded by Pandulf, " a meddlesome and imperious intriguer," whose only virtue was that he sought to keep peace. The return of Stephen Langton, in May, 1218, was offset in the following year by the death of the aged Regent, William Marshall, a fine type of the medieval soldier-statesman, who had labored effectively to restore peace and good government. The regency ended with him, and the chief power fell to three men, each representing different interests : Pandulf, those of the Pope and of his own kinsman; Peter des Roches, those of the foreign favorites and military adventurers ; Hubert de Burgh, those of the loyal English party. Hubert had been the faithful servant of Richard and John ; he had shown his wisdom in advising the latter to accept Magna Carta, and his valor and naval ability in the defense of Dover Castle and the defeat of Louis' reinforcements in the recent seafight. His watchword was administrative reorganization and Englishmen in English offices. One element of opposition was over- come when Pandulf withdrew in 1220, in consequence of a promise which Stephen Langton obtained from the Pope to allow no papal legate in the country during the Archbishop's lifetime. The harder task remained of dealing with the unreconciled element of the feudal barons and the foreign military adventurers. Although at times they acted in conjunction, the former party was led by William of Aumale (or Albemarle), and his successor the Earl of Chester; the latter, by Faulkes de Breaute, 1 who was instigated and abetted by Peter des Roches. After some futile risings the restless barons were for the time being suppressed in 1223, and the Bishop of Winchester and his partisans were temporarily excluded from the royal councils. In 1224 Faulkes, who for a time " was more than King of England " was forced to leave the country with a safe-conduct. He died two years later. 1 Faulkes had been captain of John's mercenaries, and his name survived in the famous Vauxhall. HENRY III 149 Last Years of Henry's Minority, 1224-1227. Meantime, trouble was developing in Henry's possessions across the Channel. The com- mons of Gascony, although they preferred English to French rule, were unwilling to spend money on defense, and resented any inter- ference with their municipal liberties, while they expected the English governors, or seneschals, to protect them in their quarrels with the neighboring barons. These barons, particularly in Poitou, were so turbulent that one English seneschal complained that they respected him " no more than a horseboy." Without adequate support of men or money, one after another threw up the office in despair. Matters were further complicated by the death, in 1223, of the cautious and astute Philip Augustus, who had done so much to enlarge his domin- ions at the expense of England. As a matter of form, Hubert de- manded Anjou, Maine, and Normandy for his sovereign. The new King, Louis VIII, replied by attacking Poitou. Thence he proceeded to extend his operations into Gascony, a step which forced Hubert, much against his will, to prepare an expedition to defend the English possessions. But the sudden death of Louis gave him his opportunity to patch up a peace with the French Queen, who was acting as Regent for her little son, the 'future St. Louis. In 1227 the Justiciar pro- claimed Henry of age and succeeded in getting rid of Peter des Roches, who went off to Palestine, where he remained four years. Neverthe- less, Hubert was unable to maintain for long a very effective control over his vain and unstable master. Henry, who was burning to re- trieve the lands which his father had lost, readily listened to certain Norman barons who sought his aid in revolt. Hubert reluctantly fitted out an expedition which the King, early in 1 230, led in person. After an inglorious campaign, in which the English soldiers performed greater feats in deep drinking than in fighting, he returned home, in September, having accomplished nothing. Likewise, a large royal levy sent in 1228 against Llywelyn of Snowdon, who had succeeded in uniting central and south Wales under his sway, had to " return to England in shame." Added to all this, in 1229, the aged and truculent Pope Gregory IX levied a tax of a tenth of all clerical property in England to aid him in a stubborn war which he was waging against the Emperor Frederick II. Moreover, his agents were busy filling English church livings with Italians, a step which led to riots on the part of patrons whose rights were thus infringed. The Fall of Hubert de Burgh, 1232. Beginning of Henry's Personal Rule. This was the state of affairs when Peter des Roches returned in 1231 and opened an attack on his rival. He accused him of abetting the rioters, and of mismanaging the public funds, which, owing to Henry's extravagance and to the extensive military expenses, were in a very low state. While the first charge was true, the Justiciar could not properly be blamed for the second. With equal injustice, Hubert was made the scapegoat of the failure of the recent French and Welsh campaigns. Nevertheless,- the King with indecent readiness dismissed ISO A HISTORY OF ENGLAND him. Once out of office, he was so hard pressed that he had to take sanctuary, but this proved no protection, for his pursuers starved him out. The common people were loud in their sympathy, and a coura- geous smith who was ordered to fetter him refused to touch one who had delivered the land from a foreign enemy. But part of his property was taken from him and he had to spend some years in captivity. With the fall of Hubert de Burgh the Justiciar ceased to be the first minister in the kingdom and his duties were thenceforth purely judi- cial. Henry's personal government now began, and " during twenty- six years he gave abundant evidence of his insincerity and incapacity." All positions of trust were filled with foreign favorites under the thumb of Peter and Henry. Over two thirds of the sheriffdoms were in the hands of Peter's dependents. Increasing Abuses and Futile Opposition. Richard Marshall, the old Regent's second son, led an opposition to the foreign rule ; but he was forced to flee to the Welsh border, and thence was enticed to Ireland, where he met his death through treachery in 1234. Before the battle in which he received his death wound he declared : "I know that this day I am delivered over to death, but it's better to die honorably for the cause of justice than to flee from the field and become a reproach to knighthood." From him the leadership of the opposition passed to Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 1 234-1 240, a holy and learned man ; but, although he forced the King to call some of his favorites to account and finally to shake off the influence of Peter des Roches, he lacked the vigor and aggressiveness to accomplish much. Henry returned to his old courses, and his marriage with Eleanor of Provence in 1236 brought swarms of needy kinsmen and followers, among them four or five of the Queen's uncles, to be provided for. There seemed to be no leader in England capable of withstanding these aliens. Richard of Cornwall, Henry's brother, was for a time the popular hero of the opposition ; but he did not long maintain this unfraternal attitude, and his marriage in 1 243 with Sanchia, the Queen's sister, bound him firmly to the court party. Besides the grievance of providing for greedy Provencals and Savoyards, the country had to bear the burden of renewed exactions from the Papacy. In 1237 the Pope, at the royal request, sent a cardinal legate, Otho. He began by getting into a conflict with the University of Oxford, when his brother, whom he had brought as cook for fear of poison, threw a plate of soup in the face of an Irish scholar who appeared begging for bread. During the four years that he stayed, Otho steadily increased his unpopularity by the heavy contributions which he demanded from the clergy ; indeed, it is said that he took away almost as much gold and silver as he left in the country ; in addition, he claimed for his master the right to fill three hundred livings with Italians, while the spiritless Henry de- clared: " I neither wish nor dare to oppose the Lord Pope in any- thing." Truly, said Richard of Cornwall : . " England was like a vine- HENRY III 151 yard with a broken hedge so that all who went by could steal of her grapes." Edmund Rich died abroad in 1240. He was succeeded as leader of the national clerical party by one of the most remarkable men of the century Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. Both at Oxford and as lecturer to the Franciscan Friars, Grosseteste achieved a preeminent reputation for scholarship, not only in theology but in science. Made bishop late in life, he turned his attention to the reform of his diocese and to politics, with the aim of uniting Church and baronage in the defense of their common liberties and in resistance to papal encroachment. Particularly did he set himself against foreign nominees to English livings, whom he described as intruders " who not only strive to tear off the fleece, but do not even know the features of their flock." But, wedded to the theory of the superiority of the Church over the State, and a stanch advocate of clerical immunity, he was not a man to lead most effectively the popular cause. The Baronial Demand for Elective Ministers. In 1241 the barons of Poitou attempted another revolt against the King of France. They drew the Gascons into the combination, and Henry led a small expedi- tion to their aid. Most of the English barons, however, refused to support him ; he was defeated in battle and barely escaped falling into the hands of the enemy. So, in April, 1243, he was obliged to make a five years' truce and Poitou was incorporated in the French domin- ions. Henry lingered long in Gascony, partly because he wanted to knit the towns into a closer union with England, partly because he dreaded to face his subjects. Nevertheless, he arranged to be received with ridiculous pomp on his return. The situation grew steadily darker. London became disaffected, and another papal agent came to glean after Otho's abundant harvest. The King fell into sore financial straits, so that the barons, taking advantage of his needs, began to demand that he choose ministers of native birth and acceptable to the country. The most striking case occurred in 1244, when a com- mittee appointed to fix the conditions of a money grant set down as one of them that the Justiciar, the Chancellor, and the Treasurer should be chosen in the Great Council. It was some years before they were able to carry their point. Henry might yield to the Pope, but he maintained a lofty attitude toward his subjects. When they renewed their demand in 1248 and requested him to dismiss the aliens who were still flocking to his court new batches had arrived the previous year he replied : " Servants do not judge their master, vassals do not judge their prince and bind him by conditions. Much rather should they put themselves at his disposal and be submissive to his will." In consequence, all sorts of expedients were tried to supply the royal necessities. Plate and jewels were sold, likewise grants of privileges, and even of administering justice, while the forest courts imposed increasing exactions. Though he refused to accompany Louis IX on a crusade to Egypt, Henry, in 1252, with the Pope's support, de- manded a tithe for the purpose. When the barons agreed, on con- 152 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND dition that the charters be confirmed again and the money be em- ployed solely in the design for which it was asked, he swore with great oaths " that never while breath was in his body, would he submit to be a slave. ' ' Grosseteste died in 1 2 53 , prophesying that only the sword could deliver the Church from her Egyptian bondage. Curiously enough, the barons were at length to find a leader among the very foreigners whom they were seeking to oppose. Simon de Montfort becomes Leader of the National Party. Simon de Montfort was a Norman by birth who first came to England in 1229 to prosecute a claim on the earldom of Leicester which he inherited from a marriage of his grandfather with an heiress of that house. He began as an adherent of the royal party, married Henry's sister Eleanor, and secured the title and estates which he sought. In 1239, however, he became involved in a bitter personal quarrel with the King, and the next year departed with Richard of Cornwall on a crusade to the Holy Land. On his return he began to identify him- self with Grosseteste and the baronial party ; but it required another quarrel to complete his rupture with the King. In 1248 he was sent to rule Gascony, oh the express condition that he should enjoy full powers, including control of the Gascon revenue, for seven years. The situation was well-nigh hopeless; the towns were in revolt and the nobles intriguing busily, some with France, some with Navarre. Simon was energetic and put down resistance with a high hand. He was cruel and oppressive, no doubt, and reaped a harvest of discontent which resulted in bitter complaints to the King. Henry, though he acknowledged to his brother-in-law that he had fought bravely for him, 'finally yielded to the hostile representations, and in spite of Simon's protests, dismissed him. This may look like a weak desertion of a faithful servant ; but it is none the less true that, however far the Governor may have been at fault, he had been rapidly alienating a people whom the King desired to conciliate. Thus, on the eve of the great crisis of his reign, Henry forced into the enemy's camp the most remarkable man of his generation, a man destined to become one of the most notable figures in English history. The Baronial Opposition comes to a Head, 1254. In 1254, two years after this event, the King crowned his impolicy by an act of extravagant folly which brought to a focus all the forms of opposition which had been slowly converging against his misgovernment, his futile foreign policy, and his abject submission to papal exaction. He accepted for his second son Edmund the crown of Sicily which the Pope had long been striving to wrest from the Imperial House of Hohenstaufen, and which Richard of Cornwall had wisely refused. Edmund never attained the Sicilian throne; but the efforts which his father made in his behalf were none the less momentous. He pledged himself to provide an army and 140,000 marks, and applied to his Great Council for supplies to redeem his bond. They refused in 1255 and again in 1257, when Henry brought his little son before HENRY III 153 them in Apulian dress, and sought to work on their sentiments. 1 Everything combined to foster discontent. Rain, flood, bad harvests, cattle murrain, and high prices were estranging the poor. New Church leaders took the place of Grpssetestej in 1256 the Pope had added another exaction by demanding for the first time annates or first fruits the first year's annual revenue from clergy newly inducted into benefices. Aside from the new grievances old ones continued from the previous reign, for, although the Charters had been fre- quently confirmed, their concessions had been disregarded. Many castles were in the hands of foreigners; sheriffs and itinerant judges were perverting justice and levying excessive fines, and the forest laws were unmitigated in their severity. The storm burst in 1258. The Provisions of Oxford, 1258. On 28 April, 1258, a Great Council of magnates, reenforced by representative knights from the shires, assembled. When the King in the face of the gathering discontent ventured a third time to ask for money for the Sicilian campaign, the barons and knights in full armor, though they laid their swords aside, crowded into the royal presence chamber and presented their terms. They demanded the dismissal of all aliens and the appoint- ment of a committee of twenty-four half from the royal party, half from the baronial to draw up a scheme of reform to present at the next meeting of the Great Council. The King was forced to assent. An assembly met in June at Oxford, known as the " Mad Parliament." To it the committee submitted not only a list of griev- ances but a plan of government by which all authority was to be transferred from the Crown to representative bodies of the baronage. Chief among them was a permanent committee of fifteen which was to have complete control of the administration and to which the King's ministers were to be answerable. Three times a year it was to meet with another committee of twelve chosen from the Great Council to transact the business formerly in the hands of the latter body. Other committees still were to undertake the work of financial and Church reform. Such were the Provisions of Oxford. Their merit was in putting a check on the absolutism of an unpatriotic and incom- petent King. Yet they are open to serious criticism in that they aimed to put in his place an oligarchy that would tend to become equally self-seeking and ineffective, and would be far more likely to hamper the executive and to foment discord than to advance the welfare of the kingdom. The Mise of Amiens. Preparation for War, 1264. No sooner were the Provisions acknowledged than the baronial party split into two factions. One was led by Simon de Montfort, who seems to have been honestly desirous of securing the interests of all classes.. The other, led by Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was selfishly 1 The clergy, however, granted 52,000 marks. 154 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND concerned with the interests of its own order. Simon secured a mo- mentary ascendancy by attaching Prince Edward Henry's eldest son to his cause, and, in 1259, in a Great Council at Westminster . carried the passage of a series of measures known as the Provisions 7 of Westminster, by which the powers and profits of the private feudal courts were greatly curtailed. For a time the King worked loyally with the new council : inquiries were made into abuses, and, willingly or unwillingly, Henry issued a proclamation in which he commanded all true men " steadfastly to hold and to defend the statutes that bj made and are to be made by our councilors." l Yet before many months he managed to shake himself free from the baronial shackles which had been imposed upon him. He made an alliance with Louis IX, King of France, he drew Gloucester and his followers to his side, he reconciled himself with Edward, and finally appealed to Pope Alexander IV to release him from his oath to observe the Provisions. This last request was granted by a bull dated 13 April, 1261, which annulled the whole legislation of 1258-1259. With his hand thus strengthened Henry returned to his old courses. The renewal of danger drew the two factions of the barons together again and civil war broke out in 1263. But Henry was stronger than he had been five years before, and the opposing forces proved so evenly balanced that they decided to arbitrate and appealed to Louis IX to settle the points at issue. He announced his decision, 23 January, 1264, in a document known as the Mise of Amiens, deciding almost every question in favor of the King. He pronounced the Provisions invalid, and declared that Henry had a right to appoint his own ministers and custodians of castles. He was, however, to be bound by the ancient charters and customs, and both sides were urged to keep the peace. Simon, whose chief following was now among the lesser folk, refused to be bound by the award, in spite of the fact that he had promised to abide by its terms. " Though all men quit me," he declared, " I will remain with my four sons and will fight for the good cause which I have sworn to defend the honor of the Holy Church and the good of the realm." Simon's Victory at Lewes, 1264. His Famous Parliament, 1265. In the civil war which followed he was able to win a great victory over the royal forces, 14 May, 1 264, at Lewes. Before the battle he exhorted his soldiers to beseech the Lord for strength and help, and each one prostrated himself on the ground with arms outstretched to form a cross, and prayed. Henry was forced by a treaty known as the Mise of Lewes to agree to uphold the Great Charter, the Charter of the Forests, and the Provisions of Oxford. The administration, local and central, . 1 A slight incident shows his awe of Simon. One sultry day in July, overtaken by a thunderstorm, he was driven to shelter in a house by the Thames occupied by de Montfort. Seeing he was much afraid, his host sought to reassure him'. Where- upon King Henry exclaimed: "I fear thunder and lightning exceedingly, but I fear thee more than all the thunder and lightning in the world." HENRY III 155 and the custody of castles passed again into the baronial hands. Then a Parliament was called which constituted a body of three electors, chief of whom was Simon, to choose a council of nine to control the government of the King. Edward was to be a hostage for the good behavior of the " Marchers," or men of the Welsh border, who were bitterly hostile to the baronial leader for having called in the Welsh as allies. The scheme of government of 1264 has the merit of being much simpler and less oligarchical than that of 1258. During the period of his triumph de Montfort had the King issue writs, sum- moning a notable assembly which sat from January to March, 1265. This has often been spoken of as the first Parliament in English history because it was the first body in which both knights of the shire and representatives from the towns sat with the Great Council, but, as will be shown later, it was a partisan body and far from being completely representative in other respects. ("De MontforJ^s Parliament, however, is not without constitutional significance, as a stage in the develop- ment from the Great Council to the institution which came to represent the three estates of the realm.) More than once already knights from the shires had sat with the barons, but never before had they been reenforced by representatives from the towns, and it was a matter of great moment that Simon had called in this class to support him against his opponents at court and among the magnates. The Defeat and Death of Simon, 1265. His Character and Work. In April, 1265, war broke out again. The standard of revolt was raised by the Marchers. Disgruntled members of Simon's party and old royal adherents flocked to the western country. Prince Edward, who had escaped from his keepers while hunting, soon appeared as leader. On 4 August he succeeded in entrapping the baronial army at Evesham, on a narrow tongue of land formed by an abrupt bend of the Stratford Avon. Simon, in the face of impending disaster, could not but admire the skillful tactics by which his young opponent had undone him. " By the arm of St. James," he cried, " they come on cunningly. Yet they have not taught themselves that order of battle, they have learnt it from me. God have mercy upon our souls, for our bodies are theirs." He fell bravely fighting. By the victory of Evesham and the death of Simon the royal party was again trium- phant. " Sir Simon the righteous," the man whom Henry feared more than thunder and lightning, left no successor capable of carrying on his work. He was not a hero without blemish. Coming from a race of poor but ambitious counts he began life as an adventurer. He had sought twice in vain to advance his fortunes by marriage before he attained the hand of the King's sister, nor did he begin his opposition as a disinterested advocate of popular liberty ; it was occasioned in the first instance by quarrels with Henry, culminating in the Gascon affair. Even after he put himself at the head of the national party he was at times shifty and cruel, and always masterful and impatient 156 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of restraint. But, whether from interest or conviction, he threw himself on the support of the people and worked sincerely for their interests. He secured them a more complete representation in the National Council than they had ever enjoyed. Edward never forgot the lessons he had learned from him and showed it in the constitu- tional character of his long and prosperous reign. The people and the lower clergy adored their departed leader as a saint, and, accord- ing to report, miracles were worked at his tomb. Final Submission of the Barons, 1267. Results of the Struggle. A few of the barons held out stubbornly at Kenilworth until December of 1266 when disease and famine compelled them to surrender. By the Dictum of Kenilworth they were allowed to redeem their estates on payment of heavy fines, the reenactment of the Charters was promised as well as the redress of some of the grievances mentioned in the Provisions of 1258. But another revolt had to be faced, some minor risings had to be put down, and Llywelyn had to be pacified before the country was really at peace. In 1267 the Statute of Marl- borough reenacted in a formal fashion the chief of the Provisions of Westminster. The next year Edward and his brother Edmund felt safe in taking the cross, though their departure was delayed by financial difficulties till 1270. The barons had failed to secure the supremacy at which they aimed, and it was well for England that they did ; but they had broken the power of absolutism, they had aroused and kept alive the national opposition, they had made the Charters a reality, they had taken steps to make the Great Council a popular rep- resentative body, and the result of their work was to manifest it- self in the next reign and live on in time to come. Death of Henry, 1272. His Character. While his sons were away on the Crusade Henry died, 16 November, 1272, in his sixty- sixth year. Personally he had many commendable qualities. His private life was blameless, he was religious, and especially faithful in attending mass. He had a refined mind and cultivated tastes. He loved " fair churches, beautiful sculpture, delicate gold work, and richly illuminated books," and was a generous patron of painting and architecture. His most enduring monument is Westminster Abbey, the foundation of Edward the Confessor which he caused to be rebuilt. He apparently had no taste for literature. Except for occasional flurries of temper when his will was crossed, he was mild and amiable. Above all things he had a " horror of violence," and is said to have wept bitterly when he learned that his name had been used to lure Richard Marshall to Ireland. Physically he was brave and loved a bit of horse-play with his nobles. Matthew Paris tells how once in the abbey orchard they pelted each other with apples and squeezed the juice of unripe grapes in each other's eyes. As to his faults, they are manifest in the history of his reign. He lacked moral courage, he was timid, evasive, weak, and obstinate. He had no talent for administration, or grasp of politics, and was un-English in feeling. HENRY III 157 Dante placed him in the region of purgatory reserved for negligent and incompetent rulers. England and the Intellectual and Religious Movements of the Time. There was one good side to the un-English policy of Henry III. It helped to open the country to the best fruits of continental civilization. The period of royal misrule, of political strife, and civil war was, by a strange contrast, one of high achievement in art, in religious revival, and intellectual progress, truly, as has been happily said, the " flowering time of English medieval life." In England, as elsewhere, two antagonistic tendencies were at work. Politically, there was a tendency to accentuate national differences. This ran counter to the other great tendency of the Middle Ages, that toward unity, toward universality. The Catholic Church with the Pope at the head was the church of all western Christendom ; its clergy, its monks and friars were subjects of no country but citizens of heaven, as they sometimes pleased to call themselves. The academic system was a universal one, famous scholars were equally at home in England, France, and Italy, and Latin was the language of the clerical and the learned in every Christian land. The Crusades, too, offered a com- mon enterprise which brought together men from the north, the west, and the south without distinction of boundary. Improved means of communication were bringing increased opportunities for religious, intellectual, social, and commercial intercourse. The friar, the knight-errant, the scholar, and the merchant tended to maintain and foster a union which a growing sense of nationality threatened to break. Henry's hospitality to foreigners and relations with the Papacy resulted in the spread of ideas and forces which the exclusive policy of the barons might have checked. The most potent factor in the revived intellectual and religious life of the age is to be found in the new orders the friars. The Franciscan and Dominican Friars. Two of these orders of brothers (Latin fratres) came into being at about the same time, and they supplemented each other. That of the Spanish St. Dominic was strong in organization and the defense of orthodoxy, that of the Italian, St. Francis, in spiritual impulse and the service of humanity. Shortly before Henry III of England was born, a young merchant of the little Italian town of Assisi Giovanni Francesco Bernardoni by name felt prompted by a divine voice to renounce his past life and to devote himself to the service of God and of his fellow men. In one direction, particularly, there was an abundant field, while the laborers were few and unfitted for the work. The towns, growing in wealth and importance, had scant regard for the poor who lived on their outskirts. The parish priest, however effective in the small rural village, proved unequal to the situation. The monk, devoted to prayer, labor and study, was a recluse who fled from the crowded haunts of men. St. Francis, for so he came to be known, taking literally the words of Christ, " provide neither gold nor silver nor 158 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND brass in your purses, neither scrip for your journey, nor yet staves," braved his father's anger, renounced his worldly prospects, and went forth to teach and preach and minister to the simple and needy. All created things, the birds, the flowers, and wild beasts as well as man shared in the love of this gentle holy soul. After some years he went to Rome, hatless and barefoot, and obtained from Innocent III permission to establish a rule of life, from which grew his famous order of friars. It was not formally recognized till 1223, though by 1215 it had grown to such proportions that provincial ministers had been appointed to preside over the French, German, and Spanish members. In three respects the Franciscan friars grew away from the original intention of their founder. He started with the idea of wandering missionaries, with no formal organization, who should not concern themselves with theology. Even in his own lifetime they came to center chiefly in cities, they were constituted into a regular order, and as time went on they became famous for their learned scholars. Meantime, in southern France, Domingo de Guzman, son of a noble Castilian house and trained in the best academic traditions of the day, was devoting his rare talents and wondrous zeal to combat- ing heresy and schism. He showed his pitiless orthodoxy by his support of the bloody war against the Albigenses. " Lord," he prayed, " send forth thine arm and afflict them, that this affliction may give them understanding." But it was from the pulpit rather than by the sword that he was to fight for the true faith. He founded the order of preaching friars which, in the course of a few years, adopted the Franciscan principle of poverty and was formally recognized in 1220. The Coming of the Friars to England. In 1221 a band of thirteen Dominicans landed in England. They established themselves in London, whence they proceeded to Oxford. There they set up schools and gathered disciples about them whom they trained as preachers. The Dominicans were followed three years later by nine Franciscans, who grew and spread until, within five years, they were domiciled in almost every considerable town in England; Their houses were held for them in trust, for they could possess no property. Settling down outside the city walls among the destitute and lowly, they taught and ministered with heroic devotion. Far from being depressed by their surroundings they were so full of fun that " a deaf man could hardly refrain from laughter at seeing them." Indeed an ordinance had to be issued at Oxford to prevent them from laughing so much during their prayers. They preached to the people in a homely style, spicing their sermons with merry jests and tales. What with their humor and their zeal, they gained a wonderful hold wherever they went. Popes came to use them as a sort of " flying squadron " to break the power of the bishops, of the parish priests, and of such monastic bodies as had become too local in their interests. Though at first King Henry did not welcome the friars, later he and Edward selected their con- HENRY III 159 fessors from them. Although the English Franciscans produced some of the most famous scholars of the age, 1 so many unworthy recruits entered the ranks as time went on that by Chaucer's day they had come to be generally regarded as beggarly rogues. The Parish Priest. The earlier friars, as well as doing their pecul- iar work in the towns and the universities, acted as evangelists, con- ducting revivals in the rural districts. Except for the Jews, however, there were almost no heretics or dissenters in England. 2 Yet in spite of the activity of the friars, the parish church was still the center of village life, though the gilds, too, had a marked religious aspect; for they provided masses for the souls of deceased members; they had their patron saints and funds for charity. The parish priests were simple men of very scanty learning, with just enough Latin to say mass. This office they were expected to perform devoutly at least once a week and not more than once in the same day except on Christmas and Easter. They were also to be diligent in preaching and teaching, lest they should be regarded as " dumb dogs when they ought by their timely barking to repel the attacks of spiritual wolves," and they were to be cheerful and constant in visiting the sick. In a word they, with their superiors, the bishops and others, " were ex- pected to act as a kind of moral police, enforcing the laws of Christian discipline upon every class of society, and in every department of human life." They were forbidden to accept any secular office, such as that of steward or bailiff, or any judicial function involving power to inflict capital punishment. They were also prohibited from dressing in military fashion and from taking part in " scot ales " or public feasts where there were competitions in drinking. While there were frequent complaints of negligence in visiting and teaching, of hurrying through the service, of too frequent absence from the parish, some performed their duties excellently and many others did their best according to their lights. Still, ignorance and indolence and bad examples of conduct were the despair of reformers like Grosseteste, and led them to welcome the friars. Two impediments to a higher standard were the presentation to church livings of Italians and of boys with family influence. Riotous sports, gluttony, especially at funeral feasts, and heavy drinking bouts were among the chief offenses of the laity. The Popular Religion. The religion of the age was very real. The people, though rude and boisterous, were simple and childlike and ready to atone for their sins by crusades and pilgrimages, by con- 1 For example, Roger Bacon and William of Ockham. On the other hand, the most famous Dominicans such as Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus were not Englishmen. 2 A foreign sect which appeared in the reign of Henry II had made only one con- vert. By the Assize of Clarendon it was enacted that the intruders should be excommunicated and branded, and that if any should receive them, their houses should be carried out of the village and burned. 160 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tributing to the building of churches and monasteries, and by gifts at shrines and altars. Anchorites living in caves and on the banks of lonely streams were visited by pilgrims marveling at their faith and holiness. Worship was chiefly a matter of outward form. Though the people were generally instructed in the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the ten commandments, they blindly worshiped images and relics and sought to approach God mainly through the medium of the saints. Belief in witchcraft, charms, and spells was practically uni- versal. Some of the popular superstitions were very touching and pretty. A story is told of the appearance one harvest time in East Anglia, " no man knew whence," of a boy and girl "completely green in their person, and clad in garments of a strange color and unknown materials." These strange visitors were most kindly^ welcomed, baptized into the fellowship of the Church, and cherished, " till at length they changed their natural color through the natural effect of our food." The Universities. At the beginning of Henry's reign the two es- sentials of a university were the masters and the scholars, who might migrate wherever they would. A great step in advance was taken when men began to found colleges, or houses with a master and scholars or fellows, with the object of providing shelter for poor students and of encouraging systematic study. Their originals may be traced to the convents which the mendicant friars caused to be built for them at great academic centers. John Balliol's foundation at Oxford in 1260 was hardly more than an almshouse for needy scholars; but Walter de Merton's, three years later, was well organized and furnished a model for subsequent college benefactors. The universities were far from being centers of secluded calm, for we hear of riots among the students. On more than one occasion they seceded to Northampton, to Stamford, and elsewhere for temporary sojourns. Moreover, they exercised a profound and active influence on the politics and govern- ment of the time ; they produced men who took prominent places at oourt or on the episcopal bench. Cambridge took the side of Louis against John, while later, Oxford was a stanch supporter of Simon de Montfort. In the early part of the century English scholars, as a rule, were obliged to go abroad for study, but in later generations many names appear which shine brightly in the annals of Oxford. Grosseteste and Adam Marsh, lecturers to the Franciscans, were famous scholars, though their fame has been eclipsed by that of Roger Bacon (1214-1294). Since the eleventh century the prevailing interest of the learned had been to elaborate the great philosophical, theological system known as Scholasticism, which aimed to organize the belief of the Church by weapons of logic supplied by Aristotle. There were two schools of philosophic thought, the Realists who asserted that general ideas, " Universals " as they called them, alone were real, and their opponents the Nominalists, who asserted that such general ideas had no real existence but were only names. HENRY III 161 The dominant method of the Schoolmen was deductive ; that is, they proceeded from general principles to particular cases. Bacon, who mastered all the scientific learning of the time and who knew Greek and Hebrew as well, sought to introduce the experimental or inductive method by which general principles are discovered or framed from particular facts. " Much have I labored," he once wrote to Clement IV, " both in the sciences and the languages for forty years since I first learned my alphabet. Except for two years of the forty I have been always studying." He spent, we are told, large sums of money on books, experiments, instruments, and in purchasing the friend- ship of the wise. Unfortunately, he was ahead of his time ; he was suspected of being a heretic and magician and spent years of his life in exile and confinement. Although the age was a learned one, the tendency was toward formalism, toward speculative philosophy, rather than toward elegant culture, broad human interests, and grace- ful literary expression. Literature and Language. In this period the only historian to compare with William of Malmesbury and William of Newburgh was Matthew Paris. His style, though overwordy, is graphic and per- sonal. He set himself not only to record events, but to comment on their significance and to discuss the motives and character of the men who took part in them. He was fearless in his condemnation of the evils of his time. His knowledge was not confined to purely English affairs, but included those of the Continent as well. The fact that, besides being a monk and a historian, he was a traveler, a courtier, and a politician, mingling in the affairs of the busy world, though it lent to his work the partisanship of a man of affairs, gave him great opportunities for acquiring information. Then, too, St. Albans, where he generally dwelt, very accessible to London and to the great Northern road, was most favorably situated for obtaining the news of the day. The Chronicles were, of course, written in Latin, which was still the language of the learned. French remained the elegant lan- guage of the court and upper classes and of the romances by which they were diverted. The insular dialect of it, Anglo-French, had begun to be used, too, in pleadings in the law courts and in the debates in the Great Council. As a result of growing national sentiment, English, the tongue of the yeoman and the lower classes, was steadily developing as a vehicle of literary expression. An English song on the Battle of Lewes appeared, while King Horn and Havelock the Dane are national epics influenced by the form of French romance. At village alehouses and fairs strolling minstrels sang popular ballads of the early heroes Arthur and Merlin, Alexander and Charlemagne. Yet more than a century was to pass before the first really great creation in English literature was to see the light. Architecture. " Architecture, the great art of the Middle Ages, was in its perfection " in this reign. The transition from the Norman to the Early English style, with its delicate spires and pointed arches, l62 was complete by the reign of John. Under his successor the latter style reached its maturity. Salisbury cathedral (1225-1258) is a noble example of pure Early English work. The nave and west front of Wells are also early English. 1 King Henry's chief architectural interest was in the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey. Curiously enough, this national monument is most un-English in structure. The building is French, and the decorations still more so. Here stained glass seems to have been systematically used for the first time, though there are evidences of its use much earlier. Very few castles were built in this period except along the frontier districts facing the Welsh border. One great change came in from France during the reign of John. The square keep was replaced by round towers. Earlier castles had consisted of a simple keep, but as time went on walls came to be built fortified by towers at intervals. Within the walls were the buildings used as dwellings, usually of wood. Although increasing attempts were made to render castles habitable by the addition of fireplaces and other comforts, the fortified manor houses were being more and more preferred as dwellings for the great, while the poor folk still lived in simple wooden houses. Foreign Trade. Merchants, except during the intervals of war with France, were allowed to come and go freely. English staples were mainly agricultural grain, cattle, and dairy produce. Such surplus as was raised was sold at local markets and fairs. Wool, woolfells, and hides had come to be the chief articles of export, along with tin, lead, and iron. The crusaders had given a great impulse to intercourse with the East, and the great nobles, lay and clerical, im- ported fine cloths, silks, furs, and jewels, wax, spices, and wines. Some fine cloth came from the looms of Flanders and the north of France, where most of the English wool found a market. The Rhine cities sup- plemented the Gascon ports as sources for the wine supply. The Han- seatic League controlled the Baltic trade and brought in furs, tar, and fish. The Italians cities were for two centuries to come the chief carriers in the Oriental traffic. Although the foreign trade was mainly in the hands of foreign merchants, English shipping was steadily increasing. Southhampton was the port of entry for most of the Mediterranean trade. London was, of course, a prominent shipping center, and so were Bristol and Chester. The Cinque Ports 2 were coming into importance and securing peculiar privileges because of the ships which they furnished for the royal navy. They were 1 This cathedral is notable for the sculptured figures on its west front, over three hundred in all, nearly half of which are of life size or larger. They are arranged in tiers and include representations of the leading personages of Biblical and native history. Executed between 1230 and 1235, there was nothing then to compare with them north and west of the Alps. But this is a unique exception, for the English have not, as a rule, excelled in sculpture work. 2 Originally five port towns in Sussex and Kent (Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich), to which two (Winchelsea and Rye) were subsequently added. HENRY III 163 still little better than " nests of chartered sea robbers," and many complaints were brought against them on this score ; but they rendered indispensable service on more than one occasion. So they were sum- moned to send members to Simon de Montfort's Parliament of 1265, and by a charter of Edward I they were recognized as a corporate organization, with their own officers, courts, exemption from taxes, and right to make by-laws. Henry's reign is notable in many ways as a stage in the progress of maritime affairs. The naval tactics off Dover in 1217 foreshadow a method of fighting which the English made use of in the following centuries with signal success. Licenses to privateers were first issued, and the compass began to be employed. Internal Trade. Markets and Fairs. The danger and difficulty of traveling, as well as the innumerable and vexatious charges for tolls and ferries, hampered internal trade. There were some good roads, the survival of Roman times ; for example, that from Dover to London ; but many were almost impassable during certain seasons in the year. Outside the beaten path the country was infested by robbers. By the Statute of Winchester (1285) "it is commanded that highways leading from one market town to another shall be enlarged so that there be neither dyke, tree, nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within two hundred feet of the one side and two hundred feet on the other side of the way." Outside the local markets and the towns, trading centered in the great annual fairs. The most famous of these were at Stourbridge and Winchester. The Stourbridge fair controlled the trade of the eastern counties and the Baltic Sea. Every trade and nationality was represented. It was under the control of the corporation of Cambridge, it was opened annually on 18 Sep- tember, when temporary booths were set up, and it continued for three weeks. More important still was the Winchester fair under the control of the Bishop of Winchester. Lying between Southhampton and London it was the great mart for the southeast. It opened every year on the eve of St. Giles (31 August) and lasted for sixteen days. During the session of the fair all trade was suspended in the neighborhood and weights and measures were carefully scrutinized. The fairs had a special law administered in the Pie Powder Court, so-called from the French Pieds poudres (dusty feet) in reference to the traveling merchants and others who came under its jurisdiction. In return for privileges and protection the merchants paid heavy toll to the lord who controlled the fair, and curious cases are on record of those who tried to evade their obligations by digging their way in under the palisades. Other fairs were held at Boston, St. Ives, Oxford, and Stamford. Native Industries, Towns, and Gilds. The progress of the native industries was not as yet very great. Agriculture, fishing, and mining were the chief pursuits. Such cloth as was manufactured went to supply the needs of the household, except in certain towns where the Flemish weavers, dyers, and fullers were established. Each village 164 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND had its own tanner and bootmaker, smith, carpenter, and miller, and usually a professional hunter of wolves,- cats, and otters, and moles whose skins were mainly used for hats. As the kings from the twelfth century had been granting charters to the towns so now the great lords were beginning to concede privileges to the towns under their sway. Even the smaller ones were no longer the homes of agricul- turists, but contained flourishing organizations of trades and handi- craftsmen. The division of labor was a very pronounced feature. In connection with the production and distribution of each of the staple commodities, wool and leather, we find ten or a dozen separate gilds or companies. Each had its special quarters or market in the city. Houses were arranged with the dwelling rooms at the top, the workshop below, while the goods were exposed for sale under the overhanging porch or at the edge of the street. The gilds were exer- cising an increasing influence in town government; their members occupied the most important offices, and municipal affairs were regu- lated in their interests. Although the Lombards and Tuscans were coming to be known as money lenders, capital was still largely con- trolled by the Jews who were excluded, from public office, from in- dustry and landholding, owing to religious obligations involved, while, on the other hand, since the Church did not countenance lending at interest, they had an open field in this form of business activity. The power of the towns and cities was being recognized in politics from the fact that their representatives begin to be summoned to the Great Councils. An index of prosperity is seen in fact that their outward appearance grows more imposing. Stone houses, formerly beyond the reach of any but Jews and nobles, become more common as places of residence. Rural Life. After all, however, England was still mainly an agri- cultural country. The long vacations of the universities and the law courts are a survival of this time when the students and the prac- titioners were needed at home to work on the harvest. All evidences point to a quiet, steady improvement of conditions. Landlords de- voted more and more personal attention to their estates. Though the tenant farmer had appeared, he played little part in rural economy till the scarcity of labor caused by the Black Death in the middle of the next century. The status of the cultivator continued to improve and more and more serfs became free agricultural laborers. The clergy, however, were constantly preaching to the tillers of the soil to remain where God had placed them, comparing the ambitious to the worm that thought it had wings or the rat who wished to marry the sun's daughter. An indication and a cause of improvement in agricultural methods is the appearance of treatises on the subject. Grosseteste wrote one in Anglo-Norman French in 1240-1241 for Mar- garet, Dowager Countess of Lincoln. The most celebrated of all, however, is Walter of Henley's Treatise on Husbandry for the guidance of stewards of manors, It appeared some time before 1283 and re- HENRY III 165 mained the standard for nearly two centuries. Owing to the faulty communications which made it necessary for each district to be, so far as possible, self-sufficing, the wasteful system of mixed farming persisted. Wheat, rye, and stock were all raised together without regard to the fitness of the special locality for one or the other, except in certain parts of Yorkshire where the Cistercians devoted them- selves to wool growing. Owing to the same difficulty of transporta- tion, the lords and even the kings wandered about from manor to manor for the purpose of consuming the supplies belonging to them. Some magnates had as many as ten or eleven estates scattered over different counties. Each had a bailiff to keep its accounts and was under the general supervision of a steward whose duties were mainly legal. It was still practically impossible to keep any considerable amount of stock over the winter. There was a heavy famine during the years 1257-1 259 due partly to bad harvests and partly to the drain of heavy taxes, much of which went out of the country. In 1 288 the sheep scab appeared for the first time in English history. But these were exceptions in a generally prosperous period. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay, The Dawn of the Constitution (1908), chs. I-XVI. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, chs. XVI-XVIII. T. F. Tout, Political History of England (1905) ; an interesting and scholarly account of the period from the accession of Henry III to the death of Edward I ; the appendix, pp. 443-464, on authorities, is especially good for source material. Stubbs, Early Plantagenets (1886), covering the years from 1135 to 1327, gives the best brief account of the reign of Henry III, owing to its grouping of topics, chs. VIII, IX. Kate Norgate, The Minority of Henry III (1912) is the fullest and most recent narrative of the early years of Henry III. Constitutional and legal. Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. I, sees. 4-7. Taswell- Langmead, chs. V-VII, passim. Stubbs, Constitutional History, II, ch. XIV. Pollock and Maitland, English Law, I, bk. I, ch. VII. Social, industrial, and intellectual conditions. Traill, Social England, I, ch. I. Bateson, Mediaval England, pt. II, passim. Davis, ch. XIX ; Ramsay, ch. XVII ; Moody and Lovett, ch. II. Taine, I, ch. II. Cambridge History of Literature, I, II. Jusserand, Literary History, I. Biography. G. W. Prothero, Simon de Montfort (1877) ; the best biography in English. F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste (1899); "the most complete life of Grosseteste." M. Creighton, Historical Lectures and Addresses (1903) ; containing three brief excellent lectures on Grosseteste and his times. The Church. Wakeman, ch. VII ; W. R. W. Stephens, chs. XI-XVI. F. A. Gasquet, Henry II and the English Church (1905) ; from the Roman Catholic stand- point. A. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars (1890), ch. I. Creighton, Lectures, "The Friars," pp. 69-83,98-116. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 30-36. CHAPTER XI EDWARD I AND EDWARD II (1272-1327). THE COMPLETION OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM Edward I (1272-1307), Accession and Early Life. Henry III had been dead and buried for nearly two years before Edward I returned from the Holy Land. His succession was unopposed, and for the first time in English history the new reign dated from the close of the old instead of from the day of the coronation, though the maxim that " the King never dies " was unheard of for generations. Born in 1239, Edward was in the prime of his young manhood. The grand- son of the worst and the son of the pettiest of the Angevins, with a foreign mother and a foreign grandmother, he seemed far from fitted to lead a people whose national and patriotic aspirations were rapidly awakening. Nor did. his childhood or early youth promise much. At his birth King Henry extorted such rich presents from his subjects that the cry was raised : " God gave us this infant but our Lord the King sells him to us." At fifteen he was married to a foreign princess, Eleanor of Castile, and jousts,' tournaments, and the pleasures of the chase caused him for a time to neglect the vast es- tates and jurisdictions intrusted to his care. The baronial revolt, however, brought him for a season under the influence of de Mont- fort, from whom he learned lessons in military and political affairs which deeply influenced his future. His royal station and his affec- tion for his father soon drew him from the ranks of revolt. The royal victory which followed was due more to him than to any other single man. He did more than win battles, for it was largely due to his foresight and generosity that terms were made with the barons ena- bling them to return to their allegiance. His departure from the country after the wars really strengthened his hand, since it with- drew him from association with his unpopular father. Such was the early life of the Prince who was crowned at Westminster Abbey, 19 August, 1274, and who came to be recognized as the first truly English King since the Norman Conquest. Personal Traits. In spite of his ancestry, and of some unpromis- ing signs in his youth, Edward was well qualified, both in mind and body, to become the representative of English hopes. His very name was significant : it was that of the Confessor who, however little he deserved it, was venerated as the national hero. Then his fair hair and ruddy cheeks were typically Anglo-Saxon. He was so tall that 166 EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 167 he got the name of " Long-shanks," and his frame was well knit and athletic. His commanding presence, united with skill in chivalrous exercises, military ability, and love for hunting and hawking, were bound to impress the medieval Englishman. Men told more than one story of his bravery and resource. On one occasion while he was in the Holy Land an assassin attempted to stab him with a poisoned dagger as he was resting on a couch. Edward caught the blow on his arm, kicked the man sprawling on the floor, and killed him with his own weapon before help came. He had the violent temper of his Angevin ancestors, which once burst out so furiously that the dean of St. Paul's fell dead with fright. Ordinarily, however, he held himself in perfect control. While prompt to resist encroach- ments of the Church or the Papacy and alert in detecting superstition and imposture, he was genuinely religious. He was devout in visiting shrines, he made vows in time of stress, and, when delivered from danger and difficulty, never failed to offer public thanks. Usually he retired to a monastery to pass the quiet Lenten season. Warm in his family affection, to the mass of men he appeared stern and un- feeling. Naturally frugal and abstemious, he kept up sufficient of courtly state to support the dignity of his position. He prided him- self on his truthfulness, adopting as his motto, pactum serva (" keep truth ") yet he was not above legal evasions, for often he kept only the letter of an agreement at the expense of the spirit. His Military Policy. Skilled as he was in war, he took no joy in battle and had no desire to extend his dominions abroad. Though he engaged in war with the King of France, it was to preserve the do- minions that he had inherited from his father, not to regain what John had lost. He did aspire to be the arbiter of Europe in order to maintain the balance of power against France ; but in this policy he made use of diplomacy rather than arms. He was not altogether successful, though he managed to raise England to a position in Europe second only to her ancient enemy. _ His Work as Lawgiver and Administrative Organizer. -+ It was as a lawgiver and as an administrative organizer that Edward did his most enduring work.) Henry II had achieved much ; but his successors had misused the great powers he had passed on to them and had come into conflict with the growing spirit of nationalism and independence. Edward's task was to resume what Henry had begun ; to preserve what was best, and adapt it to new conditions ; to accept at the same time the most beneficial and necessary of the reforms which had been forced on the Crown ; and to fuse the old and the new into the structure of the Constitution. Although he adapted and sup- plemented rather than originated, he completed the ground plan of the English government as it exists to-day. Those who came after had only to complete the edifice on the foundations which he had ^reared. By the end of his reign the principle was accepted that the (King was in general bound to respect the privileges of his subjects\nd 168 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to observe the laws of theland ; ^the voice of the people should be .declared in Parliament,^ Dody which for the first tune came to com- pletely represent all mree classes of the realm the nobles, the clergy, and the commons and that(all taxes, except those sanc- tioned by custom, should be granted by this body) These principles were often violated in subsequent centuries ; but it was much to have secured their recognition thus early. Through the efforts of Edward the common man was placed more securely than ever before under the law of the land as against the feudal lord. By the close of his reign the three common law courts, the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer, had taken shape each with its distinct records, and they continued practically unchanged till the close of the nineteenth century. The circuits and functions of the itinerant justices had been carefully marked out, and the -Council, to assist the King in his deliberations, had become a recognized institution. Also a body of officials under the Chancellor was emerging which was to judge suits on their merits, by right or " equity," when the common law was too inelastic to meet the requirements of an individ- ual case. All this and more was brought about largely by a series of laws or statutes so comprehensive and so superior in numbers and importance that the reign of Edward can almost be said to mark the beginning of English legislation. In the quaint words of the Canon of Oseney : " Edward revived the ancient laws which had slumbered through the disturbance of the realm : some corrupted by abuse he restored to their proper form : some less evident and* apparent he declared : some new ones, useful and honorable, he added." Wales. Edward's First Campaign, 1277. The first serious prob- lem that the King had to face was the conquest of Wales. We have seen how the Celtic peoples occupying the strip of coast to the north and south of the peninsula had been already isolated from their kins- men, and conquered and absorbed, and how the Normans had set up earldoms to protect the Marches, or border, from the fierce moun- taineers, who remained unsubdued. During the time of John and Henry, Llywelyn ap Jorwerth and his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd had extended their authority over the whole of Wales. For a time they seemed destined to unite the scattered and mutually hostile tribes into a single people and to establish an independent nation. The older Llywelyn, by making common cause with the barons against John, secured important concessions in Magna Carta. The younger, in alliance with Simon de Montfprt, took an active part against Henry III during the barons' war. By the Peace of Shrews- Jjury, 1267, the English King granted him extremely liberal terms ; ^m return lor homage and an indemnity to the Crown, he was to hold Wales as a principality and to be recognized as immediate lord of all the Welsh chieftains outside the limits of the Marches. Llywelyn kept reasonably quiet during the remainder of Henry's reign ; but he refused to perform any homage or pay any indemnity to Edward ; EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 169 he failed to appear at the coronation, and disregarded frequent sum- monses. In 1275 Edward secured possession of Llywelyn's intended bride and refused to restore her except on terms that the Welsh prince rejected. War was formally declared, and in August, 1277, Edward led an invasion into Wales. Llywelyn was hemmed in and starved into submission. He was forced to render homage and to have his possessions reduced to the district around Snowdon. Second Campaign, 1282. Subjugation of Wales. Statute of Rhuddlan. The peace lasted less than five years. The English offi- cials, however, were unscrupulous and brutal in their administration, and the tactlessness of the Archbishop of Canterbury fanned the smolder- ing embers of resistance again into a flame. Llywelyn was joined by his brother David, and, on Palm Sunday, 282, they opened a new war by 'attacking the three border castles of Flint, Rhuddlan, and Hawarden. Thence the revolt spread all over Wales. Edward took the field again, and, as in 1277, Llywelyn was forced back into the mountainous district of Snowdon and blockaded by sea and land. Fearing to face starvation again, he forced his way out and was slain in a skirmish near the upper waters of the Severn. His head was sent to London, was crowned with ivy, and displayed upon a pole on the Tower. With his death the backbone of the resistance was broken. David was captured and sentenced to death in the follow- ing year. The conquest of Wales was complete. A notable feature of these Welsh wars is the fact that the long bow was first used effec- tively, a weapon which was to play sucn a part in the wars of trie next century. Edward at once began to secure his new possessions. Snowdon was surrounded by a chain of fortresses, each of which be- came the center of a town whither English traders and colonists were attracted by important privileges. In other parts of Wales as well, new garrisons and fortresses were established or old ones rebuilt. In 1284 the Statute of Wales was issued at Rhuddlan to provide for governing the recent acquisitions. Wales was formally annexed to the English dominions, and the English shire system was extended by the creation of four shires in the north and by the reorganization of two already established in the south. English law administered by English sheriffs was introduced, though, wherever possible, Welsh local customs were allowed to stand. The Marcher lordships, however, were suffered to exist and to retain their extensive jurisdiction for two centuries and more, and an equal period was to elapse before the Welsh were incorporated into the English parliamentary system. ( In 1301 the title of Prince of Wales was conferred on Edward's oldest surviving son, born at Carnarvon in 1284.) This has been the cus- tomary title of the heir apparent to the throne ever since. The French and the Scotch Wars and their Consequences. From 1286 to 1289 Edward was abroad. Not long after his return he in- volved himself in complications with Scotland that, combined with a French war which followed, led to consequences most significant 1 70 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND for England's foreign and domestic history. From now on English kings were constantly interfering in Scotch affairs, a constant source of friction, till the smaller kingdom was finally incorporated with the larger in 1707^. Moreover, this new policy threw Scotland into the arms of England's chief enemy, France, and in 1295 an alliance was made between the two countries by which Scotch manners and customs were profoundly influenced by the French. Also, French intrigue so accentuated the natural hostility of the Scots that Eng- land had to reckon with her northern neighbors in every crisis, foreign and domestic, during the next four centuries. The constitutional progress of Edward's reign was due largely to these wars. The King's need of money in 1295 led him to summon the "Model Parliament," .the first body completely representative of all three political classes. Requiring more than he^gotfrom Parliament, Edward was obliged to demand increased military service from his barons and to squeeze further contributions from the clergy and the merchants. This led to a threefold combination against him, in the face of which he was obliged to yield a new confirmation of the Charters in 1297, ad- mitting the principle that all taxes over and above those regularly belonging to the Crown must be granted by Parliament. The Disputed Succession in Scotland. The trouble with Scot- land arose over a disputed succession. The country ruled by the Scotch kings in the thirteenth century was composed of many diverse elements. 1 Although the royal race was Celtic, the Lowlands, form- ing the richest and most populous part of the realm, were inhabited by people of English blood with English institutions and bound to England by close feudal ties. Ever since the time of Edward the Elder, English kings had claimed a shadowy overlordship over the Scots ; but its extent and character had never been clearly determined. Suddenly, in 1286, Alexander III, the reigning King, was killed by his horse falling over a cliff. He left as his heir a little granddaughter, Margaret, known as the " Maid of Norway." Edward determined to unite the two countries by marrying Margaret to his son. The Scots gave their consent with certain conditions ; but, in September, 1290, Margaret^ died on her way from Norway to Scotland. In May, 1291, Edward ordered the Scotch barons and clergy to meet him at Norham, and there announced his intention, as Superior and Lord Paramount, of settling the succession. There were no less than twelve claimants, of whom the two leading ones were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. As a result of the findings of a body of commis- sioners, to whom the law of the case was referred, Edward pronounced 1 Its nucleus was the district north of the Clyde, settled by the Scots from Ire- land in the sixth century. In 843 Kenneth MacAlpine, King of the Scots, acquired Pictland, the territory of the ancient Caledonians, north of the Forth. The north- ern Strathclyde country, or Cumbria, lying south of the Clyde, was added in the tenth century. Lothian, between the Forth and the Tweed, was next conquered and the conquest confirmed by Cnut in 1018. SCOTLAND REIGN OF EDWARD I SCALE OF ENGLISH MILES EDWARD I AND EDWARD H 171 in favor of Balliol, who swore fealty to him, and on St. Andrew's Day, 30 November, 1292, was crowned at Scone. The Conquest of Scotland, 1296. The Deposition of Balliol. Though Edward had intervened in the interests of order, he took advantage of the situation to press his claims to overlordship. In pursuance of this policy he demanded that English courts should decide cases appealed from the courts of Scotland. Balliol sought to evade this requirement, contracted an alliance with France, sent an expedition across the border, and ended, in 1296, by renouncing his allegiance. " Has the foolish fellow done such folly? " cried Edward when he heard that Balliol had refused his summons to ap- pear before him ; " if he does not choose to come to us, we shall go to him." Before the close of the summer he had conquered the country and reduced Balliol to submission. Appearing with a white rod in his hand and stripped of every kingly decoration, the latter surrendered his scepter and renounced his claim to the kingdom. Taken to Eng- land a prisoner, he was confined in the Tower. Afterwards released at the request of the Pope, he lived for twenty years in France in in- glorious obscurity. Though Edward was far from harsh, many of his measures tended to gall the already irritated pride of the Scots. He made a triumphal march through the country ; he declared the kingdom forfeited ; he broke the Great Seal, and placed most of the great offices of State in English hands. He sent many of the patriot leaders to dwell south of the Trent so long as the war with France continued, and carried off the ancient coronation stone of Scone to Westminster Abbey, where it has remained ever since. 1 The War with France, 1293. The breach with France began as early as 1293. Clt arose out of quarrels between English and French sailors due to bitter commercial rivalry.) In the course of the struggle, Philip IV summoned Edward to appear before the Parliament of Paris, January 1294. The English King sent his brother Edmund in his place, who was induced by the wily Philip to consent to a French occupation of certain Gascon castles and to the formal surrender of the duchy pending the settlement of the points in dispute. When he had once got the Gascon possessions in his hands, Philip declared the English King contumacious and his fiefs forfeit for non-appearance. Edward, furious at the deceit practiced upon him, declared war in a Parliament held in June, 1294. Heavy taxes were imposed and other exactions extorted. The clergy were assessed half their spiritual revenues, the shires a tenth of their incomes, and the boroughs a sixth. The coined money deposited in the treasuries of the churches was appropriated, the wool of the merchants was seized and only given up in return for large grants. A formidable rising of the Welsh, who chafed under English rule, kept Edward occupied till July, and taxed 1 An old prophecy declaring that where that stone was a Scotch king should rule was thought to be fulfilled when James VI became King of England over three hundred years later. 172 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND his resources severely. Then a Gascon expedition, sent out under his nephew, John of Brittany, turned out a failure. Levies were de- manded from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Marches for another, and Edward made a vain attempt to organize a great European com- bination against the French. The effort to control the sea marks an important step in the maritime history of both countries. It led Edward to establish, in 1295, his famous coast guard. Philip, on his part, planned an invasion and a blockade of the English ports ; both failed, but the ships which he prepared mark the beginning of the French royal navy. Then came the alliance with Scotland. In order to meet it Edward took the decisive step of appealing to the whole body of his subjects by summoning the Model Parliament in November, ji 295^ a step which marks the culmination of the growth of representative government and perhaps the most important stage in its history. The Beginnings of Parliament to 1265. The term " Parliament " means literally a speaking, and came to be applied to the body in which the speaking took pTace. The term is now understood to mean a general council of the realm, summoned by the King, to consult on the affairs of the realm and to transact its business, to vote taxes, to enact and repeal laws. (The body now consists of two houses : the House of Lords, composed of the nobles and most of the bishops ; and the House of Commons, composed of the elected representatives of the people.) The name "Parliament" was first applied by the chronicler Matthew Paris to an assembly of the Magnates in 1246. This body, however, was no more representative or elective than the Witan, or the Great Council which followed after the Conquest. The complement of elected representatives from the Commons had yet to appear. From the earliest Anglo-Saxon times the reeve, priest, and four men from each township had appeared in the hundred and shire courts. These courts, however, transacted little or no legislative business, and, with the growth of the royal power, they and the men who came to them decreased steadily in importance. It is from another direction that the growth of the system of parliamentary representation is to be traced. It started with the representative juries, first employed regularly under Henry II to bring criminals to justice, to decide suits at law, and to assess taxes. During the time of Hubert Walter, these juries came to be more and more representa- tive in character. As the lesser nobility came to count for less in the Great Council they began to identify themselves with the landed gentry of the counties, and to serve in juries transacting local busi- ness. If the barons in their growing opposition to the Crown should unite with these local representatives, or if the King should throw himself on their support and tMey should be summoned together in one place to grant supplies and 'assist in national deliberations, a Parliament in the modern sense would be well on foot. .This is pre- cisely what happened. Sometimes the Crown and sometimes the EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 173 barons called together such representatives until they came to form a part of the regular machinery of government. Historians have pointed to two assemblies held in 1213 as marking an important stage in the making of Parliament. In one case, the reeve and four men from certain towns were summoned to meet at St. Albans to assess damages due to the clergy for losses incurred during John's quarrel with the Pope. In the other, four discreet knights of each shire were called to Oxford " to confer with the King on the affairs of the king- dom." It is uncertain whether the local representatives appeared at either place, and taxes continued for many years to be voted in coun- cils of great tenants in chief and assessed and collected in the separate shires by representative knights. Still the fact that such summonses were issued at all is interesting. The first clear case of a central assembly of representative knights comes in 1254, as the result of royal necessity. Henry III, absent in Gascony, wanted money for his campaign, hut the bishops and barons refused to vote it. There- upon the Regents, Queen Eleanor and Richard of Cornwall, summoned through the sheriffs two knights from each shire to declare what the electors were willing to grant. The Growth of Parliament from 1265 to 1295. The next step was taken in 1265, when Simon de Montfort summoned to his Parliament not only two knights from each shire, but also two citizens or bur- gesses from each of twenty-one cities and boroughs which he selected. This has often been called the first English Parliament; but while Simon deserves credit for his first bringing t^gpthpr tVip twn pl^m^ntc that makeup the later House of Commons, his was not a completely Representative body. It consisted exclusively of his own supporters^. Uie Jower clergy "were not summoned at all, the barons there were only of his following, and, in the case of the towns, the writs were directed to such mayors as were on his side, and not, as came to be the case later, to the sheriffs of the shires in which the towns were situated. All that one can say is that the Parliament of 1265 repre- sented more classes than any which had met up to that time. It is doubtful, too, whether Simon intended his arrangement as permanent or only to sanction the system of government set up after the battle of Lewes ; at any rate, writs for a Parliament for the following June summoned only the prelates and barons without any mention of the clergy, and for thirty years no Parliament met which included repre- sentatives from all classes. The fact must also be taken into account that the towns were attaining such importance that they would soon have secured representatives without Simon. Nevertheless, he deserves credit for initiating a very important step in parliamentary progress. The Model Parliament, 1295. (Edward's Parliament of 1295 was the first to represent all classes.) Here were present representatives from the nobility, earls and barons ; from the clergy, archbishops and bishops, abbots, priors, heads of the military religious orders, deans 174 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of cathedrals, and proctors or delegates from the various chapters and dioceses ; from the commons, two knights from each shire and representatives from more than a hundred cities and boroughs. The writs of summons declared that : " Inasmuch as a most righteous law of the Emperor's ordains that what touches all shall be approved by all, so it evidently appears that common dangers should be met by remedies agreed upon in common." Edward was more interested in getting money for his wars with France and Scotland than in per- fecting the constitution of Parliament. Also, some incomplete as- semblies met after 1295 ; but the assembly of that year furnished the model for time to come. It was the Work of the next century to de- cide how the estates now represented should arrange themselves. The lower clergy soon dropped out and transacted their business in representative bodies of their own, known as Convocations. There were two of these, one under Canterbury and one under York, and each was divided into two houses, an upper and a lower. The higher clergy had seats both in the upper house of Convocation and in Parliament. In the latter body they soon came to be organized, together with the temporal peers, into the House of Lords, while the knights of the shire and the representatives of the cities and boroughs united to form the House of Commons. 1 1 The first distinct record of a session of these two houses separately occurs in ^1332, after Edward I had been in his grave a quarter of a century.^ The King arouses the Opposition of the Clergy, the Barons, and the Merchants, 1296. It was with the money granted by the Model Parliament that Edward was able to conquer Scotland in 1296, but an expedition to Gascony, led by his brother Edmund, was a dismal failure. While the barons, knights, and burgesses, assembled in a new Parliament, November, 1296, made liberal grants for another campaign against Philip the Fair, the clergy refused absolutely to contribute. Their leader, Robert Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canter- bury, took his stand on a bull known as Clericis laicos, issued the 1 Although, twice in the reign of Edward III, it was enacted that there should be annual Parliaments, demands for frequent sessions never came except in times of political excitement ; only a few far-sighted political leaders realized the possi- bilities of Parliament as a constant check on the royal powers. Owing to the fact that they were usually assembled to grant supplies ; owing to the expense and hard- ship of the journey to Westminster, the usual place of meeting; and to the fact that, as individuals, they counted for very little when they got there, the bulk of the Commons regarded attendance as a burden rather than a privilege, as a futile interruption of their daily occupations. Even the payment of 45. a day to knights of the shire and of 25. to burgesses did not prove very tempting. Most of the parlia- mentary business was prepared beforehand by the King and his council, and the sheriffs usually controlled the elections. From 1330 on a determined effort was made to keep lawyers, who were regarded as an undesirable element, from sitting in Parliament. In 1372 they were excluded from the country representation, and in one Parliament at least, the " Unlearned Parliament " of 1404, not a single lawyer was admitted. In later times they reappeared in constantly increasing numbers. EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 175 of the previous February by Boniface VIII, rvvhich forbade the lay authorities under pain of excommunication to collect taxes from the clergy without the Pope's consent.) Edward replied by putting the clergy outside the protection of the law so that any man might plunder them at will. " Henceforth," so ran the decree of the Lord Chief Justice, " a clerk may have no redress however atrocious may be the injury from which he may have suffered." Thereupon all lay fiefs of clerks in the see of Canterbury who refused to pay were seized by royal order. This brought them to time. Increased necessity soon forced Edward into conflict with both the barons and the merchants. In a baronial assembly held at Salisbury in February, 1297, the Mar- shal, the Earl of Norfolk, and the Constable, the Earl of Hereford, refused to serve in Gascony unless the King who planned to attack Flanders should command in person. Edward's wrath was furious : " By God, Sir Earl," he roared at the Marshal, " thou shalt either go or hang." " By that same oath, Sir King," replied the undaunted Marshal, " I will neither go nor hang," and, together with the Con- stable, he collected men at arms to support their resistance. The King embittered the merchants by seizing a portion of their wool and subjecting the remainder to a heavy tax. Disaffection was further spread by requisitions for grain and salt throughout the kingdom. Edward's Expedition to Flanders. Wallace's Rising in Scotland, 1297. Edward's courage and resource and the loyalty of his sub- jects in the face of danger enabled him to tide over the crisis. With Winchelsea's grudging assent " Let each man save his own soul and follow his own conscience " the clergy yielded their quota ; the merchants were satisfied with a promise that they would be com- pensated for their wool when peace was restored ; and the King paid for his requisitions and agreed to pay for the services of all who would respond to his " affectionate request." Leaving Prince Edward as Regent with Winchelsea among his leading councilors, he departed for Flanders in the summer of 1297 with a goodly following. The Gascon expedition was dropped. Norfolk and Hereford resigned their offices and held sullenly aloof. Meantime, a formidable rising broke out in Scotland, headed by Sir William Wallace, one of the Low- Jand barons. Edward refused to be diverted from Flanders, though lie senr some of his best warriors to the North. The English forces were overcome at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, n September, and Scotland passed for the moment out of English hands. The Confirmation of the Charters, 1297. Just as the King was ready to embark, the barons who remained disaffected presented him with a list of grievances and demanded a confirmation of the Charters. He had been able to evade them ; but after his departure they took advantage of the Scotch crisis to renew their demands. They came to Parliament armed, they threatened to vote no more supplies, and 12 October, the Regency was forced to give way. The concessions were embodied in a famous document known as the 176 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Confirmatio Cartarum. It provided that the Charter of Liberties and the Charter of the Forests should be confirmed, and that the King's recent exactions should not be made precedents, particularly that the " maletolte " 1 should be discontinued. Most important of all, it was enacted that " no aids, tasks, or prises were to be taken, but by the common consent of the realm and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed." 2 The Confirmatio was ratified by the King at Ghent. By specifying " aids, tasks, and prises " the barons sought to cover all forms of taxes known to them, and the King recognized the principle that no new or extraordinary taxes should be levied without the consent of Parliament. Twice afterwards, however, he aroused opposition by his tax levies. In 1304 he collected a tallage from towns on the royal demesne. Here he was within his rights, but it was a mere legal evasion when, in 1303, he imposed certain customs duties on foreign merchants on the ground that he was not thereby taxing his subjects, though he really was indirectly, since such customs were bound to affect prices. Quite indefensible also was his action, in 1305, in securing from Clement V a solemn absolution from the en- gagement of 1297. Yet in spite of all wriggling, a principle had been formulated and recognized which was to influence profoundly the course of English constitutional history. Peace with France, 1299. Defeat and Execution of Wallace, 1305. - Edward accomplished little in Flanders, and, as Philip IV was not keen for fighting, a peace was arranged in 1297 concluded 1299 on terms suggested by Boniface VIII, to whom the matter had been referred. Each party was to retain what he had at the beginning of the war, and the arrangement was to be cemented by a double marriage : Edward, now a widower, was to marry Philip's sister, and Prince Edward, the French King's infant daughter Isabella. In July, 1298, the English King was ready to take the field against the Scots, and, on the 22d, he met and defeated the forces of Wal- lace at Falkirk. The Scotch pikemen proved no match for the Eng- lish cavalry combined with Welsh archers. In spite of his victory Edward, owing to the scarcity of provisions and desertions, had to march south in the early winter of 1299, leaving southern Scotland still unconquered. Wrangles with his barons over carrying out the 1 A tax on wool of 405. a sack in excess of a tax fixed in 1275. 2 The Statutum de Tall agio non concedendo, formerly accepted as a statute, was probably a preliminary draft of the baronial demands granted in the Confirmatio. It is much more sweeping in its concessions than the authorized version which does not yield the royal right of tallage and does not contain the saving clauses to be found in the Statutum. Some progress was made in cutting off uncontrolled sources of supply. Tallage was never levied after 1332. A statute of 1340 directed against it may have had some influence, though its disappearance is due rather to a sub- stitution of general for special forms of taxation. The subsidy, or tax on wool, taken by the King over and above the ancient custom fixed by Parliament in 1275, was steadily protested against, but it required two statutes the second passed in 1371, to put an end to it. EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 177 terms of the Confirmatio and negotiations with Philip, who still clung to Gascony, 1 kept Edward occupied for some years ; but at length, in 1304, he completed the reduction of the country. William Wallace, who held out after the bulk of his countrymen had submitted, was betrayed by a Scot in Edward's service, taken to London, and executed in 1305. Robert Bruce. Edward's Last Campaign against the Scots, 1307. Edward sought to make amends by framing wise laws for the govern- ment of the country, but the spirit of the Scots was still unbroken. A leader was at hand in Robert Bruce, the grandson of Balliol's old rival. He had been on Edward's side during the earlier struggles, but he was bold and ambitious. Crowned at Scone, 25 March, 1306, he became then the champion of national independence. Every one has heard how in one of his moments of discouragement, when he was a fugitive in the lonely wastes, a spider taught him patience. The devotion of his followers did not even stick at treachery to the Eng- lish. Bishop Wishart broke his sixth oath of fealty, and took the timber which Edward gave him for a steeple for his cathedral to construct siege engines. Edward, regardless of the infirmities of age, vowing that if he reduced his Scotch enemies he would never again take arms against Christian man but devote himself to a crusade, hastily made preparations and started northward. Before he had got far, Bruce was defeated and put to flight by the warden of Scot- land. Summary vengeance was visited on such of his supporters as were captured, among them the Countess of Buchan, who was hung in an iron cage outside the walls of Berwick Castle. The return of Bruce spurred Edward to hasten his march, but death overtook him seven miles from Carlisle, 7 July, 1307, before he reached the border. The approach of death did not diminish the old King's hatred toward his opponents. By his order, Edwardus Primus, Scotorum Malleus, Pactum Serva, was inscribed on his tomb, while he further ordered that his bones should be carried with the army whenever the Scots rebelled, and only buried after their defeat. His idea of uniting the various races of Britain into a single nation was a noble one ; but to seek to carry it out in the teeth of such intense opposition was criminal folly which involved England and Scotland in untold losses of men and money. It was not till centuries later that that poorer northern country came to see that her interests were bound to those of her southern neighbor. Although Edward failed to realize his dream of incorporating Scot- land, his- management of affairs elsewhere beyond the English borders was not unsuccessful. He had reduced Wales. In Gascony few com- plaints came from either barons or commons, and he frustrated Philip's attempt to wrest the country from his control. The Irish situation 1 Finally, in 1303, Philip yielded Gascony, thus falsifying the Pope's prediction, "What the French once lay hold of they never let go, and to have to do with the French is to have to do with the devil." i 7 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND bristled with difficulties ; but he was able to increase revenues over expenditures, and to give the country a comparatively good rule. The Hundred Rolls, the Quo Warrantos, and the Year of Legal Memory. It was in the field of internal administration that Edward achieved his greatest triumphs. He began in 1274 by sending out a body of royal commissioners provided with articles of inquiry to be answered by sworn jurors of every hundred. The results of their investigation are recorded in documents known as the " Hundred Rolls," from the fact that the records concerning each hundred were preserved on separate rolls of parchment in the Government archives. As Domesday Book throws a flood of light on financial and agrarian conditions, so these Rolls tell much about exemptions from royal jurisdiction; about privileges, such as monopolies of mill rights, fishing rights, ferry rights, hereditary sheriffdoms ; about such abuses as bribery and unfair administration of justice. By the Statute of Gloucester, 1278, the King provided for a judicial visitation to find out by what warrant, quo warranto, local privileges encroaching on the power of the Crown were enjoyed. In the following spring the King's judges started out armed with writs of quo warranto; church- men, barons, no matter how powerful, had to produce a charter war- ranting their privileges or else pay a fine. Naturally there was great murmuring and even resistance. The Earl of Warenne, for example, produced a rusty sword as the warrant of himself and his ancestors, and offered to defend what he possessed with the sword. Finally, a compromise was reached. All who could trace back their claims to 1189, the year of the accession of Richard I, might retain them with- out further evidence. Any privilege acquired since required a written record. So the year 1189 came to be the " year of legal memory," the boundary between written record and oral tradition. The First and Second Statutes of Westminster, 1275 and 1285, and the Statute of Merchants. Edward was determined to correct the abuses of officials acting in his name as well as to enforce the royal rights. To that end ordinances were issued from the Exchequer the financial court of the realm to prevent extortion and specula- tion and to close the court to unauthorized persons. The royal atti- tude is manifest too, in the first and second Statutes of Westminster enacted in 1275 and 1285, respectively, in which "great zeal and desire " was expressed " to redress the state of the Realm in such things as require amendment . . . that the peace of the Holy Church and the Land be well kept and maintained in all points, and Common Right be done to all, as well Poor as Rich, without respect to Persons." These two statutes are mainly a restatement and sum- mary of previous enactments, such as Magna Carta and the Provi- sions of Westminster, and the embodiment, as well, of the best fea- tures of the administrative measures of Henry II and his successors. While the main aim in both is to deal with existing abuses in royal and feudal jurisdiction, and to regulate the procedure of the courts EDWARD I AND EDWARD n 179 rather than to formulate new general principles, the second statute contains one important new provision. This is the clause " concern- ing conditional gifts," de donis conditionalibus . It established en- tailed estates ; that is, estates that should be handed down in an order of succession established by the original donor, failing which they should go back to him and his heirs. The measure was acceptable both to the King and to the great nobles ; to the former because it enabled him, when the conditions were not fulfilled, to get back lands originally granted by the Crown ; to the latter because it prevented their estates from being diminished by division among heirs or in payment of debt. The latter point was all the more important be- cause two years before, in 1283, a statute had been passed for the pro- tection of merchants. 1 Foreign merchants, from the fact that they had very little security for their persons and none for collecting debts, had grown shy of doing business in the country, and trade had suffered. To remedy the situation the Statute of Merchants provided that creditors could force their debtors to acknowledge their debts and have them enrolled ; and, in event of non-payment, could have the debtor's land and chattels seized and imprison their persons until the claims were satisfied. The Statute of Mortmain or De Religiosis, 1279. In 1279 Edward attempted to deal with another grievance. The Church had been increasing its possessions till at length it absorbed fully a third of the land of the kingdom. Church lands were said to be held in " Mort- main " as if by a dead hand that never relaxed its grasp for corporations, unlike families, never died. Nor was this the chief grievance ; ecclesiastical holdings were exempt from most of the military obligations and other services, such as wardships, marriages, and reliefs. In consequence, the custom arose for those who wished to evade those obligations to grant their lands to the Church on con- dition of enjoying part of the income. In order to check this abuse Edward enacted his famous statute De Religiosis or Mortmain, pro- hibiting such grants without royal license. The effect was regulative rather than prohibitive, for many licenses for alienation were given. The Statute of Winchester, 1285. By the Statute of Winchester the King sought to revive and reorganize the old institutions of national police and defense. Every district was to be responsible for the robberies, murders, burnings, thefts, and other crimes committed within its borders. In walled towns the gates were to be shut from sunrise to sunset ; and, during the summer months, from Ascension Day to Michaelmas, the inhabitants were to set a watch at each gate. Strangers were to be arrested and examined, " and if they will not obey the arrest, they (the watch) shall levy Hue and Cry upon them, and shall . . . follow with Hue and Cry with all the Town and the 1 The Statute of Merchants, sometimes called the Statute of Acton Burnell, be- cause it was drawn up at the manor house of Edward's grtjat Chancellor, Robert Burnell, near Shrewsbury. i8o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Towns near, and so Hue and Cry shall be made from Town to Town, until that they be taken and delivered to the sheriff." It was further enacted that every man, in proportion to his lands and goods, was to provide himself with arms and armor, according to the ancient Assize of Henry II. View of armor was to be made twice every year, and in every hundred and franchise two constables were to be chosen to perform this task and likewise to report to the justices all failures, in their districts, to keep arms and armor, to punish crime, to follow the hue and cry, as well as all illegal harboring of strangers. The justices were in their turn to report such information to the King at every Parliament. The appointment of constables marks another stage in bringing the local government into closer connection with the central. In succeeding years " conservators of the peace " were frequently appointed to enforce the provisions of the Statute. These officials are the direct ancestors of the justices of the peace who be- came such an important feature of English local government from the fourteenth century on. An ordinance concerning London throws much light on conditions, social, industrial, and political. Ap- parently the city was becoming very cosmopolitan, attracting hosts of foreign visitors, some of whom had nothing to do but " run up and down the streets more by night than by day, and are well attired in clothing and array, and have their food of delicate meats and costly." Expulsion of the Jews, 1290. One step of a different kind taken by Edward during the years of his progressive legislation was his ex- pulsion of the Jews in 1290. Welcomed by the Conqueror and his sons as agents for extorting money from their subjects they were carefully protected by Henry II. Although, legally, chattels of the Crown, practically, they became masters of the resources of the king- dom. Usury or the taking of interest was forbidden by the law of the Church, and, though this restriction was sometimes disregarded, the bulk of the business of money lending fell into Jewish hands. The abbey church of St. Edmunds at Bury was built from a Jewish loan, and Aaron, a rich Jew of Lincoln, whose stone house remains as one of the finest examples of the domestic architecture of the period, is said to have built the shrine of St. Albans and to have furnished the funds for nine Cistercian monasteries. The massacres at the opening of Richard's reign indicate the popular hatred against them, due largely to their exemption from the laws of the land and to their extortion for which they were not altogether to blame. Also, they were accused of openly mocking at the belief and ceremonies of the Church, and wild stories were circulated of their buying Christian boys to crucify them. Although Richard yielded to popular senti- ment so far as to allow their persecutors to escape with light punish- ments, he took steps to regulate their loans and to protect their bonds by establishing in 1194 a Jewish exchequer with specially appointed persons to witness the one and to act as custodians of the other. Even the pious Henry III made use of them, though great men like Grosseteste and de Montfort wanted to see them banished. The old accusations were repeated in the reign of Edward with many more besides ; they were charged with playing into the hands of the rich by making over small mortgages to great landowners, and even of forgery and money clipping. Edward was prejudiced against them, and his mother, Eleanor of Provence, and the clergy were even more so. Such being the situation, he very readily agreed to drive them out in return for a parliamentary grant. By his bigotry he deprived himself of use- ful servants and no doubt seriously retarded the financial development of the country. It was centuries before the Jews were allowed to return. The Statute of Westminster III. Quia Emptores, 1290. The same year, 1290, is notable for the passing of the last of the great statutes of the reign, Westminster III. It is otherwise known as Quia Emptores, from the opening words : " For as much as purchasers of land." It aimed to prevent the process of increasing subinfeuda- tion, whereby services due to great landowners were becoming so subdivided and confused that it was difficult to keep track of them. According to this enactment, lands granted by a tenant ceased to be under his control, but passed to that of his lord. In other words, the grantee was not the vassal of the grantor, but. of the grantor's lord. As the Statute expressly authorized the sale or alienation of lands under such conditions, many landowners, from financial neces- sity, took advantage of the authorization, in spite of the restriction. Since the King was in many cases the overlord of such landowners, the number of small freeholders directly dependent on the Crown was greatly increased. Edward as a Ruler. Significance of his Reign. Edward I was a masterful man who sought to be every inch a King, but he had the good of his subjects at heart and spent his life in their service. While claiming all that was due him, he was wise enough to recognize the limitations put upon the royal authority in the struggles of the cen- tury by accepting the two great principles, that Parliament should represent all classes, and that it should have a voice in granting all revenues over and above these belonging to the King by law and ancient usage. Only twice in English history, during the separation from the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century and during the epoch of reform in the nineteenth, have there been periods of more significant legislative activity than that of Edward I. When his other work is taken into account, his conquest of Wales, his Model Parliament, his Confirmation of the Charters, and his judicial and administrative reforms, it is evident that his reign of thirty-five years is one of the most notable in the annals of the country. Edward II, 1307-1327. Early Training and Character. Edward of Carnarvon, the unworthy son of a worthy father, succeeded to the throne at the age of twenty-three. He had been carefully trained in the business of war and state. During the critical year 1297 he had i8 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND acted as Regent. Created Prince of Wales in 1301, he attended his father in his later Scotch campaigns. The " frivolity and extrava- gance " of his after years was manifest thus early. He took a lion and Genoese fiddlers on his journeys, and Piers Gaveston, his earliest and most worthless favorite, had already begun to exercise a baneful influence on him. The chroniclers have left graphic descriptions of the new King's appearance and character. Tall, handsome, and of uncommon bodily strength, he had no liking for tournaments, and was a coward in battle, and in spite of his father's training had no inclination or aptitude for business. Though he loved pomp and ceremony and fine clothes, his natural tastes were low. He sought the society of grooms and watermen, he drank deeply, and was so ignorant that he had to take his coronation oath in French instead of Latin. Although a good musician, his main occupations were racing, breeding dogs and horses, and manual labor such as smith's work, digging trenches, and thatching roofs. Weak and good natured, a " chatterer " with no dignity or self-restraint, he was easily swayed by unscrupulous men who cultivated him for their own ends. He neglected his wife Isabella at one time even reducing her to twenty shillings a day so that she became bitterly estranged from him and was finally the instrument of his downfall. Edward began his reign by recalling Piers Gaveston, whom his father had recently banished, thus choosing the worst when he needed the best. Gaveston, who had been brought up as the Prince's foster brother, was a presumptuous adventurer. Attractive, brave, and accomplished, he was also intentionally mischievous, he was greedy for money and power, and the royal attentions turned his head. He did incalculable harm at the outset in estranging the great lords by his levity and mockery and by the insulting names he showered upon them. The politics of this reign are on a distinctly lower level than those of the last. The King was opposed not as a strong man seeking to solve national problems in his own way, but because he was childish, extravagant, frivolous, and incapable. He complained once that he was treated as an idiot, and so he was and with justice. On the other hand, the men who led the fight against him were even less patriotic and large minded than those of the preceding generation in seeking to advance personal and class privileges and powers. Edward comes into Conflict with his Barons (1308) and his Parlia- ment. : Edward's coronation oath contained an important innova- tion. \In addition to the customary promises he pledged himself to hold and keep the laws and righteous customs chosen by the com- ' munity of the realm/) This is all the more significant because of the complete representation accorded in 1295. Nevertheless, he began at once to make himself unpopular. He made peace with the Scots, he dismissed ministers, he loaded Gaveston with favors, and even appointed him Regent while he went to France for his bride. The Great Council which met in April, 1308, raised an outcry and declared EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 183 significantly that homage was due to the Crown rather than to the King in person. Edward was forced to banish his favorite, though he had him back again in little more than a year. In April, 1309, aparlia- ment of all the estates assembled. They accompanied apromise of a money grant with a petition enumerating a list of grievances .which indicate that the complaints were confined to no one class." They included oppressive requisitions of corn, malt, meat, poultry, and fish from subjects, heavy customs on the wine, cloth, and other merchandise of .foreign merchants, exactions at fairs, and faulty ad- ministration of justice. Edward returned a favorable answer, but the return of Gaveston, more arrogant than ever, led to a crisis. The Lords Ordainers and the Ordinances of 1311. In March, 1310, the barons, in the teeth of the royal prohibition, assembled fully armed, and forced the King to assent to the appointment of a body of twenty-one commissioners to reform the administration. These Lords Ordainers, as they were called, remind one of the baronial committee of 1258. (jThe same conditions are again present, a weak King, a foreign favorite, and incompetent administration.^ The y. j Ordainers drew up a body of " Ordinances " which aimed not only to reform the whole system of finance and administration of justice, but to deprive the King of all independent power. He was to make no gifts, fill no great offices of state, nor go to war or quit the realm without the consent of his barons. The progress in representation made under Montfort and Edward was disregarded. Parliament was to meet once or twice a year and to witness important acts, but the real power was to pass into the hands of a narrow oligarchy. Bitterest for Edward, the banishment of Gaveston was again insisted on. To avoid this he put off ratifying the Ordinances till October, 1311, and then broke his pledge. Thomas of Lancaster and the Baronial Rising, 1312. Thereupon, the barons, led by Thomas of Lancaster, took up arms. Thomas (1277-1322) was the cousin of the King. By virtue of his high con- nections, his offices, and his vast estates he was the most powerful man in the kingdom. Naturally ambitious and self-seeking, he was glad 1 to accept the position of leadeTagairist the Crown ; but in addition he had personal affronts from Piers Gaveston to avenge. He was coarse and violent and showed a total inability to use for any good or lofty purpose the powers which circumstances thrust upon him. Edward made vain efforts to save his favorite, even offering to recognize Robert Bruce as independent King of Scotland and to cede Gascony to Philip the Fair. Gaveston was captured by the baronial forces and after a trial that was no more than a farce was beheaded 19 May, 1312. The Scotch Victory at Bannockburn, 1314. Edward failed to profit by the lesson. He did patch up a peace with his opponents, but he failed to recover their confidence or to attach them to his service. In consequence of their aloofness the Scotch were able to 184 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND inflict on the English the most disastrous defeat in the centuries of conflict between the two countries. Robert Bruce uttered no vain boast when he said that he was more afraid of the bones of Edward I than of his living son. After the old King's death his successes were almost uninterrupted until Stirling Castle was the only stronghold of importance remaining in English hands, and that was hard pressed by the Scotch King's brother, Edward Bruce. In the early summer of 1314 Edward II marched to relieve it. The hostile barons refused to follow in person and only grudgingly sent their legal contingents. Nevertheless, the English army was the greatest ever yet sent to invade the north and outnumbered the Scotch more than two to one. The chroniclers state that it numbered 100,000 l and that the war carriages, if put one before the other, would have extended twenty leagues. Bruce drew up his forces in the royal park between Bannock- burn and Stirling Castle. Edward, overconfident, allowed his troops to pass the night before the conflict in noisy revelry, while the Scots spent the time in stillness and devotion. The engagement was fought 24 June, 1314. It ended in a complete rout. The English King fled to Dunbar, whence he took to the sea and never stopped until he reached his own kingdom. The disaster at Bannockburn con- tributed greatly to his inevitable downfall. During the remainder of the reign the northern border suffered one inroad after another. 30 March, 1323, after two more ineffectual campaigns, Edward con- cluded a truce for thirteenyears, though he still refused to acknowl- edge Bruce as King of the^Scots. This truce was still in force at the close of the reign. Temporary Triumph of the Lancastrians. Rise of the Despensers. Thomas of Lancaster took advantage of the King's humiliation to make himself supreme. He was appointed commander-in-chief against the Scots, he was named chief of the Council, he filled the offices of State with his nominees, and reduced his royal master to an allowance of 10 a day. Yet he was either incapable or unwilling to do anything for the defense of the country. He would not lead an army to the Border, he would not even attend Parliament. Finally he retired, and a permanent council was set up which practically put the royal power in commission .TEd ward found new favorites in the two Despensers, father and son?; The elder, although his father had died for the baronial cause at Evesham, had been a faithful servant of the old King Edward and had continued his allegiance to his successor. About 1318 the young Despenser also joined the court party. Al- though " neither foreigners nor upstarts," they were regarded with envy by the barons because of their greed and ambition. Rising against the Despensers. Defeat and Death of Thomas of Lancaster. Thomas started the cry against them with an accusation that they had received gifts contrary to the Ordinances of 1311. The 1 Probably 30,000 would be an extreme figure. EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 185 Marcher Earls who feared that the younger Despenser would extend his power on the Welsh border, where he claimed the lands of the Earl- dom of Gloucester, were the first to take up arms. The King sought vainly to avert hostilities, whereupon in a Parliament, held in 1321, formal charges were brought against both father and son, who were condemned to forfeiture and exile for usurping royal powers and at- tempting to estrange the King from his people, for inciting civil war, and perverting justice. Edward, in a unique flash of energy, raised an army in behalf of his favorites. Thomas, who had prepared some- what tardily to assist the Marcher Lords, was defeated and captured by the royal army at Boroughbridge, 16 March, 1322. Tried and sentenced in his own castle of Pomfret, he was beheaded six days later as a rebel taken in arms against the sovereign. Although of a piece with his own treatment of Gaveston, Thomas of Lancaster's bloody end in a struggle against royal extravagance, favoritism, and mis- government gave him a place in the hearts of the people which neither his merits nor his achievements deserved. He became a popular idol, miraculous cures were said to be performed at the place of his execution, his effigy was set up in St. Paul's, London, and in the reign of Edward III it was even proposed to make him a saint. 1 Many others of the baronial captives were either imprisoned or put to death. Four Years of Misrule, 1322-1326. Edward's victory marked an interesting attempt to restore the league between the King and the commons which had prevailed up to the time of John and to recognize as its mouthpiece that body which the struggles of the thirteenth century had created. In a Parliament of 1322 the Or- dinances, a purely baronial production, were revoked and the im- portant principle enunciated that, " matters which are to be estab- lished for the estate of our Lord the King and his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and the people, shall be treated, accorded and established in Parliament by the King and by the Council of the prel- ates, earls and barons, and the commonality of the realm." Yet Edward proved too flighty and incapable of winning the people any more than the barons. For four years, from 1322 to 1326, he ruled completely subject to the Despensers, whose chief aim was to fill their own pockets and increase their own power. Disorder, failure, treachery were the result : " the military summonses were not obeyed, the taxes were not collected, the country was overrun by bands of lawless men, the law was unexecuted." To cap all, the Despensers affronted Queen Isabella. A woman of violent passions, lacking in morality and scruples, and embittered by humiliation and neglect, she eagerly seized an opportunity which presented itself to overthrow the hated counselors, and, as it turned out, her husband as well. Overthrow and Imprisonment of the King, 1326. On the death of Philip V of France, Edward was summoned to do homage for Gas- 1 His reputation was further enhanced by the fact that the House of Lancaster later secured the throne. i86 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND cony and Ponthieu to his successor. The Despensers feared to let the King out of their sight, and Isabella got permission, in 1325, to go in his stead. Aided by Roger Mortimer, one of the Marcher Lords who had been imprisoned in 1322 and who had since escaped from the Tower, she gathered about her a disaffected party and planned an invasion of England. The figurehead was the King's eldest son and heir, Prince Edward, a boy of thirteen, who was abroad with his mother. When King Edward heard of the plot that was being hatched against him, he threatened his wife and son with outlawry and made belated and futile attempts to defend his realm. Isabella landed in Suffolk, 24 September, declaring herself the avenger of Earl Thomas and the enemy of the Despensers. Deserted by all save a scanty following, the King fled first to the west, thence into Wales. Here after an unsuccessful attempt to escape to Ireland, he took refuge in Neath Abbey and offered to treat with his wife. Isabella, however, marched against the elder Despenser, whom she took prisoner, tried, and hanged as a traitor on the common gallows outside the town of Bristol. His head was sent to Winchester. On the same day, 26 October, 1326, Prince Edward was proclaimed guardian of the realm which his father had deserted. 16 November the King and the young Despenser were captured by the Queen's forces. The latter was executed a few days later ; but a longer period of debasement and suffering was in store for his royal master. Deposition and Death, 1327. Parliament assembled January, 1327. In a tumultuous meeting the young Edward was chosen King. Then six articles were framed to justify the deposition of his father. They declared : " That he was incompetent to govern, that he had rejected good counsel and neglected the business of the kingdom for unbecoming occupations, that he had lost Scotland, Ireland, and Gas- cony, that he had injured the Church and imprisoned her ministers, and also had imprisoned, exiled, and put to death many of the noble men of the land, that he had broken his coronation oath, especially in the matter of doing justice to all, that he had ruined the realm, and there was no hope of his correction." The reply of the captive King was pitiful : " He wept and said it grieved him much that he deserved so little of his people, and he begged pardon of all who were present, but since it could not be otherwise he thanked them for electing his eldest son." His consent having been extorted, homage and fealty were solemnly renounced, and the Steward of the Household broke his staff of office in token that his royal master had ceased to reign. The furious Queen pursued him with unrelenting ferocity. He was taken from one prison to another, denied sufficient food and cloth- ing, prevented from sleeping, crowned with a crown of hay, and showered by the roadside with ditch water. Finally at Berkeley Castle, after he survived confinement in the charnel house used as a pest chamber, he was murdered 21 September, 1327. Yet he was buried with great pomp. The Welsh celebrated his end with mourn- EDWARD I AND EDWARD II 187 ful dirges. Later legends had it that he escaped his enemies, and after weary wanderings finally passed away in a hermit's cell in Lombardy. Significance of his Deposition. The folly of Edward Carnarvon brought upon him a terrible and overheavy retribution. The in- struments of his downfall were most unworthy. Isabella had sought to right her deep wrongs by still deeper sins. Her chief counselors and followers were impelled by personal rather than patriotic motives. Yet one step in their procedure was fraught with significance. ^They took a long stride in the direction of popular liberty when they called upon parliament, as the voice of the people, to declare the great principle that allegiance might be renounced to a King who had ceased to govern in the interest of his subjects^ Narrative. Ramsay, The Dawn of the Constitution, chs. XVIII-XXXIII. The Genesis of Lancaster (1913), I, chs. I-X. Tout, Political History, chs. VII-XIV. K. H. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages (1913), chs. I- VIII; bibliography, pp. 509-517. E. Jenks, Edward Plantagenet (1902) ; chs. IX and XIII are particu- larly good for the legislation of Edward I. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. II, ch. IV, sees. 8-10. Taswell- Langmead, ch. VIII. Stubbs, Constitutional History, II, ch. XV. Maitland, Con- stitutional History of England (i 908) gives, pp. i-i 64, an excellent account of the public law in the time of Edward I. Medley, Manual contains a good summary of the origin and development of Parliament, ch. III. C. S. Mcllwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (1910) contains an able discussion of the boundaries between legislative and judicial powers. L. O. Pike, The Constitutional History of the House of Lords (1894) ; the standard work on the subject. For a full account of the origin and development of the law courts see W. S. Holdsworth, History of English Law (1903), I. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 37-55. Scotland. P. H. Brown, History of Scotland, 3 vols. (1899-1909) ; the best brief history, I, bk. Ill, chs. I-IV. i88 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND THE LATER ANGEVINS, OR THE PLANTAGENETS, 1272-1399 Henry III, 1216-1272 I EDWARD I = (i) Eleanor of 1272-1307 Castile; (2) Margaret of France Margaret, m. Alexander III of Scotland Edmund, Earl of Lancaster (i) EDWARD 11= Isabella of . 1307-1327 France EDWARD III=Philippa of 1327-1377 Hainault (2) Edmund, Earl of Kent, executed 1330 Joan, m. (1) Sir T. Holland ; (2) The Black Prince Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, d. 1322 Henry, Earl of Lancaster, d. I34S Henry, Duke of Lancaster, d. 1362 I Blanche = John of Gaunt Ed ward = Joan of Black Prince, d. 1376 Kent Lionel, Duke of Clarence RICHARD II, 1377-1390 John of = Blanche, Gaunt, heiress of d. 1399 Lancaster Edmund, Duke of York 1 Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, d. 1397 Philippa = Edmund Mortimer, d. 1380 Roger, Earl of March, declared heir of Richard II, in 1385 ; killed in Ireland, 1398 Henry IV, 1399-1413 THE KINGS OF SCOTLAND, 1163-1390 Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, son of David I WILLIAM THE LION, 1165-1214 David, Earl of Huntingdon ALEXANDER II, 1214-1249 I ALEXANDER III, 1249-1286 Margaret=Eric, King of Norway Margaret, Maid of Norway, 1286-1290 I Margaret Devorguilla=John Balliol DAVID BRUCE, m. Joan, sister of Edward II, 1329-137 Margaret = Walter the Steward or Stuart, ancestor of the Stuart line ROBERT II, 1370-1390 1 Claimants in 1292. Isabe! Ha Robert Bruce,* d. 1295 Margaret JOHN BALLIOL, 1 Robert, 1292-1296 d. 1305 John Comyn, Edward Balliol ROBERT I, murdered 1306-1329 CHAPTER XII THE REIGN OF EDWARD III (1327-1377). THE BEGINNING OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. CHIVALRY AT ITS HEIGHT. THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF THE COMMONS. THE IN- CREASE OF NATIONAL SENTIMENT. FIRST ATTACKS ON THE POWER OF ROME The Misgovernment of Isabella and Mortimer. The boy Edward had only reached his fifteenth year when he was put in bis father's place. Parliament, therefore, appointed a Council to carry on the government during the minority. The royal guardian and nominal head of the Council was Henry of Lancaster, brother of Thomas, but the real power was in the hands of the Queen Mother and Mortimer. They appropriated two thirds of the royal revenue, and were so high- handed that " no one dared to open his mouth for the good of the King or of the Kingdom." To be sure the new Government made many fair promises in answer to a petition from the Commons ; but it proved incompetent as well as corrupt and overbearing. An expedi- tion was sent against the Scots, who had broken the truce of 1323 by a raid into England, but the invaders managed to elude their pursuers. The consequence was the 'l^Shameful Peace," in 1328^ by which Edward, in return for a moneypayment, formally renounced his claims of overlordship. Though the Lancastrian lords, anxious to protect their northern estates, may have had a hand in it, it was ascribed to Isabella and Mortimer, who were accused of pocketing the proceeds. Mortimer's arrogance grew to exceed all bounds, so that his own son called him the " King of Folly." He boasted of a retinue of 180 knights, not to speak of esquires and other followers. He sought to overawe Parliament by main force, and when the nobles banded against him, he tempted Edmund, Earl of Kent, uncle of the King, into treason by a false report that Edward II still lived, and then had him executed without trial, 19 March, 1330. Their Overthrow by Edward III, 1330. King Edward, who had married Philippa of Hainault, became, in June, 1330, father of a son, later famous as the " Black Prince." His new sense of responsi- bility, together with the treacherous murder of his uncle, determined him to assert his royal rights, and to put an end to the intolerable rule of his mother and Mortimer. With a trusty follower and a body of men at arms he seized the guilty pair in Nottingham Castle, where they had taken refuge, and issued a proclamation that henceforth he 189 i 9 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND would govern himself. Heavy charges were framed in Parliament against Mortimer ; he was condemned without a hearing, and hanged 29 November. Isabella was given a pension. She lived in honorable retirement till her death in 1358, assuming a nun's habit in her later years. Character of the New King. At the age of eighteen Edward was now truly King. During the greater part of a long and eventful reign he shone as the typical hero of chivalry. His figure was striking and graceful, his face was described " as the face of a god." Very brilliant he must have been on state occasions in his robe of crimson velvet worked with leopards of gold. Generous to a fault, with a bearing at once courtly and winning, he gained the name of " Edwardus Gratiosus." Devoted to hunting and hawking, he likewise excelled in " beautiful feats of arms," whether in the tournament or in serious war. Yet there is another side. Asa ruler and general he was showy rather than solid. He was ambitious, prodigal, and ostentatious, having no interest in his people except in so far as they contributed resources for his pleasures and his warlike designs. Hence, while he dazzled them for a time by the glories he achieved, he failed in the long run to win their hearts. The reverses of his later years left him a broken and deserted man. He ruled without a settled policy. The measures of his reign, so notable in political and commercial progress, were due, not to enlightened statesmanship, but were forced upon him by his financial necessities. He spent most of his life fighting, now with France, now with Scotland. In neither case was he the original aggressor ; but not content with asserting his just rights and vindicating his honor, he sought to extend his sway over two peoples who would not submit to the rule of any but their own kings. While he made himself " King of the Sea" and brought England into promi- nence that she had never before enjoyed, the price paid was a heavy one, and the ultimate result was failure. Other aspects of his reign less dramatic were more enduring. Parliament shaped itself into the modern House of Lords and House of Commons, and the lower House began to assert rights which point the way to its later position as mouthpiece of the nation. Commerce advanced with tremendous strides, though Edward Ill's title of " Father of English Commerce " is hardly deserved. Feudalism and chivalry yielded to the rising importance of the middle class. A new literature in the national tongue made its appearance. Significant religious changes mani- fested themselves, forerunners of a movement which was, in less than two centuries, to overthrow the universal supremacy of the Church of Rome. Finally, labor and capital began a conflict which has continued with varying intensity even to this day. Disputed Succession in Scotland. Halidon Hill, 19 July, 1333. - In April, 1328, Robert Bruce died of leprosy, leaving a seven-year-old son David as his heir. This enabled Edward Balliol to set himself up as King. Ed.ward III sent an expedition across the Border to THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 191 support him and on the igth of July, 1333, the Scotch patriotic party, riddled by English arrows which flew " as thick as motes in the sunshine," were disastrously defeated at Halidon Hill. They were forced to send David Bruce to France, but they doggedly resisted Balliol's attempts to subdue them. (Philip VI of France determined in 1336 to aid his Scotch allies, and England embarked in a war which lasted well into the next century.^ Significance of the Hundred Years' War. " The Hundred Years' War," as it is called, profoundly affected many aspects of English history, (in the first place, it was largely responsible for the downfall of chivalry) The two greatest battles of the war were won by the yeoman archer against the mailed knight whose prestige had been due mainly to his unquestioned superiority in arms. Also the poverty and discontent resulting from the constant strain on the country's resources was the chief cause of that revolt of labor against capital which Edward's grandson had to face. Its political consequences were equally momentous. It forced from the King many notable concessions, while the restless, turbulent spirit w r hich it fostered con- tributed to the movement that set aside the Plantagenet for the Lancastrian House, and resulted in the long dynastic struggle of the fifteenth century known as the " Wars of the Roses." In addition to its social and political consequences the Hundred Years' War strongly influenced the religious history of the period ; for the opposi- tion to the Papacy, with all that it involved, was colored by hostility to France. From 1305 to 1378 the Roman pontiffs were settled at Avignon under the control of French kings, and consequently were regarded as opposed to English interests. Finally, the war developed a spirit of nationality in the two countries such as had never before existed. England as purely English and France as purely French are largely a creation of this struggle. In the first year of the war, 7 October, 1337, Edward assumed the title of King of France. Al- though this was a mere pretext, although other and more complex causes made the conflict inevitable, it is necessary to understand the grounds on which he based his claims. Edward's Claim to the Throne of France. Hundred Years' War. With the death of Charles IV in 1328 the direct line of the House of Capet which had ruled France for more than three centuries came to an end. It was maintained in behalf of Edward that his mother, sister of the late King, was the next lineal heir. The peers of France decided in favor of Philip, son of Charles of Valois, uncle of Charles IV. The lawyers later justified this decision on the ground that by the law of the Salian Franks, one of the ancestral tribes of the modern Frenchmen, wornen could neither inherit estates nor transmit them to a son. After some negotiations, Edward accepted the situation and did homage to the new monarch, Philip VI, for his possessions in France. Philip, however, burning to extend his sway over Guyenne, irritated him by i 9 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND constant encroachments. Then came Philip's espousal of the cause of the Scots. While these were the two main causes which led to Edward's resumption of his pretensions to the French succession and his subsequent invasions, other reasons contributed to urge him on. Robert of Artois, brother-in-law of Philip, had been excluded from the succession to the county of Artois which he claimed as his heritage. Forced to flee, he took refuge at the English court about 1335, and spent his time egging Edward on against his enemy. Another cause was the English King's desire to get a foothold in the county of Flanders. The Flemings were the great cloth makers of tfcfe period, and they had recently revolted against their overlord, Qount Louis, who had suppressed them with French aid. He sought to prevent Edward from entering into negotiations with his disaffected cities by prohibiting all commercial intercourse with the English, and by seizing their merchants and confiscating their goods. Edward replied by retaliatory measures which caused great suffering in the industrial centers ; but he hoped that the ultimate effect of his blows would fall on Count Louis, the subservient vassal of France. On 21 September, 1336, he convoked a Parliament to deliberate on the machinations of Philip in Scotland and Guyenne, and to devise measures for the safety of the realm. 1 The Opening of the War, 1337. England was, on the whole, in a better position for fighting than France. Although small, her territory was compact and united ; she had the better army, and as an offset to the danger from Scotland, she possessed strong strategic points on the Continent. Before embarking on a campaign, Edward sought alliances abroad. He attached himself to most of the petty princes of the Low Countries, such as the Counts of Hainault and Guelders and the Duke of Brabant, and 15 July, 1337, he made a treaty with the Emperor, Louis of Bavaria. Philip VI busied him- self with forming counterallianc.es. Meantime, he had begun the war, 24 May, 1337, by ordering the seizure of Guyenne, where several castles were besieged and forced to capitulate. Edward's response was the assumption of the title of King of France, in October. The people of Ghent, embittered by the interference with their trade, put at their head Jaques van Arteyekje, a rich cloth merchant. The leading Flemish cities joined with Ghent, and, in February, 1338, made a preliminary convention with England, which was concluded by a treaty of commerce in June. Edward's Expedition to Flanders, and his Futile Invasion of France, 1338-1339. In July, 1338, Edward sailed for Flanders. He traveled about in pompous state, distributing borrowed money with a lavish hand. The Emperor Louis, as temporal head of Christendom, made him his Vicar-General on the left banks of the Rhine, and solemnly guaranteed his title to the crown of France. Nevertheless, his allies were slow in coming to his aid, his finances were inadequate, and it was months before he was ready to face his enemy. Finally, in October, 1339, THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 193 he invaded France. Philip, who had been awaiting his advance, sent a herald with a formal challenge to a pitched battle. He had a glorious array : "It was a thing of exceeding beauty to see, the banners waving in the wind, the horses mailed and caparisoned down to the haunches, knights and esquires in shining armour. Yea nothing could vie with it in magnificence." Yet when the English King eagerly accepted his challenge, he suddenly turned about and started for Paris. Edward returned to Flanders, and, in February, 1340, crossed over to England, leaving his queen, two sons, and two earls as hostages to the Flemings for his enormous debts. Aside from one unsuccessful siege the campaign of more than a year and a half had been little more than a grand parade. While he gained nothing, the poor folk along his line of march suffered bitterly. Flaming towns and villages marked the wake of his progress through a fertile and populous district. To the knightly class war was a noble pastime governed by an elaborate code of honor, generosity, and bravery; to the peasantry it was a gruesome reality. The Campaign of 1340. - Equipped with new supplies, obtained from Parliament in return for statutes directed against crying abuses, Edward started on a second expedition, 22 June, 1340. Two days later he encountered a French fleet lurking in the harbor of Sluys to intercept his landing on the Flemish coast. In spite of the fact that the enemy's ships were so numerous~that they rose " like a forest " on the horizon, he gained a decisive victory which made him master of the narrow seas. On the other hand, the land campaign was fully as futile and inglorious as that of the previous year. Philip cautiously refused a challenge to fight his royal opponent either singly or with a hundred knights on a side. Edward's allies proved as apathetic as ever, and his debts accumulated steadily. So he patched up a truce for nine months, and in November stole " away privately for England to elude his creditors." The next year the Emperor revoked his title of Vicar-General, and one by one his allies in the Low Countries dropped off. The last to go were the Flemish cities, after the murder of their leader, van Artevelde, in a popular rising in 1345. Parliamentary Gains of 1341. In England the year 1341 was marked by events of great political importance. An attempt on the part of King Edward to bring his Chief Minister, John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, to answer certain charges in the Court of Exchequer brought forth a declaration from the House of Lords that peers, whether Ministers or not, should on no account be brought to trial or judged except in full Parliament or before their peers. Edward was forced to accede to the Lords' declaration. Other im- portant concessions were wrung from him; namely, that com- missioners should be elected in Parliament to audit accounts of officers who had received money for the King ; that the Chancellor, as well as other great officers of State, and the judges should be ap- pointed by the King in consultation with Parliament and sworn to i 9 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND obey the law; and that at the beginning of each Parliament Ministers should resign their offices into the King's hands and be compelled to answer all the complaints. As the joint work of the Lords and Com- mons the concessions of 1341 mark a distinct gain over those of 1258 and 1311, which were the result of exclusively baronial activity. Their immediate effect, however, was annulled by the duplicity of the King. Having received the grant which Parliament paid as the price of the concessions, he repudiated them in October, admitting, with brutal frankness, that he had dissembled " in view of public necessity." The Truce of 1343. Increasing Financial Embarrassment. In 1342 a disputed sucession to the Duchy of Brittany caused Edward to lead a force to that country in behalf of one of the claimants. Philip marched against him, and for the third time the English and French armies faced one another without righting. In January, 1343, a truce for three years was arranged. This truce Philip con- stantly disregarded by aggressions in Brittany and Guyenne, but Edward did not renew the war till 1345. The delay was doubtless due to his financial embarrassments. His creditors in the Nether- lands, the Rhine country, and in Italy clamored for payment, and his inability to meet his obligations, at which he grieved and even blushed, caused the failure of such great banking houses as the Bardi and the PeruzzL- The cessation of foreign loans threw the King back on his/ English subjects; and Parliament and the merchants were able to secure important concessions for moneys they advanced. In spite of his poverty, Edward could not restrain his love for lavish display. In 1344, for instance, he held a gorgeous 'ground table," or combined tournament and banquet at Windsor. fTwas~at th"is time that he built the famous Round Tower as a dining hall for visiting knights. The Campaign of 1346. The first notable English triumph in the Hundred Years' War was achieved in 1346. Delayed by " horrid storms," Edward finally landed at La Hogue on the Norman coast, 12 July. Marching toward the interior, he was at first unopposed except at Caen. " God," says Edward's confessor, " had struck so great terror into the hearts of all that they seemed to have completely lost courage." He had intended to march south, and join Henry of Lancaster who had been operating in Gascony since the previous year, but the main French army, under Philip's son John, blocked his way. Therefore he made for the Seine. The French King, as soon as he learned of his intention, hastily gathered a force to guard the right bank of the river and destroyed all the bridges within reach. Edward now decided to make for the coast. His position was most critical. He had devastated the country behind him, the road south was closed to him, while an army twice the size of his own lay between him and the Flemish coast. He managed to cross the Seine within fifteen miles of Paris ; but the Somme was still ahead of him. Philip sent forces to occupy Amiens and Abbeville and followed leisurely THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 195 after. He hoped to coop up the exhausted English army between the mouth of the Somme and the sea. Edward sent out scouts to find a place to pass over. When he learned that the bridges were all destroyed or guarded, he left camp so suddenly that Philip found " meat on the spits, bread and pastry in the ovens, wine in the barrels, and even some tables ready spread." Unless the English could find a ford they were undone. At last a native showed them a place where a chalky strip rose in the midst of the sand wide and high enough at full tide for twelve men to pass abreast. Philip had posted a strong force on the opposite bank to guard the passage, but under a destruc- tive fire of arrows the English forced their way over, 24 August, before daybreak. The rising tide swept in just in time to cut off the main body of Philip's army hurrying in pursuit. The Battle of Crecy, 26 August. Marching north, Edward halted at Crecy. " I am on the rightful heritage of my mother," he declared, " and I will defend it against my adversary Philip of Valois." This time there was to be a battle. The English force, numbering 3900 men at arms, 11,000 archers, and 5000 Welshmen, were drawn up in three divisions or " battles " on the slope of the hillside just east of the village. The right was commanded by the Black Prince, a boy of sixteen, who was making his debut as a fighter. The slope of the hill- side and a little stream at its base furnished some protection. Beyond the right of the hill a thick forest barred a flank attack. The division on the left was likewise protected, though less effectively, by the woods of the neighboring village of Wodicourt. The third division, com- manded by the King in person, was posted as a reserve higher up the hill. Edward took a position in a windmill at the extreme top, whence he could survey the whole field. The English men at arms were dismounted, leaving their horses in the rear. Both flanks of the two forward divisions were protected by bodies of archers thrown out at angles. The English forces were arranged by the morning of 26 August and spent the day digging little pits to catch the French horse. Philip, who had crossed the Somme at Abbeville, advanced until his van was within a mile or two of Edward's army before his scouts were able to inform him of its exact position. As his forces were strung all along the road, he decided to accept wise counsel and delay the attack till the following day when he could bring them into better order. But the van would not retire, and although they halted, the rearward kept pushing up from behind, crying : " Death to those English traitors ! Not one of them shall ever get back to England." While it is impossible to estimate the size of their army, it may have been 60,000. Numbers did not count, however, for they were huddled together in a struggling mass, and the setting sun glared directly in their eyes. The first advance was made by the Genoese crossbow- men, followed by a body of men at arms. Their arrows fell short, for a sudden summer storm had soaked their bowstrings, since they 196 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND had not, like the English, taken the precaution to cover their weapons. Exposed to the arrows, " falling like snowflakes," of Edward's long- bowmen, they tried to retreat. Instead of opening ranks to let them fall back, the horsemen behind rode them down, crying : "Away with those faint-hearted rabble ! They do but block our advance." Fifteen or sixteen successive charges were made by the French knights who never waited for those in front to beat a retreat, until they plunged into the writhing swarm of men and horses and exposed themselves to the deadly flight of the English arrows. Only once did a body of them get far enough up the hill to menace seriously the Black Prince, whom his father had placed where he could win his spurs by bearing the brunt of the battle. Night ended the contest, when Philip, after leading a vain final charge, was persuaded to with- draw. The discomfiture of the French was completed the next morning when fresh forces coming up, unaware of the disaster, were scattered with great loss. Results of Crecy. " Not for two hundred years," wrote the chroni- cler Froissart, " had so many princes and nobles fallen in battle. God have their souls, for valiantly they died in the service of their King, who lamented them exceedingly when he knew the dire truth." Among them were the blind King of Bohemia ; Louis, Count of Flan- ders; the Duke of Lorraine; and Philip's brother, the Count of Alencon. The heralds counted among the fallen over 1500 lords and knights; the loss among the men of lesser rank is not known. Estimates vary from 10,000 to 40,000, but probably the former number is nearer the truth. The English loss was slight, not more than 40, exclusive of a few dozen Welshmen who had run out between the charges to slay or plunder the disabled knights. Edward had completed success- fully a foolhardy campaign by a victory due to splendid tactics, to the choice of a strong position, and to a skillful combination of archers and men at arms. The immediate consequences were important : he had struck terror to the French by his ability to cut his way through their dominions and to overcome a force three times his own ; moreover, he had diverted their attacks from Guyenne. (The remoter consequences were momentous ; the very foundations of medieval society were shaken when the flower of French mailed knighthood had to yield to yeomen archers and Welsh and Irish serfs armed with knives and spears. It was a mortal blow at the old system of warfare and the social and political structure built upon h.j Defeat of the Scotch at Neville's Cross, 27 October, 1346. The Scotch, who had recalled David Bruce in 1341, seized the occasion of Edward's absence to send an invading force across the border in 1346. The instigation came from Philip, but the moment seemed peculiarly favorable. " There is not a man to hinder us," they said, " for all the warriors of England are gone to France, leaving but a pack of shoemakers, skinners, and merchants behind." They were sadly mistaken. On 27 October, they were met by a force of northern THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 197 levies at Neville's Cross near Durham and completely routed. Bruce was taken to London a prisoner, where he remained in captivity for eleven years. His old rival, Edward Balliol, died in 1367. On his own death in 1371 he was succeeded by the son of his sister Margaret, Robert, High Steward of Scotland, the first of the Stuarts, a line which was later to rule over England as well. The Siege and Capture of Calais, 1346-1347. On 28 August, 1346, Edward started for Calais, the most important town in nor them France, one which both for commercial and strategic reasons, he was anxious to secure. It was a refuge for pirates and privateers who devastated English shipping, and, with Dover on the opposite shore, commanded the Channel ; in addition it offered an easy means of communication with Flanders as well as a basis for operations against France. He arrived before the walls, 3 September, when, finding the place too strong to carry by assault, he prepared for a siege. The inhabitants held out through all the long winter, and until well into the following summer. In June the Governor sent a despairing letter to his King, informing him that everything was eaten up, horses, dogs, and cats, and soon they would be reduced to eat each other. Efforts to relieve the place by sea failed, and finally Philip appeared with an army. Once more he challenged Edward to pitched battle ; then, thinking better of it, suddenly departed, declaring it was better to lose the town than to put the lives of his men in jeopardy. Thus deserted, the Governor consented to treat. According to a familiar story, Edward required six leading burgesses to come forth with halters around their necks and the keys of the town in their hands, and was only dissuaded from putting them to death by the tears of his Queen. Whether the story is true or not, he did spare the lives of the whole garrison, though he replaced the old population by English settlers. For two hundred years Calais was held as an English market and fortress. On 28 September, 1347, another truce was signed, and 12 October, Edward returned to England. English Magnificence and Ostentation. The capture of Calais was the turning point in the career of Edward III. Although only thirty-five years old he withdrew almost entirely from the war, and occupied himself with domestic concerns, with hunting and hawking and tournaments. For eight years hostilities were nominally sus- pended ; but while the truce was frequently renewed, it was fre- quently broken in Guyenne, where the " unhappy citizens had hardly more quiet in peace than in war." In England, on the other hand, it seemed as if a " new sun had arisen on account of the abundance of peace, the plenty, and the glory of the victories." " There was no woman who had not got garments, furs, feather beds, and utensils, from the spoils of Calais and other foreign cities," and " then began the English matrons to glorify themselves in the dresses of the matrons of Celtic Gaul, and as these grieved at the loss of their things, so those rejoiced in their acquisition." The -upper classes seemed to live only i 9 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND for pleasure. From October, 1347 to May, 1348, nineteen tourna- ments were appointed, some lasting two or three weeks. Plays also were a popular amusement for the King and his courtiers. Dress was gorgeous and extravagant; that of the women is described " as diverse and wonderful." Even the clergy fell victims to the prevailing contagion, wearing their hair long, curled, and powdered, adorning themselves with rings, girdles, and furred gowns, more like soldiers and men of fashion than servants of God. It was probably in this period that Edward founded the celebrated Order of the Garter, in imitation or memory of King Arthur's Round Table, an order which still remains the most exalted in England. Causes for Popular Discontent. The reverse side of this picture of glittering magnificence is seen in the popular discontent and the grounds upon which it was based. While the war brought much booty, it involved great expense, and the exactions levied to meet it aroused stout opposition. Edward was ever copious with promises which he did not observe ; if he gave up a tax, he made arrangements with merchants in which they shared profits, the cost of which fell ultimately on the subject. When the King sought the advice of the Commons, it was only to put them under the obligation of paying for the policy in which they acquiesced. In order to evade responsi- bility they professed themselves, in 1348, too ignorant and simple to advise him in military affairs ; at the same time they presented no less than sixty petitions complaining of abuses, such as monopolies of wool and tin, and the unauthorized impost on manufactured cloth. In view of the King's usual assurances, they granted supplies on conditions ; but their attitude is an indication of a gathering dis- content which was to come to a head before the close of the reign. The Black Death, 1348-1349. Before Parliament met again the country was visited by a frightful scourge, from which it was never again wholly free for more than three centuries. The Black Death, as it was called, appeared first in Asia, whence it spread along the trade routes to Europe, reaching England in the late summer of 1348. Its appearance was foretold by all manner of signs and wonders: "An extraordinary dreadful comet; earthquake shocks; a star shin- ing over the city of Paris in the daytime and fading away at night ; a pillar of fire on the papal city of Avignon." Even wilder tales were told, of showers of blood, and of the appearance of strange monsters, such as a double-headed serpent with faces like the face of a woman and wings like a bat. More to the point, famine, due to floods, droughts, and the devastations of war, and the unhealthful conditions of ventila- tion and drainage, prepared the way for ravages of the plague. It was a most loathsome and contagious disease. Among its symptoms were black patches all over the body whence its name boils, vomiting of blood, and fever. So great was the dread " that parents abandoned their infected children and all ties of kindred were dis- solved." The young and vigorous were the chief victims, while the THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 199 aged and infirm were less subject to attack. It created the greatest havoc in the overcrowded parts of cities, but there was little chance of escape for such as had once breathed the tainted air. Those who fled to the fields and woods fell dead and spread the contagion on the way, and ships were found at sea with not a living soul on board. Thousands are reported to have died in London alone. The living were scarce able to bury the dead. Only a few of the rich had separate graves ; most of the others were heaped into trenches. The sitting of Parliament was suspended ; the administration of justice ceased for lack of judges ; and in many places divine service stopped be- cause the priests had died or fled. Many villages were wholly deserted, and the grass grew long in the flourishing port of Bristol. The Scots, who mocked at the " foul death " of the English, caught the infection and lost a third of their population. Moral and Religious Effects of the Black Death. The moral and religious effects were startling. Some gave themselves over to excesses of drinking and reveling ; but the greater number, regarding the affection as a divine visitation for their sins, sought to avert the wrath of God by exaggerated religious observances. John Wiclif, the first notable English opponent of the Papacy, wrote a book, The Last Age of the Church, in which he predicted the approaching end of the world. A queer sect known as the " Brotherhood of the Flagellants " (the " whippers ") was revived. They passed over to England from Hungary and Germany and went about from town to town scourging one another with iron-tipped scourges and chanting mournful hymns. " From the thighs to the heels they were enveloped in a linen cloth, the rest of the body stark naked, except the head, which was covered with a hood, marked with a red cross before and behind; at every third step they threw themselves on the ground in the shape of a cross, and the last one in the line rose, whipped his neighbor, so on till they had gone along the whole line." Multitudes on the Continent, in- cluding monks and priests, joined the ranks. In England the number was fewer, but their appearance is the forerunner of a religious unrest which soon spread widely. The Pope, who regarded such fanatical excitement as dangerous to established order, issued a bull, 20 October, 1349, for their suppression. With the return of quieter times they gradually disappeared. Another manifestation of superstition was an outburst against the Jews, who were accused of causing the plague by poisoning wells and the air. Although many in authority, including the Pope, set their faces against it, the popular fury was only stayed after thousands had perished. Luckily, the expulsion of this unfortu- nate people by Edward I spared England from sharing in this disgrace. Social and Economic Effects. The social and industrial effects of the Black Death precipitated a crisis in English economic history. It is estimated that the country lost from a third to a half of its popu- lation. The number of laborers was so diminished that they began to demand excessive wages and the value of land fell steadily from 200 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND lack of cultivation. " Sheep and cattle strayed through the fields and corn, and there was none who could drive them," harvests rotted on the ground, while, to make matters worse, a murrain among the cattle accompanied the plague. While some landlords remitted the rents of their tenants and actually reduced the service due from villeins so as to hold them on the land, others sought vainly to get their lands cultivated by resorting to all sorts of antiquated claims of service, or at least by -claiming strictly such as were actually due. On 18 June, 1349, the King issued a proclamation in which he ordained that, since laborers and servants either demanded excessive wages or spent their time in idleness or begging/all unemployed persons should be compelled to work at wages prevalent before the recent calamity^ Penalties were fixed for those who refused, and also for those who offered higher wages or gave anything by way of charity to idle beggars. As an offset, it was provided that fish, flesh, and fowl should be sold at a reasonable price. The Ordinance proved inef- fective, and, in 1357, Parliament reenacted its measures in a statute, the Statute of Laborers, one of a long series to follow. The laborers, however, were so " puffed up and quarrelsome " that they would not obey, and the landlords had to leave their crops ungathered or violate the law by paying increased rates. It must be said that the laws of supply and demand and the decreased purchasing power of money to some extent justify the laborers. The result of the new conditions was to change the whole system of farming. The great landlords ceased to farm their estates with the aid of stewards, and leased them to tenant cultivators or else turned them into sheep pastures. Still it should be emphasized that the Black Death only accentuated change, already in progress. The growth of manufactures, the spread of commerce, and the attraction of military service drew many from the land, and the landlords would have suffered had there been no plague. Laws to turn back the hands of the clock were unavailing. A Decade of Important Legislation. Parliament, during the decade following the Black Death, was uncommonly active. In 1351 it passed the celebrated Statute of Provisors, which declared invalid all appointments, or provisions made by the Pope to English benefices, and punished with imprisonment all who accepted such appointments. Two years later, 1353, the_S_tatute of Praemunir.e ! enacted " at the grievous and clamorous complaint of the great men and commons of the realm " that any one carrying suits to foreign courts should be liable to forfeiture of lands and chattels, imprisonment of person, and outlawry. The Pope and clergy, against whom these provisions are clearly aimed, are not mentioned in the Act. More than once reenacted, neither of the two above statutes were obeyed during the fourteenth century. The Act of Treasons, 1352, is important, as the first legislative attempt to define the crime, and, up to modern times, 1 A corruption of the Latin pramonere to be forewarned. THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 201 that definition has always formed the kernel of the law on the subject. Seven offenses were enumerated, including the compassing the death of the King or his consort or his heir, adhering to his enemies, slaying his Ministers or his judges, counterfeiting the Great Seal or the royal coins. Although the powers of the courts were thereby limited, they took occasion, from time to time, to extend the scope of the Act in cases where its definition proved inadequate. In 136.3 the Chancellor opened Parliament with a speech in English. In the previous year It had been enacted that English should be the language of the law courts, for the reason that the " people have no knowledge nor under- standing of that which is said for or against them " and that the court records should be in Latin. As a matter of fact, however, cases continued to be argued and reported in French till the eighteenth century ; the language of the statutes was French till Henry VII ; and Latin did not cease to be the language of writs, charters, and records until 1731. In 1362 it was enacted that no subsidy on wool should be laid without the consent of Parliament. This act renewed in 1371 " marks a tendency to deprive the Crown by very definite legislation of its power of ... raising money by direct evasion of the letter of the constitutional law." In this same year, 1362, the vexatious right of purveyance, or seizing goods for public necessity, was re- nounced except in the case of the King and Queen, and it was provided that goods so taken should be paid for in ready money. In the next year a sumptuary law regulated very minutely matters of diet and dress to prevent the impoverishment of the country exhausted by plague and war. If part of the people were intent on fighting and display, there was a class who were grappling with the realities of life. English Legislation relating to Ireland. The Statute of Kilkenny, 1366. Laws made during this period to deal with the situation in Ireland failed to allay the strife and confusion which prevailed there, and only awakened discontent. Edward I had valiantly but vainly sought to improve the administration. The native chiefs fought among themselves, the Anglo-Norman lords -also were engaged in constant quarrels, while the two races fought each other. The old shire system had broken down. Beyond the Pale 1 the power- of English officials and the power of the Irish Parliament was naught. The natives had shown their hatred of their nominal rulers by taking the side of Bruce in the time of Edward II, and even chose Edward, Robert's brother, to be their king in 1316. He was defeated and killed two years later, but the English feudal party were as far off as ever from subduing the country. The legislation of Edward III aimed to prevent absenteeism, to prevent the natives from holding office, and prevent intermarriage or association between the two peoples. The famous Statute of Kilkenny, 1366, dealt with the last of these problems most drastically. It not only forbade the English settlers 1 The district under English control surrouijding Dublin. 202 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to intermarry with the Irish, but it prohibited them from using the Irish language or adopting their dress or manners. The Statute was never enforced, and the attempt to rule the country by a party solely attached to the English interests proved futile. Progress of the War. End of the Truce, 1355. During the period when there was nominally a truce between England and France, from 1347 to 1355, more than one stirring engagement was recorded. In 1349 the French attempted to recover Calais by bribing the Gov- ernor. When the plot was reported to Edward, he prepared a force for its defense which he and the Black Prince accompanied in disguise. A body of French were admitted into Calais castle on the pretense that it was to be betrayed. After they had been overcome, Edward sallied forth at the head of his followers to dispose of those outside. " Raging like a wild boar," he fought a single combat with the bravest of the French knights that was " right pleasant to see." Then in the true fashion of chivalry he entertained all the knights at supper, giving his late opponent a chaplet of pearls from his own head. In 1350 Philip VI died, and " there were no tears shed by the nation." Unfortunately for the French, his son John, who succeeded him, while personally brave and eager for martial distinction, had even less statesmanlike capacity than his father. In 1355 war was renewed in real earnest. In July, 1356, the Black Prince, who had been in Aquitaine since the previous year, started from Bordeaux for a raid through central France. King John marched south to defend his threatened territories. Prince Edward made a vain effort to intercept him and the two marched south in a parallel direction, neither knowing exactly the position of the other. Finally, the French army reached the town of Poitiers, whither the Black Prince tracked them. The Battle of Poitiers, 16 September, 1356. He took up a strong position on a rolling plateau, protected on the rear and flanks by a wood, a marsh, and a winding stream. In front lay a thick hedge behind a ditch and pierced only by a single country road so narrow that only four men could march abreast. The English force con- sisted of about 3000 men-at-arms, about the same number of archers, and a few hundred Gascon light-armed troops. As at Crecy the French outnumbered them about three to one, but had no opportunity to use their superior force. Lining the hedge and the thickets on either side with archers, Prince Edward awaited the advance of the enemy. Except for a small contingent of horse in the front line, the French men-at-arms were all dismounted. But mailed knights, however effective for defense, were not adapted for marching up a rough road and scrambling through bushes. Moreover, John had made the mistake of not covering their advance with archers and crossbowmen. Not only were their attacks repulsed, but the Black Prince sent a small force to attack them on the left rear. Then he led a charge down the hill, and, in the hand-to-hand conflict which ensued, fought himself " like a fell and cruel lion." King John, struggling manfully, THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 203 was taken prisoner, together with his young son Philip. This capture, and the confirmation of the verdict of Crecy that the day of the mailed knight had passed were the chief results of the Battle of Poitiers. The Black Prince was able to make little immediate use of it in a military way. Too weak to attempt to capture the city whither most of the vanquished fled for refuge, he hurried on to Bordeaux with his booty and his more important prisoners. On 23 March, 1357, a truce was ar- ranged for two years, and in May John was taken a captive to London. Suffering and Disorder in France after Poitiers. The condition of France after the defeat of Poitiers was deplorable. Oppressive taxes and debasement of the coinage to support the extravagance of the nobles and to pay the King's ransom, bore heavily on the exhausted land. Free companies of French and English soldiery roamed about the country, plundering and pillaging, " stripping naked those to whom the lords had left a shirt." The suffering and discontent mani- fested itself in a furious peasant rising known as the Jacquerie. 1 , But the privileged classes were too much for the rude undisciplined bands whom they put down and massacred without mercy. " It needed not the English to destroy the country," wrote a French chronicler, " for in truth, the English, enemies of the kingdom, would not have done what the nobles did." The state of the country was worse than before. " Neither corn nor vegetables nor vines were cultivated ; burnt houses and churches in ruins everywhere met the eye ; desolation universally prevailed, except in some isolated places where the peasants resisted the royal bandits. . . . Winter increased the suffering of the people ; the price of food became enormous, and famine raged through- out the land." On 24 March, 1359, King John, who had spent his cap- tivity pleasantly in the chase and tournament, signed a treaty of peace. Its terms, however, were such that the French regents and estates gen- eral preferred to leave their sovereign in captivity rather than accede. The Peace of Bretigny, 1360. Another invasion led by Edward and his four sons failed to achieve any notable success. The French shut themselves up in their strong towns and castles, and it was prac- tically impossible to support the English army in the wasted country. Terms of peace were arranged at the little village of Bretigny in May, 1360, and ratified at Calais in October. The treaty is known as the Treaty of Bretigiyv. It was tacitly understood that Edward should renounce his claims to the French throne. In return he received all of the ancient Aquitaine, 2 including Poitou and many smaller dis- tricts in the south;jKrithieiL-Controlling the mouth of the Somme, and Jjutne^. the district in which Calais was situated, in the north. John's ransom was fixed at 3,000,000 crowns, a sum over eight times the ordi- nary revenue of England. One fifth was to be paid down, the remain- der in annual installments, the payment being guaranteed by hostages. 1 From Jacques bonhomme, a contemptuous name by which the nobles desig- nated the peasant. 2 It included Guyenne and Gascony. 204 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The French renounced their alliance with the Scots and the English theirs with the Flemings. " Good brother France," said Edward, " you and I are now, thank God, of good accord." Such rejoicings proved premature. In spite of the sincere efforts of King John, the French nobles in the ceded districts stoutly resisted the transfer of their allegiance, and towns were even more stubborn. Some districts refused to submit at all. Mercenaries, composed of disorderly spirits from many lands, continued to live off the country where any- thing remained. One band, swooping down from the Rhine and the Low Countries, called themselves the Tard Venus (or " late comers"), " because they had not as yet much pillaged the kingdom," and did their best to make up for lost time. Moreover, the French were unable to pay the installments of John's ransom. When some of his hostages, including his son Louis, broke their parole, he returned to England, where he died in 1364. The Tide begins to turn against England. Two years before, King Edward had erected Gascony and Guyenne into a separate principality, and conferred it upon the Black Prince. In view of the Prince's past successes and the disordered condition of France the prospects of the English seemed as bright as those of the French seemed dark; but the tide was on the turn. John's successor, Charles V, though weak in body, a scholar, a reformer of court manners, and an administrator rather than a warrior, was able to win back ground that his more mar- tial father had lost. " There never was a king who had less to do with arms," said Edward III, " yet there never was a king who gave me so much to do." Charles was greatly aided by Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton captain, ugly and quarrelsome, but wary and capable, ^who came to be recognized as the greatest general of his age. The new King and the Pope soon succeeded in involving Prince Edward in war in Spain, with consequences so disastrous that he afterwards lamented to the Bishop of Burgos : " The devil has dragged me into mixing into the affairs of your kings." Well he might. He damaged his reputa- tion, he contracted a disease which led to his premature death, he diverted English energies from France, and was compelled to levy taxes from his Gascon subjects which prepared them for rebellion and thus opened the way for the loss of his principality. The trouble in Spain arose over an attempt of Henry of Trastamara to oust his lawless and blood-thirsty half brother, Pedro the Cruel, from the throne of Castile. French and papal forces aided him in driving Pedro out of his kingdom. The Black Prince, to whom he fled, took up his cause in the teeth of the opposition of the Gascon lords and against the advice of his wisest English councilors. King Edward supported his son on the ground that he was bound to Pedro by treaties of alliance. By the aid of the English arms he was restored for a brief season, just long enough to show how faithless and unworthy he was. He was driven out again, taken prisoner by Henry's forces in March, 1369, and treacherously stabbed by his half brother in a quarrel. THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 205 The Intrigues of Charles V in Aquitaine and the Renewal of the War. Meantime, Charles V had taken advantage of the situation to make ready for war, and to secure the alliance of such of the Gascon nobles as were opposed to their ruler. His opportunity came when the Prince levied a tax of ten sous on every hearth to pay his mercenaries. Although the burden fell most heavily on the mass of the people, the nobles led the opposition, and appealed to the King of France. He had no right to interfere in the affairs of Aquitaine, yet he actually, 15 January, 1369, summoned the Prince to Paris to answer the complaints of his own subjects. " I shall go to Paris," was the proud and indig- nant reply, " but it will be with my helmet on my head and 60,000 men in my train." Charles, in his desire to recover his French possessions, had scant regard for the law ; but he had one real grievance. This was the pillaging carried on by the English companies, which, although discountenanced by King Edward, continued apparently without check. Defied by the Black Prince in his attempted intervention, he seized Ponthieu, and, 29 April, 1369, sent the King of England a formal declaration of war, choosing, it is said, a scullion as a messenger. Edward replied by resuming the arms and title of the King of France. The English lose Ground steadily during the Remainder of Edward's Reign. The war which followed " never rose above a series of raids, skirmishes, and sieges." Edward III was premature y old, his good wife Philippa died on the i5th of August of this same year, 1369, and he fell more and more into the hands of Alice Ferrers, an unworthy favorite to whom he was already inclined. The Black Prince, who had been for years bearing the burden of the fighting, was suffering from, dropsy and growing steadily weaker. The English, in spite of a few' successes, met with one reverse after another and continually lost ground. Many causes besides the declining capacity of Edward and his son contributed to this result. The English army had deteriorated from the fact that the depleted ranks of the archers, who had won the earlier battles, were filled by a motley throng of foreign auxiliaries, Germans, Flemings, and Gascons. Moreover, the French employed more and more a species of tactics that exhausted their adversaries. On the English approach they wasted the land round about and took refuge in a castle or walled town. On the other hand,*Bertrand du Guesclin was constantly appearing in Aquitaine, attacking remote and ill-defended garrisons. He never stayed to face a relieving force, and wore out the defenders of the land in futile marches and pursuits. The last military feat of the Black Prince was the sack of Limoges, October, 1370. He was so weak that he had to be carried on a litter. In January of the following year his health was so completely shattered that his brother, John of Gaunt (so-calledjroriL Ghent, his birthplace^ was chosen as his successor. John had already inclined his father the King to set up a court of appeal in Gascony to abate the taxes and to repeal the unfortunate hearth tax. These belated measures, however, had only weakened the authority of the Prince instead of conciliating 206 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND his subjects. Bertrand du Guesclin, now Constable of France, em- ployed his harassing methods to perfection on a wider scale. He hung on the flanks of invading armies, he annoyed them by petty surprises, he wasted the lands on their line of march, and continued to avoid pitched battles. At length negotiations for peace were reopened, but both sides were so stiff-necked that nothing more than a truce resulted, which, by renewal, lasted till the end of the reign, when all that re- mained of the former vast conquests of the English were Bordeaux, Bayonne, Calais, and Brest. Increasing Discontent in England. The Good Parliament, 1376. Owing to the burden of taxation, the ill success of the war, and general maladministration, public discontent grew steadily. Proceedings in Parliament show that the Church was coming in for a share of the attacks. In 1371 a lord, described as " more skillful than the rest," proposed that, in time of need, the goods of the clergy should be seized as the common property of the kingdom. 1 As yet, however, the chief opposition, led by the Black Prince, was directed against the court party, particularly John of Gaunt and Alice Perrers. It came to a head in the " Good Parliament " which met in 1376. The session, lasting from 28 April until 6 July, was very important as an index of the popular excitement and the growing power of the Commons, though the measures of reform that were undertaken scarcely survived the dissolution. The object of calling the Parliament was to obtain money for continuing the war; this gave an opportunity to assert again the principle that redress of grievances should precede supplies. ^The first step of the Commons was to secure a committee of twelve magnates four bishops, four earls, and four barons to assist them in their deliberations^ Their next step was to choose as their leader Sir Peter de la^Mjire. 2 He demanded an audit of accounts, and proceeo^e^'to'Tay^arethe iniquities of the King's counselors, to whom he attributed the national poverty. Among the frauds which he enumerated was the custom of the courtiers of buying the King's debts at a low figure and then obtaining the full amount, or even more, from the treasury. John of Gaunt tried to avert the attacks of these " upstart hedge knights " by an adjournment, but when he was reminded that they were backed by the Black Prince and the citizens of London, he agreed to hear their further complaints and the remedies they might suggest. The First Parliamentary Impeachments, 1376. The leading offenders were mentioned by name and brought to account. William, Lord Latimer, the King's Chamberlain, w r as accused of buying up debts, of extorting huge sums, of selling strong places to the enemy, and of intercepting fines which should have been paid into the royal treasury. 1 His speech is notable for a quaint comparison ; he represented the Church as an owl dressed in feathers of other birds. On the approach of the hawk they asked back their gifts ; when the owl refused, they seized them by force. 1 Sir Thomas Hungerford was the first to receive the title of "Speaker" in 1377. THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 207 Richard Lyons, a London merchant and former farmer of the customs, had been associated with him in various frauds ; on one occasion they had lent the King 20,000 marks and received back 20,000 ; they had forestalled the markets at ports and raised the price of foreign imports. On these charges they were impeached. This is notable as the begin- ning of impeachments, a process which consists of a trial by the House of Lords on the basis of an accusation brought by the Commons against a" public official for a public offense. Both Latimer and Lyons were convicted. They made a vain attempt to obtain a pardon by bribing the King and the Black Prince, though the King accepted the money with the jest that he was but taking his own. They were sentenced to imprisonment and forfeiture. Latimer was released on bail and, in the long run, managed to elude the execution of his sentence after all. The Death of the Black Prince, 1376. In the midst of the session the Black Prince died, 6 June, 1376. Only forty-five years old, he had outlived the period of his success as a general. He was a brave and dashing soldier, he had won brilliant victories; but they were due rather to the blunders of his enemies and the efficiency of the English archers than to any ability of his as a tactician or strategist. His illness withdrew him from the French war in time to save his waning reputation, for it is unlikely that he would have proved equal to the combined wisdom of Charles V and du Guesclin. His barbarous raids and the cruel massacre at Limoges are dark blots on his character; his chivalry was of the artificial type then prevalent, and was actuated by no real gentleness or humanity. Yet his patience in suffering and his manful fight against corruption and misgovernment, even if im- pelled by hostility against his brother, made him deservedly popular. The Reforms of the Good Parliament frustrated by John of Gaunt. Although the reform party attempted some important work during the remaining weeks of the session, the work of the Good Parliament died with the Black Prince. His older brother, John of Gaunt, now gained the ascendancy, and caused the late Parliament to be declared no Parliament. A new one, which met 27 January, 1377, was wholly under his influence. This is the first of the " packed_parlia- ments," so-called because composed largely of members pleHgebTto do ' the will of the Government. The necessity of such an expedient is a striking evidence of the growing power of the Commons. Alice Perrers, driven from court when Latimer and Lyons were brought to account, was allowed to return, the acts against her and Lord Latimer were reversed, and a poll tax " hitherto unheard of " of a groat a head was imposed. Festivities for the New Prince of Wales, 1377. A pleasing incident in this stormy political struggle was a grand Christmas feast held at the palace of Westminster, in 1376, by the old King, when Richard, son of the Black Prince and recently created Prince of Wales, was formally invested with the succession. It was King Edward's last appearance in public. On the Sunday before Candlemas (2 February) a body of 2o8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND London citizens prepared a quaint entertainment or " mummery " for the little Prince. Masked and disguised as knights and esquires, with others to represent the Emperor, Pope, and cardinals, they rode to Kensington Palace near Lambeth and played with him for rich gifts which they caused him to win by means of loaded dice. Then followed a mirthful feast and dancing. John Wiclif (d. 1384). John of Gaunt, head of a corrupt court clique, was opposed to clerical ascendancy, and in his struggle against it took to himself a curious ally. This w r as John Wiclif, the first English jreforai 6 , 1 "- Born some time about 1324, in Yorkshire, Wiclif had passed most of his life at Oxford as a student and teacher of the- ology. In course of time, however, he began to supplement his aca- demic by pastoral work ; he held various livings, the last of which was the rectory of Lutterworth, which he occupied from 1374 till his death. Also in 1374 he was appointed one of a royal commission to treat with papal legates at Bruges concerning disputes between the Crown and Gregory XI in the matter of clerical appointments. Here he came to know John of Gaunt. Finding that Wiclif had been for some time occupied in framing views on the relations between the spiritual and the temporal power of the Church, John undertook to make use of him in his battle against ecclesiastical influence in political affairs. His first appearance in politics was shortly before the meeting of the Good Parliament, when he published a treatise against the papal claim to collect arrears of the annual tribute promised by King John. No payment had been made since the accession of Edward III, and Wiclif was but voicing protests made in Parliament as early as 1366 against its renewal. Convocation, which met with Parliament in the winter, determined to call the reformer to account, primarily to strike a blow at his champion. On 19 February, 1377, he appeared before the assembled bishops at St. Paul's, accompanied by Duke John and by Henry Percy, the Earl Marshal. The trial broke up, owing to a fierce quarrel between his 'notable supporters and William Courtenay, the Bishop of London, first because they pushed their way rudely through the crowd, and then because they insisted that their charge should sit down during the proceedings. The London mob who hated John and the Marshal, because of encroachments on the privileges of the city, took the side of their bishop. The next day the uproar became so great that John of Gaunt had to flee. The enemies of Wiclif next applied to the Pope, who, 22 May, issued a series of bulls against him, directed to the University of Oxford, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, but they did not arrive till the beginning of the new reign. Death of Edward III, 1377. Inglorious End of his Reign. Since the great Christmas feast of 1376 the old King had remained in retire- ment. When it was certain that the end was near, Alice Perrers stripped the rings from his fingers and fled. The courtiers about him followed suit, and Edward III, once the glory of his generation, passed away, THE REIGN OF EDWARD III 209 21 June, in the sixty-fifth year of his age and the fifty-first of his reign, deserted except for a single priest, who remained out of compassion to minister the last offices of the Church. The pomp and circumstance, the chivalrous ideal, the strong personal power of the monarch had faded away before Edward's body passed to the grave. New forces, economic discontent, political opposition, and religious revolt, and the birth of a new literature were already struggling into being ; but how they grew and what they meant was not left for him to see. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay, Genesis of Lancaster, I, chs. XI-XXIX; II, chs. I- VII. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages, chs. IX-XIII; Tout, Political History, chs. XV-XVIII. Stubbs, Constitutional History, II, ch. XVI. William Longman, The Life and Times of Edward III (2 vols., 1869). James Mackinnon, The History of Edward III (1900). C. H. Pearson, English History in the Fourteenth Century (1876). For a good brief account of the period see William Warburton, Edward III (1887). S. Armitage Smith, John of Gaunt (1904). R. P. Dunn-Pattison, The Black Prince (1910). Both scholarly biographies. G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe (1899) gives an interesting account of political, social, and religious his- tory in the last years of Edward III and the early years of Richard II. There are various translations of Froissart's famous chronicle; the best is that of Lord Berners (1523-1525), reprinted in Tudor Translations (1901), and there is a useful abridg- ment by G. C. Macaulay and another in Everyman's Library (1906). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 56-83. THE KINGS OF FRANCE, 987-1380, AND THE CLAIM OF EDWARD III TO THE FRENCH CROWN HUGH CAPET, 987-996 ROBERT I, 996-1031 HENRY 1, 1031-1060 PHILIP I, 1060-1108 Louis VI, 1108-1137 Louis VII, 1137-1180 I PHILIP II (Augustus), 1180-1223 Louis VIII, 1223-1226 (invader of England, 1216) (Saint) Louis IX, 1226-1270 PHILIP III, 1270-1285 I PHILIP IV (the Fair), 1285-1314 Charles of Valois 1 I I I Louis X, PHILIP V, CHARLES IV, ISABELLA, 1314-1316 1316-1322 1322-1328 m. Edward II Edward III JOHN II, 1350-1364 | I JOHN I, d. 1316 Joan, Queen of Navarre CHARLES V, 1364-1380 Charles the Bad CHAPTER XIII LIFE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS, (1272-1377) Parliamentary Gains in the Fourteenth Century. In the last decade of the thirteenth century the general principles had been deter- mined that the three estates of the realm should be represented in Parliament, and that all taxes, except those sanctioned by custom, should be granted by this body. It was the problem of the fourteenth century to work out in detail these general principles, to determine, for instance, the form into which the representatives of the estates should organize themselves, to prevent the sovereign from evading in particular instances the general limitations placed upon the taxing power and to assert the rights of Parliament in legislation. The separation into two Houses and their success in preventing the King from collecting subsidies and tallages without their consent have already been considered. Other gains remain to be pointed out. 1111373 Parliament began to grant the King tonnage and poundage. These were customs on wine and merchandise. For nearly three centuries they furnished an important supplement to tenths and fifteenths, 1 the normal form of direct taxes, also granted by Parliament. In 1334 the amount of one tenth and fifteenth was fixed at 39,000. The popular cry was that the King should " live of his own " and in mo- ments of stress apply to Parliament. Even in ordinary times, however, the regular Crown revenues did not suffice, and parliamentary grants to meet war and other special expenses were, as a rule, grudging and inadequate. It was by this tight hold on the pursestrings that many liberties and privileges were secured to the subject. While the King, after his immediate need was supplied, repudiated many con- cessions that were wrung from him, they nevertheless furnished valu- able precedents in future struggles. One great step in advance was the share which the Commons gained in making the laws. At first they had little or no initiative, they were only asked to give their consent to bills framed by the King and Council. Not infrequently, too, royal ordinances were issued which had the force of law without parliamentary sanction. But the subjects, either individually or collectively, enjoyed the right of presenting petitions. Gradually such petitions began to be framed and presented by their representa- 1 So-called because, originally and usually, they consisted of a tenth of the rev- enues or chattels of burgesses and a fifteenth from the landholders of shires. ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 211 tives in Parliament. The advantage was twofold : action was con- certed, and Parliament could enforce its demands by its control over money grants. In 1339 the Commons tried the experiment of putting off the voting of supplies until the last day of the session, and by the beginning of the fifteenth century the practice had become fixed. Another important step was the. successful assertion of the claim that answers to petitions should be enacted into law in the exact words in which they were originally presented. When the claim was finally recognized under Henry VI, the Commons had secured an initiative in legislation. Altogether, then, the fourteenth century was a time of great parliamentary advance. Parliament's form of organization was determined ; it had greatly curtailed the right of arbitrary taxation ; it had come to be consulted in public business ; it had claimed a voice in the appointment of Ministers and the right to call them to account ; it had deposed one King ; before the close of the century it deposed another and even established a new line of succession. In all this the Lords were not the sole leaders ; the Commons as well played a significant part. Later events were to show that most of the gains were premature, but they, nevertheless, contributed powerfully to the ultimate progress of the English Constitution. Trade and Industry. Passage from Local to Central Control. The commercial and industrial advance of this period is equally note- worthy, in the growth of the wool trade, in English shipping, and in the remarkable development of the English cloth manufacture. Up to the time of Edward I regulation and control of trade were largely local, and merchants were hampered by vexatious restrictions. Privileged towns and local magnates levied tolls on all goods bought and sold at markets and fairs, that entered city gates, that unloaded at wharves, or that passed along certain roads. Merchants of chartered boroughs, banded together in their gilds, enjoyed exclusive privileges of trading within their district. Regulations in force in London early in the thirteenth century show that the alien merchant had a hard time ; he had to live in the house of some citizen, he could only buy from those who had the freedom of the city, and could only sell to others than citizens on certain days, and was forbidden to engage in retail trade at all. Aside from certain royal enactments regulating the price of bread, ale, and cloth there was no central control whatever. Henry III encouraged Lombard and Provencal merchants to settle, and protected them in the evasion of local restrictions; but his reign was not a period of industrial or commercial enterprise. The regulations of Edward I, made " with the counsel and consent of the Commons of England," mark an epoch. The towns which had hitherto treated separately with the Crown were now united in Parliament to secure measures for their class as a whole. Edward " laid the foundations of a system of national regulation of commerce and industry," and by his work made it possible for his grandson to develop an international commerce. In 1275 he agreed with his Parliament to accept a fixed toll on wools, 212 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND woolfells, leather, and upon wine. Similarly, in 1303, he made an agreement with the foreign merchants by which he gave up arbitrary exactions on imports and exports in return for fixed charges. He appointed officers, called " customers," to collect revenue and to put down smuggling, and to aid in this work he named certain towns, known as " staples," to which all trade in wool, the chief commodity of the kingdom, should be confined. In order to encourage and pro- tect those engaged in traffic he enacted better and more general police regulations, and, by the Statute of Merchants, provided security for creditors. Finally, he took measures for a purer and more reliable currency, and had tables set up at Dover, where all merchants and pilgrims should exchange the money they brought in for the coin of the realm. The Foreign Merchants and Foreign Trade. Both Edward I and his grandson favored the Gascon merchants who imported wine and the Flemings who exported wool. While the expulsion of the Jews and the ruin of the Italians under the burden of Edward Ill's debts threw much business into the hands of the natives, and while great efforts were made to exclude foreigners from the English retail trade, the bulk of the foreign commerce was carried on by the latter till the reign of Richard II. There is much confusion and contradiction in the commercial legislation of the period of the three Edwards, owing to the fact that as yet no general theories on the subject had been evolved, and each measure enacted was largely experimental. The main aim, however, was to make exports dear and imports cheap rather than to build up English shipping and industry. The Wool Trade. By the close of the thirteenth century England had come to be the great wool-producing country of Europe, with her chief market among the Flemish weavers. Accordingly, various at- tempts were made to fix the towns or staples where the wool should be sold. Sometimes they were in England, sometimes in the Low Countries, while for a short period in the reign trade was free and the staple towns were done away with altogether. In 1362 the staple was removed to Calais, where it remained, except for short intervals, till the town passed back to the French in 1558. The Hundred Years' War had its good and bad effects from the industrial standpoint. Among the bad, were heavy subsidies, seizure of ships and wool for the King's necessities, insecurity of travel, the ruin of the French markets, and the withdrawal of artisans from their craft. Among the good were the settling of skilled Flemish weavers in England, the capture of Calais which cleared the sea of pirates, and the royal needs which made the King pay some attention to the trading classes. Nevertheless, the export of wool was forbidden when the King wanted to control the market, and only encouraged when he wanted to collect customs. At times the export of various other commodities was pro- hibited in order to keep down the price in England. A curious ordi- nance of 1363 provides : " That no wines, corn, beer, animals, whether ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 213 flesh or fowl, horses, clergy, foreigners, or others" should be allowed to pass out of the kingdom without special license. In the case of wine the Gascon traders were encouraged in order that the King, the courtiers, and the nobility might buy as cheaply as possible. It was not till 1390 that any measures were taken to protect English shipping. The statute, which provided that merchants in England should freight only in English ships, was not observed. Thereupon the Commons in the following year petitioned that, since the navy was thus greatly impaired, goods shipped in a foreign vessel, when an English one was available, should be forfeited. The King made the petition into a statute ; but apparently it was not very effective. The Merchant Marine and the Navy. The native shipper in the early part of the reign of Edward III had to contend against great obstacles. The foreigner and the King's agent was greatly favored at his expense, and he was generally prohibited from exporting wool out of the country ; even when the staple was fixed at Calais, he could only, as a rule, take it across the Channel. Moreover, the North Sea was swarming with pirates, and the coast towns were frequently subject to hostile raids. Indeed, the bold seamen of the Cinque Ports, when not engaged in the royal service, often preyed on the commerce of their countrymen. But the sovereignty of the narrow seas asserted by Edward I was, for a time at least, made a reality by Edward III in consequence of his naval victories and the capture of Calais. For a while the seas were better policed than ever before. Piracy, however, did not. altogether disappear. With the decline of Edward's vigor the navy fell into decay, and the English shipping and port towns be- gan once more to suffer. The reign of Richard II was even more dis- astrous from the naval and commercial point of view. The attempt to build up English shipping by navigation acts came to nothing. The ships of merchants were seized for the royal necessities, yet the navy was even more neglected than in the last years of Edward III. Dis- cipline was lax, trade was unprotected, and the country was in con- stant danger of invasion. The most brilliant achievements on the sea were due to the patriotism and gallantry of individuals. An interesting indication of the daring of English seamen is the legend of a voyage made toward the North Pole in 1360 by Nicholas of Lynn, a monk of Oxford, skilled in navigation and astronomy. The middle of the fourteenth century, too, marked the appearance of the famous Travels in Turkey, Tartary, Persia, India, Egypt, and the Holy Land, attributed to Sir John Mandeville. Some improvement began to be made in ship structure. Two masts became common, and the rudder was invented, though the more primitive steering paddle continued in use. Cannon, used almost from the beginning of the war, were a common part of the ship's armament before the close of the reign. Regulation of Native Industry and the Advent of New Industries. Careful provision was made to prevent fraud in particular callings; 214 v A HISTORY OF ENGLAND for instance, a royal proclamation of 1340 prohibited the London butchers from sewing the fat of good beef on joints of lean. In 1363 merchants were required to deal in one sort of merchandise only, and handicraftmen to keep to one " mystery," or craft, except women who were engaged in such callings as brewing, baking, spinning, and the like. Edward's frequent prohibition of the export of wool did much to encourage the native manufacture. This he did in another way by encouraging the Flemish weavers to come over to exercise their craft and to teach others. There had been migrations from Flanders ever since the Norman Conquest, but, owing to the political and economic conditions in their native country, the weavers now came in such numbers as to mark a new epoch in the development of English cloth manufacture. It must have been an era in the lives of the newcomers to leave hard churlish masters and a fare of moldy herring and cheese for a cordial welcome and good beef and mutton. Sumptuary Legislation. Regulation of the Coinage. Edward III enacted various sumptuary laws which were aimed partly to protect native industries against foreign importations, partly to check extrav- agance and promote thrift. Needless to say, this legislation had reference to the lesser folk who had begun to imitate the upper classes in elaborate dress and costly meats, even before the temporary enrich- ment of the country from the loot of the French wars. Such excesses " sore grieved " the great men of the realm, who saw " evil therein " " as well to the souls as bodies." A most serious one in their eyes, no doubt, was that it impoverished the subjects so that they were " not able to aid themselves nor their liege lord in time of need." Sumptu- ary laws were as old as the Romans, and, as early as 1281, an ordi- nance regulating apparel had been passed in London. Edward's laws were frequent and far reaching. They regulated the amount and quality of food a man should eat, they forbade any but members of the royal family to wear cloth except of English manufacture, and regulated the apparel of every class in the community from the servant and the handicraftsman to the noble. Laws of Edward III, too, sup- plemented those of Edward I for the regulation of the coinage. Their main objects were to prevent debasement at home, the introduction of bad money from abroad, and the carrying of bullion out of the realm. Twenty ports were selected where good money and articles of plate brought from other countries might be exchanged for English coin. The face adopted on Edward's coins was a conventional one : it was not till Henry VII that any were struck that resemble the sovereign. One new coin, the noble, worth 6s. Sd., was introduced. The Gilds. The artisan class in the fourteenth century seems to have been in a very prosperous state. To a considerable degree this was due to the protection of the Crown and Parliament, faulty and inadequate as it was. Concurrently with this central regulation, however, that of the local organizations survived to some extent. But the merchant gilds were gradually disappearing, either by merging ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 215 with the municipal organization or with the various crafts gilds. In this period London had some fifty separate mysteries. Division of labor was still highly developed. The bow maker could not make arrows ; the cordwainer made shoes, while the cobbler patched them. Each gild had its masters, its journeymen who worked by the day, and its apprentices who paid a sum of money and in return were taught the trade and supplied with food, drink, and clothing. Every craft had a court with elected officers to regulate trade disputes. In the craft as well as in the older merchant gilds the religious, benevolent, and social aspects were prominent. They had patron saints, processions on holy days, they provided money for masses for the souls of dead members, they maintained altar lights at the parish church, and often supported a chaplain. They relieved the poverty of their poorer brethren and their families, they contributed money for the marriage portion of the daughters of members or for sending them into nunneries. Finally, periodical feasts were an essential part of their organization. In a word, " the gild in its various forms supplied to the people of the four- teenth century local clubs, local trade unions, and local friendly societies." Ordinances against Usury. A striking feature of medieval economics is the sentiment against " usury," as any lending of money at interest was called. An Ordinance of 1363 denounces it as a " false and abominable contract, under colour and cover of good and lawful trading," which " ruins the honour and soul of the agent, and sweeps away the goods and property of him who appears to be accommo- dated." To understand this attitude it must be borne in mind that business conditions were quite different from those of later times. There were no credit systems or banks in the modern sense. Money was seldom borrowed except for emergencies to build a church or a monastery, to pay taxes suddenly imposed, to go on a pilgrimage or crusade, to fit out a military expedition. Rates were too high to make borrowing for commercial purposes profitable, and the usual practice for a man without capital who wanted to embark on a venture was to form a partnership with another to furnish the money and share the risk. The nearest approach to bankers were brokers who brought the borrowers and lenders together, and they are severely dealt with by the Ordinance of 1363. The medieval borrower could not see why, if he furnished security and paid his loan at the appointed time, he should give more than he had received to one who had incurred no risk. Should he cause his creditor inconvenience by failing to keep his agreement, then and then only was he prepared to pay interest. Money lending, then, was regarded as a barren employment of funds which the lender might otherwise invest in a partnership where he shared in the legitimate gains and risks. Agriculture. Increasing Substitution of Rents for Services. In- closures. The tendency to commute the personal services of villein cultivators into money rents, already evident in the thirteenth cen- 216 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tury, became marked in the fourteenth. Lords and bailiffs preferred to hire laborers rather than to depend upon unwilling service. More- over, the pomp and ceremony of chivalry, the increasing luxury, and the demands of building called for ready money. More and more, too, sheep raising began to be substituted for tillage. This was due to two causes : to the widening market for wool both' at home and abroad, and to the scarcity of labor after the Black Death. This resulted in " enclosing," so called from the means taken to prevent the sheep from straying. Both arable land and the old common fields were appro- priated by the lords for their purpose. As the population began to recover during the next two centuries inclosing began to be regarded as a hardship because it required much land and few laborers and took from the tillers of the soil their means of subsistence. Life of the People. Lawlessness. Justices of the Peace. The population of England, probably not over 3,000,000 just before the Black Death, sank to less than 2,000,000 after the first visitation of the scourge. Conditions were still primitive when cows could be strangled by wolves in Lincolnshire. The state of the country was so lawless that merchants had to travel in large parties accompanied by armed horsemen for security. The woods were full of outlaws who robbed all who came their way, and even on occasion seized the King's judges and held them for ransom. Some were even bold enough to force their way into the law courts and overawe the justices. The nobles, instead of aiding to put them down, often kept such ruffians in their pay and protected them, a custom which soon became wide- spread under the name of "livery and maintenance." 1 London itself was not free from disorders. It is evident from a law of 1332 that it was a favorite amusement of boys to knock off the hats of pedestrians in the neighborhood of the palace of Westminster. One means of keeping order was the establishment of the justices of the peace in 1362, when they were empowered to hold four sessions a year, known as " quarter sessions," to try certain classes of cases less serious than those reserved for the King's judges. Descendants of the old custodians or keepers of the peace, already in 1344 any two or more had been intrusted with judicial functions. They were chosen from the best county families and from the borough magistrates and served without pay. Besides keeping the peace and trying smaller offenders, all the duties of local administration came to be loaded, upon them, such as carrying out the Statutes of Laborers and the later Poor Laws. Punishments were barbarous, aiming at retribution and vengeance rather than prevention of crime. Prisoners were thrown, sometimes naked, into horrible dungeons, dark, damp, indescribably filthy, often partly filled with water and swarming with rats and vermin. Their 1 "Livery" comes from the provisions and clothes which were delivered as pay, and was later applied to the badge worn by such retainers, and has survived in the modern servants' uniforms. "Maintenance" came from the lord's custom of "maintaining" or supporting the suits of his servants in court. ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 217 usual fare was moldy bread and stagnant water. Lesser offenders were put in the stocks, a heavy board with holes for the ankles, some- times for the neck and wrists as well, frequently with no other support for the unfortunate victim. Torture was common to make the accused confess, or, as in the case of the peine forte et dure, to make him submit to jury trial. The horrible practice of breaking on the wheel, where a man was stretched out and his limbs broken with an iron bar, was not unknown. Hanging was most common, and as towns and local lords had this right, gallows were often seen, gruesome spots on the landscape. In cases of treason a man was cut down while his body was still warm, and his bowels were drawn or taken out and burned, and his body quartered. Lack of Individual Freedom. Training of Children. What with royal regulation, town, and gild and church regulation, the individual had very little freedom. It was natural that children should not escape. " A child were better to be unborn," it was said, " than to be untaught," and numerous rhymed treatises were composed for their guidance. The boy was directed what to do from the time he got up in the morning till he went to bed at night, how he should dress, how he should eat ; how he should act on his way to school he was to greet passers-by, not to throw stones at hogs and dogs, not to run away bird-nesting and how he should act in school if he got there. Equally minute were the directions to girls ; some of the injunctions we should think rather out of place, such as those against attending cockfights and wrestling matches and against excessive drinking. Eating and Drinking and Recreations. Eating and drinking were most immoderate, and only the open-air Sfe and exercise made it possible for medieval English folk to digest the huge quantities they consumed. They had no tea or coffee and little fresh meat or vege- tables, now regarded as necessities. Their fare, however, was not coarse and simple. Medieval cookbooks and kitchen utensils show that there were all sorts of dishes highly spiced, complicated, and delicate. Nevertheless, the medieval Englishman relished many things that would hardly tempt the modern palate, such as hedge- hogs, swans, peacocks, rooks, porpoises, and sparrows. Fast days meant merely a change from meat to fish. Ale was the drink of the lower classes, while kings and nobles regaled themselves on costly wines from abroad. The monotony was varied by various elaborate concoctions such as mead and posset. Owing to defective means of lighting, meals were still very early. Considering the coarseness of the times and the heavy drinking, it is no wonder that many feasts were nothing more than carousals which broke up in fighting that some- times proved fatal. Yet there were many peaceful diversions: the tales of knights who had journeyed or fought in France or the Holy Land, songs of minstrels, feats of jugglers, and dancing. Then there were games too : dice ; tables, resembling our modern backgammon ; chess, learned first from the Saracens; and cards. The latter were 218 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND introduced in the fourteenth century, and from the process of marking them printing developed. For the younger and more active there were hoodman blind, forfeits, whipping the top, and ninepins, to mention a few which have survived. The chief resource of women was spin- ning, weaving, embroidery, and sewing, while the men devoted much of their time to hunting and hawking. Edward II and Edward III were particularly fond of the mummeries, which took the place of the theater in those days ; the mummers parading about in strange masks repre- senting lions, elephants, or dressed as bats and satyrs with men's heads. " Round tables " came to be a common accompaniment of the more elaborate tournaments. These were great feasts at a table arranged around the walls of the room, the guests sitting with their backs to the wall facing a central space, where the minstrels and servers stood. Chivalry was greatly fostered by the custom of sending young boys and girls to serve as pages or maids at Court or at the castles of great nobles. Here the page learned the code of gentleness and cour- tesy which were the ideal of the medieval knight. Warfare. The two great innovations in the method of conduct- ing war under the Edwards were the long bow, and cannon with gun- powder. The former, first used in the Welsh and the Scotch wars of Edward I, won a European renown at Crecy and Poitiers. The fatal cloth-yard shaft could not only break up a charging squadron by killing or wounding the imperfectly protected horses, but it penetrated the joints of the horseman's armor or, if it struck fair, even the plate itself. In seeking to meet this danger by thickening the plate, the armor be- came so unwieldy as to incapacitate the wearer. An unhorsed knight could not rise without help, and often he was stifled by the sheer weight of his own defense. Gunpowder completed what the long bow had done to overthrow the old system. The assertion that cannons were used by the English at Crecy has not passed without question. The Black Prince had cannon on his northern raid, though he did not use them at Poitiers. Probably Edward III employed them at Calais, though it was some time before they became effective in sieges, and still longer before they played any part in field engagements. Travel, Kings, Nobles, Clergy, Merchants, and Minstrels. In spite of the badness of roads and bridges there was much traveling in fourteenth-century England. The King, the nobles, and bishops, made stately progresses, accompanied by imposing retinues of horse- men, and, notwithstanding the statutes limiting purveyance, 1 dealt havoc with the goods of the lesser folk. At their approach people fled to hide their fowls and eggs and such other produce as their lords might seize. Merchants traveled about to buy and sell at the various fairs and staple towns, and abbots and monks journeyed from mon- astery to monastery on business connected with their orders. Most of the better sort rode on horseback. Luggage and goods too were 1 The right of seizing goods for the royal necessities. ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 219 carried on horses and mules ; though great ladies were beginning to use litters and carriages, cumbersome and gorgeously ornamented. The mass of the people traveled on foot. There were peddlers who supplied the country folk, there were strolling players, minstrels, and jugglers. On great occasions the minstrels flocked together from every part of western Christendom. At the marriage of Edward I's daughter, for instance, no less than four hundred and twenty-six were present. Some, of course, were regularly attached to royal and baronial households, and in many cities were gilds or brotherhoods, formed for " well-ordered gaity," with rules for membership, singing contests, and processions. Most of the singers, however, were wan- dering vagabonds who combined tumbling and sleight-of-hand per- formances with minstrelsy. They were often newsmongers, spies, and stirrers-up of revolt. Beggars, Friars, and Pilgrims. In addition there were hosts of beggars and wandering laborers whom the statutes failed to check. More numerous still were those who claimed to be servants of God and the Church. Even the hermits no longer sought solitary places ; but settled along frequented roads to ask alms of the passers-by. The strolling friars were as great a nuisance as any. Once they had rendered manful service in the care of the poor and the furthering of education; but the majority had become lazy and corrupt. They thrust themselves as guests on the houses they passed, eating and drinking immoderately; they lowered their sacred calling by acting as vendors of news and small wares ; and encroached upon the parish priests by assuming the rights to confess members of their flocks. In spite of the denunciations of reformers and of ecclesiastical authorities who had no control over them, they continued undisturbed till the Reformation. Besides the friars there were the pardoners who acted as special agents of the Church for the remission of sins, which they sold for money, and who supported their claims by exhibiting curious relics of doubtful pedigree. The roads were also crowded with pil- grims on their way to or from some holy place. Their object was to perform a vow, to obtain answer to a prayer, or to visit the shrine of some famous saint. The two most popular shrines in England were those of St. Thomas at Canterbury, and of Our Lady of Walsingham, where there was a wondrous miracle-working statue of the Virgin. Many even went to Rome or the Holy Land. The professional pil- grim or palmer wore a special form of dress and carried a scrip for food and a bottle. Many inducements were offered him beside the hope of divine favor ; he was exempt from tolls, his person was protected, and he received free food and shelter along the road. In course of time others joined in pilgrimages from varying motives. " Some went like gypsies to a fair, to gather money ; some went for the pleas- ure of the journey, and the merriment of the road." Like other stroll- ers they were welcomed as bringers of news and letters. They told of the marvelous relics they had seen, such as a portion of the burning 220 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND bush whence the Lord had appeared to Moses, one of the stones which slew St. Stephen, and many more. In spite of the superstition and trickery which they fostered, these pilgrimages were of immense value. They drew people together, broke down local prejudice, spread news and civilization, fostered commerce, and gave a holiday to many who would have got it in no other way. Accommodation for Travelers. Travelers were accommodated in different ways. The King and his retinue might be billeted on the inhabitants of places along their road. Monasteries dispensed hos- pitality to all classes ; frequently they had a guest house outside the walls for the humbler folk. In many towns there were lodgings, the keepers of which were employed by the burghers to lure customers to them. In the country there were vacant buildings where merchants got shelter for the night, providing their own food and bedding ; such places were called " cold harbors." The inns were patronized chiefly by merchants. Although numerous enough they were not overcom- fortable or clean. The landlords were not infrequently suspected of being in league with robbers, and, when not so bad as that, were often guilty of trickery and extortion. A favorite device was to draw guests into ordering more than they had money to pay for and then to seize their baggage and clothes. The inns were favorite resorts for the less reputable classes who spent their time drinking, gossiping, and gaming. By the roadside and in the smaller villages were alehouses, advertised by a stake or a bush projecting over the door. They furnished no lodging. Many were kept by women " alewives " who had a bad reputation for cheating both in money and measure. Under such conditions hospitality was regarded as a great virtue, and was general, from the lord of the manor to the poorest cotter. Churl- ish and miserly persons who refused to take in travelers are held up to scorn in the tales of the time. Public Health, Medicine, and Surgery. As in the past, lack of fresh food, unsanitary conditions, and inadequacy of transportation were the cause of famine and epidemics. In 1315 heavy rains wrought such destruction with the harvest that great misery followed. The pressure of hunger was so great that not only horses and dogs, but, it is said, children were eaten, and felons in jail tore one another to pieces. In 1322 there was another visitation of famine and disease, when fifty-five poor persons in London were crushed to death in a scramble for food distributed at a rich man's funeral. All this oc- curred while the upper classes were living in luxury, though there was more splendor than comfort. Edward III dismissed his con- stable of the Tower because he had so neglected repairs that the rain came in on the bed of his sick Queen, and in 1357 when his dead mother was brought to London for burial, the streets had to be cleared of filth for the passage of the body. The Black Death, however, started a movement for better sanitation. An act was passed prohibiting the throwing of refuse and garbage in heaps outside the walls and in ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 221 the rivers. Whether effective or not, the water of the ditch about London was so little corrupted that it contained excellent fish in the time of Henry VIII. Up to the sixteenth century, however, scaven- gers were inspectors of nuisances, and the duties they now perform fell on the householders. Before the close of the century the plague came back at least six times, causing the greatest destruction and demoralization, and preventing the natural recovery from the devas- tation of 1348-1349. The science of medicine and surgery was still in a primitive state, though some progress was made during the century. Monks and Jews had been the first to practice the art of healing in England, deriving their knowledge from the ancients through the Byzantine Greeks. By the twelfth century the Arabian school, with its chief seats at Salerno and Montpellier, had come to supersede the Byzantine. After the expulsion of the Jews the bulk of the practice fell to the monks, in spite of prohibition of papal bulls. Prayers, ceremonies, visits to shrines, astrology, charms, and spells were the commonly accepted means for curing ills ; and were sometimes em- ployed as adjuncts by the practitioner. Two famous names appear in the reign of Edward III : John of Gaddesden, the first English writer on medicine, and John of Burgoyne, supposed to be the original of Chaucer's physician. The incorporation of the Barber Surgeons as gilds at London and York toward the end of the century marked an era in surgery. Military and Domestic Architecture. Castles, while they reached their highest degree of development in the time of the Edwards, came to be employed more and more exclusively as governmental and military fortresses. Curiously enough, by the time the art of building them had been perfected, the introduction of cannon and gunpowder rendered them useless. Fortified manor houses largely replaced the old private castles. The causes making for this change were at work long before the new implements of war were generally adopted. Since the time of Stephen, the Crown had refused to tolerate private castles, except in rare instances, and had usually been strong enough to enforce its prohibitions. Moreover, the cessation of feudal warfare made them no longer necessary, and the upper classes preferred more comfortable dwelling places just strong enough to protect them against robbers and occasional disorders. They form a connecting link be- tween the strong gloomy castles of the feudal period and the country seats of the Elizabethan age built for beauty and comfort. These manor houses were bare and inconvenient according to modern standards. The buildings, consisting of the great hall, the chambers, the kitchen, the stables, and other outhouses, were attached so as to inclose a courtyard. By the thirteenth century it had become com- mon to have a room above the ground floor, which was called the solar and was approached by an outside stairway. Among the improve- ments of the fourteenth century were the increase of separate bed- rooms, the custom of inserting a fireplace at one or both ends of the 222 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND hall in place of the old one in the center, and the replacing of holes in the wall covered by shutters with glass windows, at least in some cases. Ecclesiastical Architecture. The prevailing style of church archi- tecture during the period of the three Edwards was the so-called " decorated," an elaboration of the pointed Gothic or early English. The new type is distinguished particularly by the ornateness of its window traceries. With all its warmth and richness one misses the dignified simplicity of the style which it displaced. The decorated style reached its perfection at Exeter, Wells, and York. The western front of York has been regarded as " one of the chief architectural glories " of England. In the reign of Edward III a new style began to appear, the perpendicular. Examples are to be found as early as 1336 ; but the real period of transition did not come till the second half of the century. Gloucester cathedral, for instance, built not long after 1350, mingles both styles. During the fourteenth century the perpendicular became dominant. The chief reason for the change of fashion was that the decorated style had worked itself out by the very excesses of its elaboration, although the Statutes of Laborers were not without their influence. The law of 25 Edward III, which fixed the pay of master free masons at ^d. a day, tended, so far as it was observed, to reduce the number of skilled workmen or to drive them out of the country. The new perpendicular type was, in general, stiff, formal, and unadorned. It is best distinguished by its windows, the arch was flattened, and mullions, or divisions between the lights, were gradually lengthened until they extended from the sill to the arch, thus cutting through the flowing tracery. Gradually square windows replaced the round ones of the past, and square headed doors and square panels became the rule. Beautiful curves gave way to straight lines and angularity. Nevertheless, elements of beauty were not wholly lacking. William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, 1367-1404, the last of the great episcopal architects of the Middle Ages, in his chapels at Winchester and New College, Oxford, furnished " really noble specimens of this ignoble style." One of the notable features which did much to relieve the prosaic bareness was the magnif- icent roofs, both open timbered and vaulted. A splendid specimen of the former is in Westminster Hall, while the fan vaulting of the chapel of Henry VII at Westminster Abbey is a glorious example of the latter. Another redeeming feature of the perpendicular style is its towers, even though they do not equal the spires which they replaced. The latest and most perfect example of these perpendicular towers is that of Magdalen at Oxford. Built early in the Tudor period, it stands " whispering . . . with ineffable charm . . . the last enchantments of the Middle Ages." Many parish churches, manor houses, and college halls which survive, while lacking in the unique beauty of the early English or Gothic architecture, are dignified and comfortable. Learning and Literature. The Universities. Following the trend of the times, the universities became more and more national, and ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 223 English scholars ceased, in any considerable numbers, to migrate to the Continent. Cambridge was unable for centuries to rank with the older foundation of Oxford. Its situation was less central and more unhealthy, and it had fewer powerful protectors. Oxford, how- ever, had troubles of its own. The friction with the townsmen was intense, often leading to open fighting; the faculty were often at odds among themselves ; and the ill feeling between students from different parts of the country, particularly north and south, was so acute as to lead to frequent secessions. 1 The average number of students in the fourteenth century could not have been over 3000, although there are accounts of as many as 30,000. While the higher ranks were represented, the majority were from the lower walks of life. The poorest supported themselves by the work of their hands or even begged on occasion. Those who could afford it spent their vacation at the University in private study. The notable educational achievements of the century were the work of William of Wykeham. About 1373 he established at Winchester the preparatory school of St. Mary's, which became the model for Eton, Rugby, and the other famous so-called " public schools." His foundation at Oxford a few years later, known as New College, was the first where teaching by tutors inside the college, still the custom at Oxford, was tried. Below the universities there were, in connection with convents, grammar schools presided over by secular clerks. The convents received the fees and paid the teacher a stipend. The Inns of Court at London furnished training for the common lawyer. Literature : Chronicles and Romances. History was still mainly in the hands of the monastic chroniclers; but the man who best voiced the chivalrous and martial ideals of the age of Edward III was Jean Froissart (1337-1410). A countryman of Edward's Queen, Philippa, he came from Hainault to the English court in 1361 and was attached to the Queen's household till her death, when he went to Flanders. His Chronicle deals with the events in which England was concerned from 1325 to 1400. Although confused and inac- curate in his use of facts, and with no regard for the common people, he tells the story of the English feats in the Hundred Years' War with a richness and vividness of detail that has made his book a joy for all time. French metrical romances continued to be very popular. They told of the wanderings of knights, good and valiant, of their deeds of daring in overcoming giants and paynims, of their succoring ladies in distress, and of their service to religion. Legends which had clustered about the names of mighty men of old time, Alexander, Charlemagne, Brutus, and King Arthur, and the beautiful story of the search for the Holy Grail were among their chief subjects. All of them were worked over from French originals in the new English speech which was shaping itself during the thirteenth and fourteenth 1 One to Stamford, in 1334, was so notable that, until 1827, every candidate for a degree had to swear that he would never lecture in that town. 224 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND centuries. The most charming of them all, Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, is the most purely English in its setting. By an unknown author, it relates the adventures of King Arthur's nephew, his en- counters, his temptations, and his ultimate triumph. It has been well called " the most delightful blossom of all pre-Shakespearean romance." Religious Literature and Plays. Ballads. Alongside the knightly romance there grew up a mass of religious literature, mostly in verse, lives of saints, sermons, books of instruction, and Scripture paraphrases. Some of these works aim to entertain as well as to instruct and edify. More popular still were the religious plays. The earliest were the miracle plays which dramatized Bible stories and the wonders wrought by saints. Beginning in certain ceremonies in the Church on such feast days as Easter, the performances were soon transferred to the churchyard and then to the town square. By the fourteenth century they had passed from the hands of the priests to the gilds, which gave annual exhibitions on Corpus Christi day. Usually each gild had a cart, drawn by apprentices, with a stage erected upon it. These moving stages were known as " pageants." l Each repre- sented one scene of the story, and the whole sequence was known as a cycle. Somewhat later appeared the morality plays, which dealt with the strife between good and evil rather than with theology. The fight of the seven deadly sins and of the seven opposite cardinal virtues for the possession of the human soul formed the theme for the earliest and best of these. Vice, greed, innocence, indeed all sorts of human traits, were personified. To these plays and to the royal pageants representing scenes from classic and medieval legend, such as the fight between St. George and the Dragon, may be traced the beginnings of the later drama. Christmas " mummings," too, were very popular, in which Old Father Christmas, Old King Cole, and the Merry Andrew came to be well-known figures. Among a mass of ballads the best known are those which relate the deeds of the legend- ary outlaw Robin Hood, who was supposed to have dwelt in Sher- wood Forest in the later twelfth century, protecting the poor and robbing their oppressors. His many adventures and those of Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian were also worked up into plays. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The great name in the litera- ture of the age, indeed one of the great names in that of the world, was that of Geoffrey Chaucer, " the father of English poetry." The son of a London vintner, he began life as a page in a princely house- hold. His residence at the English court, the "most brilliant in Europe, his travels in many lands, his association with all sorts and conditions of men gave him rare opportunities, of which his genius made the fullest use. Chaucer's productive literary life has been divided into three periods: the French to 1372; the Italian from 1372 to 1385; 1 From this original meaning the term came to be applied to the play and then to any imposing spectacle. ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 225 and the more original, which marks the ripe fruition of his work. During the first, he was under the spell of the old courtly romances, his chief model being the Roman de la Rose, a portion of which he translated into English, thereby helping to sow in the realm " the flowers of French poesy." His most important work of this period is the Death of Blanche the Duchess, wife of John of Gaunt (1369). A royal mission to Italy in 1372-1373 marked a crisis in the poet's life, for it was then that he came into the world of the Renascence, that marvelous revival of learning and outburst of literary and artistic creations which came to birth on Italian soil. Here he learned to know the sublime vision of Dante, the exquisite poetic forms of Petrarch, and the tales of Boccaccio. It was the latter which may have determined the form of Chaucer's masterpiece, and furnished him with some of the stories which he included in it. The result of his Italian sojourn is seen in four works which he produced after his return : the Parliament of Fowls, probably in honor of the nuptials of young King Richard and Anne of Bohemia; Troilus and Creseide, described as " the first analytical novel in the English language " ; the House of Fame, " a playful fantastic allegory" ; and the Legends of Code Women. In his third period came the crowning achievement of Chaucer's life, the Canterbury Tales, at once " a gallery of living por- traits of his time," and an inclusive collection of almost all the types of narrative known to literature at the close of the Middle Ages." His plan was to tell the tales through the mouths of a body of pilgrims journeying from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The poet completed less than a quarter of his projected plan ; but he depicted the peculiarities of individuals repre- senting various walks of life, the knight, the friar, the nun, the franklin, the physician, the Oxford scholar, the merchant, the miller, and many more, with a fidelity, a vividness, and a humor unsurpassed by any writer before or since. But wonderful as is this mirror of the society and writing of his age Chaucer rendered still another incalculable service. He was not only " the father of English poetry," but " the father of literary English " as well. Writing in the tongue of the southeast midlands, he stamped that form upon written English to the very borders of Scotland and Wales. Thence it spread as England grew into an Empire, so that the speech and writing of a large part of the world's population owes more to Chaucer than to any other single man. John Gower (1325-1408) and "William Langland" (i33o?-i4oo?). John Gower, although his name was long linked with that of Chaucer, does not stand on the same plane with his great contemporary. His Vox Clamantis, containing an account of the Peasant Revolt in 1381 and a severe denunciation of government and society of Richard II 's time, is of the most historic interest. But the social unrest of this age and the outcry against the oppression, folly, and vices of the ruling classes is best voiced in the Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, sometimes attributed to William Langland. In the form of 226 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND an allegory, written in a revival of the native alliterative verse, the Vision traces the exaltation of the common man, pictured as a simple rustic, until he becomes a mystical type of Christ. It lashes the sins of society and the individual, and preaches the gospel of man and the glory of work. In spite of its allegorical and abstract form, the de- scriptions are so concrete and vital that men and women seem to live and breathe before the reader. It may well have influenced Wiclif on the more personal, practical side of his work, framed the views and stimulated the opposition which was to break out in the Peasant Revolt. Wiclif s Views of Spiritual and Temporal Lordship. While Piers Plowman aimed chiefly at men, Wiclif struck at a system. ( It was his work to mold the grievances against the Church and the Papacy into tangible form.*) By the removal of the Papacy to Avignon the popes had become so subservient to the French that thinking men had come to regard them with contempt. As papal exactions in- creased, both claims for money and in the matter of " provisions," Englishmen opposed them, not only because of the financial burden involved, but because of the growing national sentiment against an institution regarded as French. Hence the views which Wiclif devel- oped concerning spiritual and temporal lordship became very popular. ge rpaintaineH that jJTe_CJhmrj^ should hold no property, because it _ndered truly spiritual work. Therefore it was the duty of the StaTfT to~take land and revenues which hampered the Church in the performance of its proper duties. Lordship depended on grace, which a man forfeited by sin, and the rank of a man in the eyes of his fellow men depended upon his rank in the eyes of God. This doctrine of lordship applied even in the case of the Pope; if unrighteous or unworthy, he lost his right to rule ; and his decrees, if against the will of God, were of no binding force. Moreover, Wiclif struck a blow at the hierarchy by declaring that even a simple priest could administer any sacrament of the Church. The Development of his Views, particularly after 1378. The papal bulls framed against him, in May, 1377, arrived in England in August. Although his protector, John of Gaunt, had been out of power since the death of Edward III, Wiclif was recognized as the national champion and was protected by the Queen Mother, widow of the Black Prince. When Parliament met in the autumn he was consulted on the question as to whether, when the kingdom was in danger of invasion, it could refuse, even against a papal order, to send money out of the realm. His reply was that the Pope could only ask for money as alms or charity, and, since charity begins at home, it would be folly to obey in the present juncture. Early in 1378 he was brought before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, acting as papal commissioners at Lambeth. Their hands were tied, for the Queen Mother sent a message forbidding them to pass sentence on him. Furthermore, a body of London citizens, accompanied by a dis- ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 227 orderly rabble, appeared menacingly before the archiepiscopal palace. The upshot was a simple request from his judges that Wiclif desist from discussing the points enumerated in bulls. As the defender of national independence against the Papacy and as the champion of the State movement against the power and wealth of the Church, Wiclif had been supported by all the laity high and low. In this very year, 1378, he was led by the Great Schism to advance far beyond his original position, to an attack against at least two of the essential bases of the Church. Gregory XI had moved back to Rome from Avignon, and, on his death, two rival popes were elected, Urban VI by the Roman party, and Clement VII by the French. The resulting struggle, which rent the Church in twain, led Wiclif to question the authority of the Papacy altogether. Nor did he stop with attacking the Church's form of government, but proceeded to strike a blow at her central dogma, that of transubstantiation. Ac- cording to the orthodox belief on this point, the bread and wine used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper were transformed by the con- secrating words of the priest into the very body and blood of Christ. From the point of view of medieval " realist " philosophers the doctrine was more explicable than it might seem to a modern Prot- estant ; in their minds the reality or substance of a thing was not the visible attributes which could be seen, touched, and handled, but an inner, invisible essence. That was what was believed to change. Two good reasons explain why the Church fostered the belief in tran- substantiation. It emphasized the human side of Christ, which cer- tain of the early sects denied ; and it exalted the priesthood, who were held in higher reverence from their ability to perform the miracle. It was to combat the sacerdotal power that Wiclif framed his view. He did not go so far as some of the later Protestants and deny the Real Presence altogether. He maintained that after consecration the bread and wine did not cease to exist, but that the body and blood of Christ came and dwelt in them. In other words, for transubstantiation he substituted consubstantiation. Last Years and Death. His doctrines, now too extreme for many, were condemned in 1380 at Oxford, and again in 1382 at London. He, in both cases, was spared, though after the second condemnation his followers were persecuted rigorously. He spent his last years in peaceful retirement. It was during this time that he wrote nearly all of his English works and revised his Latin works ; they fill together nearly thirty printed volumes. He died in 1384. In 1428, in accord- ance with a decree of the Council of Constance passed in 1415, his remains were dug up, burned, and cast into a neighboring brook. " Thus," in the quaint language of the seventeenth-century writer Fuller, " this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed the world over." 228 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Two Channels of Wiclif ' s Teaching. Some years before his death Wiclif had devised two agencies to spread his teaching among the humbler folk. One was his " poor preachers," a body of men sent out, staff in hand and clad in coarse russet gowns, to preach the simple truths of the gospel. Those who accepted his teachings came to be known as Lollards. Although they often differed from their master and even from one another, they generally opposed the tem- poral power of the Church, the authority of the Pope, transubstantia- tion, religious orders, pilgrimages, image worship, and many other doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome. As an organized sect they did not long survive Wiclif 's death. They were accused of social- ism and held responsible for the Peasant Revolt; their doctrines shocked the orthodox ; and the lowly character of their following ex- cited the contempt of the great. Nevertheless, their work lived after them. They struck the first mortal blow at the Church of Rome in England, and they infused a spirit of earnestness into English life which reached its fruition in the Puritan Revolution nearly three centuries later. The followers of Richard's Queen carried their teachings to Bohemia, and John Hus, the forerunner of Martin Luther, felt; their influence. Wiclir s second agency was Ihe translation of the Bible, which he projected and supervised, and assisted to carry out, though the bulk of the work was done by his associate, Nicholas of Hereford. After Wiclif 's death the work was revised and reissued in complete form by John Purvey. Although not a stylist and although none of his controversial treatises are works of art, Wiclif's achieve- ments in spreading the Bible among the people exerted an influence which entitle him to be called the " father of English prose." 1 By suppressing the Bible the GovernmenTTnot only arrested the progress of the new religious thought, but the growth of English prose as well. England a National State. In the wars against France, in the struggle to control its own commerce and to develop native industries, in the struggle against the power of Rome, in the rise of a purely Eng- lish literature, one great fact is evident : England had become a nation. As the barons who fought selfishly against royal despotism and the exploitation of their country by foreigners had unconsciously prepared the way for a constitutional monarchy, so they had, again unwittingly, taken the first steps to awaken a national spirit which first came to a full, conscious realization in the England of Edward III. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Constitutional. Stubbs, Constitutional History, II, ch. XVII ; III, chs. XX, XXI ; the two latter covering both the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The develop- ment of Parliament under the first three Edwards is treated in White, Making of the English Constitution, pt. Ill, ch. Ill ; Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. Ill, ch. I ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. VIII; Wakeman and Hassall, Constitutional Essays, ch. IV; and Medley, Manual, chs. IV- VI. 1 Thus he contributed to further the work of the poet Chaucer. ENGLAND UNDER THE FIRST THREE EDWARDS 229 Social, industrial, and intellectual conditions. Traill, Social England, II, chs. V, VI. Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, I, bk. III. Ashley, English Economic History, II. J. E. T. Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices (6 vols., 1866-1887), and his Six Centuries of Work and Wages (1890), based upon it, are both valuable but not to be relied upon implicitly. Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, chs. IV, V. Prothero, English Farming, ch. II. E. L. Cutts, Scenes and Characters in the Middle Ages (1872). Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (2d ed., 1899). Bateson, Medieval England, pt. III. Wright, Homes of Other Days. Tout, Political History, ch. XIX. R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medie- val Thought (1884). Taine, English Literature, I, bk. I, ch. III. Moody and Lovett, ch. III. Cambridge History of Literature, I, II. Jusserand, Literary History, I. E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage (1903). For the Black Death, see Gasquet, The Great Pestilence (1893), and Charles Creigh- ton, History of Epidemics in Britain, A.D. 664-1866 (2 vols., 1891-1894). The Church. Wakeman, Church of England, ch. VIII. W. W. Capes, History of the English Church, ch. I-VII, XI-XVII. J. Lechler, John Wiclif and his English Precursors (Eng. tr., 2 vols. 1878, i vol. 1884). CHAPTER XIV RICHARD II (1377-1399). THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY A Boy King. Unsatisfactory State of the Country. On 16 July, 1377, a boy of ten, " Richard of Bordeaux," son of the Black Prince, was crowned King of England. The reign began with a prospect of conciliation between contending factions. John of Gaunt with- drew from politics, and a Council of twelve, representing the court and opposition parties, was chosen to govern the kingdom, while the guar- dianship of the King's person was intrusted to his mother, a gentle, kindly woman. Nevertheless, " William Langland " had prophesied truly that " where the cat is a kitten, the kingdom is full miserable." The pestilence and the long war had thinned the population and bur- dened the country with heavy taxes. The English possessions in France had been reduced to marsh-girdled Calais and a portion of Aquitaine with a long frontier in constant peril from the energetic Bertrand du Guesclin. During the dotage of Edward III the suprem- acy of the Channel had been lost and the coast was left exposed to French attacks. Bands of armed men roamed through the* land, plundering and disturbing the peace. Wearing the badge or livery of some great lord and protected or maintained by him in suits at law, they defied all attempts to bring them to justice. In the face of suffering, danger, and disorder the Commons viewed with increasing resentment the luxury at court. The Poll Taxes of 1379 and 1380. The first Parliament of the reign, which met in October, 1377, was able to obtain important con- cessions : ^it was allowed to replace certain Lancastrian l members of the Council by men of its own choice ; it was agreed that " no Act made in Parliament should be repealed save by the consent of Parliament " ; it was given the right to appoint the great officers of State and to choose two treasurers to oversee expenditures of money grants. In 1380 the Council was abolished, a new set of ministers appointed, and the King put under the Earl of Warwick as guardian and tutor. Nevertheless, the Government continued ineffective and unpopular. Its war meas- ures were particularly unsuccessful. In order to meet the expenses which they nevertheless involved, poll taxes were devised. The first, levied in 1379, had the merit of being graduated according to wealth from John of Gaunt, who was to pay ten marks to laborers and villeins 1 Adherents of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, uncle of King Richard, and opposed to the party of Richard's late father, the Black Prince. 230 THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 231 assessed for \d. In the following year a new assessment was imposed at a rate of three groats on every person in the realm save beggars. Although it was arranged that in the separate townships the rich should pay proportionately more than the poor, the burden fell heavily on the lower classes, causing great " dismay and woe," and furnishing the occasion for a revolt which had been brewing for years. Conditions leading to the Peasant Revolt. The country was seething with discontent, jsocial and industrial as well as jpoKtical. The peasantry were infuriated at the attempts made since the Blade"* Death to enforce or rake up old villein services. More widespread still was the opposition to the Statutej_of_Laborer.s_jwhich_ aimed to fix the_j-ate of wagelT TnTthe towns^the lesser folk chafed at the selfish, arbitrary policy of the ruling bodies. In the majority of cases municipal governments had passed into the hands of little oligarchies who levied taxes, imposed fines, and, in short, governed solely in their own interests with a total disregard of their unprivileged fellow- townsmen. Another grievance was the restrictive gild ^regulation c' which bore with peculiar harshness on tEe" unskilled laborers in pr&? venting them from passing from one employment to another. 'In London and one or two other great towns combinations of journey- men forerunners of the modern trades unions were formed against their masters, but those lower in the scale had no such organiza- tion. There was bitter feeling, too, against alien merchants and manu-^ facturers whom trTeTnatives looked upon as interlopers. There were many lather uneasy and discontented elements. (Bands of armed men ^released from the war and disinclined to work, were ready to share in any disturbance from which they might profit. Fugitive villeins, idlers, and criminals swelled the throng. Then there were the extremists among the followers of Wiclif, though he himself had not sanctioned force. A " mad priest," John Ball, went about teach- ing that goods should be held in common and the distinction between lord and serf wiped away. A rhyme attributed to him was very popu- lar : " When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentle- man? " T^henoll tax. received with "great grudging and many a bitter curseT^was^ne spark that fired the train. The burden in itself was enough, but the Government made matters worse if possible. When the local collectors sent in false returns to spare the poor, royal commissioners were delegated to extort the utmost farthing. The Peasant Revolt, 1381. Although the chief centers of dis- turbance were in the south and east, the revolt broke out nearly simultaneously in almost every part of the country. The unity of rising, however, was not prompted by any unity of purpose, and the name " Peasant Revolt," by which it was commonly known, is misleading in view of the various classes that took part in it. In Kent^ for example, where no villenage existed, the chief grievances were the^gojl_ig,x^and the maladministration.^ _The plan of the insurgents there was to kill all lords and gentfemeirand great Churchmen, to burn 232 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tax rolls and title deeds, to secure possession of the King, and to take the government into their own hands. The last installment of the poll tax was one due on Whitsunday, 1381. All through the spring " quaint rhymes " passed through the country signed " Jack the Miller," " Jack Trewman," and the like. One famous one read : " John Ball greeteth you all, and doth for to understand he hath rung your bell. Now right and might, will and skill. God speed every dele." Outbreak in Essex and Kent. The March on London. The first outbreak occurred in Essex, late in May, when certain men of Brentwood stoned one of the royal tax commissioners out of the vil- lage. When the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas was sent down to punish the rioters, he was seized and forced to swear that he would never hold another such session. They let him go, but beat to death three clerks and beheaded three jurors. Within a few days the Kentishmen rose, seized Rochester Castle, and chose as leader one Wat Teghler, or Tyler, an obscure adventurer of ready wit and sharp tongue. Rapidly swelling in numbers, the rioters started for Lon- don, burning houses of royal officials, lawyers, and unpopular land- lords as they proceeded. On their way through Canterbury they released John Ball, whom the Archbishop had imprisoned for his inflammatory utterances. On the evening of 1 2 June they encamped on Blackheath, whence parties issued forth and burned the King's Bench and Marshalsea prisons, and Lambeth, the Archbishop's palace. The same night the Essex insurgents, who had been busy destroying court and manorial rolls, reached Mile End, thus threatening London from the north and east. The little King and his councilors were in the Tower, and the mayor and the aldermen were at the Guildhall, trembling with indecision. The next morning John Ball preached a fiery sermon, declaring that in the beginning all men were equal, that the wicked had reduced them to servitude, and that the time had come to shake off the yoke. In response to the request of the insurgents that, as loyal subjects, they wanted to lay their grievances before him, the King came down the river in his barge to meet them ; but at the sight of the disorderly rabble on the banks his timid councilors forced him to turn back. Then Wat Tyler marched against London Bridge, traitors lowered the draw, and the mob streamed into the city. With wise moderation they spared the property of all except their chief enemies. Among the places which fell victim to their rage were the Savoy, John of Gaunt's palace, and the lawyers' quarters in the Temple. " It was marvelous to see how even the most aged and infirm of them (the lawyers) scrambled off with the agility of rats or evil spirits." The Conference at Mile End. On the morning of the i4th, the King rode out to meet the rebels at Mile End, a favorite recreation ground northeast of the city walls. A boy of fourteen, one can believe that he entered the howling mob as a " lamb among wolves." How- THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 233 ever, they received him joyfully on bended knees, crying : " Welcome, our Lord King Richard, an it please you we desire no other King than you." Then, through Wat Tyler, they asked that all traitors might be put to death and that the King would grant the petition that they were about to present. Orchard heard it article by article and granted everything.^ Their ^hief demands were : abolition of serfdom ; full pardon to all insurgents ; the right oLjXiajiujniltejLserfs to buy ancT jsell freely ; rents of lands freed frorn villenage should not exceed four pencean acre ; andjiiat no one should serve another, hut of hi<^ pwjTfree Twilllmd forjwages mutually agreed upon. Further, Richard should acknowledge that he Tiad been ill advised, and henceforth he would be directed by his people, and that all who had been imprisoned in consequence of the Statutes of Laborers and other oppressive legisla- tion since 1349, should be released. Of course, the King could make no such sweeping changes in the laws without the consent of Parlia- ment, and, though the concessions were proclaimed in all the shires, the Council determined to revoke them at the first favorable oppor- tunity. Excesses of the Rioters. Murder of Wat Tyler. In spite of the royal concessions, Wat Tyler led a band of rioters from the conference and sought out and cruelly murdered Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, together with a few others whom they specially hated. They fixed the heads of Sudbury and Hales, the Treasurer, on pikes, bore them around the city, and set them on London Bridge. Fortu- nately for John of Gaunt he was abroad. Satisfied with what Richard had granted them, " the simple and honest folk " departed to their homes. The extremists, however, the criminal, and the disorderly, to the number of thirty thousand, remained and made the night hide- ous with slaughter, plundering, and burning. More than two hundred lives were lost in their carnival of blood and fire. The Council made one more effort the next day to placate Wat Tyler with new conces- sions. A meeting was arranged at Smithfield, the site of the cattle markets north of the city. Tyler was allowed to ask what he would, to which Richard replied that the commons should have all he could possibly grant " saving the regalities of the Crown." The rebel leader was then ordered to ride away, but was surrounded and cut down so promptly that it seemed as if the whole thing had been planned. Directly they realized what had happened, the insurgents began to draw their bows. At this critical moment, so the story goes, little Richard showed himself a worthy son of the Black Prince. Speeding toward them and waving them back, he cried : " Sirs, will you shoot your King ? I will be your chief and captain ; you shall have from me all that you seek." Pointing to the open meadows to the north, he ordered them to meet him there. The Lord Mayor, taking advantage of the delay, hastened to the city and rallied the citizens who had begun to recover from the terror of the night before. They marched to the support of the King who had kept the rioters quietly 234 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND engaged in parley all the while. Thus reenforced, he was more than a match for the rabble demoralized by the loss of their chief. Yet he was wise enough to let them depart in peace, though he ordered Tyler's head to be fixed on London Bridge in place of Sudbury's. Met by his mother on his triumphal return to the city he cried, " Rejoice and praise God ; for to-day I have recovered my heritage that was lost, and the realm of England." Suppression of the Revolt. Results. The backbone of the re- sistance in London was broken. Kent submitted without fighting. The Essex insurgents demanded the confirmation of Mile End con- cessions ; but King Richard led an army against them and put them down, declaring, regardless of his promises : " Villeins ye are still, and villeins ye shall remain." About a hundred of the rebels were tried and put to death, among them John Ball. Outside of Kent and Essex risings in East Anglia caused the most trouble ; those in other parts of the country were scattered and were suppressed without diffi- culty, though it was September before the last embers of the confla- gration were stamped out. Parliament met in November. All the King's promises were revoked; but a general amnesty, excepting almost two hundred names, was proclaimed; a new Chancellor and Treasurer were appointed ; and the royal household was remodeled. Encouraged by the crushing defeat of the rebels and the reactionary attitude of Parliament many lords not only reasserted their rights, but tightened the bonds. It was the growing interest in sheep farming and the custom of leasehold farming that made for the gradual aboli- tion of villenage. QThe revolt of 1381 led to no startling changes, but it is notable as the first great struggle of labor against capital^) Like Wiclif 's movement it was crushed for the time ; but both were to as- sert themselves in the centuries to come. ^^ Richard and his Councilors, and Parlia^Pt. (In 1382 Richard, though only fifteen years old, was married to Anne of Bohemia^ Ami- able and accomplished, she exercised the best of influences over her young husband during the twelve years of her married life. In spite of the courage and address that Richard had displayed at Smithfield, Parliament persisted in keeping him in leading strings. His edu- cation had been very defective, awaking in him a love of refinement and luxury, rather than of work. The self-seeking among the cour- tiers who surrounded him flattered him with exalted notions of the royal powers and urged him to throw off the parliamentary yoke. The two men who enjoyed his chief confidence were Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and Michael de la Pole. The former was certainly no upstart, for his family was one of the oldest in England, but his merits were small in proportion to the offices and honors which the King showered upon him. De la Pole, on the other hand, belonged to a mercantile family, and had served Edward III long and faithfully as a diplomat and general. His aim was to make peace with France and to restore order by strengthening the royal authority. This policy THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 235 brought him into conflict with Parliament, with the Earl of Arundel an arrogant and selfish noble recently associated with him as tutor to the King and with Thomas of Woodstock, one of the King's uncles, who was seeking to get the management of affairs into his own hands. The struggle with France dragged languidly and fitfully. Parliament would neither grant money for an adequate expedition led by the King in person, nor would they accept peace on the French terms. In the summer of 1383 the Bishop of Norwich was allowed to head a motley force on a so-called " crusade " to Flanders. Osten- sibly to support Urban VI against the French candidate Clement VII, it was really backed by the commercial interests with a view of aiding the burghers of Ghent in another revolt against the Count of Flanders. Owing to the prompt intervention of the French King, the revolt proved abortive, and Norwich's poor array were driven out of the country. In the year following, a truce between England and France was ar- ranged for nine months. The Breach between the King and the Opposition, 1384-1386. About this time Richard began to assert himself and to manifest his fiery and headstrong temper. He gave the lie to Arundel, he broke with his uncles, John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock, and he indulged in furious gusts of passion, throwing his hat and boots out of the window on one occasion, and slapping the face of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury on another. He rejected contemptuously the demands of the Commons to control his expenditures and to be con- sulted in the choice of ministers. He increased the powers and rev- enues of de Vere, and created him successively Marquis of Dublin and Duke of Ireland. De la Pole he rewarded with the earldom of Suffolk. Violent as he was, it was natural that he should have chafed under the restraint to \^udi he had been subjected and should have sought to throw it off rJ^Wrengthening his friends. And it must be said that the baronial party were not striving for reform of abuses. In 1386 John of Gaunt started for a war against Castile. This made matters worse instead of better ; for it left the leadership of the oppo- sition to Thomas of Woodstock, recently created Duke of Gloucester. In the face of a threatened attack from France, Parliament met in October, 1386, and demanded the dismissal of his chief ministers before they would grant supplies. Richard declared that : " He would not remove the meanest scullion from his kitchen at their bidding." Thereupon they threatened him with an imaginary statute permitting Parliament to depose a King who should cleave to evil councilors. The allusion to the fate of Edward II was so pointed that Richard dared resist no longer. Suffolk' was dismissed from the office of Chan- cellor and impeached. Though the charges against him of subvert- ing the laws, defying Parliament, and filling his pockets with public funds could not be sustained, he was sentenced to imprisonment, a victim of the evil conditions of the times and the malice of his enemies. 236 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Council of Eleven, 1386. The Lords Appellant, 1387. The victorious opposition proceeded to appoint a Council of eleven, headed by Gloucester and Arundel, to control the royal household and the government of the realm for a year. The King, however, as soon as Parliament dissolved, released Suffolk, and declared that he would not be bound by anything in the late session which affected his liberties or prerogatives. Moreover, he secured from the judges an opinion that the appointment of the Council was against the ancient rights of the Crown, that the King alone could dismiss ministers, and that Parliament had no right to impeach without his consent. Indeed, they went so far as to declare that all who were responsible for the recent acts in Parliament were guilty of high treason. Meantime, both parties had been preparing for war. Gloucester and Arundel were far more successful in securing a following than their King. Among their new adherents were the Earl of Warwick, and somewhat later, Henry, Earl of Derby, John of Gaunt's heir, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham. On 14 November, 1387, they " appealed of," or charged with treason five of the royal favorites, including Suffolk and de Vere. 1 Richard, seeing that resistance was useless, advised his friends to save themselves, and they fled in all directions. De Vere attempted to march on London with such forces as he could gather, but was intercepted and defeated at Radcot Bridge, on the upper Thames, 20 December, 1387. De Vere himself managed to escape in a fog. The Merciless Parliament, 1388. In February, 1388, a new Par- liament met. They ordered the arrest of the judges who had signed the opinion in favor of the King, and the "Lords Appellant" repeated their original appeal against the royal favorites, supporting it by thirty- nine formal charges. These were, in substance : that the accused had conspired to estrange the King from his prefer councilors ; that they had raised an armed force ; and had sought to massacre their oppo- nents in Parliament. Suffolk and de Vere were beyond reach and died in exile, the former in 1389, the latter in 1392. Two of the remaining three were executed. C In addition, Parliament proceeded to sentence to death or exile a number of others whose only crime was their faithful support of King Richard. It is for this that it got the name, " Merci- less Parliament. "^ The leaders enriched themselves with the offices and estates of their fallen enemies, while the Lords Appellant, who had been preaching economy all along, actually wrung a grant of 20,000 from Parliament for their services. With the appointment of minis- ters from their own party and a Council to control the King their vic- tory seemed complete. Richard recovers Control, 1389, and rules well for Eight Years. Less than a year of the new regime was enough to show the country that it was far from being an improvement over the old. Richard saw 1 The accusing lords were known as the "Lords Appellant." THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 237 that his time was come. Entering the Council one day in May, i he suddenly asked his uncle Gloucester how old he was. WherTtoI that he was twenty-three, he declared that he was old enough to choose his own ministers. Thereupon, he took over the government into his own hands. He was wise enough, however, not to put in office any of his old favorites or to recall any of the exiles. He even promised to take no vengeance against the members of the Merciless Parlia- ment, and for eight years he ruled as_a,jcojiatitiitional and popular Important Legislation, 1391-1393. The early part of the period was fruitful in important legislation. Qn 1391 a new Statute of Pro- visors was passed which reenacted the famous measure of 1351 and imposed still heavier penalties on those who received from Rome any benefice or reservation of a benefice at the expense of the rightful patron) Commoners who violated the statute were liable to the pen- alties of treason, prelates to exile and the loss of their temporal posses- sions, while lay lords incurred the penalty of forfeiture. In the same year a statute was passed against livery and maintenance which pro- hibited the promoting of other men's quarrels and forbade the grant- ing of badges or livery to large bands of retainers, (in 1393 a new Statute of Praemunire imposed forfeiture of goods as a penalty for ob- taining bulls or other instruments from RomeJ (Other measures im- proved or confirmed laws of Edward III for the benefit of trade._} Richard in Ireland, 1394-1395. : In 1394 Richard went to Ireland, the first king to visit the country since the time of John. There was much to demand his attention, for conditions were growing steadily worse. The " Pale " had shrunk to a small bit of country about Dublin, and the other districts under English rule "were mere patches," cut off from it by native tribes who were constantly in revolt. In spite of the Statute of Kilkenny many of the original English settlers lived like the native Irish and their leaders ruled as independent tribal chiefs. Richard, accompanied by a large army, landed at Waterford, whence he marched to Dublin. The Anglo-Irish and the Irish chiefs as well, thinking they could resume their old courses again after his departure readily made their submission. He sought at once to dazzle them by his splendor and to attach them by his generosity. He published an amnesty for all past treasons both of the Englishry and the Irishry, he acknowledged that the harshness and corruption of his officials had caused much of the rebellion and disorder of the past, and took steps to reform the judiciary and general administra- tion of the country. Meantime events had already occurred which paved the way for the great crisis of his reign. Richard's Attempt to resume Absolute Power, 1396. In June, 1394; some months before his departure for Ireland, the death of Queen Anne deprived the King of a wise councilor and a gentle advo- cate of peace. It was the occasion, moreover, of a quarrel with Arundel, whose behavior at the funeral in Westminster Abbey so in- 238 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND furiated Richard that, unmindful of the place and the occasion, he struck him in the face with a wand. In consequence, Arundel, who had been reconciled with the King, again took sides against him when the time came. In 1396, after a series of short truces, peace for thirty years was made with France, and in November of the same year Rich- ard married Isabella, the seven-year-old daughter of Charles VI. From the moment of this French alliance Richard began to throw aside all the caution which had sustained him in his position since 1389, to indulge in the wildest extravagance and to nourish the most unre- strained ambitions. He thirsted again for absolute power, and even cherished the hope that he might succeed the brother of his late Queen as Emperor of the Germans. He increased the magnificence of his court, filled it with Frenchmen, borrowed money right and left, and resorted to all sorts of irregular and oppressive means to support his growing lavishness. Haxey's Case, 1397. Richard's Attack on the Lords Appellant. When Parliament met, in January, 1397, a " Bill of Complaints " was introduced, attacking the incompetence of the administration and the abuses of the royal household. Richard, in a fury, demanded that the Commons produce the traitor who had framed the bill. Bowing before his wrath, they gave the name of Sir Thomas Haxey and humbly excused themselves for their part in the matter. Though Haxey was later released, the incident is an early and important case of royal in- terference with parliamentary liberty. (Suspecting that Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick, three Lords Appellant, were plotting against him, he had them seized and " appealed " them of treason for their acts of 1387-1388.) This was in a Parliament, packed in the royal interest, which met in September. All of them were speedily dis- posed of. Gloucester was shipped off to Calais and met his death on the way. It was reported that he died of disease, though there is little doubt that he was murdered by royal order. Arundel was tried and executed. Warwick by tears and confession saved his life, but had to submit to forfeiture and exile. Richard rewarded his supporters with unsparing hand. No less than five dukes and one marquis and four earls were created. Among them were two of the old Lords Appellant, his former opponents. John of Gaunt's son, Henry, Earl of Derby, became Duke of Hereford, and the Earl of Nottingham became Duke of Norfolk. London was seething with excitement. It was believed that miracles were wrought at Arundel's tomb, and Richard so feared his shade that he dared not go to bed without a guard of three hundred knights. Before he allowed the members of Parliament to separate, he made them take an oath at the shrine of St. Edward to maintain all the acts of the session. Parliament of Shrewsbury, 1398. Richard's Absolutism at its Height. The next year a new session was held at Shrewsbury. Overawed by an armed force, measures were passed in the short space of four days that made Richard practically absolute. /The acts THE END OF THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY 239 of the " Merciless Parliament " were annulled \)a, subsidy on wool was granted him for life ; and, to crown all, this subservient body agreed to delegate its Authority to a_commission of eighteen for hearing peti- tions and~Transactmg aUundetermined business^ To make his vic- tory sure Kichard obtameoTpapal letters censuring all who should seek to reverse what the " Great Parliament " had done. He seemed justified in his boast that he had crushed his enemies, not only " at the bark of the tree but at the root." Inflated by soothsayers, who foretold that he would become Emperor and the greatest monarch in the world, he offended his subjects by the wildest statements. " The laws were in his mouth and in his breast," he declared, " not in any statute books," and " the lives and lands of his subjects were his own, to be dealt with according to his good pleasure, despite all legal forms." But the day of his overthrow was not far distant. Richard alienates Henry of Lancester and continues in his Mad Course. A quarrel between Hereford and Norfolk indirectly fur- nished the occasion for the final catastrophe. They appeared armed and equipped to fight the matter out when, 18 September, 1398, Richard intervened and exiled them both, Hereford for ten years and Norfolk for a " hundred wynter." By this action he furnished his cousin Henry of Hereford, who stood next but one in the line of suc- cession, with a grievance which helped him to gain a party of sym- pathizers and lead a movement against a capricious despot. Richard's foolhardiness during the next few months almost passes belief. He not only increased his exactions, but he accused whole counties of treason, he browbeat judges, and imprisoned hosts of persons on the slightest pretext. CTo cap his folly he took occasion on the death, in 1399, of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, to seize the enormous estates of the family} This was in defiance of a promise to Henry that his rights of inheritance would be in no wise diminished by his banishment. Indeed, he went further and declared his cousin exiled for life. The Landing of Henry of Lancaster at Ravenspur, 4 July, 1399. Having thus wronged his rival beyond endurance and fanned the anger of his subjects to a white heat, Richard departed for Ireland to chastise a rebel chief who had broken into the Pale and slain the Lord Lieutenant. While he was thus occupied, Henry of Lancaster landed, 4 July, 1399, at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. His following was small, but half of England had sent assurances that they were prepared to take up his cause. Solemnly he declared that he was no traitor aiming at the throne ; but that he came only to recover the heritage of his father, John of Gaunt, and to drive away the " King's mischievous councilors and ministers." Directly he heard the news Richard hastened back from Ireland, but his kingdom was practically lost before his arrival and almost no one would fight for him. At length, in despair, he consented to surrender and even to abdicate on condition that his life should be spared and that the followers who had stood 24 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND by him should be given a safe conduct. He was taken a prisoner to London. On i September he entered the city, amid the hoots of the multitude, riding a little hackney and clothed in a plain black gown. The "Abdication" and Deposition of Richard, 1399. A Parlia- ment was summoned, in his name, to meet on the 3oth. Before it came together he had read before Lancaster and other witnesses in the Tower, where he was held prisoner, a document in which he declared himself, " insufficient and useless," and unworthy to reign. It was a dismal proceeding, but he bore the ordeal tranquilly and even cheer- fully. This abdication was next read before Parliament, together with a list of thirty articles setting forth at length the acts by which Richard had violated the Constitution and oppressed individuals. /"They included levying civil war, raising arbitrary taxes, and forced loans, alienating the royal estates, imprisonment of subjects without trial, forcing the Parliament of Shrewsbury to delegate its authority to an illegal commission and extending the royal prerogative beyond reasonable limits. Among the particular charges enumerated were the murder of Gloucester and the banishment and disinheriting of Henry of Lancaster/ After the articles had been recited both Houses voted that " for the greater security and tranquillity of the nation and the good of the realm " Richard should be deposed. Henry of Lancaster succeeds to the Throne. A Parliamentary Dynasty. Thereupon, Henry of Lancaster rose and claimed the vacant throne " as by the right of blood coming of King Henry, and through that right that God of His Grace hath sent me, with the help of my kin and my friends to recover it, the which realm was in pain to be undone, for default of goverance and undoing the laws." He thus based his claim on two grounds, right of descent from Henry III andjright_of conquest. In going back to Henry III he avoided a diffi- culty^ The Earl ofMarch was heir presumptive, since his grandfather had married Philippa, daughter of Lionel, Duke Clarence, second son of Edward III. Henry by blood was one degree removed from the line of descent, since his father, John of Gaunt, was a younger brother of Lionel. He might have argued that the claims of the Earl of March were weakened by the fact that he was descended from Edward through a female, but he did not press that point. In going back to Henry III he was impliedly making use of a rumor spread by his fol- lowers that Edmund of Lancaster, the founder of his mother's house, was really the eldest son of Henry III, whom Edward I had supplanted. In any event, Henry's claim of descent was merely a pretext. His second claim was the decisive one. Parliament chose him because, as the ablest male of the royal house, he had overcome a king who had defied the laws and oppressed the subject. CThe title of the new Lan- castrian house was then a parliamentary onej) In the end it had to give way to the older rival line which it had supplanted; but its ac- cession was of the deepest constitutional significance. (It confirmed THE END OF THE PLANT AGENET DYNASTY 241 a precedent that kings could be deposed for misrule and established a new one that Parliament could choose a successor not necessarily the next in blood^ The fact that, as elective kings, the Lancastrians made a bargain to govern in accord with the will of Parliament was also of the profoundest importance. End of Richard. Final Estimate. Richard was passed on from one castle to another and, in February, 1400, he was reported dead. According to some accounts, he declined food on hearing that a rising in his favor had failed and pined away. More likely he was starved to death by his captors. He was totally unfitted by youthful training and natural disposition for his royal duties. At certain crises he showed courage, firmness, energy, and capacity ; but he was naturally indo- lent and pleasure-loving, and fond of pomp and show ; moreover, he was subject to sudden gusts of passion, he was revengeful, and bent on absolute power. All this counteracted such merits as he possessed. His heritage from his grandfather had been a heavy one, " debt, un- lucky wars, popular discontent " ; but he lived that down and ruled for years as a constitutional and popular king. Then he suddenly plunged into a mad career of violence against his enemies, extravagance, " vain boasting," " and freakish tyranny." His wrongs to Lancaster merely furnished the occasion and the leader to overthrow him. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Ramsay, The Genesis of Lancaster, II, chs. VIII ff. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages, chs. XIV-XVI. Oman, Political History (1906), chs. I-VI ; a good clear account, but marred by many inaccuracies of detail; there is a full bibliography, pp. 497-512. For the Peasant Revolt see Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381 (1906); and G. Kriehn, "Studies in the Sources of the Social Revolt ol 1381," American Historical Review, VII, 254-285, 458-484. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 84-103. CHAPTER XV THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER IN THE ASCENDANT, AND "THE CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIMENT" IN GOVERNMENT. HENRY IV (1399-1413); HENRY V (1413-1422) The Lancastrian Period. Its Constitutional Importance. In 1399 a new branch of the old Plantagenet House began to rule. Rep- resented by three Henrys, father, son, and grandson, it occupied the throne for over sixty years. It was a period of wars at home and abroad, lightened by picturesque incidents, but, in general, dreary and inglorious. After a brief moment of transcendent triumph against her ancient enemy France, England had to retire discomfited from the struggle, retaining practically nothing but Calais from her former vast possessions across the Channel. With the country torn by struggles of contending factions of the nobles, aflame with popular discontent, weakened in resources of men and money, the last of the line, a " pious weakling," had to give way to a rival claimant, Edward of York. Yet this half century is notable for something more than the rise and fall of a royal family, (its real significance lies in the fact that Parliament put this family on the throne, and exercised control over the affairs of the kingdom all through the reigns of Henry IV, Henry V, and well into the reign of Henry VI.) Privileges which had been only occa- sionally asserted under previous kings were now recognized, exercised, and extended. The parliamentary experiment proved premature. Nevertheless, the lesson was a valuable one which was not forgotten. When, in the seventeenth century, Parliament again asserted itself, it was the system prevailing under the Lancastrian which it sought to restore. Henry IV, 1399-1413. Promising Beginning of his Reign. The reign of Henry IV opened full of promise. He was welcomed by all classes, he was related to most of the great barons of the kingdom, he was in close alliance with the Church and clergy, he was reputed rich, for he held the treasure which Richard II had forfeited his throne to amass, and he possessed six earldoms, including the vast estates of Lancaster, in his own right, and he had four strong sons to preserve the line of his succession. He had declared that he would " govern not by his own voluntary purpose and singular opinion," but " by common council and consent." He was anointed with a miraculous oil which, as legend told, had been presented to St. Thomas Becket 242 THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 243 during his exile and which his maternal grandfather, Duke Henry, had brought to England. He was hailed as the one whom the fabled prophet Merlin had foretold would " recall the scattered flocks to their lost pastures." Character and Problems. Henry, sometimes known as Henry of Bolingbroke from the place of his birth, was in his thirty-third year. Although of " mean stature," he was strongly built, and, as a young man, he had been distinguished for his skill in knightly exercises. His life had been a stirring one, he had taken part with the Teutonic Knights in a crusade in remote Prussia, and had traveled as far as the Holy City of Jerusalem. He had joined the Lords Appellant in their movement against Richard, but had become reconciled to the King through his father's influence, and had only taken up arms again when deprived of his birthright. He was brave, active, temperate, and by nature merciful, though hot-tempered withal. Unfortunately, the bitter experiences of his later years made him suspicious, calculating, and politic, and, when goaded by resistance and. rebellion, cruel in re- taliation. Not a good soldier, he was a careful administrator and wise statesman, knowing when to stand firm and when lo yield to his ParliaT" rhent. In spite of his seeming popularity and his apparent wealth, his position was insecure and_trying. His title might be taken away by those who gave it, liiftirfnlirewere such demands upon his resources that he was always in debt : there were fleets and garrisons to main- tain, wars to wage, and rewards to distribute to his supporters. It was estimated in the third year of his reign that his annual revenue amounted to barely more than two thirds the sum necessary to meet expenses. The French refused to recognize the new sovereign and coveted the English possessions on their soil. Scotland was restless, and Wales soon broke out into revolt. In addition, Henry was teased by his Parliaments and harassed by risings of the disaffected ; he was the prey of factions ; attempts were made on his life ; and his last years were darkened by attempts of his son to supplant him, by the pains of illness, and by stings of conscience over his usurpation. Shakespeare could make him say with truth : (" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.") The Beginning of a Welsh Revolt under Glendower, 1400. Early in the first year of his reign certain of the earls who had been deprived of lands and titles formed a plot to seize King Henry at a " mumming " and tournament which he had planned to hold on Twelfth Night at Windsor. The plot failed. Richard, whom they had designed to re- store, ceased to live soon after, and many of his supporters were exe- cuted. Henry ordered a thousand masses for the soul of his rival. France stirred up the Scots, and the King was obliged to lead an expe- dition against them in which he accomplished little. On his way back he had to turn aside to deal with a more dangerous movement in Wales. The leader was Owen Glendower, a Welsh squire who had studied law in the courts of Westminster. He was a learned and cultivated 244 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND gentleman, so versed in the ancient prophecies of the native bards that he was held to be a wizard who could even walk invisible when he chose. He was stung to action by his failure to obtain redress from the King against a grasping neighbor who had been encroaching on his lands. When he took arms to right wrongs, he found that his countrymen were prepared to follow him. Added to the national re- sentment against English rule there was bitter discontent against the oppression of the English justices, the arrogance of the Lords Marchers, and the greedy exaction of the bailiffs. Welsh students in England flocked home to fight under the banners of Owen Glendower. Year after year English armies marched against him, but though they destroyed many lives and much property, Owen always eluded them. He framed an ambitious plan to exterminate the English tongue and to set up a great Celtic empire. To that end he negotiated with Irish chiefs, with the King of Scotland, and with a number of English barons. He assumed the title of " Our most dread Sovereign Prince." He schemed to set the young Earl of March, Richard's heir, on the throne ; he schemed with France, and he schemed with the Pope. All his designs failed, his great confederacy, which he sought to bring to a head in 1403, was crushed, and an attempt to lead a French invasion into England was given up, partly because the Welsh could not supply provisions to maintain it. For years Glendower lived as an outlaw, a local terror to the Lords Marchers, until his death, in 1415, finally put an end to all chance of Welsh independence. Under Henry V the more uneasy of his countrymen found vent for their energies in the French wars, and during the Wars of the Roses they supported first the Yorkists and then the Lancastrians. They helped in 1485 to put Henry Tudor on the throne, and under his son, Wales was completely incorporated into England. But the common people still dreamed that Owen Glendower only slept and would finally awake to deliver them from the English yoke. The Rising of the Percies, 1403. In the early stages of his revolt he had counted on the Percies who ruled in the north with almost kingly power. Henry, the elder, Earl of Northumberland, with his brother, the Earl of Worcester, and his fiery son, Sir Henry, known as " Hotspur," had aided to put the King on the throne. They were richly rewarded and had been intrusted with the defense of the Scotch and Welsh borders. In spite of scanty supplies from the royal purse they executed their duties effectively and inflicted a crushing defeat on an army of Scotch invaders in 1402. The result, however, was a deadly quarrel between the Percies and their sovereign over the pay- ment of expenses incurred and the disposal of the prisoners. In a stormy interview with Hotspur, King Henry drew his dagger, called him traitor, and, it is said, even struck him. Hotspur, " intolerant of the shadow of a slight," proceeded to organize a rebellion. He opened communications with Glendower, and marched an army to join his Welsh ally on the upper Severn. To draw supporters to his THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 245 cause he issued a proclamation in which he charged his sovereign with having broken his promise made in 1399 when he came to seek his inheritance, with usurping the crown and murdering Richard. Hastily levying an army in the midland shires, the King marched to the Welsh border, and, 20 July, 1403, attacked his enemies at Shrewsbury before they could effect a junction with Glendower. Ably assisted by his fifteen-year-old son, the Prince of Wales, he overcame and routed the rebel forces. Hotspur was killed. The Earl of Northumberland, who had been raising an army in Yorkshire, disbanded it on the news of the royal victory and begged for pardon. The King foolishly let him off with a short imprisonment. Archbishop Scrope's Rising, 1405. In 1405 Northumberland united with a number of great lords in another rising. Chief among them was Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, who desired reforms in the administration. Many complaints were raised against King Henry, and a free Parliament was demanded, before which grievances might be laid. Deceived by fair promises made by the royal generals, Scrope surrendered, and, against his better judgment. Henry allowefl hjmjto be tried and sentenced to death. He was beheaded 8 June. The~Archbishop gained a greater victory through his execution than his^ plots^ He was vejierated as a martyr who had perished in trying tcT deliver his people from oppression, and many attributed the sickness, which made Henry's last days a burden, to his laying violent hands on a servant of God. However that may be, he suffered bitterly from pangs of remorse. The Last Risings of Northumberland, 1408. The old Earl of Northumberland persisted in his efforts to unseat the King. In 1406 he passed from Scotland into Wales and made an agreement with Glendower for dividing England and Wales between themselves and the Earl of March, Richard's lineal heir. This done, he departed for Paris. One piece of good fortune happened to King Henry at this time. English privateers captured James of Scotland, whom his dying father was sending to the court of France to be educated. " The Scots," exclaimed Henry, mirthfully, " might have sent me the lad to teach and train, for I know French well enough." For seventeen years the royal captive was held as a hostage. He was well taught, became a prince of rare accomplishments, and a poet of no mean note. In 1408 the unquiet and slippery Earl of Northumberland, who had again returned to Scotland, led another raid across the Border, but he was defeated and slain. England had no occasion to fight another battle on her own soil for forty years. Henry's Last Years, 1408-1412. Henry was now supreme. Owing to the efficient campaigns of his son, Prince Hal, the Welsh from this time ceased to be dangerous. The King of Scotland was his prisoner. France, under a King subject to frequent fits of insanity Charles VI, 1380-1422 and torn by strife between two parties, one led by the house of Orleans, the other by the house of Burgundy, was 246 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND only too glad to keep peace. 1 Yet Henry's last years were not happy. His sufferings rendered him at times unconscious and frequently in- capacitated him from transacting business. In consequence, the government passed more and more into the hands of his son, Prince Hal, supported by the ambitious and wary Beauforts, 2 who were egging him on to secure the crown. By the autumn of 1412 the King's periods of insensibility were more and more frequent. Remorse, too, weighed heavily upon him for the death of Richard II, the execution of Scrope, and his own usurpation. For the first two he had done penance ; the last, he told his confessor, he was powerless to alter because of his children. As he lay dying he sent for his son, forgave him for the grief which the young man's impatience to secure the royal power had caused, and gave him a father's blessing. He died at nightfall 20 March, 1413. Constitutional and Parliamentary Gains. It is from the con- stitutional point of view that the reign is most significant, for, owing to Henry's necessities, Parliament secured the dominance in public affairs which they retained during the greater part of the Lancastrian period. In successive sessions they established the principle that redress of^grieyances should precede supply, that moneys should be voted only on t&eyiastTday of the session after their petitions had been answered. They asserted successfully the.right of freedom of debate^ They scolded the King for the " unthriftiness " of his government, for the disorders of the administration ; and often with scant justice they cut down or revised his expenditures. In 1404 they fixed the custom of granting moneys to " treasurers for war " appointed by themselves, and made the King publish the names of his councilors. In 1406 we find them demanding redress of " good and abundant grievance " and telling their sovereign that his household was com- posed not of " valiant and sufficient men but of rascalry." This same year they appointed a commission to audit alLpublic accounts. They went even further : they suggested plans for the national defense and the conduct of wars outside the land. (.They forced the King to agjee that he would do nothing without the consent of a continual council of their own choosing^ (Had this scheme remained permanent the present Cabinet system would have been anticipated by many cen- turies. In 1407 they secured recognition of the important principle that money grants should originate in the Commons, receive the as- sent of the Lords, and be reported through their Speaker^ Measures against the Lollards. Parliament, too , passed cruel and searching acts against the Lollards, though the initiative came 1 Indeed, the English were strong enough to take the aggressive and to send two expeditions, in 1411 and 1412, respectively, to meddle in the French affairs. The second was bought off by the mad King who had an interval of sanity, and united the contending factions for a brief interval. 2 There were three brothers, sons of John of Gaunt by his third wife Katherine Swynford John, Henry, and Thomas, who took their family name, from Beaufort, John of Gaunt's castle in Anjou where they were born. THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 247 from the clergy and the King. Henry IV, from policy, and his son, from conviction, were both very orthodox. Jn i4oithe impor- tant Statute de h&retico comburendo was enacted, providing tfiaT impenitent heretics, after conviction by ecclesiastical courts, should be handed over to the lay authorities to be burned, " in order to strike terror into the minds of others." After this statute had been framed, but before it went into operation, William Sawtre, the first Lollard martyr, perished in the flames. He was burned under the common law. In 1406, at the special instance of Prince Henry and the lords spiritual and temporal, another act was passed against the Lollards,. They were accused of denying rights^oT property, of spreading the rumor that Richard was still alive, and of preparing men's minds for rebellion ; and all who were detected teach- ing or defending any Lollard doctrine were t(T15e~~affested as public^ enemiesT^JIn 1409 Archbishop Arundel, probably the instigator of the previous acts, issued a series of constitutions condemning the doc- trines of Wiclif , forbidding the translation of the Bible without author- ity, and prohibiting all discussion upon points determined by the Church. In 1386 Richard had suppressed a measure introduced by the Lollards urging the reformation and disendowment of the Church and condemning many of its practices and doctrines. Two more notable attempts on the wealth of the Church were made in Parliament in the reign of Henry IV. In 1404 a bill to appropriate the revenues of the clergy to the needs of the State for one year was introduced and failed to pass. The Parliament of 1410 contained, we are told, an " execrable crowd of Lollard knights," " true satellites of Pontius Pilate." They showed their anticlerical feeling in a petition that the enactment against heretics might be softened, and in proposals for the complete disendowment of the Church. The King refused to listen and Prince Henry " openly reprobated their malice, and bade them never for the future, dare to put such stuff together." ^Parliament was progressive in politics, in religion the orthodox party was in the majority. The King identified himself with both tendencies.) Henry V, 1413-1422. Accession and Character. Henry v, when he succeeded his father, was nearly twenty-six years old. His first act was to go to a holy man who dwelt near Westminster Abbey, to frankly confess his sins, and ask for absolution. The promises that he then made he lived up to during the remainder of his short and busy life. He was crowned on a snowy April day, which some interpreted to augur a stormy reign, others to mark the end of a winter of discon- tent and confusion. He had already distinguished himself in the Welsh wars, he had fought bravely at Shrewsbury, and he had con- siderable experience in government. In spite of all this, his youth had been wild .and boisterous. His accession changed him into another man, "studying," we are told, "to be honest, grave, and modest," and he acquired the reputation of " being the most virtuous and prudent of all the princes reigning in his time." He excelled in outdoor sports, 248 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND such as wrestling, leaping, running, casting great iron bars and heavy stones. He kept a fondness for these and for books and music even after he became engrossed in his work as a warrior, diplomatist, and administrator. He was rigid in his attachment to the Church, and most strict in the performance of his religious duties^ He has been blamed for his relentless persecution of heretics, but he believed with the best minds of the age that such persons should be made to recant for their own salvation, or disposed of to prevent them from contami- nating others. Moreover, the Lollards menaced the social order which he supported, joined in conspiracies against him, and leagued with his enemies the Welsh and the Scotch. He lived in a grim age, and when he awoke to his responsibilities he was impatient to acquire the royal power that he might grapple with the problems that he felt himself capable of mastering. His appearance indicated his character, his thin lips, his square jaw, his slight muscular frame. He was hardy, frugal, cautious, alert, and active, devoid of geniality and gentleness, aman to follow and obey, not to love. Henry and the War with France. Ut was from his exploits in the struggle against France that Henry V achieved his greatest fame.} War was then regarded as " the highest and noblest work of kings , his great-grandfather and his great-uncle had won a name for their house and for their country which had been lost by subsequent inaction and defeat, and great possessions which had once been England's had passed into the hands of the enemy. To recover Eng- lish prestige and to regain territory which he believed to be rightfully his, Henry renewed the war with France. He had another motive as well, to unite his subjects in a common undertaking. (He accomplished all that he set out to do. He allied himself with almost every power of western Christendom, he not only made himself supreme in France, but the first monarch in Europe. He even dreamed of leading a new crusade to recover the Holy Land and stay the advance of the Turks/) At home, where his father had to struggle with inadequate supplies and discontent, he enjoyed an ample revenue, and awakened a genuine national enthusiasm. It should be said for him, too, that while he was stern and even harsh toward all who resisted him, he was just and merciful to those who accepted his authority. He forbade plundering, and violence toward women and churchmen, and punished those who disobeyed. But his success rested on foundations that could not prove lasting, on his personal capacity and popularity, and the weak condition of France. She was bound to rise from the degradation to which he had reduced her and to drive out the conqueror so soon as a ruler succeeded less able than Henry himself. In the long run the result was to exhaust and demoralize England and to contribute to the downfall of the house of Lancaster. Henry V and the Lollards. Oldcastle's Rising, 1413-1414. Next to the war with France, the most pressing problem which confronted Henry V was what attitude he should adopt toward the Lollards THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 249 While his father, in order to conciliate the Church, had persecuted a few heretics of the lesser sort, he had spared those of position and in- fluence and even employed them in the royal service. (The Lollard leader was Sir John Oldcastle.} He was a learned and accomplished gentleman who had served in the French and Welsh wars and who had obtained a seat in the House of Lords by his marriage with Lady Cobham. Under the more orthodox regime he was tried for holding heretical opinions, and, after the King had sought in vain to make him recant, he was imprisoned in the Tower. On 19 October, 1413, he es- caped, and planned a great Lollard rising and the seizure of his sover- eign. Henry, with great promptitude, scattered the insurgents as they were assembling in St. Giles' fields, northwest of the city. Some were slain, many were captured. Of the prisoners, thirty were hanged as traitors, seven were burned as heretics, and thirty-two were fined and imprisoned. Oldcastle again escaped, and for three years he wandered about, a proscribed outlaw, intriguing with the King's enemies. Late in 1417 he was captured in Wales and taken to London, where he was hanged and his body burned. The failure at St. Giles marked the death of Lollardy as a political and social force. Early in 1414 Parlia- ment replied to the recent demonstration by another heresy act, which provided that any of the King's officers might seize suspected persons and hand them over to the Church courts for trial. In the same session an act was passed authorizing the King to confiscate the prop- erty of alien priories, that is, of monastic houses in England subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign abbot. This was solely a political measure to prevent their revenues from going to France. Henry showed his piety by devoting what he acquired to two religious foundations of his own, Sion and Sheen. Another important measure of this Parliament enacted that petitions should be enrolled on the statute book in the exact language in which they were framed. Provision was also made for the King's brothers. Thomas was confirmed in his title of Duke of Clarence ; John and Humphrey were created, respectively, Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester. Henry resumes the War with France, 1414. Although the peace with France did not expire till February, 1415, Henry took advantage of the condition of Charles VII and the strife between the Burgundian and Orleanist factions not only to intervene again in French affairs, but to regain the position of Edward III at the height of his triumph. In the spring of 1414 the Orleanists, led by the Count of Armagnac, were on top and controlled the King. So Henry made a treaty with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and 31 May sent ambassadors to demand from Charles VI the " restitution of his ancient rights " in France, by which he meant to include not only all the lands ceded by the treaty of Bretigny, but the Crown of France. He sent instruc- tions, however, to yield on the latter point on condition that the French King's daughter Katherine be given to him in marriage, that all terri- tories which English kings or queens had ever possessed or claimed 250 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND since Henry II should be ceded to him, and that he should be recog- nized as feudal superior over Flanders. While he later lowered his demands somewhat, he was bent on war and would not listen to the liberal terms offered by the French because they fell short of what it was impossible for them to concede. According to an ancient story, it was during the course of these negotiations that the French Dauphin sent him a barrel of tennis balls as more fitting for him to play with than to undertake a war with France. The Invasion of France, 1415. After months of preparation Henry was nearly ready to embark when he was delayed by a plot to put the Earl of March on the throne during his absence. It was disclosed by the Earl of March himself. The King only lingered to make examples of some of the chief conspirators and then set sail for France, 10 August, 1415. His army consisted of about 2000 men at arms, 6000 archers, and forty peers, including three royal dukes and two bishops. While the English had hitherto been content with mere plundering raids, Henry came prepared to systematically conquer Normandy. He selected Harfleur, on the north bank of the Seine, as a base, and be- sieged it for five weeks before the burghers opened the gates. Owing to the coldness of the season and the fact that nearly half his army were sick, he decided to attempt no more sieges, but to march overland to Calais. He had two aims in view : to overawe the country and, possibly, to tempt the enemy to battle. In this latter design he was successful. When he reached the Somme, the waters of which were much swollen by the autumn rains, he found the opposite bank strongly guarded by the vanguard of the French army. He was obliged to march a long way inland before he could effect a passage. At Agin- court, halfway along the road to Calais, the French army, swelled by reinforcements until it outnumbered Henry's three or four fold, as- sembled to block his advance. He cheered a doubting follower with the reflection that " God Almighty is able with this humble few to conquer the many if he so please," and prepared for battle. Agincourt, 25 October, 1415. The English, in spite of their small numbers, had a great advantage. The plowed fields on either side of the road impeded the movements of the heavily armed French, and the English archers, further protected from the charges of the enemy by rows of sharpened stakes, hastily driven into the ground, shot deadly clouds of arrows into the densely packed ranks of the enemy. Having reduced their enemies to confusion, they issued forth and com- pleted the destruction with their axes and clubs loaded with lead. After two or three hours of hard fighting the English were completely victorious, with a loss of little more than 100, while the death roll of the French numbered not far from 6000. Among the prisoners was Charles, Duke of Orleans, who was taken to England where he remained a captive for twenty-five years. The next day Henry resumed his march to Calais, whence in November he sailed back to > England. He had executed a daring feat, and won a remarkable THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 251 victory ; but the only fruit of his costly expedition was the capture of Harfleur. The Emperor Sigismund visits England, 1416. It was almost two years before Henry led another expedition across the Channel, but the interval was filled with busy preparations. In May, 1416, an august visitor arrived, Sigismund, Emperor of the Germans. He was seeking by means of the Council of Constance (1414-1418) to restore unity to distracted Christendom, by healing the Great Schism, repress- ing heresy, and reforming the Church. John Huss, the Bohemian reformer, had been burned, the doctrines of Wiclif had been condemned, but the papal question was still unsettled; for one of the opposing claimants there had been three since 1409 obstinately refused to abdicate. Sigismund hoped to induce England and France to sink their differences and join in the common work. Henry, who had entertained him with splendid feasts and tournaments, was unwilling to grant terms which the French would accept, and the Emperor finally agreed before his departure in August to recognize him as King of France and to assist him in asserting his claims. The Imperial aid, however, never went further than promises. Henry's Second Expedition to France, 1417. On 23 July, 1417, Henry sailed on his second expedition to France, with an army twice the size of his first. It is said that the ordinances which he framed for its governance laid the foundation of much of the later maritime, military, and even international law. He spent more than a year in reducing the strong places of Normandy. Rouen offered the most obstinate resistance, and held out from 29 July, 1418, to 19 January, 1419. Henry entered into negotiations with both the Orleanists and the Burgundians ; but since he still insisted on impossible terms the two factions patched up a peace " to resist the damnable enterprises of our ancient enemies, the English." But the Dauphin, Charles, a boy of sixteen, under the thumb of the Orleanists, used this agreement merely as a decoy for the destruction of the Burgundian leader. John the Fearless was lured to a conference at Montereau and slain as he was kneeling to do homage to his royal cousin. The result of this base crime was to throw the Burgundian party into the arms of the English, and to make effective resistance out of the question. In the following spring, Charles VI, who was momentarily lucid, and " bore himself prudently enough and like a king," Isabella, his consort, and Philip the Good, the new Duke of Burgundy, concluded with the King of England the Treaty of Troyes, which was signed 21 May, 1420. By the terms of this " very marvelous and shameful treaty," Henry V was recognized as heir of the King of France and Regent, he was to marry the Princess Katherine, and " Charles, who calls himself the Dauphin," was formally disinherited " for his enormous crimes." Henry, who spent the next few months in reducing Orleanist strong- holds, marred his triumph by steadily increasing cruelty and arro- gance. He deliberately put prisoners to death to terrify those still 252 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in arms, and, on his entry into Paris in December, he alienated the citizens by his overbearing manners. Late in the same month he re- turned to England after an absence of three and a half years, but in the few months that he remained in the country he devoted more time to pageants and progresses than to 'affairs of state. Henry's Third and Final Expedition to France, 1421-1422. In March, 1421, his brother, the Duke of Clarence, who was carrying on war against the Dauphin's forces in Maine and Anjou, was defeated and slain. In consequence of this disaster the King departed, 10 June, 1421, on his third and final expedition. The burdens of these succes- sive campaigns were at last beginning to be felt, and the " grievous exactions " imposed to meet the expenses of this last enterprise were accompanied by " numerous and smothered curses." Having chased the Dauphin south of the Loire, Henry occupied himself in reducing the few strongholds which still held out in the neighborhood of Paris ; but the strain and hardship of the winter were too much for his already overtaxed strength. In July he was obliged to take to his bed, and he died 31 August, 1422. Before his death he made arrangements for carrying on the government during the minority of his infant son, born to him 6 December, 1421. He appointed his brother, John of Bedford, Governor of Normandy and Regent of France, and Humphrey of Gloucester, his younger brother, Regent of England. The guard- ianship of his child he intrusted to his uncle, the Duke of Exeter, and two other noblemen. These arrangements proved no more stable than his conquest of France. The glamor of his military achievements must not blind us to the fact that Henry V had plunged his country into a war in which permanent success was hopeless, and which was largely responsible for the disorders and confusion in which his royal line went down to destruction. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Mainly narrative. Ramsay, Lancaster and York (2 vols., 1892), I, chs. I-XXI, pays particular attention to military and financial history. Oman, Political Historv, chs. VII-XI. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages, chs. XVI-XX. Stubb's, Constitutional History, II, ch. XVIII. J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV (4 vols., 1884-1898) is a scholarly, exhaustive study of the reign. C. L. Kingsford, Henry V (1901) is a good brief biography. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. Ill, ch. II, sees. 1-5. J. F. Baldwin, The King's Council in England during the Middle Ages (1913) is the author- ity on the subject. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 104-118. THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 253 THE HOUSES OF YORK AND LANCASTER Edward III, 1327-1377 I Lionel, Edmund, Duke of Clarence Duke of York (ad son), d. 1368 (4th son), d. 1401 1 John of Gaunt= Blanche of Lancaster (3d son), d. 1399 HENRY IV, I399-UI3 i Philippa = Edmund Mortimer, d. 1381 Earl of March (great-grand- son of Roger Mortimer, who was executed 1330) HENRY V, 14141422 HENRY VI, 1422-1461 Thomas, Duke of Clarence, killed 1421 John, Humphrey, Duke of Duke of Bedford, Gloucester, d. 1435 d. 1446 r~~ ~n Elizabeth, Roger, m. Henry Earl of March, Hotspur killed 1398 1 1 Edmund, Anne = Earl of March, d. 1424 1 = Richard, Earl of Cambridge, executed 1415 I Edward, Duke of York (elder son), killed at Agincourt, 1415 Richard, Duke of York, killed at Wakefield, 1460 EDWARD IV, 1461-1483 1 1 George, Duke of Clarence, executed 1478 RICHARD III, 1483-1485 EDWARD V, 1483 Richard, Duke of York, believed to have been murdered in the Tower, 1483 Elizabeth = Henry VII THE KINGS OF FRANCE AND DUKES OF BURGUNDY JOHN II, 1350-1364 CHARLES V, 1364-1380 1 I CHARLES VI, Louis of Orleans, 1380-1422 murdered, 1407 1 1 CHARLES VII, Charles, Duke of Orleans, 1422-1461 captured at Agincourt 1 grandfather of Louis XI, Louis XII, 1461-1483 1498-1515 1 CHARLES VIII, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1404 John, Duke of Burgundy, murdered, 1419, at Montereau Philip, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1467 Charles (the Bold), Duke of Burgundy, d. 1477, m. Margaret, sister of Edward IV THE BEAUFORTS AND THE TUDORS John of Gaunt = Katharine Swynford I John, Earl of Somerset, d. 1410 Henry, Cardinal Beaufort, d. 1447 Katherine of France = Owen Tudor Edmund Tudor Earl of Richmond John, duke of Somerset, d. 1444 Margaret HENRY VII, 1485-1509 CHAPTER XVI THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. HENRY VI (1422-1461) The Council and the Parliament set aside the Will of Henry V. There was the greatest difference imaginable between the two brothers to whom Henry V in his will had intrusted the government of England and France. Bedford was a serious, high-minded man, unselfish in his devotion to public duty, while Gloucester, clever andjcultivated, the patron of scholars, and at the same time master of the arts wHich please the people, was ambitious, self-seeking, and unprincipled. He was always stirring up dissension at home and abroad ; indeed, his uneasy scheming contributed in no small degree to prepare the way for the later downfall of his nephew. Distrusting him from the start, the Council and Parliament, led by his uncle, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, set aside the will of the late King and declared Bedford protector of the realm, though they allowed Humphrey to act in that capacity during his elder brother's absence. As a matter of fact, however, the real powers of government were exercised by the Council which was nominated by Parliament. Bedford's Problems in France, 1422-1424. On 21 October, 1422, the poor mad King Charles VI (Le Bien Aime) followed Henry V to the grave. The party of the Dauphin at once proclaimed him King as Charles VII, while the English party proclaimed little Henry. France was exhausted and demoralized, and Charles, weak and pleasure- loving, the tool of worthless and ruffianly councilors, seemed totally unequal to the great task imposed upon him. Slowly, however, na- tional sentiment was gathering against the foreign conquerors who had brought so much misery upon the land. Moreover, Bedford, who had great capacity in war and diplomacy, and who sought to rule with justice and moderation, was greatly hampered by his meddlesome brother, who nearly broke up the Burgundian alliance. Humphrey married Jacquelaine, Countess of Hainault and Holland, the divorced wife of the Duke of Brabant. In October of 1424 he crossed over to Calais, bent on recovering his wife's inheritance of Hainault. This brought him into conflict with Philip of Burgundy, who was cousin of the Duke of Brabant. Determined to retain the Hainault lands in his family, Philip opened negotiations with Charles VII. Hum- phrey proved inefficient and unsuccessful, he deserted his wife for her lady-in-waiting, Eleanor Cobham, and returned to England. Jacque- laine fell into the hands of the Burgundians, and Bedford was able to pacify Duke Philip. 254 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 255 Quarrel between Humphrey and Henry Beaufort. Gloucester was as troublesome in England as he was abroad. He attached the people to his side by arts which won for him the name " Good Duke Humphrey," and sought to undermine his uncle, Henry Beaufort, by accusing him of aiming to seize the King and rule without the Council. Affairs reached such a state that Bedford had to leave his work in France and spend a year in England to avert civil war. Hav- ing effected a reconciliation and secured a promise from his brother that " he would be ruled and governed by the lords and Council " and do nothing without their consent, he returned to France early in 1427. Beaufort started at the same time on a crusade against the Hussites. On reaching France he unwisely accepted the office of cardinal legate. Humphrey was able to make good use of this with the antipapal party, and profited by the absence of his brother and uncle to renew his claims to authority against the Council. The Siege of Orleans, October, 1428, to April, 1429. Jeanne D'Arc. In the late summer of 1428 Bedford sent an army against Orleans, the chief stronghold which acknowledged Charles VII. Having failed to take the town by assault, the English determined to reduce it by famine, and a siege began which lasted from October, 1428, to April, 1429. For the French the outlook was of the gloomiest. Their armies had been driven off the field, the English were everywhere in possession, the treasury was empty, Charles' council was torn by intrigues, and the more despairing even advised him to retire to Spain or Scotland. Suddenly, 6 March, 1429, a simple maid, barely turned seventeen, appeared before the French King at Chinon, in- spired, she told the doubting and astonished court, by a divine com- mission to relieve the sorely pressed Orleans and to lead her royal master to Rheims to be crowned. Jeanne D'Arc was a peasant girl of Domremy, a village on the borderland between Champagne and Lorraine. Always a devout and imaginative child, she had begun about her thirteenth year to see visions of saints and angels, and to hear mysterious voices which at length directed her to go forth and save France. Securing the half-willing support of the commander of a neighboring garrison, she put on a man's doublet and hose, mounted a horse, and rode straight to Chinon. She easily singled out the King from a group of courtiers, among whom he sought to hide himself, and in a secret interview told him things that made him trust her mission. In a suit of plain armor, girt with a " miraculous, holy sword," with a white banner borne before her on which was painted a figure of Christ between two angels, the " Maid of God " marched to raise the siege of Orleans. Making her way past the English, she so inspired the garrison that they soon put the besiegers to flight, and defeated the forces sent to support them. Her advent discouraged the English " in marvelous wise." To the French she was a God-given deliverer ; to Bedford " a disciple and limb of the fiend . . . that used false enchantments and sorcery." 256 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Charles at Rheims and Henry at Westminster crowned Kings of France, 1429. Having raised the siege of Orleans, Jeanne D'Arc performed the second part of her mission by leading Charles to Rheims. He was crowned 17 July, 1429, whereat she fell at his feet weeping for joy. The coronation marked the height of her meteoric achieve- ment. From now on voices ceased to guide her, she became dis- couraged by opposition of the royal councilors, " she had fulfilled her task," she said, and she wished that the Lord " would take her back to her father's sheep." Nevertheless, she advised an immediate advance on Paris and demanded that Burgundy make peace with his King. The Duke refused to comply, a belated and ill-considered attack on the city was repulsed, and the self-seeking courtiers were able to recover their ascendancy over the feeble-minded Charles. As a reply to the coronation at Rheims, Henry, although not eight years old, was crowned at Westminster on the 8th of November. The little King during the ceremony " beheld the people all about sadly and wisely," and behaved with " great humility and devotion." Jeanne D'Arc captured, tried, and burned, 1430-1431. In May, 1430, Jeanne D'Arc, while attempting to defend the fortress of Com- piegne, was captured by the Burgundians. The Duke sold her to the English ; she was taken to Rouen and brought to trial in February of the following year, before a court presided over by the Bishop of Beauvais, in whose diocese she had been captured/ In vain she pro- tested that " she had done nothing save by the command of God," and that, " if she saw the faggots laid and the torch ready, she could say nothing else." For three months she was bullied and ill treated by judges and jailers to whom her simple courage and transparent honesty made no appeal. Finally, worn out by suffering and brutal usage, she was forced to declare that " her voices were delusions and that she had sinned in putting on men's clothes and going to war." On 29 May, 1431, she was burned in the market place at Rouen. Bedford's animosity can be understood if not excused, for Jeanne was an enemy of his cause. The French clergy and the doctors of the University of Paris made a sad exhibition of short-sighted bigotry, but Charles VII cut the sorriest figure of all, for he made no attempt to deliver this heroic maiden whose only crime was to fight for her King and her country. But France was startled from its lethargy, and the "Maid of God" had been in her grave scarcely more than twenty years before her countrymen had driven the English from the land. Death of Bedford, 1435. For the moment Bedford seemed triumphant. In December, 1431, Henry was taken to Paris and crowned ; but one reverse after another followed, far from balanced by occasional gains. Burgundy began to draw off from the English alliance. In 1433 Bedford was obliged again to cross over to England, where he remained for more than a year in a vain effort to keep his brother Humphrey quiet and to restore " restful rule and governance." THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 257 In the summer of 1435 the English rejected terms of peace offered at a Congress at Arras by which King Henry might have retained Normandy and Guyenne on condition of yielding the other territories held by the troops and giving up his claim to the crown of France. On 15 September, a few days after the English envoys withdrew from the Congress, John, Duke of Bedford, died at the age of forty- eight, worn out by his arduous duties. Burgundy now finally went over to the French side. Bedford's death was an irreparable loss to the English. Many stout and experienced generals still remained, such as the Earl of Warwick, and Lord Talbot, later Earl of Shrews- bury, and young men of promise, chief among them, Richard, Duke of York, and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. But the high ideals and lofty statesmanlike conceptions which Bedford had labored to realize perished with him. England loses Ground in France. Struggle between the War and the Peace Parties. The English continued to fight with stubborn courage and persistency, but they steadily lost ground. Gloucester, free from his brother's restraint, led the war party, while his uncle, the Cardinal, led those who favored peace. In 1437 the King began to disregard Parliament in his appointments of councilors, and the Privy Council came to be more and more the prey of court factions. In November of this year the French King once more entered Paris which his forces had recovered the previous year. In 1441 an event happened which lost the Duke of Gloucester such influence as he still possessed in the English councils. Eleanor Cobham, whom he had married some years before, was arrested, together with an astrol- oger and a woman commonly known as the Witch of Eye, on charges of sorcery. They were accused of reading the stars to determine the life of the young King, and then of endeavoring to destroy him by melting a waxen image made in his likeness over a slow fire. Her accomplices were put to death, and the Duchess Eleanor was made to do penance by walking barefoot for three days about the city, robed in a sheet and bearing a candle in her hand, and she was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The offenses charged against her would seem absurd in .modern times ; but the motive which lay back of them was serious. She was doubtless guilty of aiming to secure the succes- sion of her husband who was Henry's next heir in the Lancastrian line. Gloucester, who lacked courage to take any part in the affair, had to yield to his rivals, the Beauforts, and, aside from obstructing them whenever he could, spent most of the remaining six years of his life collecting books and posing as a patron of learning. Henry's Marriage to Margaret of Anjou, 1444. As Cardinal Beaufort was growing old, the conduct of affairs fell more and more into the hands of his nephew Edmund, successively Earl and Duke of Somerset, and of William de la Pole, Earl and finally Duke of Suffolk, a grandson of Richard II's old minister. In 1444 Suffolk was sent over to France to obtain peace. He negotiated a marriage be- s 258 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tween King Henry and Margaret of Anjou, niece of Charles VII. But the best he could secure was a truce at the cost of ceding Maine and Anjou, by an agreement which he did not dare to make public. Margaret, a handsome, well-grown girl of fifteen, directly the opposite of her pious, kindly, and weak consort, arrived in England in the spring of 1445. The sacrifices which her marriage involved, her French origin, and her decidedly French sympathies, made her un- popular almost from the start. Then she joined the Beaufort-Suffolk faction against Gloucester's old party soon to be led by the House of York, a House destined within less than twenty years to secure the crown. Margaret fought with a furious courage and energy, which excites the admiration ; but her high-handedness, her greediness, and her brutality contributed one of the many causes leading to the down- fall of the Lancastrians. Richard, Duke of York. His Claim to the Throne. Richard, Duke of York, who came to the front about this time as the leader of the party opposed to the Queen, derived his dukedom, through his father, from one of the younger sons of Edward III. From his mother he in- herited a claim to the crown itself. By blood his title was better than that of King Henry, since he was descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, an elder brother of John of Gaunt. Parliament, however, had declared for the younger line, which had the further advantage of unbroken descent through males. Richard was a " cautious, ret- icent, and resolute " man, who had already distinguished himself as Regent of France. In spite of his political activity, it was some years before he asserted his claims to the throne; indeed, he might never have done so, but for Henry's inability and misfortunes. The Impeachment of Suffolk, 1450. When the news of the cession of Maine and Anjou became known, a storm of abuse descended on the head of Suffolk. Nevertheless, his policy, humiliating as it seemed, had something to be said for it. Realizing that England could not hope to retain her hold on the whole of France, he doubtless hoped by timely concessions to save Normandy and Guyenne. But the French troops in Maine and Anjou were freed for service elsewhere, and Somerset, who went over as lieutenant general in 1448, was rash, and either incompetent or exceedingly unlucky. One strong place after another was torn from his grasp, until by the summer of 1450 the French had recovered the whole of Normandy. Suffolk, in the meantime, had paid the penalty for the losses across the Channel and for the mismanagement of affairs at home. The infuriated Eng- lish could see no reason for their continued ill success but treason. Early in the year charges of impeachment were framed against him. Waiving a trial by his peers, he threw himself on the King's mercy. Henry ordered him to absent himself from the kingdom for five years. On his way abroad his ship was intercepted by a fleet of a half dozen vessels ; Suffolk was seized and beheaded. Just who were his enemies was never known. ~"~ THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 259 Jack Cade's Rebellion, 1450. The popular discontent against the feebleness of the government was manifested in a rising known as " Jack Cade's Rebellion," which broke out in Kent and Sussex in May, 1450, and lasted for six weeks. The grievances complained of were mainly political : the losses in France, the miscarriage of justice, the wasting of the King's treasure, and the shelving of York who had been sent in 1447 as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland v (The insurgents demanded administrative reforms and a change of ministers. One social griev- ance alone was mentioned, the Statute of Laborers, and this was probably to attract the lower classes.) Who the leader was who called himself Jack Cade is unknown. He posed as a member of the House of Mortimer; he may have been a tool of the anti-Suffolk faction or a mere adventurer. His followers occupied London, put to death some of the officials, and sacked the houses of the leading citizens. The propertied classes at length roused themselves, drove the in- surgents from the City, and by false promises of pardon induced them to disband. Cade was killed in struggling against arrest, many of those who had risen with him were executed, and various scattered revolts were crushed. Henry, however, aggravated the discontent by receiving Somerset with favor and making him Constable of England. The Return of Richard of York, 1450. In September Richard returned from Ireland, " posing ... as the saviour of England from anarchy, and the avenger of Normandy." While as yet he went no further than to demand reform of abuses, his royal descent made him a natural object of fear to those in power. Not a general, statesman, or administrator of marked ability, he was welcomed as a popular champion in consequence of his opposition to the unlucky and unpopu- lar Somerset. Much against the will of the rival party Henry was forced to receive him. He promised never again to exclude him from the Council, and to call a Parliament. When Parliament met, both York and Somerset appeared with enormous retinues, and London was filled with armed men. Henry refused to banish Somerset, or even to deprive him of office, and when Thomas Yonge, a member from Bristol, proposed that the Duke of York should be declared heir to the throne, Parliament was dissolved by royal command and Yonge put in the Tower. (This proposal was the first intimation of the dynastic struggle between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, known as the War of the Roses, a name not strictly correct, however, for while the white rose was the symbol of the Yorkist, the red rose was not a Lancastrian symbol. 1 Actual war did not break out till 1455!) Although the question of the succession came to be the most prominent issue, other causes contributed to bring it forward and to determine the final result: Henry's incapacity; the masterful, in- triguing character of his wife ; the. ill-success of the war ; the acute financial situation ; the discontent and disorder throughout the land ; 1 It was first used by Henry Tudor at Bosworth in 1485. 260 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the King's refusal to listen to Parliament, especially in the retention of Somerset ; and the jealousies of the great nobles who ranged them- selves on the side of Somerset and Yorkist families, respectively. The Critical Year 1453. End of the Hundred Years' War. The year 1453 witnessed events of the greatest consequence. After con- quering Normandy the French had turned their armies into Guyenne. The Gascons clung to the pnglish with intense loyalty, and with their aid, stout John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, a veteran of sixty-five years, managed for a time, not only to hold back the invaders, but even to recover lost ground. In July, however, he was cut down bravely fighting at the battle of Castillon. In October, Bordeaux finally yielded, and the Hundred Years' War was over. The im- possible task of conquering France, begun by Edward III and revived so brilliantly by Henry V, was at length abandoned, and England re- tired from the contest retaining only Calais of her former broad territories across the Channel. Meantime, in August, the King was suddenly bereft of his faculties. He lost his reason, his memory, and even his power of motion, he had to be fed with a spoon and lifted from his chair to his bed. For sixteen months he continued in this helpless state. The way seemed clear for Richard as the nearest heir; but his chances of succeeding peacefully and of right were quickly dashed by the news that Margaret, 13 October, had given birth to a son. Although the Queen kept the King's condition secret for some time, and although Richard was not invited to the council finally summoned to consider the regency, he managed to get control. In December an inquiry was made into the administration of Somerset at home and abroad, with the result that he was put into the Tower, though no attempt was made to bring him to trial. Parliament met, attended by the supporters of each party in arms ; Margaret's little son was created Prince of Wales, but Richard was declared " Protec- tor and Defender of the Realm" with all the powers of Regent. Dur- ing his term of power he acted with great moderation, refraining from punishing his enemies, though he strengthened himself by putting his friends in power. Beginning of the War of the Roses, 1455. When all seemed going well the King's recovery of his reason on Christmas Day, 1454, reopened the old strife. Richard and his supporters were removed from office, and Somerset was released and returned to favor. The Yorkists submitted to all this and retired quietly to their estates, but when a council was summoned to provide " for the safety of the King's person against his enemies," Richard gathered an armed following and marched toward London. Professing his loyalty to the King, he stated that he and his kinsmen were coming as " true and loyal liegemen," and that they only demanded an audience with their sovereign to convince him of the " sinister, fraudulent, and malicious labors and reports of their enemies." In addition, however, they demanded the arrest of certain councilors of the opposite party. But they were refused a hearing, and, Ick 10LY ISLE ,1NDISFRNE) THE WARS OF THE HOSES EXPLANATION England Welsh Principalities | The Marches. _____j 4 West 3 Longitude 2 from 1 Greenwich EMC THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 261 2 1 May, 1455, Somerset marched from the City with the King and a great following of lords. The two armies met in the ancient monastic town of St. Albans. Henry rejected a final attempt at negotiations on the part of his adversaries with one of the few flashes of anger which he ever showed in his life. "By the faith that I owe to St. Edward and the crown of England," he cried, " I will destroy them every mother's son." The encounter which followed was little more than a street fight, but it was big in consequences, for it opened the War of the Roses. The Duke of Somerset was killed and the King was taken prisoner. The Queen now came forward as the head of the royal party. The civil war thus begun was waged intermittently for fifteen years, until Henry was put to death and Margaret driven from the realm. ~5~Period of Outward Calm, 1455-1459. The " ill-day of St. Albans," however, was followed by more than four years of com- parative peace. The Yorkists remained dominant in the Council untiljOctober of 1456, during a part ot which period Richard agairf actecTas .Protector, while the King suffered from a second attack of insanity. On Henry's recovery he voluntarily laid down his office, nor did he protest when his supporters were removed from Council. But his moderation and the pacific temper of King Henry were only able to postpone, not to arrest, a recurrence of conflict. Hatreds were bitter, private feuds were waged unsuppressed, and both sides were preparing to take arms. The people complained that the King was in debt, though he " held no household nor maintained no wars," yet they refused the supplies to enable him to maintain a household or to keep out of debt. The Queen and her friends were accused of accumulating " riches innumerable." Her jointure was no doubt large ; but for years she had of necessity been surrendering a good part of it for royal expenses. Unpopular as she was already, Margaret made herself more so by courting the aid of France and Scotland. The Reopening of the War, 1459. The Yorkists in Exile. By the summer of 1459 both parties were again arrayed in arms. Queen Margaret struck the first blow. In September she advanced with an army to intercept the Earl of Salisbury, who was marching from Yorkshire to join Duke Richard at Ludlow in Shropshire. Salisbury succeeded in eluding the royal army and in scattering a levy of Lan- castrians from Cheshire who attacked him at Blore Heath on the 22d. Although he and his son, the Earl of Warwick, managed to join Duke Richard, the united Yorkist forces were still too small to think of fighting the army of the Queen. They first drew back into the Welsh Marches, and, then, when they received none of the ree'n- forcements on which they had counted, they became panic-stricken. Most of them either disbanded or deserted to the enemy. Richard fled to Ireland, while his son Edward, Earl of March, together with Salisbury and Warwick, risked a wild ride through a hostile country, 262 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and crossed over to Calais in a little fishing smack. The victorious royalists called a Parliament which they filled with Lancastrian sup- porters and passed an act of attainder against the Duke of York and his more prominent followers. Henry, however, reserved the right of pardon and actually spared some who fell into his hands. Mar- garet at the head of affairs made no profit from her victory. She took no effective measures to guard against future attacks, and the govern- ment continued as weak and ineffective as ever. The King, led by a " covetous Council," counted for little, and " owed more than he was worth." More and more in the face of poverty, disorder, and selfish faction the hearts of the people were turned to the leaders in exile who might bring them relief. The Return of the Yorkists, 1460. Richard's Defeat and Death at Wakefield, 1460. In June, 1460, Warwick, Salisbury, and the Earl of March landed in Kent. The Duke of York, who had secured a strong following in Ireland, was in communication with them and had planned a simultaneous invasion from the west. The invaders issued a manifesto in which they set forth their grievances and the distempers of the realm. Joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a large following of Kentishmen, the three Earls entered London, 2 July. Reenforced by musters that came streaming in from every side they passed north. Henry, who had been holding a Council at Coventry, advanced to meet them and was defeated and taken prisoner at Northampton. But the Queen who had been rousing the northern lords was still at large with her son. Instead of hunting her down and crushing the remaining forces who had risen for her in the north country, Warwick returned to London, where he busied himself putting his supporters in office and making ready for the arrival of the Duke of York. Richard landed in Lancashire, 2 September. Thence he proceeded slowly to London in royal state. Parliament had already been opened before his arrival. He " challenged and claimed the realm and crown of England as heir of Richard II," and installed him- self by force in the royal apartments. His claim to assume the crown at once was not acceptable to the lords, to the judges, nor even to his faithful champion Warwick. However, late in October, a com- promise was arranged by which Henry was to remain King for life and Richard was to be recognized as his heir. This arrangement, to which Henry gave his consent " for the further eschewing of Chris- tian blood," was ratified by Parliament. Meanwhile, Margaret, after distressing hardships and harrowing adventures, had mustered a strong force north of the Humber. Richard, underestimating her strength, marched against her with a small army and was defeated and slain at the battle of Wakefield, 29 December, 1460. His head was cut off, crowned with a crown of gold paper and set up over the south gate of the city of York. Salisbury, who was taken prisoner, was beheaded the next day. They and the lords who fell in battle or perished by the executioner's ax were to be pitilessly revenged. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 263 " The war which had begun as a struggle to vindicate constitutional liberties, degenerated after\i46o into a mere blood feud between two reckless factions." Warwick, the Kingmaker. On the death of Richard of York and the Earl of Salisbury, Salisbury's son, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, became the recognized leader of the Yorkist party ; for Richard's son, Edward, Earl of March, a youth of eighteen, was as yet distinguished for nothing save his strength, his beauty, and the great bravery which he had displayed at the battle of Northampton. Warwick was not a man of preeminent abilities either as a statesman or general and his personal courage was not above question ; but he was a skilled diploma- tist and a ready speaker. His energy was tireless, he was wise and court- eous, true to his friends and relentless against his enemies. Through the marriage of his aunt to the late Duke of York he was first cousin to Edward and he was the greatest landowner in England ; he kept a vast band of retainers, and dispensed lavish hospitality. His chief power, however, lay in his ability to secure the trust both of the lords and the people. He was regarded as the leader of the party of reform and good government and had strengthened his hold on the popular confidence by resisting his uncle's efforts to snatch the crown from Henry of Lancaster. Yet the historian Hume very appropriately styled him " the last of the barons " ; for he was the last representative of that class of great noble families to exercise almost royal powers and powerfully to influence English destiny by force of arms. He was not above the ambitions of his class, and the cry of reform which he raised and the movement which he led was really to secure more power for himself and his house. For that reason he ingra- tiated himself with the people by fair promises, and for that reason he made and sought to unmake a king. When Edward later refused to do his bidding he plunged the country again into civil war and made common cause with all his old enemies. Edward becomes King of England, 4 March, 1461. After Richard's defeat and death, Margaret marched south to release her husband ; her army, however, alienated any possible supporters along the line of march by ruthless plundering, pillaging, and sacking of towns. While Warwick undertook to defend London, Edward set himself to watch the Welsh Lancastrians, whom he met and defeated at Mor- timer's Cross, 13 February, 1461. Thence he set out to join Warwick ; but before he could effect his purpose his cousin had met with a crush- ing defeat. He had drawn up his army to await the approach of Queen Margaret's forces but was completely surprised at St. Albans, and, either owing to his own blundering or to treachery, was out- manoeuvered and overwhelmingly defeated, 17 February, 146 1. 1 Henry was rescued from his enemies. Owing to his persuasions, for he was anxious to avoid more pillaging and bloodshed, Margaret 1 At this second battle of St. Albans hand firearms were used for the first time in English history. 264 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND did not march at once on London. While she was negotiating for its capitulation, Warwick and Edward, who had at length joined forces, pressed into the City and seized the fruits of her victory. Edward was declared King by a mass meeting of the citizens and the Yorkist lords. Though he was not legally elected, he took his seat on the throne at Westminster, 4 March, 1461, with the crown on his head and the scepter in his hand, and received the homage of the magnates. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Ramsay, I, chs. XXII-XXXIII ; II, chs. I-XVI ; Vickers, chs. XXI-XXIII ; and Oman, XII-XVI, treat the narrative history of the period. Kriehn, The English Rising of 1450 (1892) throws new light on Cade's Rebellion. K. H. Vickers, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1907) is a full and scholarly account. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 119-128. CHAPTER XVII THE HOUSE OF YORK. EDWARD IV (1461-1483) ; EDWARD V (1483) ; RICHARD III (1483-1485) Causes of the Triumph of the Yorkist Line. Margaret's army was so discouraged that she was obliged to retreat northward. Edward and Warwick started in pursuit. They overtook her near Towton on the high road to York, and, 29 March, overcame the Lancastrian forces in a bloody battle fought in a blinding snowstorm. The fugi- tive King and Queen fled across the Border " full of sorrow and heavi- ness." After making a detour to the north to prevent any prospect of a Scottish invasion, Edward returned to London, leaving Warwick to watch the enemy. On 28 June, 1461, the victorious King was for- mally crowned at Westminster, and forthwith showered titles, offices, and estates upon his relatives and followers. He made his brothers, George and Richard, Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, respectively. The Yorkist line had at length displaced its Lancastrian rival. Henry IV had come in as the champion of constitutional government against a capricious tyrant, and Henry V had made himself a national' hero by his brilliant successes against France. But the constitutional scheme had broken down and the war had ended in failure. Henry VI was a pious kindly puppet dominated by an energetic and masterful wife from the enemies' camp. Hated from her very entrance into the country, she had chosen to support unpopular ministers whose incompetence accelerated the final expulsion of the English from France. In the struggle with York, who sought to oust the unpopular ministers, she set herself in opposition to a party that, whatever its motives, posed as the party of reform. She had sought the aid of the French, the Irish, and the Scotch, and she had led a northern army against the capital of the realm, and allowed it to plunder the rich cities of the south. The people, exhausted and weary of disorder at home and disgusted at the losses in France, eagerly accepted a change in hopes of better things. Poor Henry had to give way to a stronger and more spirited ruler. Personal Traits of the New King. Edward Plantagenet was described as the handsomest prince in Europe. Three inches over six feet tall, he must have been a striking figure, and in battle he was the equal of any two men. He was jovial, hearty, and familiar with all sorts and conditions of people. On one occasion, when he was exacting gifts from his subjects, a city dame gave 20. Edward thanked her with a loving kiss and she doubled the amount. He loved 265 266 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND hunting, fine clothes, pageants, and banquets. He was naturally indolent, and, therefore, prone to trust to others. But there were opposite sides to his nature. He had a streak of thrift which pre- vented him from running into reckless extravagance. Moreover, he kept his coffers filled by profitable trading on his own account and by heavy exactions. By the order which he sought to maintain and by his care for trade and commerce, he not only made the country more capable of paying what he demanded, but raised the general level of prosperity. At crises, too, he could rouse himself and act with great decision and vigor. As time went on his worst qualities became more pronounced; his love of pleasure turned to viciousness and dissipa- tion ; he became cruel, bloodthirsty and extortionate. He died at forty, worn out by self-indulgence. Yet he helped to draw the country from the poverty and confusion in which he found it and his cruelty can be excused partly by the state of the times, by the men and the problems with which he had to deal. He was a moderate patron of art, archi- tecture, and letters, and gave sparingly to religious houses. But he was, after all, a splendid animal, good natured when he was contented or enjoying himself, cunning, brave; but capable of great ferocity, and lacking altogether in moral sense. The Attainder of the Leading Lancastrians. Although Parlia- ment was to meet in July, 1461, the country was still in such a state of confusion that members were afraid to travel, and the Houses did not assemble till November. Edward was recognized as the rightful heir of the realm. Henry, the " usurping heir of John of Gaunt," his wife, his son, and over a hundred of the Lancastrian party, including fourteen lords, were attainted of treason. But, owing to the completeness of the Yorkist victory and to the moderation of the Nevilles, there were few executions. Defeated in England, the undaunted Margaret strove with feverish energy to draw Scotland and France into her quarrel ; but, although she was able to keep the northern border astir, she lost rather than gained by her tactics ; for many Englishmen were alienated from her cause by her appeal to their national enemies. Yet it was not till 1464 that Edward was fully master of England. Edward's Estrangement from Warwick, 1464. At the very moment when his position seemed assured he took a step which es- tranged him from Warwick to whom he owed more than to any other man. In September, 1464, he announced his marriage to Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Grey, and daughter of Richard Woodville. Her connections were wholly Lancastrian ; indeed, her mother had married for her first husband the Duke of Bedford, the celebrated uncle of Henry VI. Edward was apparently weary of the domination of the Nevilles, and, with his customary easy good nature, he seems to have yielded to his infatuation for Elizabeth, who was beautiful, and am- bitious for the advancement of her family. At any rate, he began to heap gifts, favors, and offices on her relatives, and to neglect his former friends and advisers. The marriage gave rise to all sorts of dissension. THE HOUSE OF YORK 267 It not only created new rivals for Warwick, but it proved a serious obstacle to his foreign policy. His aim was to forge alliances with France, and possibly Burgundy, and to marry Edward to a foreign princess. He had all but completed arrangements for a match with the sister of the Queen of France when his plans were discredited and baffled by the astounding news. For the moment he swallowed his wrath. Louis XI, too, who had succeeded his father Charles VII in 1461, was obliged to overlook the slight ; for he was threatened by a conspiracy headed by Charles, son of the reigning Duke of Burgundy, and some of the most powerful of the French nobility " The League of the Public Weal." Therefore, he agreed to a truce, to give no aid to Margaret, and to expel all Lancastrian exiles from France, on con- dition that Edward withhold all aid from his enemies. King Henry again a Prisoner, 1465. Meantime, the Scots had also concluded a truce with England, and poor Henry, deprived of this asylum, had been lurking in one after another of the Lancastrian strongholds in the wild hill country between Yorkshire and Lancashire. In July, 1465, he was betrayed by one of his entertainers and taken to London. For five years he was kept a prisoner in the tower, " dirty, sickly, ill-dressed, neglected " ; but indifferent to the loss of his earthly kingdom so long as he was allowed the comfort of the sacraments. Nor was he really abused ; for Edward was anxious to keep him alive as a hostage while his son, the Prince was at large. Breach with Warwick and threatened War with France, 1467. The growing estrangement between Edward and Warwick came to a final breach in 1467, when Edward_betrothed his sister Margaret to Charles of Burgundy^ against Warwick's wishes, removed the latter 's brother, Archbishop Neville, from the Chancellorship, and treated with marked coldness ambassadors sent from France on Warwick's repre- sentation. The Earl departed from court in a fury and busied him- self in organizing his kinsmen and supporters for a revolt when the time should be ripe. Even yet, however, he was ready for reconcilia- tion ; but Edward was bent on war with France, and announced his intention to lead an army across the seas to recover what had been lost under the late King. Louis XI at once resumed his alliance with Margaret of Anjou, recalled the Lancastrian exiles, and kept Edward so busy dealing with plots that he had no time to think of invasions. Louis succeeded, moreover, in bribing Charles of Burgundy to make a truce. Robin of Redesdale's Rising, 1469. Warwick now saw his chance. At his instigation, the Neville adherents and other discontented per- sons rose in Yorkshire under a leader who called himself Robin of Redesdale. The army sent to put them down was defeated, and Ed- ward himself was taken prisoner soon after the battle. Thus England was in the curious situation of having two Kings, both in captivity. On the eve of the rising, Warwick himself had hurried across the Channel, taking with him the Duke of Clarence, Edward's brother 268 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and possible heir, a weak, vain, and faithless boy of twenty, whom he bound to his cause by marrying him to his eldest daughter, Isabella Neville. Returning to England, after the victory of the northern insurgents, Warwick put his leading enemies to death, secured par- dons for himself and Clarence, released the King, and resumed his old position as leading councilor of the House of York. Edward IV driven out of England. Release of Henry VI, 1470. Edward submitted to the dictation of Warwick less than a year. Early in 1470 a Lancastrian rising in Lincolnshire gave him a chance to raise a great levy. Marching to the scene of revolt, he defeated the insurgents in a battle known as Lose-coat-field from the fact that they drew off their tabards to flee more quickly. With a victorious armed force at his back he proclaimed Clarence and Warwick as traitors. Hotly pursued, they took refuge in France, where Louis XI succeeded in reconciling Warwick to his lifelong enemy, Margaret of Anjou. The Earl married his second daughter Ann to Margaret's son, Prince Edward, and they sealed the compact by an oath sworn on a fragment of the true cross. Supported by the French King, Warwick landed on the south coast of England ; the Nevilles rose again in the north, and, deserted by the bulk of his forces, King Edward fled to Holland in October. Warwick marched to -London and released Henry from the Tower. But the bewildered, demented King, like a " mere shadow on the wall," meekly assented to all that the Earl, who made himself lieutenant of the kingdom, was pleased to do. The Lancas- trian victory was marked by only one notable execution, that of Edward's constable, John Tiptoft, " the butcher Earl of Worcester" ; also famous, strangely enough, as the greatest patron of learning of his day. The people looked on with apathy, for they saw " little to choose from between the weak government of Henry and the strong government of Edward " ; they had looked for prosperity and peace, " but it came not, but one battle after another, and much trouble and great loss of goods." The majority, however, accepted Warwick because he seemed the stronger. But London resisted, under the lead of the merchants, who were attached to Edward because he owed them money, and because of their interest in the Flemish trade. The Return of Edward and the Defeat of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury, 1471. A combination between Warwick and Louis XI against Burgundy forced Charles actively to support King Edward. He furnished him with ships, money, and men, and, thus equipped, Edward landed at Ravenspur, the very spot where Henry of Boling- broke had landed seventy years before. His brother, " false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," went over to his side, and Warwick did not feel strong enough to intercept his march to London. Gradually, however, the Earl rallied his supporters round him. Edward, after he had secured the City and made King Henry again a prisoner, marched forth against him. The two armies met on Easter Sunday, 14 April, 1471, at Barnet, a little town eleven miles north of London. War- THE HOUSE OF YORK 269 wick's forces were defeated, and he was slain as he attempted to flee. The very afternoon of Edward's victory, Margaret and the Prince landed at Weymouth in Dorset. In spite of the disaster of Barnet she pressed on up the Severn valley, hoping to gather recruits and to join her supporters in Wales. Edward hastened west and came up with her at Tewkesbury. There a battle was fought on 4 May ; the Lancastrian army was overwhelmingly defeated ; Margaret was taken prisoner ; and Prince Edward either killed as he sought to escape, or, according to another account, brought before the King and slain by his orders. After the battle several of the Lancastrian leaders were put to death by royal command. On 21 May Edward reached London in triumph, and within a few hours Henry was dead. It was given out that he had died " of pure displeasure and melancholy," but there is little doubt that he was murdered, and that Edward and his brother Richard of Gloucester were responsible for the deed. Character of Henry VI. Henry _VI was one of the most gentle and well meaning, and, perhaps, the most unfortunate King who ever reigned in England. ' He inherited the weakly physique of the Lan- castrians and the mental debility of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI. Well educated and deeply versed in Scriptures, he sought to live as a pious recluse. He cared little for amusements, and, despising pomp, extravagance, and brilliant array, he dressed by preference in the sober colors of the London citizen. On one occasion he gave his State robes to a begging abbot. Liberal to a fault, he wasted his revenue in foolish presents, and was so merciful that he hated to punish even thieves and murderers. He sought to inspire a higher standard of morality in the royal household, and he was a generous patron of learning and letters. King's College, Cambridge, and the famous school of Eton were his foundations. He took the keenest interest in his Eton boys, to whom he never tired of giving presents and good advice. While he might have ruled a quiet people in quiet times, he had not a single qualification for ruling in the situation in which he was thrown. He was faithfully devoted to his wife, who con- tributed to his undoing. Indeed, he was ever the puppet of stronger natures, and his weak mind broke dow r n under the strain of the disorders of his kingdom that he was unable to avert. Pure, honest, merciful, and wholly deserving a more happy fate, he was long worshiped in the north country as a saint and martyr. Edward's Rule after Tewkesbury. Edward had shown remark- able generalship in his last two campaigns, and his restoration had been due almost solely to his own efforts. That helps to account for the extortion and cruelty which followed his victory. " The rich were hanged by the purse and the poor by the neck," while none dared oppose him. After having spent a large part of the confiscations wrung from his vanquished enemies, he called a Parliament and declared his intention of renewing war on France. His object was at once to get money and to divert his subjects from domestic discord. 270 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The war, however, was delayed for a while on account of the insta- bility of his ally, Charles of Burgundy. In the meantime, Edward used all the money of Parliament that he could get his hands on, and, in addition, exacted " benevolences" grants supposed to be volun- tary, but usually forced from the unwilling subject. Nevertheless, the King, if he was extravagant and extortionate, was careful enough not to exceed his revenues, and politic enough to pay his bills. Edward's Expedition to France and the Treaty of Pecjjuiny, 1475. In 1474 a treaty was concluded with Burgundy by whTchCharles under- took to assist Edward to recover his " rightful inheritance " of Nor- mandy and Guyenne, and also the crown of France from the " usurper Louis." In return, Edward was to lead an army of not less than 10,000 men across the Channel, and to cede to Charles, "free from all superi- ority," certain frontier lands which the Duke held in fief from the French King. It is doubtful if Edward ever had any more serious intention than to raise large grants from his subjects for the ex- pedition, and then to force Louis XI to buy him off by grants of money or territory: At any rate, when he landed at Calais with an army of nearly 15,000 men, the largest that had ever left the shores of England, he found that Charles was not able to render him any assist- ance. The French troops were massed in force beyond the Somme ; but Louis was willing to treat. The two Kings met on the bridge of Pecquiny, near Amiens, separated from one another by a grating of trellis work. Louis agreed to pay down to Edward 75,000 gold crowns with an annual pension of 50,000 in addition. A truce of seven years was arranged and a league of amity during life, each King binding himself to assist the other against his rebellious subjects. Margaret of Anjou was released on payment of a ransom of 50,000 crowns. She died poor and lonely in 1482. Charles the Bold failed in his design of reviving the ancient Burgundian kingdom, and, in January, 1477, after a repulse at Nancy, his dead body was found naked in a frozen ditch. The astute and unheroic Louis XI had triumphed over his two adversaries. He had bought off one, the other owed his end to his own blind fury. Attainder and Execution of Clarence, 1478. The Duke of Clarence was constantly involved in quarrels with his brother the King and his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester. His trouble with Richard began over the division of the lands of the Earl of Warwick, both of the brothers having married daughters of the " king- maker. " In conse- quence, they became irreconcilable enemies. Edward had never trusted him after his attempted treachery of 1469-1471, and, as the years went on, various causes of friction developed. On his wife's death, in 1476, Clarence sought to marry Mary, the heiress of Charles the Bold. When Edward blocked the project, Clarence declared that his late wife and infant son had been poisoned, and had the accused con- demned and executed on his own authority, and, moreover, he was rash enough to denounce the royal justice on account of the execution THE HOUSE OF YORK 271 of two of his own followers for treason and sorcery. In 1478 he was seized and thrown into the Tower, and an act of attainder was passed in a subservient Parliament, accusing him of spreading scan- dalous tales about the King, of compassing his death by necromancy, and of plotting an armed rebellion. Sentence was passed on him by a Court of Peers presided over by a High Steward. Worthless and false as Clarence was, his trial was a mere travesty on justice. Shortly after his condemnation he perished in the Tower, no one knows how. The common story is that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Although it rid him of a troublesome rival, the tragic fate of Clarence seems to have embittered the remainder of Edward's life. When asked to pardon a criminal, he would burst out, " O unfortunate brother, for whose life not one creature would make intercession ! " Edward's Last Years. After his peace with France he gave him- self over more and more to his ease and pleasure, though he still kept a sharp eye on his revenues and was rigorous in the execution of jus- tice. His confiscations, his French pension, and his private trading ventures, particularly in wool, made him practically independent of Parliament. Indeed, he was able to lend money to subjects in whom he had confidence. The export of gold and silver coin, bullion and plate was forbidden without royal license. Alien merchants were obliged to invest their gains from imports in English commodities. To keep up the practice of archery, unlawful games were forbidden, among them dice, quoits, football, and ninepins or skittles. In- formers were encouraged by dividing among them the proceeds of fines. The severe administration of the laws, though employed as a means of swelling the revenues, was necessary after the weakness and disorder which had prevailed so long. Edward was too wise, however, _to damage his popularity by systematic oppression, and to the last he was a favorite with the people of London and the other great towns. His reign, beginning with violence and oppression, ended in peace and quiet. One of his main aims was to establish his dynasty by foreign alliances and marriages. In this he failed, partly because European sovereigns regarded him " as somewhat of an outlaw." The dowager Duchess of Burgundy was Edward's sister, but her daughter Mary married Maximilian,- who succeeded as Emperor of the Germans in 1493, and the English King went no further with them than to negotiate a commercial alliance for a hundred years, providing for unrestricted trade on payment of " ancient dues and customs and no others." His Burgundian policy, however, was determined chiefly by his desire to preserve friendship with Louis XI, partly because he wanted to retain his French pension, and partly because he wanted to reestablish the English overlordship over Scotland and recover Berwick which Margaret had surrendered in 1461. James III devoted to architec- ture, music, and astrology cared little for affairs of State and was quite incompetent to govern, while a strong party, headed by his exiled brother, the Duke of Albany, was intriguing against him. So in 1483 272 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Edward agreed to set Albany on the throne, if he would do homage, re- store Berwick, and marry the third daughter of the English King. Gloucester and Albany led an expedition against Berwick and cap- tured it ; but the latter came to terms with his brother, and for the time gave up his pretensions to the throne. Louis XI, too, repudiated the agreement which he had made to marry the Dauphin to Edward's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and pledged him instead to Margaret, daughter of Maximilian and Margaret. Edward's rage at Louis' treachery was a fatal shock to his constitution already undermined by debauchery. He had summoned a Parliament and was making great preparations for revenge when death put an end to his plans, 9 April, 1483. His own excesses and the turbulence and treachery with which he was called upon to deal had warped his character, and blasted the fair prospects of his reign. (His premature death marked the begin- ning of the end of the house of York) Nominal reign of Edward V, 9 April to 25 June, 1483. Edward left two little sons, the eldest of whom was not yet thirteen years old. The few short weeks during which this unhappy boy Edward was nominally King were merely a scramble for supremacy between the relatives of his Queen Mother and his uncle Richard, who had been in- trusted with the care of the King and kingdom. On the news of the death of Edward IV, the little Prince had been taken from Ludlow, under the care of his maternal uncle, Lord Rivers, and his half brother, Sir Rkhard Grev. Richard, who was in Yorkshire, hastened to in- tercept the royal party, seized Rivers and Grey, sent them off as prisoners to Pomfret Castle, and with the utmost professions of loyalty, conducted his young charge to London. They arrived on the day fixed for coronation, 4 May; Richard was proclaimed Protector by the Council and Edward was lodged in the royal apartments in the Tower. Queen Elizabeth, who had been scheming to make herself Regent, at once took sanctuary in Westminster Abbey with her daughter and her other son Richard, Duke of York. Richard of Gloucester, his Character and Policy. Gloucester, while pretending to secure his position as Protector, was really aiming to make himself King. Born in 1452, he had grown up in troublous times. His father had been killed before he was nine years old. He had served his brother faithfully as a general and administrator. He had shared his brief exile in 1470, and as a lad of eighteen had fought valiantly at Barnet and Tewkesbury. He was suspected of the murder of Henry's son, of Henry himself, and of procuring the death of his own brother Clarence. Still, if these charges be true, he had acted primarily as the agent of the King in revenging enemies of the Crown. Edward had rewarded him liberally with offices of honor and trust ; but, while the King was idle and dissipated, Richard was sober and industrious. Had his brother lived he would doubtless have continued as his trustworthy right-hand man. His opposition was first excited by the design of the Queen's family; but when he THE HOUSE OF YORK 273 saw a chance to make himself King, he was unable to resist the temp- tation, and hesitated at no fraud or bloodshed to attain his end. Doubtless, however, he intended, once he got to power, to rule as a strong, just monarch. Richard proclaimed King, 25 June, 1483. He bribed all the sup- porters he could, and set out to dispose of all persons of influence whom he could not win over. On 13 June he appeared at the Tower with an armed force and, working himself into a pretended rage, he accused the Queen and her party of working spells upon him. By way of proof he bared his left arm, all shrunk and withered, and displayed it as their work, although it had been so since boyhood. On the ground that Lord Hastings hesitated to believe him, he had him beheaded without form of trial. On the i6th, he terrified the Queen into sending Richard to join his brother in the Tower. He spread charges that the late King's marriage had been illegal and that his sons had no right to rule. On 25 June an assembly of the represent- atives of the three estates of the realm, which met in place of the Parliament summoned in the name of Edward IV, offered the crown to Richard. In a strange petition they denounced the character and administration of the late Sovereign, and exalted Richard's princely virtues, praying that " after great clouds . . . the sun of justice and grace may shine upon us." Accepting with a show of reluctance, he was proclaimed King the next day and crowned 6 July. Richard's Crimes undo his Attempts to win his Subjects. Once on the throne, Richard sought by various means to make himself popular: he went on a progress soon after his coronation, he helped the poor, he issued proclamations to suppress immorality, he ordered the judges to judge justly, and he even refused gifts from London and other towns, saying he would rather have the hearts of his subjects than their money. But he undid any possible effects of his good works by ruthless bloodshed. On the very day that he accepted the crown Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey were put to death in far-off Yorkshire after the barest pretense of a trial, while, shortly after, Richard sent CSir James Tyrell, a trusted henchman, with orders to kill the two innocent little princes in the Tower.N It is probable that Tyrell, assisted by a groom and one of the keepers, smothered them while they slept. 1 /The destruction of these two harmless lads caused all right-thinking men to turn from Richard with loathing, while it eave others a handle to turn against him when the fitting time came. J Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, a descendant of the youngest son of Edward III, who haoT up to this time been his most slavish adherent, was soon in communication with Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the male representative of the Lancastrians who had taken refuge in France, and placed himself at the head of a great combination to overthrow 1 Two skeletons discovered in 1674 may not have been those of Edward and his brother; but attempts to prove that they survived the reign of Richard III and were put to death by his successor have not been generally accepted. 274 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the usurper. Great floods, however, disarranged Buckingham's plans ; he was captured at Salisbury and put to death, while Richard re- mained on the throne for two more years. He continued his vain efforts to win the hearts of his subjects and to secure himself against his enemies. He worked to do away with extortion, to reform justice, and to promote trade. In a Parliament of 1484 he abolished the hated benevolences of which his brother hadjnacIersuL'li us_e| but the neces- 'slties'oT'military preparation forced him to counteract this measure by levying large loans. As a means of securing his title he planned to marry his niece Elizabeth ; but the murmuring of the people obliged him to renounce this unnatural project. Nobody resisted him, but he could trust no one, and he lived in constant disquiet and alarm. When he went abroad his hand was always on his dagger, and his rest at night was constantly broken by the remembrance of his " abominable deeds." In vain, when the hour of danger came, did he call on his subjects " like good and true Englishmen " to " endeavor themselves in defense of their wives, children, goods, and inheritances." The Landing of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, 1485. Mean- time, Henry Tudor, having secured supplies of men and money in France, issued a manifesto to his English supporters against the " un- natural tyrant who bore rule over them." With the way thus pre- pared, he crossed the Channel and landed at Milford Haven, 7 August, 1485. On touching the shore he kneeled down and recited the 43d Psalm : " Judge me O God, plead my cause against an ungodly nation." Then he " kissed the ground meekly," crossed himself, rose, and, in the name of God and St. George, ordered his men to set forward. Calling on all true subjects to support him as he went, he marched eastward to the Severn. Richard was at Northampton, which he had chosen as a central point whence he could march readily in any direction. Although in " great agony and doubt," he pre- tended to receive the news of Henry's landing with great satisfaction, declaring that he " feared him little." Advancing westward, he met the invaders at Bosworth near Leicester. Supporters had been nock- ing steadily to join Richmond; the forces of Richard, on the other hand, were lukewarm and suspected of treason. The Battle of Bosworth, 22 August, 1485. While he trusted in his own energy, valor, and military skill, Richard, haunted by dismal fore- bodings, passed a sleepless night and appeared haggard and pallid on the morning of the fray. Yet he addressed his captains in a fiery speech, contrasting their courage and prowess with those of their foes, whom he scornfully pictured as thieves, traitors, beggarly faint- hearted fellows. He would triumph, he declared, " by glorious victory or suffer death for immortal fame." Henry's speech was equally stirring. He came, he said, to vindicate justice and avenge murder against a tyrant whose forces served him from fear rather than love, and who at the test would prove friends rather than adversaries. And so the event proved. Lord Stanley went to Henry's side, and the THE HOUSE OF YORK 275 Earl of Westmoreland withdrew his troops and remained an idle spectator. Richard fought manfully, he slew Henry's standard bearer, and sought to engage Henry himself in a hand-to-hand encounter. Wearing his crown on his head, he cried, "I will die King of England." Deserted and surrounded by his enemies, shouting " treason ! trea- son ! " he struggled until he fell pierced by deadly wounds. His battered crown was found hidden in a hawthorn bush, and was placed on the head of the victorious Earl of Richmond by Lord Stanley, while the troops hailed him as Henry VII. Richard's body, covered with dirt and gore, stripped perfectly naked, with a halter about the neck, was strapped across a horse's back. With the head and arms dangling on one side and the legs on the other, it was borne to Leicester. After being exposed to the people for two days to prove that he was really dead, the corpse was buried in the Abbey of Grey Friars. Estimate of Richard. The bloody usurper had sold his life with a heroic courage that commanded the admiration of even his enemies. In aftertimes men pictured him as a monster in body and mind, a dwarf with a fiend's face, a crooked back, and a withered arm. As to his appearance, this is a violent distortion of the truth. He was below average height, his left shoulder was lower than his right, and his left arm somewhat withered ; but he was well-knit and active,- in battle more than a match for men of heavier and more imposing frame. His face was long and lean, his expression joyless and nervous, yet cer- tainly not forbidding like that of a hardened villain. While naturally calculating and distrustful, he could be very engaging. He was liberal in gifts, particularly to the Church, though that may have been mainly to ease his conscience and to stand well before men. There is no doubt that he aimed to be a just and merciful ruler ; but the crimes by which he had forced his way to power brought their final punishment. His defeat at the two hours' Bosworth fight marked the downfall of the house of York. Reasons for the Failure of the Lancastrian and Yorkist Dynasties. Richard's usurpation merely hastened a crisis that seemed inevitable. Events had made it evident that neither of the rival dynasties was fitted to rule. The situation under Henry VI had shown that/England was not ready for the liberties fostered by his father and grandfather.) On the other hand, the rule of Edward and Richard had shown that the country haH outgrown the age when it would submit to violence and despotism. The Lancastrian Henrys, particularly the first two, had done much for England. They had nurtured parliamentary gov- ernment, protected trade, maintained universities, made far-reaching alliances, and increased English prestige abroad. But wars, famine, pesTIIence, and, chiefest of all, want of governance, administrative feebleness, destroyed the last of the line. The Crown was constantly in need of money ; the treasury was always low ; peace was not well kept nor the laws effectively executed. Individual life and property were never secure ; robbery, riot, and factional strife kept the country 276 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in continual turmoil. The remedies sought more power to Parlia- ment, remodeling the Council and reforming statutes proved of no avail. (A strong hand was necessary, and the dynasty that had failed to govern perforce ceased to rule) That was why Henry VI was set aside; otherwise his adversaries would never have established their title, nearer in descent though they were. (^The Yorkists' rule, though stronger, failed to remedy the evils, 'to secure peace, or to inspire national confidence.) The perversion of justice, robbery, violence and factional struggles were still rife. A new man arid a new policy were needed. As Henry VII united the dynastic claims of the two Houses so he combined their policies. Observing the forms of con- stitutional liberty accepted by the Lancastrians, he ruled with a strong hand like the Yorkists. What the country wanted most was peace and prosperity under rulers who could keep order. The line oTHenry Vll gave them that. It erected a new absolutism, but an absolutism based on popularity. This new absolutism prevailed until the country nad recovered from exhaustion, emancipated itself from the bonds of the Middle Ages, and was prepared to make use of the liberty which it had at an earlier time prematurely acquired. It has been said that the result of the struggle between Lancaster and York as to arrest the progress of English freedom for more than a century, its beginning Parliament had established freedom from arbitrary taxation, legislation, "and imprisonment, and the responsibility of even the highest servants of the Crown to itself and the law. From the time of Edward IV parliamentary life was checked, suspended, or turned into a mere form. The legislative powers were usurped by the royal Council, parliamentary taxation gave way to forced loans and benevolences, personal liberty was encroached on by a searching spy system and arbitrary imprisonment, justice was degraded by bills of attainder, by the extension of the powers of the Council, by the sub- servience of judges and the coercion of juries. It took a revolution in the seventeenth century to recover from the Crown what had been recognized and observed in the early part of the fifteenth.^ FOR ADDITIONAL READING Ramsay, II, chs. XVI ff. ; Vickers, chs. XXIV-XXV ; Oman, chs. XVII-XX ; and Stubbs, III, ch. XVIII, all deal in more or less detail with the period covered by this chapter. The Paston Letters, 1422-1509 (6 vols., 1904) throw a flood of light on the public life of the fifteenth century, and the introduction by the editor, James Gairdner, is a valuable commentary. C. R. Markham, in " Richard III : A Doubtful Verdict Reviewed," English Historical Review, VI, 250-283, 806-813, took the ground that Henry VII, rather than Richard III, was the murderer *of the sons of Edward IV ; but his contention was effectually answered by James Gairdner, " Did Henry VII murder the Princes ?" English Historical Review, VI, 444-464, 813-815. Gairdner, Life and Reign of Richard III (1898) is the best account of the reign. The constitutional aspects of the period are dealt with in Stubbs, III, chs. XIX- XXI; Taylor, Origin and Growth, I, bk. Ill, ch. II, sees. 6-10; Wakeman and Hassall, Constitutional Essays, ch. V ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. IX. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 129-133. THE HOUSE OF YORK 277 THE WOODVILLES AND COURTENAYS Richard Woodyille, created Earl Rivers I Anthony, Earl Rivers, Elizabeth = Edward IV executed, 1483 Edward V Elizabeth, Katharine, m. HENRY VII m. Sir Wm. Courtenay Henry, Marquis of Exeter; executed, 1538 ! Edward Courtenay CHAPTER XVIII THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM. HENRY VII (1485-1509) The New Absolutism. The victory of Henry Tudor brought England peace and a strong settled government which endured for over a century. During the same period, however, the growth of parliamentary power was checked. The_revival of_absolutism, the renewed triumph of the royal power over opposing forces, jvas due to two causes tothe personal character of the Tudor sovereign^ and to the situation of The country. The three notable rulers of this line, Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, were alike in many ways ; possessed of unbounded courage, physical and moral, they were also keen politicians in discerning the needs and temper of the people. Because they possessed force and discretion they were able usually to get things done as they wished. When they saw that a measure was' going to be resisted, they drew back. But their wishes and those of their subjects were in most respects the same. So they were absolute, not because they had a standing army, or any oth"eF~of the common props of absolutism, but because they were popular, they were needed. Henry VII, founder of the line, was extortionate, but he was frugal and politic, moral, and generally upright. He fostered trade and industry ; he maintained peace abroad and order at home, and kept the country out of debt, (in consequence, he left a strong central government, a large treasure, and a people attached to the Crown.^ But there was another side to the question. The power of the mon- archy depended largely upon his relations to the political classes of the realm, the nobles, the clergy, and the commons. The nobles were no longer in a po_sition_seriously to menace the Crown! SinceT theTntro- duction of the longbow, and more particularly of gunpowder, their armor had ceased to be invulnerable, and their castles were not im- pregnable against cannon. Moreover, the strain of the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses l had reduced their numbers and their wealth, and made them more and more dependent on the increasingly prosperous middle class with whom they had discredited themselves by their turbulence, extravagance, and self-seeking. _Th Church, top, was losJQg the assured position it had once held. It had indeed survivecT theattacks oi wiclii andJ the Lollards, and the 1 It is no longer believed that the bulk of the nobility were killed off in the Wars of the Roses. 278 THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 279 Reformation was still a generation off; but its influence had been threatened, and covetous eyes had been more than once cast on its vast wealth. While it still retained a strong hold on the lesser folk, they counted for little, and it had to look to the monarchy for support. The commons, the middle classes in town and country, busy in accumu- lating material resources, wanted peace and protection rather than liberty. 1 As the nobles and the Church were unable, so the commons were unwilling to oppose the new Tudor absolutism in which they saw a friend and protector. Parliament had been developed as a weapon, first by the nobles and then by the Lancastrians. The Tudors were minded to call it very infrequently or to make it the trusty servant of their policies. In this Parliament was generally content to acquiesce. Henry's Problems. Henry VII, then, was a strong, wise, cautious man who found himself in a situation most favorable for the reestab- lishment of the royal power on a secure basis. He was confronted by many problems, and he dealt with them prudently and skillfully. . He_ Jiad toestablish his title, to dispose of rival claimants, to suppress^ disorder, to come to terms with Scotland, to settle conditions in Ireland^ ami to_secure England's position abroad. Each of these problems mustTBe considered in turn. Henry's Means of securing His Title. Henry's first need was to secure his title. He could base his claim to rule on right of conquest ; but he might have to yield to any one who could gather an army strong enough to drive him out. His claim by descent had at least a color of legitimacy. He was the nearest male representative of the Lancastrian line. Through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, he traced his descent from John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. But the legitimacy of the Beauforts was not above question, while the line had been barred from the succession during the reign of Henry IV. Moreover, Henry derived his claim from a female. So, quite wisely, he secured from Parliament in 1485 an act vesting the royal inheritance in his person and the heirs of his body without stating any reasons. This done, he married, early in 1486, Elizabeth, the ^eldest Daughter o , Edward IV, thus uniting, in the person of any children born^toTHem, the claims of the two rival Houses. His next step was to secure from the Pope in the same year a bull recognizing his title. Finally, to remove all fear from the minds of his supporters, he made Parliament pass an act in 1495 that it was no treason to obey ade facto King. Royal Pretenders. Lambert Simnel, 1487. There were, however, male representatives of the Yorkist line still alive, and many doubted whether the young sons of Edward IV were actually dead. Naturally, the enemies of Henry VII were glad to make use of such opportunities to rise against him. In 1487 they put forward one Lambert Simnel, son of an Oxford organ maker, as the Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke 1 In Shakespeare's King John, produced in the reign of Elizabeth, Magna Carta, which Englishmen came to regard as the foundation of popular liberty, is not even mentioned. 2 8o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of Clarence, although the real Earl was a prisoner in the Tower. Simnel was conveyed to Ireland, where the sentiment was strongly Yorkist. There he was crowned King, and there a body of supporters gathered, including some of the English nobility and a force of German mercenaries sent over by Margaret, widow of Charles the Bold and sister of Edward IV and Richard III. Landing on the coast of Lancaster, the invaders marched southeast. But " the snowball did not gather as it went," because " it was an odious thing for the people of England to have a King brought to them upon the shoulders of the Dutch." They were met by the royal forces at Stoke in Lin- colnshire and defeated. The Yorkist nobles were mostly killed or disappeared. The mock king was made a turnspit in the royal kitchen, and was later promoted to the position of a royal falconer. Perkin Warbeck, 1492-1499. Another pretender bothered the King for nearly eight years. This was Perkin Warbeck, son of a boatman of Tournay, put forward as Richard, Duke of York. He received support in Ireland, in Flanders, and in Scotland, and after two previous unsuccessful attempts at invasion he landed, August, 1497, in southwest England. The King's army, however, was too much for him. When an attempt to take Exeter miscarried, his cour- age failed. He took sanctuary in the Abbey of Beaulieu, where he gave himself up and was taken thence to the Tower. In November, 1499, after an unsuccessful attempt to escape, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. A few days later, the Earl of Warwick, the last of the Yorkist princes, having been seduced into a plot by those who hoped to profit by his death, ended a fifteen years' imprisonment by following Warbeck to the grave. Henry's Exactions in Consequence of the Plots. Henry VII turned most of the plots and risings against him to his own advantage. Refraining so far as possible from shedding blood, he contented him- self with the safer and more profitable method of levying fines on those implicated. This was only one of his many devices to fill his coffers. Another very familiar one is known as " Morton's Fork," because its invention was attributed to his ChancellorjTKomasMoTton. 1 Accord- ing to this device persons who lived in great magnificence were forced to yield large sums on the ground of their manifest wealth, while those who lived plainly were subjected to equal burdens on the ground of their supposed savings. The royal extortion increased as the years went on, and two of Henry's agents, Empson and Dudley, were so generally hated that they were described, over a century later, as " caterpillars of the commonwealth." The Court of Star Chamber, 1487. Neither the Lancastrians nor the Yorkists had been able to suppress disorder. Great nobles still had large bands of retainers who wore their badge or livery and who bullied and plundered their weaker neighbors at will. It was impossi- 1 More likely Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, was the author. THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 281 ble to punish any of them if they were caught, because their powerful patrons appeared at the county courts with hordes of their fellows, and " maintained " their cause by terrifying judge^ jury, and jgrpsecu^_ tors._ Statutes of " livery and maintenance/' had been directed in vairTagainst this abuse. In 1487 Henry VTTdevised a new expedient. Selecting certain great officers of State from the Privy_Council, together with two judges, he gave them a special jurisdiction, not only over livery and maintenance, but over misconduct of sheriffs, over riots and unlawful assemblies. They constituted a court known as the Staf~ Chamber, probably because of the Camera Stellata, where the meetings were held. Since it sat in London and had very summary jurisdiction, it was able to act more effectively than any of the existing courts. Later, more and more members were added, till it came to be ajudiciaL, ^session of the whole Privy Council plus two judges^ It continued to act long after the original need for it had passed away, and was used by the later Tudors and the first two Stuarts as an engine of oppres- sion, political and ecclesiastical. It was suppressed in 164.1. The Irish Situation. Poynings's Law, 1494. Ireland was a serious problem. The only place where the English possessed a shadow of authority was in the Pale. Attempts to prevent the Anglo-Irish lords from identifying themselves with the natives had proved futile. The most powerful family of them all, the Fitzgeralds, or " Geraldines," whose head was Gerald, Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy since the time of Edward IV, were passionate Yorkists. The Earl had supported Simnel and had been accused of abetting Warbeck on the latter's first appearance in Ireland in 1491. In spite of his declaration that he had never lent his aid to " the French lad," Kildare was deprived of his office in 1492. Two years later, Henry sent over Sir Edward Povnings and a body of English officials and judges with the object of establish- ing and extending English rule. The new Deputy secured the passage of the celebrated " Poynings's Law. ".providing that no Parliament should meet or pass any act without the consent of the King in Council, and that all English statutes should be in force in Ireland. Although these enactments put a check on Irish legislation, they had the merit of protecting the colonists against the arbitrariness of the English officials. In 1496 the Earl of Kildare, who had in the meantime been seized and put in the Tower of London, was released and sent back as Lord Deputy. His audacity had appealed to the King. He said he had burned the cathedral of Cashel because the Bishop was inside. " All Ireland cannot rule him," said the Bishop of Meath. " Then," replied the King, " he is meet to rule all Ireland." So the " great Earl " continued to hold office till his death in 1513. Henry's Foreign Policy. The Peace of Etaples, 1492. The economical and peace-loving Henry sought to avoid war and to secure his relation to other countries by marriages and treaties. Maximilian and Ferdinand of Aragon were anxious to prevent the growth of the . French power. Charles VIII, who had succeeded Louis XI in 1483, 282 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND was aiming to annex Brittany, a purpose which he effected in 1491 by marrying Anne, who had fallen heir to the Duchy. Henry, in alliance with Maximilian and Ferdinand, led an army across the Channel the following year, but his aim was to threaten, not to fight. So, 3 Novem- ber, 1491, he signed a peace at Etaples, by which the French agreed to pay him 620,000 crowns due him from Anne for the defense of her heritage, together with 125,000 crowns for two years' arrears of the pension which Louis XI had promised to pay Edward IV. Each King agreed not to assist the enemies of the other. If Henry gave up Maximilian and Ferdinand, Charles, on his part, could not shelter rebels against the King of England. Therefore Perkin Warbeck, who was then in France, had to take himself off to the Netherlands. Finan- cially, Henry was a twofold gainer : he had collected large sums from his subjects to make war and he had been paid by the French King to keep peace. This profitable and prosaic ending of Henry's one and only foreign war was bitterly resented by many of his subjects. The Scotch Marriage Alliance, 1502. The vigorous and active but licentious and unstable James IV, King of Scotland since 1488, had caused much trouble by taking up the cause of Perkin Warbeck. Henry sought to meet danger from this quarter by marrying James to his little daughter Margaret. On 7 August, 1502, the wedding took place at Edinburgh, the gayest and most splendid the poor northern capital had ever witnessed. In years to come many wars and rumors of wars followed; but only a century elapsed before a descendant of this marriage became King of England. The far-sighted Henry had foreseen such an event, but had sagely predicted that if it came to pass, the greater would draw the less. And so it proved. The Marriage Alliance with Spain. Meantime, 15 November, 1501, Henry had married his eldest son Arthur to Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, those celebrated mon- archs who sent Columbus on his voyages of discovery to our western world. Spain was at this time the leading power in Christendom. Not only had she discovered lands of fabulous wealth, but she had driven the Moors out of Granada, and had gained brilliant victories in" Italy, the battle ground of western Europe. Henry drove a hard bargain by which he secured for his heir a substantial marriage portion of 200,000 crowns, half of which was to be paid immediately after the ceremony. He boasted with justice that by his alliances he had built a wall of brass around his kingdom. Arthur, however, died less than six months after his marriage, and before the second half of the marriage portion had been paid. Henry was determined not to give it up, and since his own wife had died recently, he even proposed to marry his daughter-in-law himself. At another time he entertained a project of marrying her sister, the crazy Joanna, whose mental condi- tion made no difference to him, for she was heiress to the vast and rich Spanish dominions. Joanna subsequently fell to Philip, the son of Maximilian, and eventually Catharine was betrothed to Henry's THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 283 second son, the future Henry VIII. A papal dispensation was ob- tained for this purpose, since it was against the law of the Church for a man to marry his deceased brother's widow. The marriage did not take place until six months after the younger Henry's accession. These matrimonial schemes of the old King are of a piece with the increasing sordidness of the later years of his rule ; after the death of his wife Elizabeth and his best councilors, he became more and more despotic and more and more greedy. The Transition from the Medieval to the Modern World. Never- theless, England owes 1 a deep debt of gratitude to this thrifty and sagacious ruler, in a period of transition when she was leaving the medieval and entering the modern world. New tendencies were in the making, but the rags of the old had not been altogether discarded. These diverse characteristics are manifest both in the King and his age. Henry, plain, businesslike, and unheroic, absorbed in amassing treasure and avoiding war, was the direct contrast of the medieval knight ; but on the other hand, he chose Churchmen for councilors, went on pilgrimages, and founded religious houses with true medieval piety. He gave John Cabot a patent to search for a northwest pas- sage, but he contributed to a papal crusade against the Turks. He negotiated free trade treaties, but he also enacted a law against usury. English ships began to make their way to the New World, but it was not till the reign of Henry's granddaughter that England became a great sea power. Certain men, known as the " Oxford Reformers," began to teach the New Learning which had nourished in Italy for over a century ; but its effect was not realized in the separation of England from Rome till the time of Henry VIII. The old fighting nobility had been crushed, but the new nobility of wealth had not yet risen. In international affairs a new policy balance of power was just emerging ; but it had not yet developed into a fixed principle. State of the Country. Agriculture. It is easy to exaggerate the misery as it is easy to exaggerate the prosperity of the laboring classes of the fifteenth century. Agriculture, once the basis of England's livelihood, was certainly in a backward state. No improved methods were introduced from the time of the Peasant Revolt till after the Reformation. The soil was exhausted, for draining and fertilizing were little practiced, and artificial grass and clover were unknown. Hop growing, later so profitable, was not general until after the Ref- ormation. 1 Cattle could not be kept over the winter to any extent ; for turnips, later used for fodder, had not yet been introduced. Oxen were still used as draft animals ; they were cheaper than horses to feed, and their flesh could be eaten when they were killed. 1 Though according to a familiar couplet : "Turkies, hops, reformation, and beer Came into England all in one year." 284 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Causes for Lack of Agricultural Progress. Many things contrib- uted to retard the progress of agriculture. Owing to the scarcity of labor, caused by the Black Death and other plagues, the great land- owners had ceased to take a personal interest in the cultivation of their estates and leased them to tenant farmers. Then the wars, foreign and civil, had further drained the population and discouraged and unsettled the surviving cultivators. Also, the monasteries, which had once taken the lead in clearing the wastes, building roads, and improv- ing tillage, Jiad_faJJkjnj3f^^ The increasing bare- ness of Jthe soil, the scarcity of labor, and the growing demand for wool turned a steadily increasing number to sheep raising. Both common pastures and tenant holdings were enclosed for grazing lands. As sheep raising became more and more profitable, more and more farms were taken. This caused great hardship as the population began to recover again. Great outcry was made, and laws were passed to check the practice, e.g. in 1436, 1463, and 1488, but without avail, and a chaplain of Henry VIII complained that " where hath been many houses and churches to the honour of God, now you shall find nothing but shepe-cotes and stables to the ruin of man." Nor did enactments to encourage the exportation of corn so as to raise the price (1436), and to prevent import until the cost was so high as to cause hardship (1463), materially help, the situation. It was not until decades later, after the laborers, driven from the soil, had found a new occupation in manufacturing and a new demand arose for food to supply them, that agricultural prosperity revived. Condition of the Agricultural Laborer. The Dark Side. The condition of the lower classes would seem insupportable now. Their homes were mere hovels with walls of clay and reeds, with floors of mud strewn with rushes. Fires were built in a cleared space in the middle of the floor, and the smoke escaped through the door or a hole in the roof after half choking the occupants. It is small wonder that even women left these " dark, cheerless, and unhealthy dwellings " to seek company and diversion in the neighboring alehouse. Tea, coffee, and wheaten bread were luxuries yet undreamed of. We are told, however, that meat, beer, house rent, and fuel were cheap, and foreigners were struck by the quantities of meat consumed by the English. But they saw only the tables of the gentry, the city folk, and the inns. The remote rural classes seem to have lived largely on peas, beans, and suchlike food in summer, while the salt meat and fish consumed in winter, together with bad air, lack of drainage, and stagnant water, were fruitful sources of all manner of ills, such as scurvy, scrofula, and typhoid. The lot of the poorer classes in towns was just as bad. The plague still continued its ravages 1 ; infant 1 A new form of disease, known as the sweating sickness, came in in 1485, brought, it is supposed, by the invading troops of Henry VII. It was marked by alternate chills and fever and profuse perspiration, and its action was so rapid that the patient either died or recovered within twenty-four hours. Unlike the plague, it THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 285 mortality was appalling, and it has been estimated that " as large a number of persons now live to seventy years as lived to forty " in the year 1500. Each little community still lived, for the most part, isolated and self-sufficing, making its own clothes and providing its own food. Roads were foul and miry during a greater part of the year, and infested by thieves. Bridges were few and badly kept, and those who controlled river commerce were opposed to their increase. ^This lack of means of communication accounts for many of the famines and was another cause for retarding the progress of agriculture .3 No one cared to raise a surplus which could not easily be transported for sale. The Brighter Features. Yet there are some rays of light in the prevailing darkness. Even the lower classes were better off than they had been in the previous century, and better off than their neigh- bors in France. The monks were easy landlords who seldom pressed for their rent from poor tenants, and sometimes even remitted it alto- gether in the hard seasons, and a number of the lay landlords seem to have followed the monastic example. The small farmers or yeomen were reasonably prosperous. One such was the father of Hugh Lati- mer, a famous bishop and preacher of the Reformation period. He was able to keep arms and armor and a horse for the king's service, to send his children to school, to dispense hospitality, and even to give alms to the poor. Moreover, there was a chance for peasants to rise from their lowly station by avenues other than the Church. For instance, a son of Clement Paston, a small freeholder, some say a bondman, who rode his horse barebacked to the mill and drove his own cart to market, rose to be a judge of Common Pleas. Indeed, the family went on growing in wealth and prosperity till they attained the earldom of Yarmouth in the seventeenth century. Owing to a grow- ing jealousy of prosperous leaseholders, the franchise was, in 1430, restricted to the forty shilling freeholders, while, in 1463 and 1482, Statutes of Apparel were passed in order to check extravagance and pretentiousness among the lower classes. Still, the laborer's lot was, on the whole, a hard one. He might have a piece of ground to till and a share in a common pasture while the rich were not so far above him as now ; but, what with irregular work, poor food, unhealthy homes, wars, riot, famine, and pestilence, he was ever so much worse off than he would be to-day. The Nobles. The nobility lived in barbarous state and rude magnificence with huge bands of household men. The Earl of War- wick, for example, had six hundred liveried servants in his train, and the flesh of six entire oxen was sometimes consumed at a single meal. Visitors, always welcome, often carried off meat from the table. The Duke of Buckingham, who had rentals in seventeen counties, frequently entertained more than two hundred guests at attacked chiefly the wealthier, well-fed classes. It is no longer heard of, at least under that name, after the next reign, 286 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND breakfast or dinner. When a nobleman passed through a parish, bells were rung, caps were doffed in reverence ; indeed, even in great towns, burghers and journeymen flocked to see them as they stalked or rode along the streets. We hear of one clothed in a scarlet robe twelve yards wide with sleeves trimmed with costly fur hanging to the ground, which were held up by servants to prevent their dragging through the mud and filth. The leading nobles kept courts like princes, with " great idle routs" to wait upon them, to fight for them, and to provide pastime. Yet most of them had been living from hand to mouth for a long time on the produce of their estates and their plunder from war. Their silks, satins, furs, jewels, and plate repre- sented an immense but unproductive capital. They were often hard put to it for ready money, and borrowed in all directions. When they could not longer carry their debts, their fine things were scattered and sold. The Tudors cut down their retinues and excluded them from their council, but the advent of peace and new conditions made their decline inevitable. Constant war, which no longer yielded plunder, had contributed, with their pageantry, their magnificent dress, and their enormous households, to cripple their resources. Living isolated on their country estates, they rarely possessed sufficient knowledge or training to participate in public business. In conse- quence, with no wars to occupy them any longer, they devoted themselves to dress, cards, and dice, and steadily declined, not only in wealth, but in character and physical vigor. A new age was dawning in the later fifteenth century. Wealth increased, though in uneven distribution ; while the agricultural laborers were badly off and the nobility were going to the wall, other classes were rising the landed gentry, the commercial, and the industrial. The Middle Class. The middle classes grew steadily better off, and many a yeoman and merchant became a landed gentleman. A new aristocracy arose of energy and skill, of material prosperity. Possessed of lands and fine raiment, the new men were hard to dis- tinguish from the old whom in a measure they were supplanting. " Sometime, afar men might lords know by their array from other folk, now a man might stand or muse a long throw which is which." The rich merchant princes kept houses of great magnificence. William Cominges, who had once entertained Edward IV at Bristol, had tiled floors, bay windows of richly stained glass, embroidered hangings, and stores of plate and glass. There was, however, more pomp and show than real comfort. Great houses had rarely more than two or three beds, and bare benches and window seats generally did duty for chairs. The most significant fact, however, was what all these signs of wealth indicated. As a result of a great industrial revolution a new class was coming to be a power in politics and society. Distribution of Population and Industry. The total population of England at the end of the fifteenth century has been estimated at 2,500,000, not much over a third of present-day London. The pro- THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 287 portion of urban to rural was about one to twelve, although perhaps a fifth were engaged in industrial pursuits. In spite of a steady influx of laborers to the towns, London did not in all likelihood contain over 50,000 inhabitants, and there were probably not ten communities larger than a small modern country town, with an average population of less than 10,000. Bristol ranked second to the capital in wealth and importance. Middlesex, in which London was situated, was the richest county ; Oxford was second, owing to its productive pasture lands ; Norfolk, from its manufactures and its trade with Flanders, ranked third. The poorest communities were in the north, though the west Riding of Yorkshire, as a wool-producing district, was forging ahead. The Gilds and Their Decline. England's chief industry was the .raising of wool and its manufacture into cloth. Cloth making was still mainly in the hands of the gilds, who, moreover, had come to furnish their own materials, formerly provided by the monasteries and landlords acting as capitalists. With their royal or municipal charters these gilds still had a practical monopoly of trade and industry. Em- ployed since the time of Edward I as agents in regulating the economic activities of the land, they had done much to keep up the standard of work and to prevent unfair competition ; but various indications show that they were on the decline. They became entangled in fre- quent and acute struggles with the municipal organizations, where the two were not identical. They were accused by the journeymen of oppression, of extravagance and pageantry and feasting, and they stifled even healthy competition. Henry VII, therefore, sought to check the evils involved in the overgreat powers which they exer- cised. In 1503 an act was passed preventing them from making any new laws or ordinances concerning prices of wares until they had been approved of by the Lord Chancellor or other royal officials. Thus a check was imposed on the very bodies employed as agents of the Crown. More than this, the whole gild system was on the eve of downfall. Old medieval combinations everywhere were giving place to new ones; the New Learning and the Reformation which fol- lowed in its train were to dissolve old traditions ; and the gild system was destined to go the way of feudal survivals, the monasteries, and the universal Papacy. The Domestic System. In the case of the gilds, however, the most particular cause for their downfall was the fact that their organi- zation was too narrow and exclusive to meet the needs of the widening markets. So merchants began to send wool to farmers and villagers to be worked up into cloth. The " domestic system," as it was called, began to be employed in the fifteenth century, grew steadily through the two following, and only gave way to the factory system in the eighteenth and nineteenth. The domestic system had the two- fold advantage of more adequately supplying the growing demand for cloth, and of opening a new field of occupation for the agricultural 2 88 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND laborers and small farmers, suffering from the substitution of sheep raising for tillage. Money Lending and Coinage. The growth of English capital was still handicapped by the survival of the medieval notion that all lending at interest was usurious and wrong. So late as the third year of Henry VII an act was passed which declared " usurious bar- gains " to be null and void, and provided that the lenders should be heavily fined, and then still further punished for their soul's good by the Church authorities. This reign, on the other hand, marks the beginning of modern coinage. The shilling, formerly a measure of value, first appeared as a real silver coin. The gold sovereign, too, dates from this time, and the head of the King began to be a genuine likeness. Business, both commerical and financial, was, by the close of the reign of Henry VII, in the hands of Englishmen. Edward I had expelled the Jews, and Edward III had ruined his Lombard and Tuscan creditors. Foreign trade, nevertheless, remained chiefly in the hands of German, Flemish, Spanish, French, and Italian mer- chants all through the Yorkist period. Under Henry VII, however, native merchants largely superseded foreigners, while even aliens who had once been welcomed to teach continental handicrafts were jealously excluded. Trade and Commerce. " Mercantilism." The fifteenth-century sovereigns continued to regulate commerce, though with an object quite different from that of their predecessors. The new policy, while it did not originate with him, was most effectively and extensively carried out by Henry VII. The aim of Edward III had been, in general, to encourage the foreigner in the interests of the consumer at the expense of native producers and merchants. Under Richard II the policy was initiated of building up native trade and industry, of developing English shipping, and of accumulating treasure in the realm by excess of exports over imports. This often meant higher prices to the consumer. Money, however, came to be regarded as the sole source of wealth, and English control of commerce and indus- try as a matter of prime importance. If concessions were from time to time made to foreigners, it was only to secure some reciprocal advan- tage. The new policy money is wealth, sejlmore^tha^you^^buy to preserve a " balance of trade " and so bringtreasure info the realm , develop resources at the expense of cheapness, aim at power rather than plenty was called " mercantilism," and resembles the modern doctrine of protection. -v^w**- Measures to encourage English Shipping, Richard II to Henry VIII. The Navigation Act of Richard II was followed by another in 1463, limited, however, to three years. At the opening of the reign of Henry VII there was great complaint of the decay of English shipping and the lack of employment of English mariners. In consequence, the King took effective measures. He offered bounties for large ships, he prohibited foreigners exporting wool to the Netherlands, and, in 1489, THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 289 passed an act that wines and woad from Gascony must be imported in English ships, manned by English sailors. While he enforced these provisions, they became practically non-operative under Henry VIII through licenses of exemption. Toward the close of the reign, how- ever, a new Navigation Act was passed (1540) for the " maintenance of the English shipping." Measures for protecting English Manufactures. As early as the reigns of Edward IV and Richard measures were taken for the pro- tection of textile industries and of hardware goods, harnesses, and saddlery. Henry VII carried on the same policy, and strove to en- courage the manufacture of wool and to develop English capital by discouraging the importation of luxuries and the export of gold. His Chancellor Morton directed Parliament to set the people on " works and handicrafts " in order " that the realm might subsist of itself " and so stop the draining of " our treasure for manufactures." And, in the nineteenth year of the reign, an act was passed prohibiting the import of silks wrought in forms that the English were beginning to manufac- ture. The English Merchants of the Staple still exported a large amount of raw wool ; but English artisans were not only supplying most of the home demand for cloth, but furnishing a large amount for markets abroad. The cloth export was largely in the hands of the Merchant Adventurers, who, during the sixteenth century, gradually came to supplant the Staplers, as the export of wool declined and that of cloth increased. The Intercursus Magnus, 1496. While efforts were thus made to encourage English shipping and manufactures, commerical treaties were made with various foreign countries, with France, Prussia, Den- mark, Castile, Portugal, and the Mediterranean cities. The most important of them all was concluded with the Netherlands in 1496! fBy the " Great Intercourse " the merchants of the respective coun- tries were to have the unrestricted right of buying and selling at rates of duty which had prevailed when intercourse was freest. Rights of fishing were to be free as well. Each country was to aid the other against pirates and not to harbor each other's rebels.^ Ten years later, Philip of Burgundy, on his way to Castile, was blown ashore on the coast of Dorset by violent winds. He visited the English King at Windsor, on which occasion Henry secured large concessions for the sale of English woolens in Philip's dominions. On the revolt of the Netherlands and the sack of Antwerp, London became the greatest trading center in the western world. England and the New World. The Cabots. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks, which Fesulted in the blocking of the overland trade routes to India and China, led to the search for an ocean route to those regions, a search which resulted in the discovery of America, and, ultimately, in the supremacy of the Atlantic seaboard states over the Italian cities of the Mediterranean. Among the former, England did not take an assured position till the reign of 29 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Elizabeth, and her supremacy as a World Power was not established till the eighteenth century. None of the medieval explorers were Eng- lishmen. Norsemen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, and French had all won distinction before England entered the field. Christopher Columbus, however, sent his brother Bartholomew to lay his project before Henry VII, but he was captured by pirates and retarded by other reverses, so that when he at length presented himself before the King, although he obtained a favorable hearing, it was too late. But Henry, 5 March, 1495, issued a patent to John Cabot and his three sons, Venetians residing in Bristol, to sail forth in search of a north- west passage, and for the discovery and annexation of heathen lands. In May, 1497, they started on their first voyage. Sailing north so far that they found " monstrous great lumps of ice swimming in the sea and continual daylight," they reached what was probably the coast of Labrador, and brought home " three islanders dressed in skins," whom they presented to the King. They made two or three subse- quent voyages, exploring the coast southward, possibly as far as Florida. In the early years of the sixteenth century English ships went in increasing numbers to the fishing grounds off Newfoundland. Such were the beginnings of England's share in the discovery of the north continent of America, a continent which she was afterwards to dominate. The Literature of the Fifteenth Century. The transitional char- acter of the age is manifest in the literature and learning. The foreign wars, the domestic turmoil, and the absorption of the best minds in material pursuits were unfavorable to literary or scholarly productive- ness. Chaucer was the model throughout the fifteenth century ; not only, however, were his imitators chief among them John Lydgate (1372-1451) men of infinitely lesser gifts, but they chose to fashion their work after his earlier French and medieval rather than his maturer and more distinctively English form. The " one great oasis " in this period so dry and barren of literary creation is J>ir_Thpmas _Malory_'s Morte d' Arthur, finished in 1470. It relates the" glorious and stirring adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table in simple but mobile and graphic language. Scholars value it as one of the earliest examples of worthy English prose, while the stories which it preserves have been a source of delight for those who prize beautiful lessons of knightly courtesy and daring. Sir John Fortescue (1394-1476), Chief Justice of the King's Bench, an adherent of the Lancastrians who afterwards made his peace with Edward IV, wrote various works on the constitution and laws of England. Sir Thomas Littleton (1402-1481), author of the famous Tenures, ranks among the half dozen greatest legal authorities that England has produced. Caxton and the Introduction of Printing into England, 1476. The English language and literature are immeasurably indebted to William Caxton, who, by introducing the art of printing into England in 1476, THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 291 first brought books within easy reach of the common man. Even so early as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a primitive form of print- ing had been in use. Letters were cut on a block of wood, inked, and stamped on paper ; but it was only with the invention of movable type that the real revolution began. The inventor was probably John Gutenberg (1400-1481) of Mainz, who seems to have printed his first book about the middle of the century. Caxton, who spent many years in Flanders, learned the art at Cologne, practiced it at Bruges, and brought it thence to his native land. Besides printing proclamations and other works of immediate use he busied himself as an editor and translator. He printed all the important English poetry of the preceding century, the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, as well as chronicles and tales, with some editorial care, and rendered selected classical works into English. His influence sup- plemented Chaucer's, in helping to make the dialect of London the literary language of all England and by reducing it to print gave it not only extent of circulation, but also permanence. Education. During the fifteenth century a number of new col- leges were added both at Oxford and at Cambridge. From the time of the Black Death, however, to the age of Henry VII the universi- ties were on the decline. This has been attributed to various reasons : to the shrinkage in agricultural profits by which they were supported ; to the fact that the medieval scholastic philosophy was worn out ; and that since the failure of the Lollard movement there had been no other vivifying influence; to the papal custom of filling English church offices with Italians, which turned English students from theology to the more promising field of law; and, finally, to the Wars of the Roses, so disturbing to leisurely, scholarly speculation. With restoration of peace and prosperity, a change came, the influence of the Renascence began to make itself felt, and before the close of the century we find in the so-called " Oxford reformers " a group of famous scholars perhaps unequaled in the history of the University before or since. Death and Estimate of Henry VII, 1509. Henry VII died 21 April, 1509, at the age of fifty-two. Unusually intelligent from his boyhood, he was carefully educated in spite of the rough times in which he grew to manhood, while his exile gave him a schooling of another sort. He was called " the Solomon of England," and was regarded as one of the wisest princes of his time. While strong and graceful and handsome, he is described as " reverend and like a Churchman " in appearance. He called to his councils plain able men and none of the ostentatious, swaggering nobility. Determined to rule rather than to be ruled, he had no court favorites. He kept his hand on everything, sought information from every quarter, and made careful notes of all sorts of business, " especially touching per- sons : as whom to employ, whom to reward, whom to enquire of, whom to beware of, ... what were the factions and the like." He was 292 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND pious, free from arrogance, but not over-refined (according to modern standards). If he was unheroic, calculating, and greedy, he answered the needs of the age, he put an end to discord, he raised England to a high place in the councils of Europe, he furthered shipping, com- merce, and industry, and handed on to his son, not only a great treas- ure, but a rich heritage of popularity as well. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. H. A. L. Fisher, Political History of England, 1485-1547 (1906), chs. I-IV ; a scholarly work, brilliantly written. A. D. Innes, England under the Tudor-: (1905) chs. I-III. Cambridge Modern History (1903), ch. XIV. This cooperative work in 14 vols. contains a number of chapters on England. There are annotate 1 bibliographies in Fisher, pp. 484-496, and Innes, pp. 446-456, and there is in the Cambridge Modern History a list of authorities without comments, pp. 770-772. Legal and constitutional. Maitland, English Constitutional History, period II. Taylor, II, bk. IV, ch. II. Taswell-Langmead, ch. X. Maitland, English Law and the Renaissance (1901). Henry Hallam, English Constitutional History (3 vols., 1855), I, ch. I; dry and to some degree out of date, but still indispensable for the period from 1485 to 1760. Biography. Francis Bacon, History of the Reign of Henry VII (1621, in Spedding and Ellis' edition of Bacon's works, vol. VI, 1861). James Gairdner, Henry VII (1889) ; a good brief account. Conditions, social, industrial, and intellectual. Traill, Social England, II, chs. VII, VIII. W. Denton, Life in the Fifteenth Century (1888). Alice S. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols., 1894). A. Abram, English Life and Manners in the Middle Ages (1913). Fisher, ch. VI, "The Dawn of the English Renaissance "; Innes, ch. IV. Vickers, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, chs. IX, X, "The Italian Renaissance in England" and "The Revolution in English Scholarship." Creigh- ton, "The Early Renaissance in England," in Historical Lectures, pp. 188-212. F. A. Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation in England (1899) from the Roman Catho- lic standpoint. Stubbs, Lectures on Medieval and Modern History; two scholarly and brilliant lectures, XV, XVI, on "The Reign of Henry VII." F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers (1877). Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, I, bk. V. Prothero, English Farming, ch. III. The Church. Wakeman, chs. VIII, IX, X ; Capes, chs. XI-XVII. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 134-140. THE HOUSE OF TUDOR HENRY VII, 1485-1509 = great-great-grandson of John of Gaunt, by his mother, Margaret Beaufort Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV Arthur, d. 1502 HENRY VIII, Margaret, 1509-1547 m. James IV of Scotland Mary = (i) Louis XII of France, d. 1515 (2) Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1 MARY, IS53-IS58 1 ELIZABETH, EDWARD VI, 1558-1603 I547-IS53 THE BEGINNING OF THE TUDOR ABSOLUTISM 293 KINGS OF SCOTLAND, 1370-1603 ROBERT II, 1370-1390 ! ROBERT III, 1390-1406 Robert, Duke of Albany, | d. 1420 JAMES I = Jane Beaufort 1406-1437 JAMES II, 1437-1460 JAMES III, 1460-1488 (i) JAMES IV = Margaret Tudor = Earl of Angus 1488-1513 I JAMES V, 1513-1542 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS = 1542-1567 JAMES VI and I oi 1567 Margaret = E, 1 irl of Lenox = Lord Darnley, murdered 1567 of Scotland England -1625 Charles, Earl of Lenox Arabella Stuart CHAPTER XIX THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII (1509-1529) AND THE EVE OF THE SEPARATION FROM ROME The Beginning of a New Reign, 1509. Henry, eighth of the name, became King of England, 22 April, 1509. The new reign began with the happiest prospects. Crabbed age had made way to youthful ardor and enthusiasm ; for the new ruler was barely eighteen. Enter- ing into the reward of his father's labors, he found a full treasury, a secure title, and a body of subjects attached to the Crown from self- interest, and he enjoyed as well a personal popularity, based on ad- miration and affection. He soon exhausted the treasure which he inherited ; but without an independent revenue, without a standing army, and without openly violating constitutional forms, he was able to work his will, to wrench the Church of England free from the juris- diction of the Pope, to set himself up as ecclesiastical head, and to end his days as an absolute king. But many years were to elapse before Henry's subjects were to realize what a masterful man he was. At first he appeared to be only a big, athletic, pleasure-seeking boy, intent on softening the rigors of his father's government. Thus, he issued a general pardon, excepting only a few; he released many Crown debtors ; and he had Empson and Dudley imprisoned and beheaded. In the case of the two latter, however, he disclosed a foretaste of his future methods. They were disposed of on a charge of treason, an offense of which, in spite of their manifold oppression, they were innocent. The Personal Qualities of the New King. The young Henry was described as the handsomest prince in Europe, and was vain of his looks too. He was tall, strong, and well-proportioned ; his eyes were gray, his hair and beard auburn, and his complexion fair and ruddy. Altogether, in his youth he was a striking contrast to the huge, bloated figure of mature manhood. He excelled in strength and skill in the use of the long bow, in wrestling, in tennis, and in tilting, and in hunting he could tire eight or ten horses in a day. Like most of his line he was both accomplished and learned. Not only did he keep a band of musicians constantly about the court, but he performed excellently himself on the organ, the lute, and the harpsichord, and even tried his hand as a composer. His anthem, " Lord, the maker of all thyng," is still rendered in English churches. 294 THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 295 He spoke Latin, French, and Spanish, and understood Italian, and, according to the testimony of his tutor, had a " remarkable docility for mathematics." Theology, too, was a subject to which he gave much attention. In 1521, he published a book against Luther, The Defense of the Seven Sacraments. It was this work that earned for English sovereigns the title " Defender of the Faith," a title which they still bear. Others may have had a hand in the Defense and in his other compositions ; but there is little doubt that he thought for himself and expressed his ideas with terseness and vigor. After mak- ing all discounts for inevitable exaggeration in the contemporary accounts of his beauty and talents, the admiration and hope which he inspired in Englishmen and foreigners alike must rest on some founda- tion. " Love for the King," wrote the Venetian ambassador in the early years of the reign, " is universal with all who see him, for his Highness does not seem a person of this world, but one descended from heaven." The heavens might " laugh," the " earth exult," and all things be full of mirth at his coming, yet more and more the mailed fist was to appear from under the velvet glove. In 1513 he caused the Earl of Suffolk, an enemy of the Tudor house, to be executed, and, in 1521, the Duke of Buckingham, a possible claimant to the throne. But these are scattered instances of later ruthlessness. " If a lion knew his own strength," said More, destined to be a victim of royal policy, " hard were it for any man to hold him." Until his passions and his political ambitions called forth that strength, Henry occupied himself mainly with masks and revels, fine clothes, dancing and music, hunting and birding, and the excitement of war and diplomacy. Foreign Affairs. Henry enters the Holy Alliance, 1511. The cool and cautious policy of Henry VII had only just begun to recover for England the foreign prestige which she had lost amid the disasters that followed the death of Henry V. At the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII the leading continental sovereigns were all men of years and experience. Ferdinand, King of Aragon, Regent of Castile, and King of Naples and Sicily, was fifty-seven ; Maximilian, Emperor of the Germans (1493-1519) was fifty ; Louis XII, King of France (1498- 1515) was forty-seven; and the warlike Pope Julius II (1503-1513) was sixty-six. Henry made his appearance in European politics by joining, in 1511, the Holy Alliance formed by Julius for the purpose of expelling the French King from Italy, where he had obtained a danger- ous ascendancy. Ferdinand, the astutest l of the papal allies, deter- mined to use the high-spirited and ambitious Henry for his own de- signs. So, when in May, 1512, an English force was sent under the Marquis of Dorset to cooperate with a Spanish force in an attack on Guyenne, he sent no contingents, but instead profited by the diversion against the French to conquer the little kingdom of Navarre, which he had long coveted. Thus deserted, Dorset's expedition, badly 1 Once accused of cheating a brother sovereign twice, he cried, "He lies ! f I cheated him three times." 296 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND equipped at best, returned home in August, having accomplished nothing. This dismal failure was partially counterbalanced by the gallant and brilliant work of the English fleet under Lord Admiral Howard, who, however, lost his life, the following spring, in a foolhardy attack on Brest. Henry's Successes in Flanders. Defeat of the Scots at Flodden, 1513. Henry, anxious to restore the English prestige by a memo- rable victory, led in person a large army across to Calais in 1513. Pro- ceeding with all the pomp and magnificence of a royal progress, he overcame the French forces, 16 August, at Guinegate in an engage- ment known as the " Battle of the Spurs " from the panic of the enemies' horsemen. He followed up his victory by the capture of two fortified towns, Therouanne and Tournay. Before the fall of the latter the English at home had won a great victory on the north. In spite of the marriage between James IV and Margaret, the Scotch had clung to the French alliance. Moreover, Margaret was at odds with her brother over some jewels which she claimed for her dowry, while border forays, together with the summary chastisement of some Scotch pirates, fomented the ill-feeling. So, taking advantage of Henry's absence, the Scotch King yielded to the entreaties of Louis XII and led an army across the border in August. Queen Catharine promptly hurried levies to the threatened district and placed the Earl of Surrey, a veteran of nearly seventy, in command. On 9 Sep- tember, 1513, he overcame the invaders at Flodden, the last great border battle in English history. James fell, " riddled with arrows and gashed with bows and bills." The Scottish nobility and gentry who perished are commemorated in the beautiful song, " The Flowers of the Forest." Henry turns from Ferdinand to France. Before his return in October, 1513, Henry concluded a treaty with Ferdinand and Maxi- milian for a joint invasion of France the following year. Yet all the while they were busy making their own terms with their professed enemy Louis. When Henry discovered the treachery of his allies, he declared that he saw no faith in the world, and, in August, 1514, made a treaty of his own with France, an alliance which he confirmed two months later by marrying his young and beautiful sister to the elderly and gouty Louis. The French King, however, died the fol- lowing January, whereupon Mary secretly married Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, who was sent to bring her home. It was a love match on both sides ; for Suffolk was a vigorous and valiant knight. Henry, angry for the moment, forgave them in the end, and later devised the throne, in case of the death of his own children without issue, to the heirs of his favorite sister. The Rise of Thomas Wolsey (1475 7-1530). The triumph of Henry's arms and diplomacy at this time was due chiefly to one re- markable man, Thomas Wolsey, who was destined for over a decade to shape England's policy abroad, and to be the leading figure in THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 297 Church and State at home. The son of a wool merchant or grazier l of Ipswich, he was educated for the Church. In 1506 he entered the royal service in which his extraordinary talents and industry brought him rapidly to the front. He was admitted to the Council in 1511, and to him fell the work of organizing and equipping the expeditions of 1512-1513 ; likewise, it was he who negotiated the peace and the French marriage of 1 5 14. All sorts of offices and honors were showered upon him. In 1514 he was made Archbishop of York, in 1515 Car- dinal and Lord Chancellor, and in 1518 papal legate a later e. But these were only the most important of the many positions, ecclesias- tical and secular, which he held. His income was enormous and came from manifold sources ; he received, for example, revenues from France, Spain, and the Emperor, all of whom sought his favor.j He built Hampton Court Palace and York House ; he founded Cardinal's College (later Christ Church) at Oxford, and projected a grammar school for boys at Ipswich. ) His Pomp and Dominating Influence. He was described as the " proudest prelate that ever breathed," and he lived in magnificent state. He had a household of five hundred men, including noble- men, gentlemen, " singing men," clerks, and grooms. His servants were attired in rich crimson livery. It was necessary to pass through eight rooms, all hung with gorgeous tapestries, to reach his audience chamber. He kept a bountiful table for rich and poor alike and dispensed charity at his gates. Great noblemen waited on him at royal feasts, and on great occasions when he said mass brought water to wash his hands. When he walked out, two crosses of silver were borne before him by two of the " tallest and comeliest priests in the realm." During the period of his ascendancy only one Parliament was held, and Henry gave him a free hand in all matters domestic and foreign. He was regarded as king by the ambassadors of the time, carrying himself so high that they preferred to neglect Henry rather than the Cardinal, lest he should resent the precedence accorded to his sovereign. He was certainly " lofty and sour to them that loved him not." Once, at least, he laid violent hands on a papal nuncio ; at another time he confined the Imperial ambassador to his house and intercepted all his correspondence, while, besides, he used the power of the State against his own countrymen who aroused his jealousy. One can readily understand that he was " feared by all, loved by few or by none at all." Although he. did somewhat reform the Church by suppressing a few of the smaller monasteries, his aim was primarily to get money for his educational foundations. Indeed, his own life was quite the opposite of that of a truly spiritual pastor. He was lax in visiting his dioceses, though he once applied for a general legatine power for that purpose ; he did not preach ; he rarely said mass ; and he was a pluralist to an extent unusual even for those 1 Not of a butcher, as was once believed. 298 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND times. He was interested in the New Learning which was making its way into England ; but his engrossing occupations prevented him from taking a very active part in its promotion. If he was mild in his treatment of those who opposed the teachings of the ancient Church, his attitude was due to contempt and indifference rather than to any deeply grounded principles of toleration. Yet he had great and preeminent qualities. He was thoroughly devoted to his master's interests, he was just, except where his personal enemies were con- cerned, and a good friend to the poor, among whom he enjoyed a repute " seven times more than if he were Pope." His learning and abilities were vast and his industry prodigious. As an administrator he was most effective, and as a diplomat he played a leading role. His ambition was to be the arbitrator of Christendom. But his suc- cess in this field can best be estimated after a survey of the events in which he was concerned. Wolsey's Treaty of Universal Peace, 1518. Louis XII was suc- ceeded by Francis I, a brilliant and ambitious, but dissipated and un- scrupulous young man of twenty. Having an hereditary claim on Milan, he was bent on the conquest of northern Italy, and, in Sep- tember, 1515, he gained a decisive victory at Marignano., This vic- tory aroused the jealousy of the .English, who likewise resented French aid to the anti-English party in Scotland. Without breaking openly with France", Wolsey sent subsidies to the Emperor to pay Swiss mercenaries in checking Francis. But Maximilian failed to accom- plish anything, while the English designs were revealed. Suddenly, 23 January, 1516, the veteran intriguer Ferdinand died, and the crown of Spain passed to his grandson Charles, ruler of the Netherlands and prospective heir to the Hapsburg dominions. Since France lay between the Netherlands and Spain, Charles found it necessary to court her alliance until he secured his power and developed his re- sources . But, in 1 5 1 8, Wolsey succeeded in including England, France, Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy in a treaty of universal peace. The contracting powers agreed to undertake a crusade against the Turkish Sultan Selim I, who had annexed Syria, Palestine, and Egypt ; the English restored Tournay in return for a large sum ; and the French consented to detain Albany, who had been declared Regent and heir to the throne of Scotland by the party opposed to Margaret. The treaty seemed a great triumph, and London, where it was con- cluded, was regarded for the moment as the center of European diplomacy. The permanent result on the balance of power, however, was almost nothing. No crusade was undertaken, Albany was destined to cause trouble in Scotland for years to come, while an event soon occurred which set the three great Powers by the cars. The Struggle for the Imperial Crown. The Election of Charles, 1519. On 19 January, 1519, the gay, needy, and erratic old adven- turer, Emperor Maximilian, died. Francis set himself up as a can- THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 299 didate and showered gold upon the electors. Henry, too, made his bid. The prize, however, went to Charles of Spain, who was elected, 28 June, 1519. Henry, who as a mere boy had been drawn into the whirl of European politics to match his wits and strength against veterans, was now, at twenty-eight, the Nestor of the three monarchs who had in their hands the destinies of European Christendom. The Emperor-elect was a youth of nineteen, cold, reserved, sickly, at once irresolute and obstinate, the champion of the Church. The vast dominions which he ruled and his claim to his recently acquired office, long a perquisite of the Hapsburgs, had come to him through a succession of notable marriages. In 1477 his grandfather Maxi- milian, then heir to the Austrian possessions, had married Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, from whom she inherited the Nether- lands and a claim on Burgundy. Philip the Fair, son of Maximilian and Mary, married the mad Joanna of Castile, heiress to the Spanish lands of Ferdinand and Isabella and to claims on Naples and Sicily. Charles was born of the marriage of Philip and Joanna. In addition to his great inheritance his recent election placed him at the head of the mass of states which made up the German Empire, and gave him a claim on Milan as a fief of that Empire. The Rivalry of Charles and Francis. The kingdom of Francis, if smaller, was more compact, while the German portion of Charles' Empire was greatly weakened by the opposition of such leading states as Saxony, Brandenburg, and Hesse, who took the side of the great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, partly on religious grounds, partly because they wished to make themselves independent of Im- perial as well as papal control. For over a quarter of a century Charles V and Francis I struggled for the balance of power in western Europe. At first, various reasons inclined England to support the Emperor. As ruler of the Netherlands he controlled the. chief market for Eng- lish wool ; then he was the nephew of Catharine, consort of Henry VIII, who retained for some years an influence over her husband, and, finally, because Charles had a voice in swaying papal elections. Wolsey was anxious to be Pope, possibly as a means of reforming the existing Church system, but more especially to strengthen the hands of himself and his master in foreign affairs. Henry and Wolsey ally with the Emperor, 1520. The universal peace sworn at London was still nominally in force, and Francis was anxious to cement it, so far as England and France were concerned, by a personal interview with Henry. The two Kings met, 7 June, 1520, in a valley between Guisnes and Ardres, not far from Calais, the celebrated Field of Cloth of Gold. It was a final outburst of medieval splendor. "The buildings7~lEe costumes, and everything connected with the meeting were superb. For nearly three weeks the two mon- archs and their wives held interviews, feasts, jousts, and attended solemn masses. But no substantial result followed. Late in May, before crossing the Channel, Henry had received a visit from Charles V 300 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND on his way from Spain to Flanders, and at Canterbury the two sover- eigns arranged a treaty of alliance which was concluded in later inter- views at Gravelines and Calais, after the magnificent fooling at the Field of Cloth of Gold was over. When the inevitable war broke out between Francis and Charles, England was on the side of the Emperor. Wolsey's idea was to crush France, but did he not foresee that an all- powerful Emperor would be as dangerous to the balance of power as an all-powerful King of France ? The events of the next years were to show. Just a week after England had bound herself to the Imperial cause, Leo X died, December, 1521. In spite of promises which the Emperor had made at Canterbury, the Cardinals chose, not Wolsey, but Charles' old tutor, Adrian of Utrecht, " a homely Flemish monk," well-meaning, but frail in health, narrow-minded, and wholly unfit for the position. Even after this Charles visited Henry again in June, 1522, in conse- quence of which visit Surrey, the eldest son of the victor at Flodden, was sent to ravage the French coast. The only result was a further drain on English men and money and increased loss and suffering for the French peasantry. The Parliament of 1523. Need of supply forced Henry for the first time in eight years to call a Parliament. It met 15 April with Sir Thomas More as Speaker. Wolsey appeared and demanded sub- sidies amounting to 800,000 to be levied by an assessment of 45. in the pound on every man's land and goods. The demand was stoutly resisted. Wolsey determined to visit them again and to harangue them on their duties. After some discussion, More recommended that he be admitted " in all his pomp, with his maces, his pillars, his poleaxes, his crosses, his hat, and his great seal too." The members, however, refused to debate in his presence. Upon the Cardinal's remonstrating, the Speaker, on his knees, explained that it was against the custom of the House to debate before strangers, and Wolsey had to leave in confusion. At length about half of the sum asked for was voted. With this partial grant supplemented by a tax from the clergy, Henry and Wolsey undertook to carry out a scheme arranged with the Emperor and the Duke of Bourbon, Constable of France, for the dismemberment of the kingdom of Francis. Charles was to re- cover Burgundy, Henry the title of King of France and the old Eng- lish possessions across the Channel, while Bourbon was to be rewarded with certain of the southern provinces. An English expedition was sent out under the Duke of Suffolk in the late summer of 1523, but it failed to accomplish anything, because the Emperor, opposing Henry's plan of campaign, failed to furnish the requisite support. Moreover, when the death of Adrian yi, 14 September, left the Papacy vacant, Charles again played "Wolsey" false by throwing the weight of his in- fluence to secure the election of Giulio de Medici, cousin of the late Leo X, a reserved, irresolute man whom he thought would do his bidding. THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 301 The Emperor Triumphant. The " Amicable Loan," 1525. The new Pope, however, who took the name of Clement VII, formed a league with Francis I, with Venice and other Italian states, to drive the Emperor, who had recently recovered Milan, out of northern Italy. It was always the papal policy to combine against the domi- nant- power in the peninsula. The Imperial army was too strong for him; 24 February, 1525, they defeated the French while they were besieging Pavia, and took Francis prisoner. In spite of recent re- buffs, Henry at once prepared to join the Emperor in dismembering the realms of the vanquished. In order to supply the necessary funds, Wolsey devised a loan of a sixth from lay and a fourth from ecclesias- tical property. The " amicable loan," as it was called, was in reality a tax ; for it was assessed by royal commissioners, and men were to be forced to pay. Resistance was stubborn and widespread. " There was sore grudging and murmuring among the people " of Kent, where one squire declared, " if people should give their goods by a commis- sion, then it would be worse than the taxes of France, and England should be bond, not free." In the eastern counties opposition was even more bitter. The weavers of Suffolk rose in arms, and when the Duke of Norfolk asked who was their captain, one elderly man replied : " Forsooth his name is Poverty, for he and his cousin Neces- sity have brought us to this doing." On promising submission and asking for mercy they were pardoned. In London, where a benevo- lence was demanded in place of the loan, the Lord Mayor declared that it would cost him his life if he agreed to such a grant. In the face of such manifestations from his subjects, Henry, with true Tudor in- sight, gave way. Wolsev who had only acted by his master's com- mand, bore the brunt of tne unpopularity. England withdraws from the European War, 1525. The Preparation for the Separation from Rome. In August a truce was arranged with France, and it was nearly twenty years before another English army crossed the Channel. This change of policy was due partly to failure to obtain supplies, partly to prevent the now triumphant Emperor from " climbing any higher." He had taken the French King prisoner to Madrid, and by a treaty, concluded 14 January, 1526, agreed to release him only on condition that Francis surrender Bur- gundy and withdraw from Italy. Encouraged by the attitude of England, Francis, once he was free, repudiated the treaty of Madrid on the ground that its terms had been extorted from him by com- pulsion. Clement VII then formed with him and various of the Italian states a new Holy League, 22 May, 1526. Charles' response was to send, May, 1527, an Imperial army under Bourbon into Italy, which seized and sacked Rome and besieged the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo. These events were to exert a profound influence on the course of English history ; for Henry was just on the point of seeking papal aid in obtaining a divorce from Catharine of Aragon. Since she was aunt of Charles V, the timid and shifty Clement VII, even 302 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND had he wished, was in no position to grant the request of the English King while he was cooped up a prisoner by an Imperial army. The result was that Henry, after futile efforts to gain his point by negotia- tion, threw off the papal authority and made himself head of the English Church. Yet, while his motives were personal and political, he would have been unable to accomplish his purpose if he had not found himself in a peculiarly strong position, and if the nation had not been in a measure prepared for the change. He was strong in the weakness of barons and the Church, and in the support of the middle class who dominated the Commons, and whose material in- terests were dependent on royal favor. Moreover, many forces were working against the old ecclesiastical order. For one thing, a new intellectual spirit was making its way into the country, bound in the long run to shake the basis of an authoritative tradition. Also, there was much in the existing Church system open to attack: its vast possessions, its burdensome taxation, and the extensive jurisdiction which it exercised. While the mass of the common people were still under the authority of their priests, and had shown no open hostility to ancient beliefs and practices, the Lollard tradition had not wholly died out, and their social and industrial condition filled them with a real if vague discontent. So they were ready, as they had been for a century or two, to welcome any change that promised relief. The New Learning, or Renascence. Already in the reign of Henry VII the effects of that wonderful intellectual and spiritual movement known as the " Renascence " had penetrated into England. The word means literally " re-birth," anois applied to the revival of classical learning which began in Italy in the fourteenth century and reached its height in the sixteenth. All through the Middle Ages clerks had studied certain Latin authors 1 simply as a means of train- ing in language and methods of argumentation, not for any human or literary interest. The men of the Renascence began to study them for their own sake, and the Greek authors as well. The movement, although it had begun more than a century earlier, received a great impetus from the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, which resulted in driving Greek scholars westward, chiefly to Italy, bringing their manuscripts with them and spreading their learning. The revival of learning and literature brought with it a new spirit, a new attitude toward life. The medieval man, at least in ideal, was mainly concerned with things above and beyond this existence, with God and his Church, and the hereafter. The prevailing prin- ciple was received authority ; the individual was bound by or absorbed into one or more great systems, outside of which his thoughts and actions had no play. His theology and philosophy were fettered by the traditions of the Schoolmen. His religious life was comprehended in the universal Church under the headship of the Pope. If a monk, 1 And Aristotle in Latin translations. THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 303 he was bound by the rules of his order ; if he tilled the soil, he was enchained by the feudal system ; if an artisan, his industrial activity was cramped by the gild organization. The dominant art church building was a collective, not an individual art. With the Renas- cence came a revival of interest in this life, with all its joy and beauty, for itself alone. A new ideal, fitly called " humanism," arose. The humanists who followed it broke away from the medieval, received authority ; they shook themselves free from the once-accepted systems, they were impelled by a novel spirit of curiosity, by an irresistible impulse to assert their individualism. As time went on this humanism, this curiosity, this individualism manifested itself in all fields : in litera- ture, in art, in science, in religion. Its Manifestations and Achievements. Boccaccio, Chaucer, and those who followed told tales of real men and women. Painters and sculptors arose who drew and fashioned , beautiful human forms. Columbus, Cabot, and Vasco da Gama sojught new trade routes to enrich the world, and discovered and exploded unknown seas and un- known lands. Copernicus overthrew the qW~)Ptolemaic astronomy, accepted for more than twelve centuries, anornade it known that the earth was not the center of the universe, but only a member of a vast planetary system that revolved about the sun. Finally, the New Learning furnished Martin Luther with the means by which he could put the papal claims to the test of Scripture as well as of the practices of the primitive Church. In Italy, however, the attitude of the New Learning to the Church was contemptuous and indifferent rather than hostile. The Italian humanists were pagans, unreligious rather than irreligious. Moreover, their hands were stayed from attacking the existing system because most of them drew their living from ecclesias- tical revenues. More than one Pope of the fifteenth century was a disciple of the New Learning, and so was Leo X (1513-1517). the Pope with whom Luther first came in conflict. ~Everf the greatFlorentine reformer Savonarola struck, not at the Church organization, but at its abuses and the men whom he regarded as responsible for them. The only attack on the claims of the Church coming out of Italy dur- ing this period was that of Lorenzo Valla, directed against the " Forged Donation of Constantine " in 1440. Its Slow Penetration into England. In the northern lands the interest in the New Learning was primarily religious. This was par- ticularly the case in England, where, however, the new movement penetrated very slowly. England was far removed from the center of things ; it was torn by wars, and its interests were mainly in mate- rial progress. Chaucer had visited Italy, and the result was manifest in much of his later work. A few of the fifteenth century nobles were patrons of the New Learning, chief among them Humphrey of Glouces- ter, Henry's unstable and turbulent uncle, who made the first considerable contribution of books to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. John Tiptoft of Worcester, the " Butcher Earl," traveled and studied 3 o 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in Italy, and when he was executed, it was said that " the ax at one blow cut off more learning than was left in the heads of the surviving nobility." Earl Rivers, brother of Elizabeth Woodville, was another of the small band. Also, some lesser men went to Italy and an oc- casional Italian came to England. On the whole, however, the re- sults of the Italian Renascence in England were most scanty before the advent of the Tudors. The Oxford Reformers. The real influence began with the Oxford Reformers who took up the study of Greek mainly as a means of be- coming more closely acquainted with the origins of the Church and the sources of the Christian faith. Far back in the thirteenth century Grosseteste and Roger Bacon had known Greek ; but the knowledge had practically died with them. The first man in this period to re- vive it was William Selljng, of All Soul's, Oxford, who went to Italy and brought back Greek manuscripts. He later became a Benedic- tine monk and Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury. Greek lectures at Oxford were initiated by William Grocyn (1446-1519). He exer- cised a strong influence on the men of his time, though his only written remains consist of an epigram on a lady who once threw a snowball at him. Grocyn was soon joined by Thomas Linacre (1460-1524). Inspired by Selling, Linacre journeyed to Italy, studied philosophy at the famous Platonic Academy founded by the Medicis at Florence, and took the degree of doctor of medicine at Padua. After lecturing for a time at Oxford, he became a physician to Henry VIII. He translated Galen into English, and helped to found the College of Physicians in London. Tohn Cplet (1466-1519), the son of a rich London merchant, applied himself to study for the purpose of under- standing the Bible better. He devoted the whole force of his fervid personality to raising the standards of scholarship and life of his time, and was unsparing in his denunciation of the worldliness and greed of the Church and clergy. When he was later made dean of St. Paul's, he set an example of simplicity by wearing a plain black gown instead of the gorgeous robes of his predecessors. Erasmus (1465-1536). Erasmus, who visited England for the first time in 1498-1499, was unstinted in his praises of the Oxford group. This spare, alert little Dutchman became himself the best- known scholar of his time. Brought up a monk, he had rebelled against the narrow and petty life of his convent and became a wanderer. At Paris he accepted the invitation of a young English nobleman to visit Oxford, because in his poverty he despaired of ever getting to Italy to study Greek. While not strikingly original, or overprofound, or exact in his learning, Erasmus exercised a deep and widespread influence on the reformation of society, religions, moral and intellec- tual. He attacked the monks and he attacked the scholastic theolo- gians, whom he measured by the standards of the Bible and of rational thinking and learning. He Bought for the abolition of glaring abuses and superstitious observances, for the limitation of papal power by THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 305 general councils, and, above all, he worked for the wider diffusion of education. In 1511 he published his Praise of Folly, a famous satire . in which he scored the men and tendencies of the age by means of an oration delivered by Folly, dressed in her cap and bells, to her fellow fools. Later, he contemplated retirement " from a world which is everywhere rotten," where " ecclesiastical hypocrites rule in the court of princes," where " the Pope and Kings count the people not as men, but as cattle in the market." Yet Erasmus was no mere scolder. In his way he labored to help dispel the corruption and ignorance at which he railed. He wrote a stirring devotional manual, the Enchirid- ion Militis Christiani (the manual of a Christian soldier), and he prepared an edition of the New Testament in Greek with a Latin translation in parallel columns which was used as a source for later English and German renderings of the Gospel. Constantly struggling against ill health and poverty, vain, sensitive, and prone to flatter those from whom he might obtain preferment, he was a curious com- bination of boldness in speech and of timidity in action. And his attack was aimed rather at abuses in the administration of the Church than at the system. Nevertheless, he forged weapons for more un- compromising fighters : " He laid the egg of the Reformation and Luther hatched it." Thomas More (1478-1535). Doubtless the most charming of the Oxford set was Thomas More, whose intense piety was brightened by his warm affections, and his cheerful, merry wit. The pupil of Grocyn and Linacre and the friend of Colet and Erasmus, he once thought of studying for the priesthood, but finally chose the law and public life. He served the State on foreign embassies, in Parliament, and as Lord Chancellor. While he always courageously opposed absolutism, he was for many years a trusted and intimate associate of his sovereign. A reformer of lofty ideals, the growth of Protestantism and the radical measures accompanying the separation from Rome appalled him, he became a persecutor of heretics, and finally lost his life for opposing Henry's will. His Utopia, 1516. More's greatest work is his Utopia l which ap- peared in Latin in 1516 and was first published in an English trans- lation thirty-five years later. In the form of a satire it contrasts the conditions of the time with those on an imaginary island, an ideal commonwealth which, the author pretends, was described to him by a sailor whom he met at Antwerp. The evils of contemporary Eng- land are exposed with unsparing hand : the poverty of the laboring * classes, beasts of burden for the idle and luxurious rich ; the licentious- ness and greed of those in high places ; the burden of inclosures ; the cruelty of the criminal law ; and the readiness of princes to engage in war. In Utopia, on the contrary, all goods were in common, and every one was obliged to work. Meals were taken in common halls, 1 Meaning, literally, "no place." 3 o6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND though each house was separate, with its own garden and its own supply of fresh water. A public system of education was provided for all, male and female alike, and work was limited to six hours a day to leave time for the study of art, literature, and science. The welfare of the community was the aim to which every individual must give way. Crime was punished for prevention and reformation rather than for retribution. There were to be no wars except for self- defense, an ideal not yet realized. The Utopian sovereign was " re- movable on mere suspicion of a design to enslave his people." Here, More took a position which he maintained through life ; for he was always a loyal supporter of Parliament against royal despotism. In his religious views he was not so consistent. Religion in Utopia was founded on nature and reason ; the suffering of pain and dis- comfort for its own sake was denounced and was only extolled when it served the good of the whole. Toleration was provided for every form of belief and worship: there was a common public worship in which all participated ; but each family was allowed to have its own private form as well. This ideal combination of religious unity and liberty of conscience, however, proved impossible for a man of More's intense nature in the unsettled times which followed. English Patrons of the New Learning. Chief among the patrons of the New Learning in high places was Archbishop Warham of Canterbury. In spite of his absorption in affairs of Church and State his house was freely open to scholars and his purse to the needy among them. He was a special patron of Erasmus, and delightful bits of their correspondence survive. When his protege was pining on sour beer and unsavory fare at Cambridge, he sent him a purse containing fifty angels, 1 expressing, with proper episcopal wit, a wish that there might be thirty legions of them. Wolsey, so far as his absorbing administrative duties would permit, was interested in the new educational movement. Henry, too, showed his zeal for scholar- ship by assembling many of the Oxford set about him. Erasmus states that his court was an example to Christendom for learning and piety, and resembled a museum more than a court. He sought to promote instruction among the clergy and defended the Greek party at Oxford against their opponents of the old school known as the " Trojans." Nor did he negl'ect his own studies, employing his intervals of leisure in reading and scholastic disputation, which latter, according to Erasmus, he conducted " with remarkable courtesy and unruffled temper." Conservatism of the New Learning in its Early Stages. As yet, however, the New Learning was confined to the small circle at Oxford and at court. The attitude of the nobility was doubtless voiced by one of its number who declared : " By the body of God I would sooner have my son hanged than a bookworm. It is a gentleman's 1 An angel was a gold coin worth from 6 to tos. It got its name from the figure of the archangel Michael stamped upon it. THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 307 calling to be able to blow the horn to hunt and to hawk. He should leave learning to the clodhoppers." Moreover, the Oxford- E=. .formers were essentially religious in their interests., and, however sharply they might tilt against its abuses, they were all sincerely attached to the ancient Church, which they only desired to restore to its primitive purity. Nevertheless, they prepared the way for the great transformation soon to sweep over the country. Governor Berkeley of Virginia, in a report to the Home Government in 1670, took occasion to say : " Learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world and printing has divulged them. . . . God keep us from both." The studies which the Oxford Reformers fostered were bound to produce a critical spirit, to lead to a probing of the foundations on which the old established order rested. Henry, himself, was the soul of orthodoxy, and, until his purposes were crossed, a stanch supporter of the Papacy. He was very pious, hearing mass daily even when he hunted ; he was diligent in attending sermons, and was generous in almsgiving. One of his chief aims in entering the Holy League was to help the Pope, and, besides the title " De- fender of the Faith," he received other marks of papal favor, for ex- ample, the Golden Rose in 1510, and the sword and cap of maintenance in 1513. Yet signs are not wanting in his earlier years of the attitude he was one day to assume. In 1515, during a discussion concerning the respective limits of lay and clerical jurisdiction he declared: " Kings of England have never had any superior but God alone. Know well, therefore, that we will ever maintain the right of our Crown and of our temporal jurisdiction." But it was more than a decade after this before the crisis came. The Church at the Eve of the Reformation and the Lutheran Attack. The Church still possessed many elements of strength. In England it had 30,000 clergymen, 8000 parish churches, and about a fifth of the national wealth, and, in spite of their misery and dis- content, it still held the masses, partly by sentiment and devotion, partly by superstition and force. CBut among the middle classes religious feeling was steadily giving way to material interests ,^ the monasteries were on the decline, and the popes of the time wefe far from being true shepherds of their flocks. In 1517 Martin Luther struck the first mortal blow at the dominant system by posting his thesis at Wittenberg, in which he denied the papal power of remitting sin for money payments. He then proceeded to develop his revolu- tionary view of justification by faith, in which he maintained that the salvation of the individual depended upon his own attitude to God and not on works prescribed by the Church. In 1522 Luther contemplated his translation of the New Testament, and twelve years later the whole Bible was given to the German people in their native tongue. Luther's work was supplemented by that of Zwingli in Switzerland, acting at first independently, and then in opposition to the German reformer. Lutheran and Zwinglian tracts were 308 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND launched into England, though for a long time their effect was slight. At first the momentous results of Luther's attack on the Papacy were not foreseen. Before this time there had been quarrels between kings and popes and they had ended in compromise. Reformers like Wiclif and Hus had struck at the Church and had been suppressed. Reformers within the Church had risen, such as St. Francis and his followers, and, after doing a glorious work, had lapsed into supineness and even worse. General councils had failed to capture the papal stronghold ; grave abuses still existed and grew ; masses and pardons were sold ; saints and images were worshiped by the ignorant ; and the clergy, even if the stories of their immorality and vice were exaggerated by interested agents of temporal rulers and Protestant zealots, were unquestionably lax and worldly. It was just because these conditions persisted at the time of the great intellectual revival that Luther's and Henry's hands were strengthened. Conditions peculiar to each country contributed to the final result : in Germany the desire of the leading states to shake themselves free from the Emperor, in England the royal absolutism on which the prosperity of the most influential class depended. Neither Henry nor Luther would have prevailed but for a conjunction of causes which showed that the time was ripe for separation. The Origin of the Divorce. It was not till 1527 that the question of Henry's divorce, which precipitated the crisis in England, began to be openly discussed. In 1503, when Julius II issued the dispensation authorizing the Prince's marriage with the widow of his deceased brother Arthur, some doubt was expressed as to whether the Pope was not exceeding his powers. A little later Henry, at his father's instance, protested against a contract which was made for him while he was under age, but this was merely a political move to hold the door open for an alliance that might prove more advantageous. A few months after his accession, the young King married Catharine, and, though she was six years older than her husband, they lived happily together for many years. From 1510-1518 six or seven children were born to them ; but of these only one, the Princess Mary, survived. The death of a little son, together with the treachery of Ferdinand, may have temporarily inclined Henry to break with Catharine. If he ever thought of such a thing he soon gave it up, and took no step in that direction till about 1525. By that time there was little hope that Catharine would bear any more children. Moreover, that date marked his break with Charles, whose relation- ship to Henry's Queen had doubtless told in her favor, if Henry had cherished any previous thoughts of putting her away. Reasons for the Divorce. The triumph of the imperial arms in Italy in 1527 convinced France and England that they could not be too closely united. So, as a means of binding the alliance formed two years before, proposals were made to marry the Princess Mary to a member of the French royal house. According to Henry, queries THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 309 raised as to this daughter's legitimacy by the Bishop of Tarbes during these negotiations strengthened doubts which he himself had long entertained as to the validity of his marriage. Most likely it was the need for a male heir which really set the King's thoughts working in this direction. During the previous century England had been torn asunder by a bloody war of succession, and one pretext for ex- cluding the Yorkists had been the fact of their descent through the female line. Only once since the Conquest had a woman l claimed the crown, and the result had been nineteen years of anarchy. Later experience was to show that under the rule of a woman England would enjoy a security and achieve glories, equaling if not surpassing, those under ' her greatest kings. From the standpoint of the past, however, the prospect seemed hopeless. If a future queen remained unmarried, her death -without an heir would invite civil war, while the same result seemed likely to follow if she married a subject. On the other hand, marriage with a foreign prince would drag the country into all manner of European wars and might mean absorption into one or another of the great continental kingdoms. Another considera- tion seems to have weighed heavily with Henry when his thoughts came to center upon it. He began to ask himself why the male heir so necessary to his dynasty and the State was denied him. Why had all his children except a puny girl been taken away from him in their infancy? In all else he was so great, so glorious, and so fortunate: he was a leader in the councils of Europe ; the champion of the Pope ; the Defender of the Faith. Since this great boon alone was withheld, he persuaded himself, that it must be because God was pointing a warning against the sinfulness of his uncanonical marriage. Such was the state of affairs when he fell violently in love with Anne Boleyn, a dark-haired, bright-eyed girl who came to court in 1522, after having served for three years as maid of honor to the Queen of France. Just when he determined to marry her is uncertain. It is at least likely that it was after he determined to break with Catharine, and that his passion for Anne rather strengthened his determination than caused it. 2 The Opening of the Divorce Proceedings, 1527. At any rate, in May, 1527, Wolsey., after an understanding with the King, summoned him to appeaf~Eefore his legatine court to answer to a charge of living in pretended marriage with^his late brother's wife. It was soon evident that Catharine would be very strfFand~o5stinate, arid so the case was referred to the Pope for authority. It was feared that if the Queen appealed, Clement might reverse the decision, or if he referred it to a legate for further inquiry he would not choose Wolsey, once he had committed himself to an opinion. For these reasons, Wolsey 1 Matilda, daughter of Henry I. 2 There is no evidence for Henry's attachment to Anne before the divorce pro- ceedings opened in 1527. He had shown favors to the Boleyn family, but these can be explained by an earlier attachment to Anne's sister Mary. 3 io A HISTORY OF ENGLAND thought it better to act with the papal sanction from the beginning. He realized that his very existence depended upon his bringing the affair to a successful issue. Yet, while he strove with might and main to secure the divorce, his plan was that Henry should marry, not Anne, but Renee, the daughter of Louis XII. In August, 1527, while he was in France on diplomatic business, the King's " secret matter " leaked out. Thereupon, since the Pope was still a prisoner, Wolsey made an effort to convoke the College of Cardinals at Avignon, to be made temporary president, and thus to settle the case. The cardinals, however, refused to fall in with the plan. Henry's Application to the Pope, 1527. The Legatine Commission. Meantime in September, Henry, who had determined to marry Anne Boleyn, sent, without consulting Wolsey, an agent of his own, one Dr. Knight, to procure from the Pope a 'commission to nullify his marriage with Catharine and a dispensation to marry Anne. The wily Italian diplomats of the Curia hoodwinked Knight by granting a document that proved to be worthless. Henry turned again to Wolsey and, in February, 1528, they sent new agents to Rome. Since France had for the moment gained the upper hand in Italy, the Pope was induced to intrust Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio with legatine powers to try the case in England. Nevertheless, he still feared the Emperor, and had no inclination to declare invalid the act of a pred- ecessor. So he instructed Campeggio to try to divert the King from his purpose, and, failing in that, to urge the Queen to enter a nunnery. Only as a last resort was he to allow the trial to proceed. At the same time, Clement sent assurances to Charles V that nothing would be done to the detriment of Catharine, and that the whole case would finally be referred to Rome. The Trial of Queen Catharine, 1529. Campeggio, delayed by gout, probably " diplomatic gout," traveled so slowly that he only arrived in England in October, 1528. By that time the Emperor had re- covered his supremacy. Henry was so fixed in his determination that Campeggio reported that he did not believe that " an angel from heaven " would be able to move him. Catharine was equally inflexible. She told the legates that she was truly married, that she was resolved to live and die in the state of matrimony to which God had called her, and that, though she were torn limb from limb, she would never alter her opinion. After a winter of negotiations and wrangling, during the course of which Henry threatened to join the Lutheran sect, Campeggio had to consent to a trial. The court was opened at Blackfriars, 31 May, 1529, though the King and Queen were not cited to appear till 18 June. Whatever the royal motives or State necessities may have been, Catharine's situation was pitiful, and she showed the courage of a noble and injured woman. She protested against the competence of the court. When it met to consider her protest she kneeled at her husband's feet, pleading to him as a poor woman and a stranger without friends or good counsel. " She took THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 311 God to witness that for twenty years she had been a true, humble, and obedient wife," whose marriage had been arranged by two " wise and excellent kings," and thought lawful by learned men. She begged him to consider her honor, his daughter's, and his own. Though Henry raised her up and seemed much touched by her appeal, the legates denied her protest, and the case went on without her. On 23 July, after a series of fruitless sessions, Campeggio, using as a pretext the custom of the Roman Curia which did not sit during the hot Italian summer, adjourned the hearings till i October. By that time Clement VII had called the case to Rome, and all hope of securing his sanction was passed. The Fall of Wolsey, 1529. Henry now saw that the only way to gain his end was to settle the matter in his own courts. Moreover, he had for some time determined to take over all power into his own hands. So Wolsey whose splendor eclipsed his own, who had ruled as more than king, who had advised the futile appeal to the Pope was sacrificed to the royal wrath and to the new royal policy. He fell from his high place amidst the rejoicings of all classes. The courtiers were jealous of the man whom the King had delighted to honor, and resented the power he held, as well as the way he exercised it. The monks were embittered by his attacks on their establish- ments, while the secular clergy and the laity grudged the taxes which his public policy involved. The trading classes were soured by his recent French alliance, which threatened their trade in the Nether- lands. The Londoners expressed the hope that he would be sent to the Tower, and the clothiers of Kent even proposed to set him adrift in an open boat with holes bored in it. His Death, 1530. Early in October, 1529, the Cardinal was charged with praemunire, under the old statutes of 1353 and 1393, on the ground that he had exercised legatine powers contrary to law, quite regardless of the fact that he had done this not only with the King's knowledge and consent but in an attempt to further the royal interests. The Great Seal was taken from him and given to Sir Thomas More, and Wolsey himself was ordered to retire to Esher, a manor belonging to the see of Winchester, one of the various bishoprics which had been awarded to him during his ascendancy. His submission was absolute. He had already given over Hampton Court Palace, and now he executed a deed acknowledging himself guilty of praemunire, and requesting the King to take over all his temporal possessions. When Henry on his departure to Esher sent him a gracious message and a gold jeweled ring, he jumped from his mule, like a young man " kneeled down in the dirt upon his knees, holding up his hands for joy," and tore the laces off his cap to bare his head. Offices, lands, practically everything that had once been his, were taken from him ; a bill of attainder was even introduced into Parliament which met in November, 1529, but after passing through the Lords was defeated in the Commons. Subsequently 3 i2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the archbishopric of York, together with a small sum of money, was restored to him and he was ordered to his diocese to get him out of the way. There his hospitality, his devoutness, and his faithful discharge of his pastoral duties won him many friends. But early in November, 1530, doubtless because of his growing popularity, the Cardinal was arrested on a charge of treasonable correspondence with the French ambassador, though he had merely sought the latter's aid in trying to get Francis I to intercede for him with Henry. On his way to London, Wolsey, much broken in health since his disgrace, was taken with his final illness, and had to stop at Leicester Abbey. " I am come to leave my bones among you," he said to the abbot, and there he died on St. Andrew's Eve, 29 November. With a small army and navy, solely by his diplomatic skill and a not overlarge expenditure of money, he had gained for England a leading place in the councils of Europe. It may be questioned whether the country was the gainer ; for it took resources and energy which might better have been devoted to pressing problems at home the pacification of Ireland, the reduction of Scotland, the care of the poor, the reform of the Church, and the diffusion of education. Moreover, the Emperor made use of the English hostility to France to establish his own supremacy on the Continent. Yet, some time before that happened, Wolsey had seen the wisdom of shifting over to the side of France, and was prevented by Henry, who in the mean- time had come to assert himself, from breaking off the Imperial alliance until it was too late. Then came the failure to secure the papal sanction to the divorce. Still, in whatever Wolsey accomplished and in whatever he failed to accomplish there is no question of his devotion to Henry's interests. His last words are the best com- mentary on his life work : " If I had served my God," he said as he lay dying, " as diligently as I have done the King, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs." FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Fisher, Political History, chs. VI-XI. Innes, England under the Tiidors, efts. t^-VII. Cambridge Modern History, II, ch. XIII. (pp. 789-794 for a list of authorities). John Lingard, History of England, (ist ed., 1819-1830, reprint of 1902, 10 vols.), IV, chs. VI-VIII; the authority on the Reformation from the moderate Roman Catholic point of view. J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII (2 vols., 1884) ; reprinted from his introductions to the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Creighton, Cardinal Wolsey (1888) is a good brief account of this part of the reign, but overfavorable to Wolsey. G. Cavendish, Life (written in 1557, first published in 1815, and available in many editions) is a beautiful tribute by a faithful follower. E. L. Taunton, Thomas Wolsey, Legate and Reformer (1902) is an estimate mainly of Wolsey's ecclesiastical work from the Roman Catholic standpoint. A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII (1905), chs. I- VII; the most recent and scholarly biography, rather favorable to Henry. THE FIRST YEARS OF HENRY VIII 313, THE STAFFORDS Edmund = Anne, daughter of Thomas, Duke of fifth Earl of Stafford Gloucester, fifth son of Edward III Humphrey, created Duke of Buckingham, killed at Northampton, 1460 I Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, killed at St. Albans, 1455 I Henry, Duke of Buckingham, beheaded, 1483 Edward, Duke of Buckingham, beheaded, 1521 CHAPTER XX HENRY VIII AND THE SEPARATION FROM ROME (1529-1547) Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556). Although Henry appointed More Chancellor and called the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to office, he now made use of two new men as his chief councilors. One was Thomas Cranmer, a young Cambridge divine who gained the royal ear by an opinion, expressed in the summer of 1529, that the question of the validity of the marriage be submitted to the learned men of the universities of Europe, and that, if they decided against it, the case might be settled in the King's own courts. Cranmer was taken into the royal service and rose to be Archbishop of Canterbury. To him we owe the lofty and beautiful language of the Book of Common Prayer, and he had a large share in shaping the articles of faith for the Church of England. He was a gentle, holy, and scholarly man, but he was too timid and cautious to fill the duties of his high office with vigor and independence, especially under a master so self-willed as Henry VIII. Thomas Cromwell (1485?-! 540). The other was Thomas Crom- well, who for ten years acted as Henry's right-hand man, and sug- gested most of the fertile expedients for increasing the royal power and swelling the royal revenue. The son, it is said, of a Putney blacksmith, Cromwell was born about 1485, and as a youth was forced to leave England under a cloud. After spending his early years as a soldier and trader in Italy and Flanders, he returned to his native land, where he set up as a scrivener 1 and merchant. Wolsey, recogniz- ing his ability, made him his secretary and chief agent in suppressing the smaller monasteries. He amply repaid the Cardinal's trust by his effective efforts in securing the defeat of the bill of attainder in 1529. This devotion to his fallen master really advanced his own interests, for Henry shrewdly concluded that such faithfulness would be invaluable in the royal service. Really, Cromwell had been fighting to save himself; he had been the Cardinal's main instru- ment in the matters charged against him, and so stood a chance of sharing in his master's punishment. (^Cromwell advised the King to / settle the divorce in his own courts by another means than that advocated by Cranmer ; namely, by discarding the authority of the Pope and declaring himself supreme head of the Church of England^) Adopting the views of Machiavelli's Prince, the new councilor 1 A combination of lawyer and money lender. 3H THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 315 argued that it should be the aim of the State to execute the will of the ruler. Henry ultimately went to the lengths which he advised. Cromwell rose steadily : he was made a member of the Council, royal secretary, and, at length, Vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs. He possessed all the qualities requisite for the work intrusted to him. He was affable and witty, he had a wide knowledge of men and affairs, extraordinary business skill, and was thoroughly unscrupulous. While he took the extreme Protestant side, apparently he had no real religious feeling, for he left money in his will for masses for his soul and died professing himself a true Catholic. Indispensable as he was to the King, he maintained his position only by extreme servility and patience under insult. " The King," it is recorded in one period of his career, " beknaveth him twice a week and sometimes knocketh him about the pate," yet he would " come out into the great chamber . . . with as merry a countenance as though he might rule all the roost." Only great rewards and unusual buoyancy could withstand such abuse. The Reformation Parliament, 1529-1536. By way of reply to the papal revocation of the divorce suit to Rome, Henry, 9 August, 1529, summoned a Parliament to meet, 3 November. Clement VII, by citing the King of England to appear in Italy which was under Imperial domination, played into the hands of his opponent, since he thereby aroused English national sentiment. By calling Parlia- ment Henry " opened the floodgates of antipapal and antisacerdotal sentiment which Wolsey had kept shut." Combining force and management, he carried through a series of measures which, beginning with a design of forcing the Pope's hand, culminated in annihilating his authority in England. The manipulation consisted in bringing to expression sentiments against clerical privileges and exactions which hitherto had not been widely or openly voiced. The work of the " Reformation Parliament," extending over seven years, is, with one possible exception, the most notable in English history. Besides putting Henry in place of the Pope as head of the English Church, it increased vastly the royal jpowers. It decreed the dis- solution of the monasteries, which not only greatly augmenteoTtEe" royal revenue, but reduced the spiritual party in the House of Lords and bound a large class to the Reformation. It deprived the clergy of independent powers of legislation in Convocation, and broke the power of the bishops by making them practically nominees of the Crown. Nor was Parliament as subservient as it seems at first sight. It indorsed the royal will in legislation against the Church and clergy because it suited the interest and inclination of the majority. Qln more than one case, however, especially those touching the pocket of the subject, it stood out against the royal dictation. ) Contrary to the policy of Wolsey, Henry and Cromwell made use of Parliament constantly to give their measures an appearance of national sanction. Thus, while Parliament appeared to be a mere register of the royal 316 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND will, it was gainins^invaluable experience and accumulating^ prece- dents for an increasing share in public business. " The result was seen under sovereigns less strong and less popular than Henry VIII. In other ways, too, the work of the Reformation Parliament was far- reaching in its effects. By handing over the monastic lands to the lesser gentry and merchants it fostered a class who, while bound to the Tudors by ties of gratitude, would grow to be the destroyers of the absolutism of their successors. Furthermore, Henry and his Parliament, by breaking the spell of the ancient traditional Church, started forces of opposition, which, not content with mere separation from Rome, came in the course of a century to assert successfully the principle that the Reformation should be moral and religious as well as political, and that extremer forms of Protestantism than those provided for in the Church established by law should receive recognition. Parliament storms the Outworks, 1529. In the very first session, probably at the instigation of Henry and Cromwell, a number of grievances against the clergy were introduced: against excessive mortuaries l ; against extreme charges for the probate of wills 2 ; against the custom of employing priests as surveyors and stewards to bishops and abbots ; against monasteries that kept tanneries, that bought and sold woolen cloth and other merchandise ; against clerical non-residence and pluralities. Although the bishops " frowned and grunted," and one protested that Parliament sought the " goods and not the good of the Church," bills were passed mitigating these abuses. This was the result of an understanding between the King and the laity that he would help them against the clergy, if they would help him against the Pope. The outworks of the clerical position had been successfully stormed. The Divorce referred to the Universities, 1530. (Following Cran- mer's suggestion, the " King's matter " was referred to the uni- versities 7\ The opinions returned had little to do with the merits of the case. It required manipulation to secure a scant majority at Oxford and Cambridge. Five of the French universities, under the influence of Francis, also declared for Henry, while in Italy decisions were largely determined by the bribery and influence which the respective parties of King and Emperor "were able to exert. Spain was, of course, for Catharine, and the King gained no ground in Ger- many. Henry's Persecution of Heretics. Henry still posed as the orthodox Defender of the Faith. Only occasionally, as a means of putting pressure on the Pope or Emperor, did he make any advances to the Lutherans and other opponents of the old doctrines. From 1528 to 1532 more than sixty heretics were compelled to abjure, and during a period slightly longer, nine were burned and three hanged 1 Fees claimed by the priest on the death of a parishioner. 2 The registering and testing of the authenticity of wills. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 317 in chains. Some were proceeded against for circulating a recent ver- sion of the New Testament in English. In 1533 John Frith, a learned scholar, suffered at the stake for declaring that belief in purgatory and transubstantiation were not necessary to the Christian faith. The Restrictions of the Powers of ^pnvpcation^. 1531, and the " Submission of the Clergy," 1532. Meantime, Henry, who in 1529 had given the clergy a foretaste of what they might expect, proceeded to a more direct attack. At the meeting of Convocation, -/ in 1531, he threatened the whole body with the penalties of praemunire for having submitted to Wolsey's legatine jurisdiction. As the price for pardon from forfeiture and imprisonment they were obliged to grant him 118,000, and to acknowledge him as their Supreme Head " so far as the law of Christ allows." Even with this qualifying clause, the proposal was received gloomily. " Whoever is silent," said the Archbishop Warham, " seems to consent." " Then we are all silent," was the reply, and the measure was carried. It was necessary to make as much capital as possible out of the hostility to the clergy; for the attack on Catharine was unpopular, because she was personally loved and because her divorce might involve war with Charles. This would mean war taxes and, possibly, the closing of Flemish markets to English trade. Nevertheless, the King went ahead undaunted, counting much on the Emperor's fear of Francis and of his Lutheran subjects as well as on the fact that the Flemings were as dependent on England as England was on them. In the session of 1532 a petition was introduced into Parliament complain- ing of other clerical abuses : their powers of legislation ; the excessive fees and the wide jurisdiction of their courts ; and their unjust ad- ministration. Again Convocation had to yield, and, by the " sub- mission of the clergy," they agreed to make no new laws without royal consent, and to submit the existing ecclesiastical laws to a com- mittee of clergy and laity for revision. This was too much for Sir Thomas More, who resigned the chancellorship the next day. Act of Annates, 1532. Henry's Marriage to Anne, 1533. Also in the session of 1532 Parliament passed an act providing that annates or first fruits l should no longer be paid to the Pope. For the time being Henry refrained from enforcing the Act, 2 preferring to hold it as a weapon over the Pope's head. On 25 January, 1533, he was secretly married to Anne Boleyn, and, in February, he made Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury in succession to Warham, who had died the previous August. Henry's aim was to employ the new Primate to declare against the validity of his first marriage and for the legal- ity of his second. Papal recognition of the appointment, however, was necessary in order for the decision to carry weight. By threat- ening to withhold annates, Henry secured the requisite bulls. This done, he strengthened his hand by two more important enactments. 1 The first year's revenues of a church living. z He ratified it 9 July, 1533. 318 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Act of Appeals. Divorce of Catharine, 1533. By the Act of Appeals, Parliament provided that all spiritual cases should be finally determined within the King's jurisdiction and not elsewhere, and Convocation was forced to declare that Henry's marriage with Catharine was against divine law. Thus fortified, Cranmer, in a court held in Dunstable, at which Catharine refused to appear, pronounced the final sentence which deprived her of her position as Queen, 23 April, 1533. CHer rival Anne was crowned i June^> In September a child was born, but to the infinite disappointment of the King it proved to be a girl. Yet the little Elizabeth, despised by her father and pronounced illegitimate by the whole Catholic world, grew up to rule England during one of the most glorious epochs in her history. The Pope's reply to the marriage and coronation of Anne was to draw up a bull of excommunication against the royal couple, 1 and at Easter of the following year to issue a formal decision that Catharine was Henry's lawful wife and that he should take her back. But, some time before, Henry had declared that if the Pope launched ten thousand excommunications he would not care a straw for them. The Memorable Sessions of 1534. In the year 1534 Parliament held two memorable sessions and passed a series of acts by which the authority of the Pope in England was completely abolished and that of the King set up in its place, (i) The Act of AnnajLes,was confirmed and extended. By the new Act, among other things, the election of bishops and abbots was virtually vested in the Crown. The deans and chapters of cathedrals and the monks of monasteries still went through the form ; but as they prayed for guidance, it came to them in a royal letter naming the candidate. (2) Another act forbade the payment of Peters Pence and all other pensions and fees to Rome. The right ofHie~Pope to issue licenses and dispensations was trans- ferred to the Archbishop of Canterbury ; no clerk was to pay any more money, nor take any oath to the Bishop of Rome ; and no abbey or monastery was to be visited by his authority or his agents. (3) A third act confirmed the Submission of the Clergy of 1532, and re- affirmed the Act of Appeals by providing that appeals in ecclesiastical causes should go from the Church courts to the King in Chancery. 2 (4) Finally, an Act of Succession settled the succession to the throne on the heirs of Henry by Anne Boleyn. It was declared high treason to slander their marriage, " by writing, print, deed, or act," and an oath was imposed on all subjects to observe the whole contents of the Statute upon pain of misprision of treason. 3 Parliament ad- journed 30 March. 1 The excommunication was drawn up n July, 1533; it was eventually dated August, 1535, and published in December, 1538. A bull of deposition drawn up in 1535 w a s never published. 2 A court known as the High Court of Delegates came to be summoned from time to time to deal with special cases of appeal. It was superseded in 1833 by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 3 Complicity involving penalties less severe than those visited on the main of- fenders. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 319 Executions under the Act of Succession, 1534. " The Nun of Kent." - During the summer, commissioners went about administer- ing the oath of succession, and many who withstood the royal will paid dearly, even with their lives. Some, however, were put to death on other grounds. The first to suffer was Elizabeth Barton, " the Nun^of Kent " ; she was a poor servant girl, who, in 1525, after a serious illness, had come suddenly into fame by falling into trances, when she saw visions and foretold the future. Crowds flocked to her to learn their fate in this life and the life to come. If in her hysterical mania she deceived herself and others, she meant to do good, seeking to turn those who came to her from worldly to heavenly things. In an evil moment she was drawn into the King's affair, and led to declare against his treatment of Catharine, and to prophesy his speedy death. She w r as lodged in the Tower, a confession of fraud was ex- torted from her, a bill of attainder was drawn up, and 20 April, 1534, she and five companions were put to death at Tyburn. Imprisonment of More and Fisher. Among those included in the attainder were More and Fisher, the saintly Bishop of Rochester. More had had some conversation with the " Nun," though in the end he had pronounced her a " false, deceiving hypocrite," yet, while he was prepared to accept loyally any constitutional arrangements which Henry chose to make as a temporal ruler, he could not bring himself to believe that the treatment of Catharine was right, or that as a Catholic, he could give his sanction to the renunciation of papal authority. Henry was determined not to allow a subject of More's position to hold such views, because of the encouragement it might offer to others. It would, so he argued, gravely menace the system he was constructing so laboriously, and might lead even to civil war and foreign invasion. Hence, he made up his mind to cram his policy down the ex-Chancellor's throat or to destroy him. For the moment, however, after More had been allowed to speak privately in his own defense, his name was withdrawn from the bill. Fisher, who had accepted the Nun's revelations, though he heard nothing that was concealed from the King, was convicted of misprision of treason and sentenced to a fine of 300. The next step was to make More and Fisher take the oath of succession. Although they were willing to accept the line of succession as regulated in the act, they refused the oath because it repudiated the primacy of the Pope and involved an acknowledgment that the marriage of Henry and Catharine had been unlawful from the first and that the Princess Mary was illegitimate. For their refusal both were sent to the Tower. Proceedings against the Friars and the Carthusian Monks. The royal commissioners for imposing the oath also busied themselves silencing preachers, both papal and Lutheran. Partly from terror and partly because the bulk of the laity were on the royal side, the King's orders were generally obeyed by the secular and some of the regular clergy. The only unanimous resistance came from the friars, and 320 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND 17 June, two cartloads were driven to the Tower. The Observants l at Richmond and Greenwich refused flatly to take the oath, which offered an excuse for suppressing the Order throughout England. Their houses were seized, and such of their members as had not already been imprisoned were distributed among various monasteries, loaded in chains, and subjected to other harsh treatment. The Bridgettine Monks of Sion and the Carthusians in London, whose foundation was more familiarly known as the " Charterhouse " were equally obstinate. The latter were a little community of devoted men who, in the heart of the City, lived in quiet contemplation, and were famed for their sanctity and self-denial. While they had not openly opposed the divorce, it was only after considerable persuasion and pressure that they were induced to take the oath. This gained them only a short respite. Their prior, John Houghton, a man of noble birth, of refined taste, and rare personal charm, foresaw what was in store for them. " Our hour " he told his little band, " is not yet come." Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England, 1534-1535. On 3 November, the Parliament of 1534 reassembled to resume its work of completing the separation from Rome, and of transferring the control of ecclesiastical affairs from the Pope to the King. First, an act was passed declaring Henry " Supreme Head of the Church of England," this time without the qualification made by Convocation in 1531. A new Treason Act imposed the death penalty on any one who called the King a "heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper " ; the Act of Succession was reenforced by defining precisely the terms of the accompanying oath ; and an Act of Attainder was drawn up against More and Fisher for refusing to take the oath, which had not hitherto been framed in statutory form. On 15 January, 1535, the new title of Supreme Head was incorporated into the royal title by letter patent. Henry was now absolute ruler over Church as well as State in his own land. He said that three things especially satisfied him in what had been accomplished ; the increase of his revenue, the union of his kingdom, andjpeace_of conscience in having thrown off subjection lo~Rome. But alF that he had done and acquired only whetted his appetite for more. The Executions of Houghton, Reynolds, More, and Fisher, 1535. Houghton, together with two other Carthusian priors, and Dr. Rey- nolds of the monastery of Sion, who refused a new oath tendered them under the Acts of Supremacy and Succession, were executed 4 May, 1535, with barbarous cruelty. Reynolds was bold enough to declare at his trial that " all good men in the kingdom were on his side, while many who professed the King's side did so merely from fear or hope." Their unflinching courage, and the French King's refusal to repudiate the Pope, sealed the fate of More and Fisher. More, confronted with the Act of Supremacy, declined to accept or deny it ; 1 They were the Franciscans of the stricter branch. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 321 for, he declared, it was like a two-edged sword, "if he said it were good, he would imperil his soul, if he said contrary to the Statute, it was death to the body." Yet he professed himself a faithful subject : " I say no harm, I think no harm ; but I wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive ... I long not to live." Although Fisher was old and broken in health, the case against him was clearer. He had fought Catharine's cause valiantly in the legatine court ; he would not accept the Act of Supreme Head ; and, to crown all, the new Pope, Paul III, created him a cardinal. When the news reached Henry he cried in a burst of wrath : " Let the Pope send him a hat when he will ; but I will provide that ... he shall wear it on his shoulders ; for head he shall have none." Fisher was beheaded, 22 June, at Tower Hill. Removing his haircloth shirt and donning his best apparel as if for a wedding ceremony, he ascended the scaffold joyfully : "he spoke to the people boldly, telling them to be loving and obedient to the King, who was good by nature, but had been deceived in this matter," and said he died contentedly for the honor of God and the Holy See. More followed him to the grave 6 July. At his last examination he denounced the Act of Supreme Head as contrary to the laws of God and the Holy Church, a violation of Magna Carta and the coronation oath. When he was reproached by the Chancellor for setting up his opinion against that of all the nobles and bishops of the realm, he flashed back : " for one bishop of your opinion I have a hundred saints for mine, and for one Parliament of yours, and God knows what kind, I have all the general councils for a thousand years." As he reached the steps of the scaffold he said to the lieutenant, " I pray thee see me safely up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." With his dying words he prayed God to send the King good counsel. The Death of Catharine, 8 January, 1536. More and Fisher died martyrs to their faith, which was grounded on the tradition of ages and the universal beliefs of Christendom. In Henry's opinion they merited death because they defied his authority, thereby threaten- ing the stability of the system he had set up and the unity of his kingdom. The executions sent a shock through Catholic Europe and put an end to the last hope of a settlement with the Pope. On Crom- well's advice Henry sought an alliance with the Lutheran princes ranged against the Emperor. It came to nothing, for they would only agree on condition that he accept the Augsburg Confession, 1 whereas Henry, " being a king reckoned somewhat learned," accord- ing to his own description of himself, insisted upon settling the faith of England in his own way. Notwithstanding, the articles of faith, soon to be issued by royal command, show distinct traces of Lutheran influence. Ever since her unmerited disgrace Catharine had been living in retirement under the title of " Princess Dowager of Wales." 1 The Lutheran Confession of Faith presented to the Emperor at the Diet of Augsburg, 1539. Y 322 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Death finally released the poor Queen from her unhappiness, 8 January, 1536. It is now believed that she died from cancer of the heart, but the event was so welcome to Henry that many have suspected that she was poisoned. " God be praised ! " cried the King when he heard the news, and the next day he appeared at a ball with a white feather in his hat, and clad from head to foot in festive yellow. The Condition of the Monasteries on the Eve of their Dissolution, (f Having made himself supreme head of Church as well as State, Henry's next step was to secure lesources to maintain his absolutism,^ and by a judicious distribution of bribes to guard against a return to the old order. A way was discovered in the dissplutionjof_the mofl- asteries, which offered the further attraction of crushing^ class which contained the most determined opponents of the royal policy. These were the real reasons for the step, suggested, no doubt, by the resource- ful Cromwell, who boasted that he would make his King the richest prince in Christendom. On .21 January, 1535, he received a com- mission as; Vicar-General and Vicegerent to hold a general visitation of all the churches and monastic and collegiate bodies in the realm. The King and his supporters represented to Parliament that they were proceeding against the monasteries because of .the "slothful and ungodly lives " led by the inmates. This, however, was largely a pretext, and the charges brought forward to support it were doubt- less greatly exaggerated ; moreover, the manner in which the work was carried out cannot be justified. On the other hand, the condition of the monasteries was such as to lend at least a color of justice to the movement against them. Formerly they had been the pioneers in husbandry, felling the forests, draining the marshes, and cultivating the waste places, or, in the case of the Cistercians, in sheep raising. They had served as inns for travelers, as depositories for articles of value ; they had cared for the poor, and had fostered learning and education. But they no longer filled the place which they had in the past. Their agricultural methods were antiquated, and they no longer drew from the capital in their possession the returns which > might be expected from efficient management. Their method of promiscuous giving tended to nourish poverty rather than to check it, while their scholastic and educational methods were quite out of date. As their influence declined, the merchant and agricultural classes began more and more to hunger after their vast wealth. All through the fifteenth century their numbers had fallen off steadily. From 1399 to 1509 only eight houses of religion and seventy houses of learning and charity l had been founded. Of twelve hundred monasteries established since the introduction of Roman Catholicism into England hardly more than half had survived into the reign of Henry VIII. Further, religious orders had been subject to inter- mittent attacks on the part of the temporal power from a period as 1 I.e., colleges, schools, and hospitals. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 323 early as the reign of Edward II, when twenty-three preceptories of the Knights Templars were destroyed. The pious Henry V, as a blow against France, suppressed the alien priories. In 1506, when Bishop Foxe of Winchester was thinking of making monastic endowments, a brother bishop declared that " the monks have already more than they are like to keep," and Wolsey's dissolution of some of the smaller monasteries followed not many years after. The extent of the monastic wealth was doubtless exaggerated. According to some accounts the monks owned at least a quarter of the realm, but more sober and reliable estimates put it at about one tenth. 1 Cromwell's Monastic Visitors, 1535-1536. In July, 1535, visitors appointed by Cromwell began their rounds. Armed with articles of inquiry, they hurried from house to house, asking all sorts of ques- tions about revenues and debts, about relics, pilgrimages, supersti- tions, and immoralities. They were an ambitious, greedy, and un- scrupulous set, chiefly concerned with securing the sort of information that would suit their purpose. The letters and reports or " comperts " which they sent to the Vicegerent seem to have been based upon the scantiest as well as the most partial investigation ; for they feared to lose any time lest the monks might seize the opportunity to dispose of their plate and jewels. By no means all the houses were visited ; but enough to frame a case for Parliament. Besides the articles of inquiry the visitors carried with them a series of injunctions which they were authorized to impose upon the monasteries which they visited. Some were obviously designed to destroy the communities against which they should be enforced. Monks were not only to accept, but to teach royal supremacy and repudiation of papal claims ; they were forbidden to leave their grounds and buildings, which made the management of their distant estates impossible ; and they were ordered to spy on and report their disobedient superiors, thus subverting all discipline. Some of the injunctions, however, provided for salutary reforms. (Victuals were not to be distributed to sturdy and idle beggars ;) tables were to be " not over sumptuous, and full of delicate and strange dishes, but honestly furnished with common meats" ; reading and study of the Scriptures was enjoined ; and each house was to maintain a monk or two at the universities to better prepare him to teach and preach the word of God. The Act Suppressing the Smaller Monasteries, 1536. When Parliament met, 4 February, 1536, popular feeling in the City was inflamed by means of sermons, caricatures, and pamphlets. Cran- mer declared at Paul's Cross that the destruction of the monasteries would relieve the people of a great burden of taxation. It is stated that " when the enormities were first read in Parliament House they were so great and abominable that there was nothing but ' down with them,' " and an act was carried suppressing all monastic houses 1 The total ecclesiastical revenue has been computed at 320,000; of this about 150,000 was monastic. 324 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND with an income under 200 a year or with less than twelve inmates. 1 Commissions composed of local gentry, appointed to wind up the affairs of the houses denounced by Cromwell's agents, testified to the fair character of many. Nevertheless, aside from biased reports of the visitors and the charges in contemporary satires and ballads, the correspondence of men high in the Church testifies that there was much need of reform. It might have been well, too, for economic reasons, to suppress or consolidate the smaller and poorer houses, but it seems very strange to have drawn the line between virtue and vice at 200 a year or at groups of twelve. There is a story that Henry resorted to great pressure to carry the measure, that he sum- moned the Commons before him and announced that he would have the passage of the bill or some of their heads. In the Upper House one speaker referring to the smaller houses said : " These were the thorns, but the great abbots were the petrified old oaks and they must follow." This prophecy was soon realized. In accordance with the Act some 376 monasteries were dissolved. A portion of their inmates went into larger houses, others were provided with pensions. By paying large sums of money a few houses were allowed to continue for a time. As near as can be estimated, about 2000 monks and nuns were dispossessed, and of servants, farm laborers, and others dependent upon them, perhaps four times as many more were affected. Aside from lands and buildings, money, plate, and jewels, as well as the proceeds of the sale of lead, bells, cattle, and furniture, passed into the King's hands. For dealing with all this property a special court known as the Court of Augmenta- tions was created. The smaller monasteries having been disposed of, Oxford and Cambridge were next visited, measures were framed against the old learning, and others were adopted to encourage the study of Greek and Hebrew. The Execution of Anne Boleyn, 1536. On 14 April, 1536, the Reformation Parliament, after nearly seven years of epoch-making legislation, was dissolved. Within a month, that " principal nurse of all heresies," the woman about which so many of its measures centered, had been put to death. Even before the decease of her unhappy rival, Anne had begun to lose the King's affection. She was light and frivolous, to be sure ; but her worst offenses were her unpopularity and her failure to give birth to a male heir. Early in May, charges were brought against her so monstrous that Cranmer expressed himself as " clean amazed " at them. After condemnation by a body of peers summoned by the King her marriage was dissolved by an ecclesi- 1 Besides the comperts, later writers speak of a famous ."Black Book," contain- ing the results of the visitors' findings, which was laid before Parliament. Accord- ing to the Protestant writers of Elizabeth's reign it was destroyed during the Catho- lic reaction under Queen Mary, while historians of the opposite party have insisted that it was disposed of earlier, because it contained charges that could not be sub- stantiated. There is no good evidence that such a book ever existed. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 325 astical court presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury. On the igth, Anne was beheaded. Submissive to the law, accusing no one, she met her death cheerfully and courageously. Yet, in spite of her melancholy end, she had been so arrogant during her ascendancy that few regretted her fate. On that very 19 May, Cranmer issued a dispensation permitting the King to marry Jane Seymour. The wedding took place on the 3oth. A week later a new Parliament packed in the King's interest met. Anne's daughter was declared illegitimate, and the succession settled upon Henry's issue by his new marriage. Need for a Doctrinal Settlement. As yet the King had been too much occupied with other business to undertake any doctrinal settle- ment. Religious belief was in a state of ferment. An extreme Prot- estant wing was forming, favored by leaders like Cranmer and Bishop Latimer of Worcester, the greatest preacher of his day. Extremists were giving vent to the most extravagant views. One said that goods should be in common, another that priests and churches were unnecessary, another that the singing the service was but " roaring, howling, whining, juggling," while still another declared that it was of no more use to pray to the saints than to hurl a stone against the wind. These streams, unless they were dammed at once, threatened to swell into an irresistible torrent of anarchy. On the other hand, the Catholics were raising their heads once more. In June, 1536, a book against the King, entitled Liber de Unitate Ecclesia, arrived in England. It was written by Reginald Pole, a grandson of the Yorkist Duke of Clarence. Once a favorite of Henry's and educated at the royal expense, he had broken with him and had taken refuge in Italy, where he was busy striving to unite the Catholic powers against his former sovereign. The Ten Articles " for Establishing Christian Quietness," 1536. Convocation, which met 9 June, 1536, contained two well-defined parties, a conservative and a reactionary. With a view to establish- ing order, Henry caused a body of articles to be introduced, adopted, and imposed on the whole country. Five dealt with matters of faith, which, it was stated, were ordained of God, and hence necessary to salvation; five dealt with matters instituted by the Church, which were to be observed, though not essential to salvation. In the first group were all the things contained in the Bible and the Three Creeds 1 ; together with three of the seven sacraments : baptism, penance, and the Holy Eucharist. 2 Confession and the Real Presence were defined as essential elements of the two latter, respectively. Luther's doctrine 1 The three fundamental creeds of the Christian Church were the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian. 2 A sacrament was defined as ah outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The seven which the Roman Catholic Church had adopted were :^ baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, ordination, marriage, and extreme' unction. 326 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of justification by faith was also included in this first group. Passing to the second group, images, though they were not to be worshiped, were declared allowable, as " lively aids to faith." Honor and prayers to saints were permitted, though they were not to receive the honor due to God. Rites and ceremonies, such as the use of holy water, vestments, and candles, were continued. Prayers for departed souls were also retained as a good and charitable custom; but the claim of the Church of Rome to deliver souls from purgatory was rejected. As a supplement to the articles, royal injunctions were issued which suppressed pilgrimages, curtailed the excessive number of holy days, and forbade the worship of images and relics. Many of the latter were destroyed, partly to weaken the hold of the ancient Church over superstitious minds, and partly to swell the Crown revenues. Yet Henry still aimed to preserve the Catholic faith, merely purged of what he regarded as glaring immoralities. He repealed the act of Henry IV, de hceretico comburendo, because it gave too much power to the bishops, but he reenacted the measures of Richard II and Henry V which made heresy an offense at common law. Nor were his recent changes as radical as they seemed. Leaders in the Church, Pole, for example, accepted justification by faith, while worship of images and pil- grimages to shrines had long been discontinued by many devout and orthodox men. Moreover, although he borrowed from the Augsburg /Confession, Henry refused to swallow it whole. / The Pilgrimage of Grace, and its Causes, 1536. The recent ^ changes, however, produced a serious revolt in the North Country. There the people, much under the influence of the priests and nobles, clung to the old forms, and their natural hostility to innovations was fanned into flame by the dispossessed monks who wandered about, pouring complaints into their willing ears. The primary cause of the " Pilgrimage of Grace," as it is generally called, was religious ; but political and social factors contributed to make the rising a com- plex and general manifestation of discontent. That is why the move- ment was so widespread and why it failed to hold together for any length of time. All classes had grievances. The nobles were jealous of the leading part played by the commons in the Reformation Parlia- ment and of the preference given to " base-born councilors " like Cromwell. The country gentry were especially aggrieved at the dis- possession of the monks, to whom they were indebted for jovial hospitality and for the education of their children. Another grievance which the gentry felt with particular keenness was the Statute of Uses, just passed. In those days the law did not permit the devising of lands by will, and it had been the custom to evade this restriction by leaving them to the " use " of another. The statute of 1536 aimed against this practice worked a great hardship to the land- owner, for it prevented him from providing for his younger sons or from raising money by mortgages hitherto secured by the use of their lands. Other grievances weighed heavily upon the small free- THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 327 holders and leaseholders : statutes against the abuse of enclosures were less effectively enforced in the north than elsewhere, while a recent enactment removed to Westminster cases which had been formerly tried in the northern courts. In an area so generally dis- affected it needed only sparks to kindle a flame. These came from three commissions which were making their rounds in the late summer of 1536. One was collecting the second portion of a subsidy voted in 1534. Another was enforcing a series of religious injunctions issued by Cromwell, and examining the character and competence of the parish clergy. The third was supervising the dissolution of the mon- asteries. All sorts of rumors were afloat. It was said that Cromwell, who was planning the excellent system of parish registers which England owes to him, was about to impose a tax on every baptism, wedding, and funeral, and even that he meditated the destruction of all parish churches. The Lincolnshire Rising. The outbreak occurred at Louth in Lincolnshire on Sunday, i October. From there the revolt spread ; bells were rung, beacon lights were kindled, priests, monks, and com- mons joined together, and soon the whole neighboring district was in arms. The royal representatives were seized and forced to take an oath to be true to the King, Church, and Commonwealth, while rich men and knights were made to join the cause by threats of hang- ing. The objects of the insurgents were stated in a petition sent to the King. It demanded that : (i) Religious houses be restored^: (2) the subsidy be remitted ; (3) the clergy pay no more tenths and firstiruits to the Crown ; (4) the Statute of Uses be repealed; (5)jyj1- lein bloo/1 fop rF rnmrprl t'rnm *h p Privy fVmpril (6) that the " heretic bishops' 7 ' Cranmer ari fl T.ntimpr chrmjd frp Deprived and punished.^ The chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln was clubbed to death, ancTone or two men were hanged ; but, on the whole, the rising was astonish- ingly free from violence. Within a week, an army of 40,000 assembled at Lincoln under a linen banner inscribed with the five wounds of Christ, a chalice with the host, a plow, and a horse. At Lincoln they received the royal answer to their demands. It was utterly uncompromising and scornfully denounced the presumption shown by a rude and ignorant people in dictating the policy of the realm. Meantime, the inactivity of the rebels, due to unwilling leaders, had given the shire levies under the Earl of Shrewsbury and a royal army under Suffolk time to assemble. The ill-organized rebel force was compelled to disperse. In spite of Henry's bloody orders to the contrary, Suffolk was wisely merciful, and the Lincolnshire rising cost no more than the lives of forty-six of the leaders. The Northern Rising under Robert Aske. By this time, however, the rising had spread to Yorkshire, under the leadership of Robert Aske, who had been caught in the toils of the rebellion while passing through Lincoln on his way to London. On the King's denial of the Lincolnshire petition he fled across the Trent and became the heart 328 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and soul of the movement. Cumberland and Westmoreland cast in their lot with Yorkshire, and erelong most of the great northern families were represented in the insurgent ranks. Aske, whose forces had swelled to nearly 40,000 men, took a position a short distance north of Doncaster which was held by an army of less than 10,000 under the Duke of Norfolk. Realizing the hopelessness of his position, Norfolk finally promised a pardon for all and a free Parliament if the rebel leader would disband his forces. Henry regarded the conces- sion as a humiliating surrender, and when certain rash spirits, in spite of the opposition of Aske, started a new rising, he made it a pretext for a bloody reprisal. Aske, together with a few of the other rebel leaders, was seized and placed in the Tower. Notwithstanding their efforts in subduing the recent outbreak, they were tried and con- victed of treason. Aske was hanged in chains at York, and many more were either hanged or beheaded. VOne permanent result of the Northern Rebellion was the establishment of a new court, " The President and Council of the North."") Primarily for maintaining order in the tumultuous border counties, it gradually absorbed much other business and came to be a great engine of oppression. The Dissolution of the Larger Monasteries, 1536-1539. Many of the abbots in the disturbed districts were attainted of treason, and by a great stretch of the law their houses were suppressed. The pro- cess, thus facilitated by the part which the monks took in the rising, went on until not a single religious house remained in England. Henry had no legal right to the larger monastic houses, especially those not involved in the rebellion. So he employed through his agents the method of " voluntary surrender." Those heads who consented to yield were promised pensions and other rewards, while such benefits were withheld from those who proved " wilful and obstinate." Thus, chiefly during the years 1538 and 1539, some 150 monasteries and 50 convents of women were surrendered into the royal hands. During the autumn of 1538 and the spring of the following year the English friars were destroyed. 1 Parliament in 1539 dealt the final blow by passing an act vesting in Henry and his heirs all the monasteries which had already or should surrender for the future. The abbots of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury were executed for pretended treason. With the surrender of Waltham, 23 March, 1540, the last of the abbeys fell victim to the royal rapacity and the irresistible assertion of supremacy, though the pretext that their inmates led " slothful and ungodly lives " was still insisted on. The War on Ecclesiastical Frauds and Shrines. In order to make the proceedings acceptable to the people that did not share in the spoils, efforts were made to reach out and expose frauds and decep- tions. A famous opportunity was found in the " Rood 2 of Grace " at 1 The leading orders were : the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Austins, and the Carmelites. They had about 200 houses and 1800 members. 2 A rood is a cross or crucifix. 329 Boxley in Kent. It consisted of a figure on a cross which had amazed and edified thousands by moving its eyes and lips. .It was discovered that the miraculous effects were produced by concealed wires. Al- though its use had apparently been discontinued for some time, the rood was taken up to London and exhibited to the populace. So, too, a phial at the abbey of Hailes containing a substance purporting to be Christ's blood was found to be only colored gum. A great wooden image, called Darvell Gadarn and supposed to possess mar- velous powers, was taken from Wales to Smithfield and used to burn Friar Forest, a former confessor of Catharine, who had clung to his papal beliefs. During the same year in which all this was done, 1538, war was waged on shrines, 1 partly to shatter belief in their wonderful properties, and partly for the sake of booty. The papal world was shocked in proportion to the swelling of the royal coffers by the spoliation of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, whence wagon loads of gold, silver, and precious stones and richly embroid- ered vestments were carried off, while the bones and relics of the Saint were contemptuously burned. The Results of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It has been estimated that over 8000 monks, canons, and friars were dispossessed, while at least ten times that number of dependents were affected. The annual value of property secured seems to have been from 150,000 to 200,000. Of this only about 45,000 was retained by the King, the rest was either appropriated for public purposes or given or sold to royal supporters. The melting value of the gold and silver was probably about 85,000. Altogether, what with proceeds of sales and annual revenues, the King secured, exclusive of vestments, ecclesiastical furniture, and jewels, close to 1,500,000, an amount equal in the present day to almost 15,000,000. Of the property thus acquired, some was given in pensions to the dispossessed monks, a very small proportion, however, of what had been taken from them ; some was devoted to the erection of six new bishoprics, 2 and some was applied to coast defenses. But the greater part went to certain favored nobles and gentry. In this way some of the best known of the present English families the Russells, Dukes of Bedford, and the Cavendishes, Dukes of Devonshire started on their upward road. The purpose and effect of the King's seeming generosity was to ensure the permanence of the separation from Rome ; for men gorged with church plunder would never return to the fold. An- other result of the dissolution was to weaken the spiritual power of the House of Lords, since the bishops were no longer reenforced by abbots and priors. Finally, the economic and social situation was profoundly affected. A further impulse to enclosures was given, 1 A shrine is a tomb above ground containing the bones of a saint or other sacred person. At present there are only two in England, one of St. Alban in his cathe- dral in that city, one of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. 2 Five of which exist to-day. 330 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and the State was forced to give more attention than would have been immediately necessary to the subjects of education and poor relief. Although the monasteries had outlived their usefulness and had ceased to make the best use of their resources, the method employed by Henry and his agents to suppress them was marked by great cruelty and injustice, and caused much suffering to innocent people. The Translation of the Bible into English. In spite of Henry's attachment to old forms, something was done with his sanction toward breaking down ecclesiastical exclusiveness by putting the Bible and portions of the service into English. In Anglo-Saxon times parts of the Scripture had been done into English. Mainly through Wiclif's efforts a complete version had appeared toward the end of the fourteenth century. The Wiclif Bible, however, failed to meet the needs of the Englishmen of Henry VIII 's day, and so was not reprinted. Its language was scarcely intelligible to the masses; it was based on the old Latin Vulgate, 1 and was associated in the minds of the authorities with the Lollard heresy. William Tyndale of Cambridge was the first to take up the work anew. He began with the New Testament, basing his translation on the Greek text of Erasmus. Owing to his extreme Protestant views he was obliged to leave England in the midst of his work. He wandered about the Continent, visited Luther at Wittenberg, and finally brought out his translation at Worms in 1525, whence copies were secretly introduced into England during the following year. While at work in the Nether- lands on the Old Testament, Tyndale was seized by order of Charles and strangled and burned as a heretic. In 1536 Cromwell issued injunctions that a Bible in Latin or English should be placed in the choirs of all parish churches for every one to read. The first version to receive authorization was that of Cromwell's friend Miles Cover- dale, published at Zurich in 1535. It was a rendering, not from original texts, but from German and Latin, and was not well enough done to give general satisfaction. Then appeared the so-called " Matthews's Bible," 2 which incorporated Tyndale's work so far as it was completed, and which was sold with authority. Revised in 1538, and commonly known as the " Great Bible," it was first appointed to be read in churches and became the standard edition. From the fact that Cranmer wrote the prefaces to some of the editions it fre- quently bears his name. The placing of the Bible before the people in their own tongue had a profound effect. ( It opened to them a wonderful literature expressed in language of unequaled beauty and strength, and first enabled them to compare the religion founded by Christ and his Apostles with that of their own day. )A trace of re- action, characteristic of Henry's conservatism, appeared in an act 1 The Latin version prepared by Jerome in the fourth century and authorized by the Church of Rome. 2 From "Thomas Matthews," who dedicated it to the King; supposed to be John Rogers, a Protestant martyr of Mary's reign. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 33! of Parliament of 1542, which forbade the perusal of the Bible to " wpjnerL.Ja.borFr g , nri ^ nnprJnrQtP^ persons," One translation after another followed until the celebrated King James version of 1611, which was exclusively used in England till tKef recent " Revised Version " appeared. 1 The King's Primer, 1545. The English Book of Common Prayer, the authorized form of worship in the Church of England, dates from Edward VI ; but portions of the service were translated into English in the time of Henry VIII. The old Latin form was not contained in a single book : the prayers for the various hours of the day were in the Breviary, the order for celebrating mass in the Missal, and other services, such as baptism, in the Book of Occasional Offices. Even before the Reformation, manuals of private devotion, called " Primers," were current in England. With the beginning of the breach with Rome these manuals began to multiply. Finally an edition, much revised and supplemented, appeared in 1545. It was known as the King's Primer, and comprised the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Collects, the Canticles, and the Litany. The Six Articles, 1539. Yet, while Henry could issue articles tinged with Lutheranism, while he could reform or abolish what he regarded as abuses in the Romish system, and give his subjects the Bible and portions of the service in their native tongue, he was too orthodox and conservative to permit any decided departures toward Protestantism. The extravagance of the extremists so soon as they received the slightest encouragement served to strengthen his an- tipathy to innovation. This explains the passage, in I53Q, 2 of an act for " abolishing diversity of opinion in certain articles concerning Christian religion," which marks a decided reaction from the position taken in 1536. The act commonly known as " The Six Articles," or " The Whip with Six Strings," affirmed that : (i) after consecra- tion of the elements in the Holy Eucharist, the bread and wine dis- appeared and the body and blood of Christ entered in their place ; (2) communion in both kinds was not essential to salvation; (3) by the law of God priests could not marry ; (4) monastic vows must be observed; (5) private masses should be continued, for their godly consolation and benefits, and as agreeable to God's law ; (6) auricular confession was expedient and should be retained. The penalty for denying the first article, i.e. the doctrine of transubstantiation, was death by burning with forfeiture of goods. In the case of the other five, the penalty for the first offense was forfeiture and imprison- ment during the King's pleasure, for the second offense death as a felon. Birth of Prince Edward, 1537. In October, 1537, a male heir, the future Edward VI, had been born to Henry. Jane Seymour's 1 The New Testament appeared in 1880, the Old in 1886. 2 It is reported that in the course of the debate Henry went to the House of Lords in person, and "confounded them all with God's learning." 332 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND death a few weeks later left the King free to marry a new wife. The situation was critical, for Charles and Francis were discussing an alliance which came to a head the following year in a ten years' truce. In order to forestall the combination, the English negotiated with each power in turn for a matrimonial alliance. Neither came to any- thing, and England was menaced with invasion from without and with plots from within. Pole was most active in stirring up the latter, and his family suffered the consequences. His elder brother, Lord Montague, and his cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, were put to death in December, 1538, and his mother, the Countess of Salisbury, was disposed of two years later. Henry's Marriage to Anne of Cleves, and the Fall of Cromwell, 1540. Henry's failure to ally himself either with France or the Emperor, induced him to listen to Cromwell, who advocated a Prot- estant marriage and a league with the Protestant princes. The bride selected was Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves. She was a plain, meek creature, quite lacking in grace and accomplishments. The famous Holbein was dispatched to paint her portrait, and, it is said, at a hint from Cromwell produced most flattering results. Moreover, the Vicegerent and the courtiers sent to arrange the match were lavish in praising her charms. Unhappily for all concerned, Henry committed himself on these representations, and the marriage treaty was signed 6 October, 1539. Anne came to England, and the King was disillusioned at first sight ; " he became very sorrowful and amazed," and returned to his palace at Greenwich " very sad and pensive." He declared that " if he knew as much then as he knew now, she would never have come within the realm," but he saw nothing for it, except to go on with the marriage. To make matters worse, nothing came of the projected alliance. Cromwell, who had already served his turn, paid the penalty with his head. He was arrested 10 June, 1540, and a bill of attainder was framed against him. He was charged with favoring Protestants, obtaining money by bribery and extortion, and usurping royal powers. No doubt all this was true; but, as in the case of Wolsey, his main fault was that, by miscarriage of his policy, he had incurred the royal displeasure. He was executed 28 July, 1540. Henry Divorced from Anne, and Marriage to Catharine Howard, 1540. Henry, with his great power and ingenuity, found it easy to get rid of Anne. On the strength of various pretexts, chief among them the fact that she was precontracted to the Duke of Lorraine's son, the obedient Convocation pronounced the marriage null and void. Anne was amply provided for, and it was reported in August, the month following the divorce, that " she is as joyous as ever and wears a new dress every day." Parliament now besought the King " for the good of his people to marry again." He chose Catharine Howard, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk. Marrying her secretly on the very day of Cromwell's execution, he openly acknowledged her as Queen a month later. Catharine had a winning countenance, but was ill- THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 333 educated, and of questionable morals. Scarcely more than a year had passed when charges of grave misconduct were brought against her. She was executed, 14 February, 1542, on Tower Hill, where Anne Boleyn had suffered six years before. Henry's Designs on Scotland. In June, 1542, Francis I, who was ambitious to recover Milan and the French ascendancy in Italy, broke off his treaty with the Emperor and declared war. Henry seized the opportunity, which he had long coveted, to make an effort to extend his sway over Scotland. The death of James IV at Flodden in 1513 had left the country a prey to another of those long minorities which had been its bane for a century. James had selected Margaret for Regent and guardian of his infant heir. The truculent estates re- pudiated her and chose the Duke of Albany, cousin of the late King. 1 At length, after an arduous struggle between the two, Albany left the country in 1524, never to return. Then the uneasy Margaret began to quarrel with her second husband, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. In 1528, however, James V, at the age of sixteen, made him- self master of the distracted kingdom and sought to restore peace. To that end, he put down the Highland chiefs and the Lowland earls, while, as a counterpoise to these turbulent elements, he sought alli- ance with the Church and strengthened the clergy with increased powers and privileges. This, and the fact that he clung to the French alliance, marrying two French wives 2 in succession, kept him at swords points with his uncle, Henry VIII, to whom he attributed designs of fostering disorders along the border and broils among the nobility. Twice, once in 1536 and again in 1541, Henry proposed a conference at York; but James, fearing that his uncle planned to kidnap him, evaded the meeting each time. The second evasion gave Henry a good pretext for assuming hostilities. He had plenty of others as well. David Beaton, high in James's favor, had been made a cardinal, with a view of executing the bull of deposition still hanging over Henry ; James had intrigued both with Charles and Francis ; he had welcomed refugees from the Pilgrimage of Grace ; and , finally, the Scotch had defeated a border raid at Halidon Rig which the English were burning to avenge. Such was the situation when the turn of affairs on the Continent gave Henry his chance to strike. So in October, 1542, the Duke of Norfolk led an invasion across the eastern border. But the transport and equipment was bad, and the expedition, after some harrying and burning, turned homeward. The Scotch King retaliated by throwing a force, under Oliver Sinclair, across the western border. Through the bungling of its leaders it got en- tangled in J?ol way Moss and was defeated, 24 November, 1542, with heavy loss. James~V, heartbroken at the news, died less than a month afterwards, leaving a week-old baby as his heir. She is known to 1 He was a grandson of James II. 2 His first wife was Madeleine, daughter of Francis I. She died in 1537. James then married Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the Duke of Guise. 334 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND history as Mary, Queen of Scots. James feared that her birth marked the end of his line. " It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass," he said sadly when it was reported to him. Encouraged by the victory, Henry asserted the English sovereignty over Scotland in stronger terms than ever, and proposed to bind the two countries by marrying Edward and Mary when they came of age. A treaty was arranged at Greenwich, though his proposal that Mary be sent to England as a hostage was rejected by the Scots. In general, they opposed the idea of absorption by England, while a strong party still clung to the French alliance. At length this French party, headed by Cardinal Beaton, gained possession of the Queen Mother and the little Princess, crowned Mary as Queen, and assembled a parliament which annulled the recent marriage treaty. War with France, 1543-1546. To prevent this French Catholic party from securing aid from across the Channel, Henry concluded a treaty with Charles V, and plunged into war with France. It was agreed that neither the Emperor nor the King should make a separate peace with their common enemy, and that they should join forces and march on Paris. Henry crossed over to Calais in July, 1544, at the head of an English force, but, against the wishes of his ally, he stopped on his way south to besiege Boulogne, which surrendered 14 September, 1544. Five days later, Charles, unable to arrange terms to which the English King would agree, concluded a separate peace. Freed from her ancient enemy in the rear, France sent a fleet to attack the English coast, while the Scots, stung to madness by an invasion under Hert- ford, 1 which burned Leith and sacked Edinburgh, massed on the border, and threatened to inundate the north. Henry's subjects rallied valiantly to his support, and the French fleet, twice repulsed off the Isle of Wight, and much thinned by plague, were obliged to return home August, 1545. Hertford averted the danger from the border by lead- ing another expedition into Scotland. At length in June, 1546, Henry and Francis made peace. Boulogne was to remain in English hands for eight years, after which it was to be restored to France for a large indemnity. Scotland was not included in the peace. In his relations with that country Henry, who had shown himself neither tactful enough to conciliate nor strong enough to coerce, left a serious prob- lem to his successors. Relations with Ireland. The King's Irish policy proved in the long run to be no more successful. The petty chiefs outside the Pale fought constantly among themselves, but were united in their hostility to English rule. The impenetrable forests, the trackless bogs, and the wild inhabitants whose names belonged rather to " devouring giants than to Christian subjects," would have made conquest and a military occupation well-nigh impossible. Henry, unable to maintain an army, preferred "sober ways, politic drifts, and amiable persuasion." Kil- 1 Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Henry's third wife, was the leading general in the kingdom at this time. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 335 dare, the Lord Deputy, kept the country in order so long as he lived. When he died, 1513, his son Gerald, the ninth earl, succeeded him in office. After being twice called to account he was seized in 1534, taken to England, and thrown into the Tower. On a rumor of his death his son " Silken Thomas," * a big, irresponsible boy, broke out in revolt; Dublin Castle was besieged and the Archbishop foully murdered. In October Skeffington came over as Deputy ; but it was only under his successor, Lord Leonard Grey (1535-1540) , that Thomas made his submission. On 3 February, 1537, the rebel Earl was hanged with five of his uncles, leaving a small child to represent the line. Grey sought to carry out Henry's policy of conciliation ; but, accused of arrogance toward the English officials and of favoring the Irish, he was recalled in 1540, attainted, and executed. Next came Sir Anthony St. Leger, who seemed more successful for the time being. In 1541 Henry took the title King of Ireland, 2 and, one by one, the chiefs agreed to acknowledge him as sovereign and head of the Church ; to hold their lands of him for an annual rent ; to renounce all illegal ex- actions ; and to serve the royal army. Peace seemed now established, and at St. Leger's departure, in 1546, powerful earls dwelling as far apart as Tyrone of Ulster and Desmond of Munster testified : " We confess there lives not any one in Ireland, were he of the age of Nestor, who has seen the country in a more peace- ful state." These fair hopes, however, proved delusive. Not many years were to elapse before Ireland was again seething in rebellion, and for this Henry was partly to blame. His fatal mistake was that in conciliating the chiefs he thought to bind the clans, whereas he really antagonized the latter bodies by bribing their leaders with lands claimed by the tribes as a whole. So it was in his religious arrange- ments. Henry might bribe the chiefs to abjure the Pope and con- sent to dissolution of the monasteries by handing them a share of the spoils ; but the lesser folk, who saw the shrines and relics demolished, the pilgrimages suppressed, the sacred buildings defaced, and the familiar Latin replaced by the alien English service, were bound to nourish sullen resentment. Thus Henry ruthlessly disregarded the customs of the centuries and trampled upon the superstitions and sentiments of Irishmen. Moreover, men like Archbishop Browne aimed rather at establishing English ascendancy and accumulating wealth and power than at advancing the cause of religion. The prac- tice of Henry's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, of appropriating Irish lands for English and Scotch settlers, further widened the breach, and thus prepared the way for the labors of Jesuit missionaries and the intrigues of the Pope and the Catholic monarchs, which culminated in dangerous revolts in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Henry's Closing Years. After the passing of Cromwell Henry acted as his own Chief Minister. In spite of " marvelous excess in eating 1 So-called from the silken fringe about his helmet. 1 Chiefly because the ancient title of Lord of Ireland was a papal creation. 336 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and drinking," of increasing bulk, and of an ulcer on his leg which caused him intense pain, he was constantly occupied and watchful. In the King's Book in 1543, he set forth " a true and perfect doctrine for all his people," and he insisted that the Church system which he had denned and organized should be strictly obeyed. Nevertheless, the penalties attached to the Six Articles served mainly as a ferocious warning and were only fitfully enforced. This was due largely to Cromwell so long as he lived, while, after his death, Cranmer and Catharine Parr acted as moderating influences. Already twice a widow when she became Henry's sixth wife in 1543. Catharine herself survived to marry a fourth husband. She was a good woman and nursed her royal master tenderly during his last years of pain. In 1545 Parliament granted to the Crown all the chantries, hospitals, and free chapels of the realm ; but it remained for another reign to gather the spoil. The religious unrest was so great as to draw from Henry at his last appearance in Parliament, December, 1545, an eloquent and characteristic reproof : " I hear," he said, " there was never more dissension and lack of love between man and man. . . . Some are called Papists, some Lutherans, and some Anabaptists. I am very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that precious jewel, the word of God, is disputed and rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. ... Of this I am-sure, that charity was never so faint among you, and God himself among Christians was never less rever- enced, honored, and served." Protestantism was spreading, and Cran- mer and the Queen favored it ; yet the old faith was gaining ground again. At least so thought John Hooper, who wrote early in 1546: " As far as religion is concerned, idolatry is nowhere in greater vigor. The King has destroyed the Pope, but not Popery." Among the last victims of the " Whip with Six Strings " was Anne Askew, of an old landed Devonshire family, who, in spite of repeated examinations and finally of torture on the rack, persisted in her denial of transubstantia- tion, and 16 July, 1546, was burned at Smithfield. Surrey's Plot. Henry's Stormy and Wrathful Exit, 1547. At the close of Henry's life the heir of the greatest conservative family in England brought the progress of the Catholic party to an abrupt check. On 12 December, 1546, the Duke of Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were rudely thrown into the Tower. Surrey, de- scribed as " the most foolish proud boy in England," w r as a poet of recognized place in English literary history ; but he was headstrong, aspiring, and indiscreet. As a grown man he had already been twice arrested for roaming the streets of London and breaking the windows of citizens. In the struggle for control between the two factions in the royal Council it was discovered that he quartered the royal arms with his own on an escutcheon in his private chamber and had boasted that his father would one day be Regent. Tried before a special com- mission, he was beheaded, 19 January, on Tower Hill. A bill of at- tainder was passed against Norfolk w r ho confessed to concealing his THE SEPARATION FROM ROME 337 son's acts. It received the royal assent, but before it could be carried out Henry was dead. He had of late become so unwieldy that he could neither walk nor stand, and 28 January, 1547, he passed away, master- ful against opposition to the last. A selfish, ruthless despot, he had accomplished a momentous work. He had transformed the whole ecclesiastical system without a civil war ; he had established a National Church free from the dominion of the Pope ; he had given his subjects the Scriptures in their native tongue ; he had secured for England a recognized position among foreign powers ; he had worked his will unopposed ; and he died in his bed stanchly supported by the major- ity of his subjects. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Fisher, Political History, chs. XI-XVIII. Innes, England under the Tudors, chs. VIII-X. Cambridge Modern History, II, ch. XIII. Pollard, Henry VIII, chs. VII-XVI. J. A. Froude, History of England, from the Death of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (12 vols., 1870-1872) ; this is the most complete work on the period and a masterpiece of style, but strongly biased, especially in favor of Henry VIII. Lingard, History of England, V, chs. I-III. Biography. P. Friedmann, Anne Boleyn (2 vols., 1884). R. B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (2 vols., 1902), the standard biography. W. Roper, Biography of Sir Thomas More (first printed in Paris, 1626 ; many later editions) is a classic. Roper was More's son-in-law. A. F. Pollard, Life of Cranmer (1904) is perhaps the most scholarly life of the Archbishop. A. D. Innes, Ten Tudor Statesmen (1906), and M. A. S. Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII (1905) are both useful. Dom Bede Camm, Lives of the English Martyrs (1904) is from the Ro- manist standpoint. Ecclesiastical. F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (1902) ; the most exhaustive work on the subject, manifestly in sympathy with the monas- teries. Wakeman, chs. XI-XIII. James Gairdner, History of the Church of Eng- land (1904), chs. I-XII; a brief treatment by an acknowledged authority on the period. R. W. Dixon, History of the Church of England (6 vols., 1878-1902) covers the period 1529-1570, thorough and scholarly from the High Church standpoint. B. F. Westcott, History of the English Bible (1868). Selections from the sources. Adams and.Stephens, nos. 141-158, for the whole reign. THE DE LA POLES AND POLES Richard Duke of York 1 1 1 EDWARD IV Elizabeth = John de la Pole, 1 George, Duke of JDuke of Suffolk Clarence 1 1 John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, killed at Stoke, 1487 i Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, beheaded, 1513 1 Margaret = Countess of Salisbury, beheaded; IS4I Reg in a 1 = Sir R. Pole Edward, Earl of Warwick, executed, 1496 d Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1556-1558 1 Great-grandson of William, Earl of Suffolk (d. 1388) minister of Richard II, and son of William, Duke of Suffolk, minister of Henry VI (impeached and murdered, 1450). CHAPTER XXI THE HENRICIAN REGIME (1509-1547) Distinctive Features of Henry's Absolutism. While Henry VIII was dependent for his triumph upon the absolutism inherited from his father, he succeeded in carrying that absolutism far beyond the point which it had reached at his accession. The Church was reduced by his measures to a mere creature of the Crown. The old nobility, al- ready eating themselves up with their " feudal grandeur and sump- tuous livery," diminished in numbers, and discredited, were pushed farther along the road to ruin by the extravagance of Henry's court, while his hostile watchfulness prevented their leaders from recovering their old position in public affairs. The fate of Suffolk, of Bucking- ham, of the Poles, the Courtenays, and the Howards indicated what befell those who aspired to raise their heads. The King chose new men mainly servants at court, merchants, manufacturers, lawyers to sit in his Council and to execute his decrees ; to them he gave offices, revenues, and lands. And he had an eye for picking competent ministers from the ranks of obscurity. Wolsey and Cromwell are merely the best known of the many names that might be selected. In this way, as well as by the spoils of the monasteries, by the checking of the more glaring abuses, and by the maintenance of stable govern- ment, the middle class, already closely attached to the father, were bound still more closely to the son. Henry's Management of Parliament. Henry's adroit manipula- tion of Parliament was another means by which he strengthened his absolutism. His father who depended upon that body through the first half of his reign, by reason of his economy and his extortion, got on without it during the second. Under Henry VIII this policy was re- versed. Wolsey preferred to call Parliament as infrequently as pos- sible, and, so long as the inherited royal treasure lasted and so long as the King held aloof from public business, it was possible to follow out this plan. From 1529, however, when he embarked on his peculiar policy, Henry made use of frequent parliaments to give a real or seem- ing popular sanction to his measures. While Cromwell was royal agent, there are evidences of coercion and corruption, of interference with elections, bribery, creation of new boroughs, and of pressure on members. But the amount of all this has been exaggerated, and it was mainly employed by Cromwell for himself, to procure and main- tain a majority against the reactionary party in the Council. Such methods were scarcely necessary in the royal behalf. The forty shil- ling freehold qualifications and the borough oligarchies kept the rep- 338 THE HENRICIAN REGIME 339 resentation mainly in the hands of the landed gentry and the pros- perous commercial classes who were stanch supporters of the Crown. Discontent there was, but it was social and economic, not political, aimed mostly against enclosures and monopolies. And the very of- fenders against whom it was directed were of the class which controlled Parliament. In general, their interests were identical with Henry's ; in the case of the anticlerical legislation, for example, if he stirred up the hostility, he did not invent the grievances. When these interests clashed, Parliament did not hesitate to resist stoutly. Henry professed to be a champion of parliamentary forms and privileges, but when he was put to it and blandishments and bargaining would not avail, he was not above trickery. When in 1529 the Lords refused to pass the measures of the Commons against the clergy, he proposed a conference between eight members of each House ; knowing that the committee of the Commons would vote solidly and that the temporal peers would support them, he carried the bill by procuring a committee of four lay lords and four bishops from the Upper House. When important measures were being discussed, he generally visited both Houses in per- son, and if the terror of his presence was not enough, even resorted to dire threats to secure their passage. As a means of blocking legisla- tion w r hich he opposed he could always resort to the veto. As a matter of fact, however, most of the measures of the reign were initiated by Henry or his ministers. Perhaps an even greater proportion of legis- lation is introduced by the Government to-day than during his time, but the ministers now represent, not the sovereign, but the majority party in the House of Commons. Composition of the Houses. The number of lay peers was little altered by Henry. Except when an old peerage had become extinct he made comparatively few new creations. The chief change came from the dissolution of the monasteries which deprived the abbots and priors of their seats. The bishops, of course, after the break from Rome, became practically royal nominees, and their influence was further lessened from the fact that Convocation was deprived of inde- pendent powers of legislation. The composition of the Commons was scarcely changed by Henry in England proper, where he created only six new boroughs. But by granting representation to Wales, to Chester, and Calais, he added thirty-two knights and burgesses to the Lower House. In his reign a burgess was chosen Speaker for the first time, but that officer was usually a nominee of the Crown. Summary of Henry's Methods. Altogether, Henry's power was acquired, not so much by juggling with the representation as by the identity of interest between him and the dominant classes, by his force of will, and by his dexterous politics. He had the tact and foresight to draw back when he saw that he was going too far. Moreover, he had the unscrupulous cunning to intrust great powers to his principal agents and to make them the scapegoats for his unpopular policies. Finally, he had the wisdom not to demand excessive taxes. He called upon 340 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Parliament primarily to sanction grants which he had extorted from some other quarters forced loans, for instance, which were remitted by statute in 1529 and 1543; forfeitures; the tenths and first fruits which formerly went to the Pope ; and the spoils from monasteries and shrines. The pension from France under the treaties of Edward IV and Henry VII, the exaction wrung from the clergy under threat of praemunire in 1531, and occasional " devotion money," e.g. a grant in 1544 nominally for a crusade against the Turks, furnished further additions to his rather scanty ordinary revenues. On the whole, in finance Henry's was "a hand-to-mouth policy assisted by occasional godsends." He borrowed and extorted so long as he could, and only applied to Parliament when it was absolutely necessary. The Royal Extravagance. Henry dissipated his father's savings with a lavish hand. Much went for costly raiment ; for example, in 1515 he spent 5000 on silks and velvets, enough money to maintain a thousand families in " rude comfort," in those days, for a year. More was consumed in revels, feasts, tournaments, and other forms of ornate display. When the King took the field in 1513, he had an enormous train of hundreds of wagons and thousands of horses to carry his tents, his wardrobe, his cooks, his confectioners, and, most amazing of all, the choir of his chapel royal, consisting of 115 chaplains and singers. The splendors of the later meeting at the Field of Cloth of Gold were the wonder of that age and of generations to come. The sumptuousness of Henry and his courtiers, of course, stimulated trade, furnished employment for many, and opened up many new industries ; yet, in the long run, the effect was injurious, since the example was ruinous to the lesser folk, and it raised the prices out of all proportion to the increase of wages. For instance, the cost of agricultural prod- ucts nearly doubled from 1495 to 1533, while wages rose only 25 per cent. Moreover, the King was in constant need of money to support such extravagance, and taxes were only kept within the normal limits by loans, confiscations, and other irregular methods. The Debasement of the Coinage. One of the most baneful means em- ployed was the debasement of the coinage. This process, which Henry began as early as 1526, went on until, in 1551, a silver coin contained only a seventh of the pure metal of one issued twenty-five years before. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there had been several such debasements, but with less injurious effects ; because of the con- stant drain of money to the Orient for the purchase of goods and to Rome for the payment of papal dues. This scarcity of specie lowered prices, and thus counteracted the upward trend due to debasement. In Henry's time trade was more evenly balanced, and papal dues ceased ; moreover, money was growing steadily more plentiful, owing to the treasure brought by the Spanish from .the New World. 1 Since 1 But it must be borne in mind that the great mines of Cerro and Potosi were not opened till 1545, and that England was not affected by the great increase of specie from this source for some years to come. THE HENRICIAN REGIME 341 debased coins circulated at their face value, good coin was hoarded or exported, and prices went on soaring without a check. The Laboring Classes in Town and Country. While the pro- ducers, the manufacturers, and the exporters of wool and cloth were waxing fat, the condition of the mass of the small farmers and agri- cultural laborers was growing steadily worse. Enclosing went on in- creasing, and not only leaseholders, but copyholders and even free- holders were evicted from their tenements. The process received a fresh impulse from the dissolution of the monasteries, which trans- ferred great estates from the easygoing monks to the hands of keen, greedy capitalists, bent on realizing the utmost profit from their pos- sessions. Multitudes were thrown out of work, and the land was over- run with beggars. Disorder multiplied to a degree that taxed even the iron rule of Henry. Supported by his ministers and by leading thinkers and preachers he sought to put new checks on enclosures. Measures were enacted limiting the number of sheep that a single owner could hold and ordering a return to tillage under penalty of for- feiture till the law was obeyed. But, since profits from wool were tempting, and since the King needed the support of the class against which the measures were formed, the legislation proved futile. Simi- lar disturbing conditions prevailed in the towns, the rich were growing richer and the poor poorer. The restrictive policy of the gilds was only slowly breaking down and remained a great clog on trade. Labor and capital withdrew from the old towns where the system was in- trenched and poured into the smaller places, which grew as their ancient rivals declined. The competition of those displaced from agricultural pursuits and the increase of population, however, largely offset the benefit which the proletariat gained from their migration. 1 Public Health and Sanitation. The plague, which continued a frequent and destructive visitor, was not, however, an unmixed evil. Flourishing chiefly in the miserable and crowded centers, it checked the natural increase of population among the poorer classes, and thus worked in favor of a higher standard of well-being. A system of quar- antine was already in operation in some of the continental cities and in the Firth of Forth, but English efforts were still mainly directed to protecting the sovereign and the court from persons who might bring the contagion from abroad. In London, enactments were passed requiring that infected houses be marked with wisps of straw and that exposed persons carry a white rod in their hands. Gradually rules for isolating plague-stricken houses became more rigid, searchers were appointed to give notice of the presence of the disease, and severe penalties were imposed for concealment. Weekly bills of mortality survive from Henry's reign, though they may have existed earlier. They, too, had the result of making public the existence and cause of 1 It is estimated that the population increased from 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 dur- ing the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. 342 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND sickness. Measures for disposing of the refuse of shambles, against stray dogs and cats, and for cleansing filthy streets, are not unheard of, though they were apparently not enforced till Elizabeth's time. Poor Relief. Among the most interesting measures of Henry's reign were those taken to relieve the deserving poor and to put a check on the idle and disorderly beggars. During the Middle Ages the care of the destitute was left to private persons and institutions to vol- untary alms, to hospitals 1 and gilds, and, most of all, to monasteries. This medieval system was very inadequate. The monks in particular gave, in pursuance of the divine command to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry. Since they did not inquire sharply into the needs of applicants they were often imposed upon by the unscrupulous ; and, by their indiscriminate almsgiving, tended to foster poverty beyond the point where they could deal with it. Even before the Reformation and the consequent destruction of ecclesiastical founda- tions, certain continental municipalities had taken up the problem and devised measures of public relief. In England the breaking up of the system and the industrial changes had put such a strain on the old faulty and inadequate methods that something more effective would have been necessary in any event. The dissolution of the mon- asteries made it immediately imperative. Great numbers of needy persons were suddenly thrown upon the country, and at the same time the chief means of providing for them, ineffective as it had been, was cut off. As early as 1530-1531 an act had been passed directly in line with the old Statutes of Laborers. These statutes had been con- tent with recognizing that the impotent should be relieved by Chris- tian charity and had devoted their provisions to repressing sturdy beggars and forcing them to work for fixed wages. Henry's act pro- vided that persons compelled to live by alms should be settled in their native district, registered, and licensed to beg within these limits ; and that unlicensed beggars, of those straying beyond their districts, should be whipped and sent home. For a second- offense their ears were to be cropped, while for a third they were to be put to death. Fines were imposed upon officers or parishes that harbored unlicensed beggars or failed to enforce the laws against them. As yet no public provision was made for the relief of the impotent, or for the reforma- tion or employment of vagabonds after they reached their native place. The year in which the first attack on the monasteries was opened marked the beginning of a new policy. By an act of 1536 the dispens- ing of private alms was forbidden. In each parish a fund for the re- lief of the poor was to be collected on Sundays and festival days by the church wardens and other parish officials. While the clergy were enjoined to stir up the congregation to give freely, no means of com- 1 A hospital was originally a place for the aged and destitute as well as the sick. A few parishes had poor funds, and so had some of the towns by the fifteenth cen- tury, but these were rare exceptions. THE HENRICIAN RfiGIME 343 pulsion was provided for. Also, sturdy beggars were to be set to work, though the law did not state how. This act foreshadows the prin- ciples of the more famous laws of Elizabeth the responsibility of the parish for the relief of those unable to work, and for the employment of the able-bodied which remained in force down to the nineteenth century. But under Henry the principles were not yet worked out in detail. The Navy. A portion of the spoils from the monasteries the King devoted to coast defenses and shipbuilding. The southeastern shore was studded with castles provided with permanent garrisons, which were reenforced by local levies in time of need. Henry VII had fostered the navy, directly, to some extent, by building ships of war, and indirectly by developing the merchant marine, but it was Henry VIII who marked a real advance. Up to his reign there had been only a few ships owned by the sovereign, which in time of peace were either used for police purposes or let out to merchants. At his death there was a royal fleet of 71 vessels. Moreover, he organized the navy into a standing force and placed it under a separate Government De- partment. The Navy Office which he constituted consisted of a set of officials known as the " Principal Officers of the Navy," who, under the Lord High Admiral, managed all the civil branches of the service, such as Equipping the fleets for sea. The King did much, too, for mak- ing rivers navigable, and harbors safer and more accessible ; he founded dockyards on the Thames ; and organized the pilots into the corpora- tion of Trinity House. Exploration was still largely a monopoly of the Spanish and Portuguese, although a few northern voyages were undertaken by Bristol merchants, and John Hawkins, father of the more celebrated William, made two voyages to Brazil. Trade to the Levant flourished lustily. Tall ships carried English cloths and hides to the ports of the Mediterranean, and brought back the wines, oils, carpets, and spices of the East to English markets. Warfare. In the art of war England failed to keep pace with the Continent. The long rivalry between France on the one hand and the Emperor on the other, which extended from the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1495 to the Peace of Cateau Cambresis in 1559, led to the creation of standing armies and the general use of firearms ; in short, marked the final transition from the medieval to the modern system. But England had no standing army till Oliver Cromwell fashioned his famous " New Model " in the middle of the next cen- tury. It was not till Elizabeth's reign that the lance for horsemen and the bow and bill for footmen yielded to firearms, and in the civil wars, nearly a century later, the more primitive- weapons were still employed. Henry's reign evolved no distinguished commanders and witnessed no memorable victory, except possibly Flodden, and that was due rather to the blundering of James IV than to the brilliancy of Surrey. Wolsey, relying on diplomacy, had sought to evade military operations. The new nobility were unable to maintain the authority 344 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND over their troops which the older baronage had wielded, and the ex- peditions of Dorset in 1512, and Suffolk in 1523, had been wrecked by mutinies. When Henry headed the army, in 1513 and 1544, he was able to maintain discipline and to make a respectable showing ; but the cumbersome magnificence of his train, more like a royal progress than a military invasion, impeded the movement of his troops and drained the resources of his subjects. For this reason, and owing to the shiftiness of his allies, he, too, was unable to achieve any permanent results. Learning and Education. Scholars of Henry's day were turning their backs on the old learning and pursuing the new ; they were de- vising more rational systems of education to replace the worn-out medieval methods, and the King encouraged them by his own enlight- ened zeal, by his studious pursuits, and by the training of his children. Colet's foundation, St. Paul's, was a model of what a boys' school should be. Wolsey's school at Ipswich perished with him ; but before the close of the reign some fifty others were founded, including five attached to Henry's new bishoprics. Yet it was in the theory of edu- cation that the real strides of progress were taken. Erasmus left England for the last time in 1514, but his later writings must have penetrated and influenced the circle in which he had lived and worked. His Education of a Christian Prince (1516) was an excellent guide for the prospective ruler of a nation, and, quite fittingly, a copy was presented to Prince Edward in his eleventh year. The First Liberal Education for Boys (1529), embodying the results of Erasmus' maturest thought and experience, was designed for all intrusted ^ with the responsibility of teaching youth, and its sage precepts and recommendations form a shining contrast to the prevailing mechanical methods, in which flogging was employed as the chief incentive. Further evidences of advance are manifest in the writings of those whom Henry selected to educate his own family. A Spaniard, Ludovicus Vives, for five years was the tutor of Princess Mary. His treatise Of Studies (De Disciplinis) contains many wise views. He insisted upon the value of observation and experiment, he believed that much should be left to the independent exertions of the pupil, and advocated a sane distinction between the method of teaching Latin, and the living languages. Roger Ascham taught Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth, while Sir John Cheke, perhaps the ablest Greek scholar of his time, performed the like duty for Edward. And certainly the royal pupils did their tutors credit. Ascham's famous treatise, The Schole- master, was not printed till 1570, but already in 1545 he was putting in practice the broad and liberal views therein advocated. Although this book, on account of its learning, kindly humor, appreciation of boy nature, and rational views has deservedly become an English classic, its methods involved too much pains and patience on the part of the teacher to make it acceptable at the time. Sir Thomas Elyot, THE HENRICIAN REGIME 345 a' pupil of More's and a distinguished diplomat, in The Governor, was equally judicious in pleading for kindness, regard for individual apti- tude, and attention to the meaning and spirit rather than the dry bones of the subjects of study. Nevertheless, while Henry's reign marks an epoch in the theory of education, and while the King deserves much credit for his encourage- ment of education and for the example which he himself set, he con- tributed little material aid in the way of money and endowment, especially in view of what he took from the monastic institutions. Their schools and those of the chantry priests l were inadequate and out of date, but their destruction was serious when Henry devoted a major part of their resources to rewarding his greedy supporters in- stead of establishing new schools. At Oxford and Cambridge, after Cromwell's commissioners had expelled the Schoolmen and their commentators, and abolished lectures and degrees in common law, provision was made for fixed and regular lectures on Greek and Latin, and for the study of the Scriptures. Moreover, in 1540, Regius 2 Pro- fessorships in divinity, civil law, physics, Greek, and Hebrew were established and endowed. But Henry founded only one new college, 3 and the total cost of this foundation and the professorships was com- paratively small. Furthermore, before the close of the reign, the interest in pure learning at the universities gave place largely to theo- logical controversy. Altogether, in education it was a time of great promise but scanty achievement. Literature. So it was in literature. Few notable works were produced, but the reign represents the transition from a bygone age to that wonderful outburst which signalizes the last years of Elizabeth as one of the two greatest periods in the literary history of the world. Breaking away from the influence of the French medieval romance, the men of Henry's day began to study the classics, both directly and indirectly, through the Renascence writers, chiefly those of Italy. Much of the writing of the period can be passed by with a mere allu- sion. The disordered social conditions and the break from Rome produced a mass of controversial pamphlets which, valuable as they are to the historian, hardly rank as literature. Latimer's sermons are vivid and eloquent, but he was a preacher rather than an author. Cranmer was a master of the art of expression, but his greatest achievement, the English Book of Common Prayer, was the work of the next reign. John Skelton, " the incomparable light and ornament of British letters," as one admirer calls him, was versatile and witty ; but his style is partly eccentric and partly of the past age. The laborious Historia Anglicana, of the Italian Polydore Vergil, shows much breadth and critical acumen, and is graphic in places but is rather a work of erudition than of art. 1 A chantry was a foundation for a priest to sing masses for the souls of pious contributors. Often he acted as schoolmaster in addition. 2 I.e. royal. 3 Trinity at Cambridge in 1546. 346 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Four men of the reign stand above their contemporaries and herald the coming age Sir Thomas More, Roger Ascham, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. More's most notable produc- tion was his Utopia, one of those rare books which, written primarily as a protest against existing abuses, has survived as a classic. As- cham's Toxophilus, or treatise on archery, was published two years before Henry's death. Puttenham, the Elizabethan critic, refers quaintly to Surrey and Wyatt as " two courtly makers, who having traveled into Italy and there tasted the sweet and stately measures of Italian poesy, greatly polished our rude and homely manner." It is unlikely that Surrey ever went to Italy, but Wyatt did. The two introduced the sonnet into English poetry, and their " songs and senates " were first published in a collection of verse known as Tottel's Miscellany in 1557. Moreover, Surrey in his translation of the second and fourth books of the Mneid marked an epoch by employing the use of blank verse for the first time in English. So the Henrician era, if the writers were few and their product inconsiderable, was significant in literary development. The King and the Age. The age, like many another, has its grim and unlovely and its gracious and heroic sides. It was " instinct with vast animal life, robust health and muscular energy, terrible in its rude and unrefined appetites, its fiery virtues and fierce passions." Henry and his officials were self-seeking, ruthless, regardless of human life and suffering. The merchants, the wool-growers, and the cloth- makers, intent on gain, were content to let the King have his will, and joined in the oppression of the lesser folk. Callousness to pain and lack of pity were all too general in those times. All classes flocked with equal alacrity to a cock fight, to a bear baiting, or to witness a martyr burning at the stake. On the other hand, there were strong, earnest men and women who were content to suffer rather than to sacrifice their faith, were it Protestant or Roman Catholic. There were those who had prophetic visions of a new era in literature, in education, in reli- gion, in industry, and did their part in pulling down the old medieval edifice. There was much hardship and misery while the new structure was abuilding ; but there was sound and vigorous health in the workers who were striving for better things. In the midst of this complex age Henry VIII stands out as the great commanding figure embodying its most striking tendencies, good and bad. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. IV, ch. II. Hallam, Constitu- tional History, I, ch. II ; Taswell-Langmead, chs. X, XI. A. F. Pollard, Factors in Modern History (1907), chs. III-V; on the "New Monarchy," the "Reformation," and the "Composition of Parliament." Stubbs, Lectures, chs. XI, XII. General conditions. Traill, Social England, III, ch. IX. Froude, History of England, I, ch. I. Innes, ch. XI. Thomas More, Utopia (first published in THE HENRICIAN REGIME 347 Latin 1516, later translated and often reprinted). R. H. Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912). E. P. Cheney, Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century (1895). D. Hannay, A Short History of the English Navy (1898). H. Oppenheim, A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy (1897). W. L. Clowes, The Royal Navy (vol. i, 1897). Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, I, bk. IV, ch. VIII ; II, bk. V, ch. I. A. G. Richey, Short History of the Irish People (1887). R. Bagwell, Ireland tinder the Tudors (1885), I. J. E. Morris, Great Britain and Ireland, 1485-1910 (1914). CHAPTER XXII THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER. EDWARD VI (1547-1553) The Situation at Henry's Death. Henry left as his successor a child not yet ten years old, when the situation demanded a strong man of ripe wisdom and tried capacity. " Abroad, Paul III was scheming to recover the allegiance of the schismatic realm ; the Emperor was slowly crushing England's national allies in Germany; France was watching her opportunity to seize Boulogne; and England herself was committed to hazardous designs on Scotland. At home there was a religious revolution half accomplished and a social revolution in fer- ment; evicted tenants and ejected monks infested the land, centers of disorder and raw material for revolt ; the treasury was empty, the kingdom in debt, the coinage debased. In place of the old nobility of blood stood a new peerage raised on the ruins and debauched by the spoils of the Church, and created to be docile tools in the work of revolution." Hertford becomes Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset, 1547. During Henry's last days the representatives of the old and the new order had been almost evenly balanced. Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, had served as a counterpoise to Cranmer and Hertford. At the King's death, however, Norfolk was a prisoner in the Tower, and Gardiner's name did not appear in the list of sixteen executors whom Henry had named as a Council of Regency during Edward's minority. This body was composed mainly of men of much ambition and little scruple. Under the in- fluence of Hertford, whom they chose Governor and Protector of the Realm, they gave full rein to the policy of reform which the more con- servative Henry had held in check. At the same time, they did not neglect their own interests. On 18 February, 1547, two days before his coronation, on the ground that such was his father's will, they made the little King distribute a number of peerages. Among those promoted were Hertford, who became Duke of Somerset, and his future rival, John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, who became Earl of Warwick. In March, the executors, with a body of assistants, were constituted a royal Council. Somerset was confirmed in his office with enlarged powers. The Protector was slightly over forty years old, of handsome features and graceful bearing. He was already known as a dashing and successful general. While greedy of power, he meant to serve 348 THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 349 his country well. He lived a pure life, and he was overflowing with large ideas and lofty aims. In addition to carrying the Protestant Revolution to its extreme limits, he strove to unite England and Scotland, and labored to alleviate the wretchedness of the poor. But he was a dreamer rather than a practical ruler of men. He failed to realize the difficulties which stood in his way, he underrated the strength of his opponents, and he lacked the tact and firmness to make his ideas prevail. In the interests of progress and toleration he allowed a freedom of speech and action to extremists that resulted in the greatest confusion and disorder. He was unable to comprehend that the consent of the Scots was essential to any real union, and, by attempting to carry it at the point of the sword, he only inflamed their already bitter opposition. In seeking to befriend the poor he only excited hopes which he was unable to satisfy, he alienated the landed interests and widened the breach between the classes. He was vain, arrogant, impatient of advice, and, unfortunately, prejudiced his reputation for disinterestedness by his rapacity and display. He enriched himself with the spoils of the Church, and applied the fabric of consecrated edifices to building himself a magnificent palace. Yet with all his faults and incompetence, he was a shining contrast to his successor. The Protector's First Parliament, 1547-1548. The first Parlia- ment of the new reign, which sat from November, 1547, to January, 1548, passed a series of measures, all important, and many of them praiseworthy. The bulk of the treason acts since the famous 25 Edward III were done away with; and it was enacted that, hence- forth, charges of treason should be preferred within thirty days after the offense and supported by two sufficient witnesses. An act of 1539 giving royal proclamations the force of law was repealed, as were also the heresy laws of Richard II and Henry V, and the Act of the Six Articles, with its savage penalties. At the request of Con- vocation communion in both kinds was legalized ; but a law sanction- ing clerical marriages had to wait for a year. The Chantries Bill of 1545 was renewed and enforced, and the fruits of their suppression, together with the religious property of gilds, were turned over to the Council. Some was appropriated by those in control, while a very inadequate portion was later applied to the founding of schools. Protestant Excesses. The greatest confusion, license, and pro- fanity prevailed. Each parish became a law unto itself, and individ- uals likewise threw off all restraint. Some were honest zealots, others made war on the ancient order solely for gain. Foreigners poured in : Lutherans from Germany ; Calvinists from Geneva ; Zwinglians from Zurich, as well as " heretics of every hue," so that England was regarded by the horrified men of the old stamp as " the harbor of all infidelity." Neither Lutheranism nor Zwinglianism exercised any abiding influence, nor was the church organization of Calvin ever generally accepted ; but his theology, especially his doc- 350 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND trine of predestination, and his political principles, came to affect Englishmen profoundly. Though the extremists went to such lengths that the Council had, in the interests of property and order, to devise means to check them, progressive measures followed one another in quick succession. 1 A Book of Homilies 2 was launched which, five years before, had failed to receive the assent of the King and Convoca- tion. During the summer and autumn of 1547 a general visitation was held which enforced the use of English in the services, the destruc- tion of " abused " images, 3 and the acknowledgment of the royal supremacy. Various ceremonies were done away with, such as the creeping to the cross on Good Friday, the use of ashes, palms, candles, and holy water. The clergy were forbidden to preach outside their own dioceses without a special license. Although this was aimed at the extremists of both factions, it was the Protestants alone who received any exemption. Somerset's Growing Unpopularity, 1548. These measures were merely temporary expedients until a " uniform and godly " order of service could be enacted. Gardiner, and Bonner, Bishop of London, resisted so stoutly that they were imprisoned, and the latter was not long afterwards deprived of his see. This was the nearest to religious persecution that the Protector ever came. Indeed, his ecclesiastical policy met with comparatively little opposition. Other measures, good in themselves, he found it impossible to carry, which made him only the more violent and high-handed. He appointed an agricultural commission to deal with evasions of the statutes of enclosures, and, when Parliament, in December, 1547, under the influence of the landed classes, rejected three new bills 4 based on its reports, he set up in his own house a Court of Requests where the poor might appeal to him over the heads of the judges. The First Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer, 1549. In January, 1549, Parliament passed an Act of Uniformity which imposed on all subjects the form of service contained in a Book of Common Prayer drawn up by a commission headed by Cranmer. This book was based largely on the form prevalent in England before the Reformation and known as the Sarum Use. 5 Done in that im- posing yet simple language of which Cranmer was master, it departed little from its medieval model except that it was shorter and less^ complicated. The act of 1549 was mild compared with the later acts. It was~~Iimited to the clergy, it insisted only upon uniformity of 1 The orders were issued by the Council under color of royal authority, but the details were suggested mainly by Cranmer. 2 A series of discourses appointed to be read in churches in place of the sermons. 3 These included stained glass windows, paintings, and carvings, extended subsequently to all images. 4 They dealt with the education of poor men's children, security of tenure., and decay of tillage and husbandry. 5 So called because it was drawn up for the diocese of Sarum at Salisbury by Bishop Osmund, who occupied the see 1078-1099. THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 351 outward observance, and no attempt was made to impose a doctrinal test. Princess Mary, who refused to conform, was allowed by the Protector to hear mass in her own house. Religious Revolt in Devon and Cornwall, 1549. Yet the new arrangement satisfied neither of the extreme parties. It still savored too much of Rome for the "hot gospellers," while the country folk, under the influence of the parish priests, resisted even the moderate changes which it introduced. In July the men of Devon and Cornwall rose in revolt, demanding the restoration of the old services, and images and monastic endowments. The insurgents proceeded to besiege Exeter, which was only relieved in August by a government force assisted by foreign mercenaries. Kett's Rebellion, 1549. While the mainspring of the revolt in the southwest was religious, widespread discontent existed throughout the country, due to agrarian distress, to the steady rise of prices re- sulting from the debased currency, and to the repressive vagrancy laws. The failure of Somerset's efforts to improve the situation brought on a revolt which centered in the eastern counties. It was led by one Robert Kett, a prosperous landlord whose sympathies with the rioters had been accidentally enlisted. Early in July he es- tablished a camp on Mousehold Heath, near Norwich, and set up a court under an oak tree, to which offending landlords were brought for judgment. He kept his forces in good order, prohibited all blood- shed, had prayers morning and evening, and frequent addresses from preachers. A petition was drawn up, begging that enclosures and other oppressive practices might be diminished. " We pray," it plain- tively declared, " that all bondmen be made free ; for God made all free with his precious blood-shedding." A pardon brought by a royal herald was rejected on the ground that " Kings were wont to pardon wicked persons and not innocent and just men." Thereupon, Kett seized the town of Norwich and defeated an army sent to recover it. Finally, the insurgents were defeated by a force under Warwick, reenforced by French and Italian mercenaries. Kett was captured and later executed. Somerset had been obliged to employ force against the very class whose hopes he had raised, and Warwick saw the opportunity which he had long sought for overthrowing his rival. Many other things, besides, had contributed to discredit the Protector. Failure of Somerset's Scotch and French Policy. His foreign policy had failed. He had accentuated the hatred of the Scots, he had helped to cement more closely their alliance with France, and had been unsuccessful in averting a French war. To be sure, he had tried to proceed cautiously, he had declined a Lutheran alliance to avoid angering Charles V, and he had sought an alliance with Henry II, who had succeeded Francis I in March, 1547. But Henry was keen on combining with the Scots and recovering Boulogne. So Somerset turned to Scotland. He offered to give up Henry VIII's claim to sovereignty, and urged the acceptance of a union ; but he insisted that 352 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the treaty of 1543 should be carried out, and when the Scotch refused, he crossed the border and defeated their forces at Pinkie Cleugh. 10 August, 1547. Making allowance for all difficulties, Somerset bungled his Scotch policy. In May of the previous year a body of nobles of the anti-French, anti-Catholic party, had murdered Cardinal Beaton and seized the castle of St. Andrews. Somerset neglected the opportunity and allowed the French to send assistance to the Government, which was thus enabled to overcome the insurgents. If he had sent timely help to the men at St. Andrews, he might have built up a strong anti-French party and dictated his own terms. Moreover, the effect of his victory at Pinkie was disastrous. He was unwilling or unable to follow it up by a military occupation, and the Scots, goaded to fury by the defeat and the ensuing pillage, proposed a marriage between the Princess Mary and the Dauphin Francis. More French troops were sent over, Mary was taken to France, and the marriage, concluded in course of time, drew still closer England's two most dangerous enemies. On 8 August, 1549, while the south- western insurgents and Kett's rebellion were still on foot, France took occasion to besiege Boulogne. Summary Treatment of His Brother. Another handle against the Protector was found in the summary treatment of his brother Thomas, Baron Seymour of Sudeley and Lord High Admiral an unscrupulous man of boundless ambitions. He sought to become guardian of the King's person, and he aspired to marry the Princess Elizabeth, even before the death of his own wife, 1 whom he was accused of murdering. He allied himself with the Channel pirates, and with the master of the mint of Bristol, with whom he shared the profits of debasing the coinage; he gathered a party to further his aims; stored up arms and ammunition, and started a private cannon fac- tory. When his treasonable practices were brought to light, Parlia- ment passed an act of attainder against him, and he was executed without trial, 20 March, 1549. Although he richly deserved his fate, the Protector was blamed for thus arbitrarily disposing of his own flesh and blood. The Fall of Somerset, 1549. So Warwick and the other leaders of the Council, who nourished grievances or hoped for gain and power, had many charges to bring forward against the Protector: the strife engendered by his religious, social, and agrarian policy ; his mismanagement of foreign affairs ; his treatment of his brother ; his arrogance and heedlessness of advice ; and his profuseness and greed. When Somerset realized the full danger of his position, he made a vain effort, by means of inflammatory pamphlets, to rouse the lesser folk to rise in his defense against the " great masters " and extortioners who were attacking him because he was the people's friend. He fled from London, taking the young King with him ; but, 10 October, 1 Catharine Parr, widow of Henry VIII. THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 353 he was induced by fair promises to surrender. Immediately upon his submission, he was arrested and thrown into the Tower. Warwick's Supremacy in the Council. The control of affairs now passed into the hands of the Earl of Warwick, a brilliant soldier, a cunning diplomat, and a polished man of the world, but utterly un- scrupulous and unprincipled, masking ambition under a show of def- erence, and religious indifference under a pretended zeal for the Prot- estant cause. 1 His first step was to secure himself and his followers in the Council by law, and to undo so far as possible the work of the Protector. To this end he procured a series of acts from Parliament, which met in November, 1549. It was made high treason for persons to assemble for the purpose of killing or imprisoning a member of the Privy Council or of " altering the laws." Enclosures were legal- ized, and it was declared a treasonable offense to meet with a view of breaking them down or of abating rates and prices, while those who summoned such meetings or incited such acts were pronounced felons. On 24 March, 1550, a treaty was made with France by which Boulogne was given up for 400,000 crowns ; all strongholds which the English held in Scotland were surrendered; the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin was accepted; and England agreed to make no war on France without fresh cause of offense. Ignomin- ious as these terms were, the peace was inevitable and not without immediate advantages. Boulogne was hard pressed, and the English finances were too depleted to continue the war. Relieved of her enemies, she was able to cut down her armaments and turn her atten- tion to the religious problem. Warwick's Protestant Zeal, 1550. Warwick acted his part of advanced Protestant reformer with such zeal that he was hailed by Hooper, one of the greatest enthusiasts of the party, as " a most holy and fearless instrument of the word of God." Not only did he keep Norfolk, Bonner, and Gardiner in prison, but he deprived the latter of his see, and imprisoned and deprived half a dozen more of the bishops as well. With the bishoprics thus acquired he rewarded the leaders of the reform party. The destruction of the altars, images, and painted windows went on merrily, and the ecclesiastical lawlessness increased. Nevertheless, Joan Bocher, an Anabaptist, condemned by a church court under Somerset, was burned in May, 1550, and another heretic followed her to the stake during the next year. Warwick's adherents were as greedy of pelf as ever Somerset had been. In March, 1551, the Government seized such church plate as remained unappropriated. Moreover, the proceeds from the chantry lands which had been charged with the support of the displaced chantry priests, and " the erecting of Grammar Schools for the education of youth in virtue and godliness, and the further augmenting the better provision of the poor and needy," were largely diverted to less pious and laudable uses. 1 He was the son of Henry VII's extortioner, Dudley, and father of Elizabeth's notorious favorite, the Earl of Leicester. 2A 354 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The " Judicial Murder " of Somerset, 1552. Between February, 1550, and January, 1552, Warwick got on without a Parliament. He packed the Council with his own followers, he made himself its presi- dent, and he had himself created Duke of Northumberland, though he did not venture to assume the title of Lord Protector. His old rival was released from the Tower, 6 February, 1550, and readmitted to the Council in April. While the two patched up a reconciliation, it was natural that Somerset should oppose the policy of the President and seek to recover his lost power. Consequently, 16 October, 1551, he was suddenly arrested with certain of his adherents, and again sent to the Tower. The story was circulated that he had plotted to murder Northumberland and others of the Council, to seize the crown, and to destroy the city of London. He was tried before a court con- sisting of 26 of the 47 peers of England, among them Northumberland and his satellites who had framed the accusation and examined the witnesses. Even then all the charges against him were finally dropped except one of felony for inciting an unlawful assembly. Nor did that rest on any sound basis. On 22 January, 1552, he was executed by a royal order fraudulently obtained for the purpose. The popular opposition was so intense almost as to provoke a riot. Parliament, which met the following day, showed its abhorrence of the deed by passing a new treason act restoring the obligation to present a charge within three months * and to substantiate it by the evidence of two witnesses. The Second Act of the Uniformity, 1552. Voicing the increasing Protestant sentiment, this same Parliament proceeded to sanction a revised edition of the Book of Common Prayer. In the new Book the priest is called a " minister," the altar a " table," and in the com- munion service the memorial idea supersedes the doctrine of the Real Presence. 2 But the sacrament was still to be received kneeling, and was defended in the famous " Black Rubric," 3 which declared that the posture meant " no adoration to any Real Presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood." A second Act of Uniformity enjoining the use of the Book thus revised also imposed penalties for non-observance upon the laity as well as the clergy. Any one neglecting to attend service on Sundays and holidays was liable to ecclesiastical censure and ex- communication. The penalty for attending any other form was six months' imprisonment for the first offense, a year for the second, and life for the third. Cranmer, who had been in charge of the work 1 Treason was among the original charges against Somerset, though he was convicted of felony. 2 Where the priest had said formerly : "The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," the minister now said, in proffering the bread to the communicant : "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." A similar exhortation was made in offering the wine. 3 A "rubric" is an explanatory note, getting its name from the fact that they were originally, and are usually, printed in red. THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 355 of revision, also drew up a series of forty-two articles defining the faith. These were not submitted to Parliament, but were sanctioned by a royal proclamation in June, 1553. Northumberland's Plot, 1553. In spite of increased spoliation of the Church, 1 and renewed debasement of coinage, there was a constant dearth of money. Moreover, the Duke, with all his acuteness and ability, lacked the art of making himself popular ; and, as the financial situation grew worse and his arbitrariness and self-seeking became more and more evident, lost ground steadily. Even the preachers who had hailed him as a new Moses or a new Joshua began to de- nounce him as Achitophel. 2 His hold over the sickly boy King remained almost his only source of strength. Realizing that Edward's brief life was drawing to a close, he devised his last and most daring scheme, designed to secure a successor over whom he might exercise control. The last succession act, passed in 1544, had decreed that, failing issue, Mary should succeed Edward, and Elizabeth should suc- ceed Mary. Beyond that point Parliament had empowered Henry VIII to regulate the succession by will. Passing over the heirs of his elder sister Margaret, represented at this time by Mary, Queen of Scots, he had devised the crown to the line of his sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk. Although Edward's two sisters were still alive, Northum- berland determined to get him to pass them over and vest the succes- sion in the Suffolk line ; not, however, in Frances, the nearest repre- sentative, but in her daughter, Lady Jane Grey, whom he married to Guilford Dudley, his fourth son. This was clearly illegal ; for Henry's will was authorized by Parliament, while Northumberland sought only the Council's sanction of his scheme. Indeed, that body only assented with extreme reluctance. The timorous Cranmer was the last to sign. 3 The judges were only brought over by promises and threats. This was in June, 1553. On 6 July, King Edward VI died at Greenwich in his sixteenth year. The matter was kept secret as long as possible, and 10 July, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed in London. Edward's Characteristics. Edward is described as a short, slender, fair-haired youth of sedate bearing, weak-eyed and slightly deaf. Carefully educated and always cheerful at his books, he learned Greek and Latin as a mere child, though he diverted himself with hunting, hawking, and tilting. He was devoted to his tutor, Sir John Cheke ; but he associated only rarely with the youth of his own age or with his sisters, each of whom had a separate household. His uncle Somer- set failed to gain any personal influence over him, and when the move- ment to drive the Protector out of office was launched, he noted dryly in his diary the following items against him : " ambition, vain-glory, entering into rash wars in my youth . . . enriching himself of my 1 Church bells and organs were seized, and lead was stripped from the roofs of sacred buildings. 2 From the fraudulent councilor of Absalom. 3 Though, by virtue of his high office, his name stands first on the list. 356 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND treasure, following his own opinion, and doing all by his own author- ity." Indeed, Edward's natural affection was small, and as he grew older, he began to exhibit more and more his father's masterful temper and regal dignity. Northumberland managed to gain an ascendancy over him, though it is most unlikely that he would have maintained it had the King reached manhood. His precocity of intellect and the intensity of his religious ardor were equally marked. He was assid- uous in hearing sermons, would gravely note the points that impressed him, and discuss them afterwards. On 15 May, 1550, a contemporary reports : " No study delights him more than that of the Holy Scrip- tures, of which he reads daily ten chapters with the greatest atten- tion," and a few days later it is recorded in a letter to Calvin : " The King is exerting all his powers for the restoration of God's Kingdom." But, in January, 1553, he was attacked by consumption, resulting from a cold which he caught at tennis, and his death, which soon followed, was a sudden check on the course of the Reformation. Edward's Educational and Charitable Foundations. In spite of the greedy adventurers who surrounded him, the young King was able to do something for learning and charity. From the sale of chap- els, chantries, and other church property he endowed, or reendowed, upwards of thirty grammar schools. Christ's Hospital, founded for the sons of the poor, formerly the Grey Friars monastery, became the famous Blue Coat School. Funds were given to the hospitals of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew for the medical treatment of the indigent, and the Savoy palace was turned into an institution of the same sort. The royal palace of Bridewell became a workhouse or a house of correction for " ramblers, dissolute and sturdy beggars." Inadequate as all this was, it was more than Henry VIII had at- tempted. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. A. F. Pollard, History of England, from the Accession of Edward VI to. the Death of Elizabeth (1910), chs. I-V (full list of authorities, with comments, pp. 418-503). Innes, England under the Tudor s, chs. XII, XIII. Cambridge Modern History, II, ch. XIV (list of authorities, pp. 794-801). Froude, History of England, chs. IV, V. Lingard, History of England, V, ch. IV. A. F. Pollard, England under Protector Somerset (1900) ; the standard work on the Protector, rather in the nature of an apology. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. IV, ch. III. Ecclesiastical. Wakeman, chs. XIII, XIV. Gairdner, History of the English Church, chs. XIII, XIV, XV. Dixon, History of the Church of England, chs. II, III. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 159-162. THE PROTESTANT EXTREMISTS IN POWER 357 THE GRAYS AND THE SEYMOURS HENRY VII, 1485-1509 I HENRY VIII, 1509-1547 Margaret= James IV Mary of Scotland m. (i) Louis XII of France = (2) Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk Frances = Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk Jane Grey=Guilford Dudley Catherine Grey = Edward Seymour, | Earl of Hertford I Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, d. 1612 Edward, d. 1618 I William, afterward 2d Duke of Somerset (1588-1660), m. Arabella Stuart, see p. 293 CHAPTER XXIII THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION. MARY (1553-1558) Defeat of the Northumberland Plot, 1553. When Mary learned of the events in London, she took refuge in Framlingham, a fortified manor house in Suffolk. She chose her position wisely ; it was within the area of Kett's rebellion, hence in a country bitterly hostile to Northumberland, and it was near the seacoast whence, if need arose, she could easily flee to the Flemish dominions of her cousin, Charles V. Forthwith, loyal gentlemen and their retainers began to flock to Mary's support, bringing with them money, plate, and jewels. Lon- don, on the contrary, showed no enthusiasm for Lady Jane Grey, and Northumberland, as he departed with an army against the Marian forces, was heard to exclaim : " The people press to see us, but not one sayeth ' God speed ye.' ' He had not gone far, however, before the citizens awakened from their lethargy, and when, 19 July, Lady Jane's own father proclaimed Mary on Tower Hill and Paul's Cross, they manifested their joy by the ringing of bells, by bonfires, by salvos of cannon, and shouts of applause. The attempts to set aside a will authorized by Parliament, the hard conditions under which Mary had grown up, and the religious excesses of the late reign, all combined to incline the people to support their rightful Queen. Nor- thumberland's troops began to drop away as he marched, and when he learned that the crews of the Channel fleet had deserted his cause, he declared for Mary himself, in the market place at Cambridge, 20 July, protesting, with tears in his eyes, that he knew her to be a merciful woman. Ordered by the Council to disband his army, he-was arrested and taken to London. On 3 August, 1553, the new Queen, accom- panied by a glittering escort, 'rode into the City. Her first act was to release Norfolk, Gardiner, and others. Gardiner was restored to his see of Winchester and made Chancellor and Chief Minister, though Mary herself, for the first year or two of her reign, rose at daybreak and worked till midnight on affairs of State. Of those who had plotted against her accession seven were tried and condemned, but only three were executed. Northumberland tried in vain to avert his richly deserved fate by professing himself a Catholic. Mary refused to put Lady Jane Grey to death, though she sent her to prison. Mary's Character and Policy. The Queen, who had now come to her own, was in her thirty-seventh year. In spite of contemporary accounts of her beauty, her portraits represent her as prim and un- 358 THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 359 prepossessing. She was of low stature, and extremely short-sighted. Though thin and delicate, she had a deep-toned, masculine voice. After a few brief years, when she was courted by the leading princes of Europe, she had shared in her mother's disgrace, and because of her unflinching loyalty to her religion, had been exposed to the brutality of Henry VIII and his agents. 1 At length she was reconciled to her father, but only on hard and humiliating terms. Restored to the succession in 1544, she was kept apart from her brother and had to face continued hardships and opposition. She was highly educated, and her mental endowments and accomplishments were uncommon. In her lonely and joyless life study, music, and embroidery formed her only resource. Yet, withal, and in spite of occasional bursts of temper, partly a result of ill health, she was loved by all about her for her generosity and kindness. Her dearest wish was to restore England to the Catholic fold. For that she had embittered her life and all but lost her birthright. First Measures of the Reign. A fortnight after her entry into London she issued a proclamation urging all men to return to the old faith, she ordered the restoration of much church plate which had been stolen, she gave warning to " busy meddlers in religion," and forbade the " private interpretation of God's own word after men's own brains." Married clergy who refused to give up their wives were deprived. Elizabeth, though she refused to declare her con- version, agreed to attend mass and was left in peace. The formal settlement of religion was reserved to Parliament. In order to relieve the financial situation, Mary remitted the tax imposed by Edward's last parliament a step which " caused a marvelous noise of rejoic- ing " and sought to regulate the coinage. Yet her coronation, i October, was a very gorgeous affair/intended to impress the people. The procession to and from the Abbey was most imposing from its profusion of crimson velvet, furs, silks, and gold and silver lace. Marriage Projects. The Queen's marriage presented a serious problem. Her subjects were anxious to settle the succession; but the majority wanted her to marry among her own people and to keep clear of foreign complications and papal control. Some, however, backed by Charles V, desired her union with a foreign prince of the Roman Catholic faith, who would aid her to restore the power of the Pope, and counteract the Franco-Scotch alliance. The latter party looked to Philip, son of the Emperor, and heir to his Spanish domin- ions, a widower eleven years the junior of Mary. He was opposed not only by the majority of Englishmen, but by the two men high in royal favor, Gardiner and Pole. The System of Henry VIII restored by Parliament, 1553. Par- liament met 5 October, 1553. Its chief work was to pass an act re- pealing all laws of Edward's reign affecting religion and the Church, 1 Norfolk and Sussex once declared to her face that, if she were their daughter, "they would knock her head against the wall till it was as soft as a baked apple." 360 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and restoring the service as it was in the last year of Henry VIII. This did away with both Books of Common Prayer, with communion in both kinds, and the marriage of the clergy. Parliament would go no further; for the majority had no desire to reverse the policy of Henry VIII and again accept papal rule. As a protest against the projected Spanish match, the Commons prepared an address praying the Queen to marry an English noble. Mary, who had already de- termined on Philip, rebuked them sharply for presuming to control her choice of a husband. (In January, 1554, the marriage articles ~~ta were arranged, and upon terms most favorable to England/) Although Philip was to have the title of joint sovereign and to aid^his consort in the government of England, the country was to preserve its ancient laws and privileges independent of Spain. None but English were to hold office, and if the Queen should die without issue, her husband /was to make no claim on the succession. On the other hand, any child born of the marriage would succeed both to the English kingdom and to Philip's inheritance in the Low Countries. Finally, Philip agreed not to engage England in his father's wars with France. Wyatt's Rebellion, 1554. The people showed their hatred of the match by nearly tearing Philip's ambassador to pieces when he landed in Kent, mistaking him for the bridegroom; and by pelting with snowballs Courtenay who went to meet him at Westminster. Those were indications of a feeling which gave Mary's enemies a chance to plan a widespread rebellion, which, while professing to free her from her evil councilors and to prevent the Spanish marriage, really aimed, with French help, to depose the Queen and to set up Lady Jane Grey or Elizabeth in her place. But the T design leaked out, and Gardiner wrung a complete confession from Courtenay. 1 Three separate out- breaks were suppressed in detail. One led by Sir Peter Carew and the gentry of Devon, with the aim of setting Elizabeth and Courtenay on the throne, broke up in a panic when Courtenay failed to appear. Carew, who fled abroad, was nearly dispatched in Venice by hired assassins. A second, centering in the midlands and conducted by the Duke of Suffolk in favor of his daughter, Lady Jane Grey, was easily crushed. Suffolk was lodged in the Tower. A third rising in Kent caused more trouble. The leader, Sir Thomas Wyatt, 2 a young Roman Catholic, succeeded in crossing the Thames at Kingston above London, whence he penetrated into the City as far as the Temple Bar before he could be overcome. Mary, thus threatened on many sides, showed the true Tudor spirit and tact. On i February she made a stirring speech, declaring that the conspirators were simply making her marriage " a Spanish cloak to cover their pretended purpose against our religion," and offering, if the Lords and Commons deemed it for the best interests of her subjects, to remain single as long as she lived. In spite of urgent appeals she refused to leave Whitehall which 1 He was the son of the Marquis of Exeter executed by Henry VIII in 1538. 2 He was a son of the poet. THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 361 lay in the rebel line of march. About sixty of the insurgent leaders, including Wyaj < t L j^^Siifolk^j^re^jit_tq death. Lady Jane Grey and her husband were^ executed for their part in the old Northumber- land plot. Elizabeth, brought to London and held in durance for a time, was finally reconciled to her sister. In spite of various sus- picious circumstances, no proof of her complicity was discovered. The Arrival of Philip, 1554. Wyatt's rebellion was followed by more rigorous measures against the Protestants. Foreign congrega- tions were ordered to quit the realm, married clergy were forced to give up their wives or to leave their benefices, and country gentry were commanded to set up altars in the village churches. Parliament, which sat from the 2 April to 5 May, while it sanctioned the marriage treaty, refused to exclude Elizabeth from the succession or to reenact the Six Articles and the old heresy laws. On 20 July, Philip landed at Southhampton, where he met a deputation of the Council, to whom he showed himself most gracious and conciliatory. Declaring that he came to live among them as an Englishman, and that his attendants would conform to the English law, he drank, as a pledge of his goodwill, a tankard of English ale. This last was no doubt an ordeal for a Spaniard. Mary met him at Winchester, where, on the 25th, they were married in the ancient cathedral. After a month of festivities the royal pair journeyed to London with a stately train, including twenty-eight carts filled with bullion amounting to 50,000, which Philip brought as a present to the kingdom. While he strove to please, his formal manner and his strict devotion to his religious duties seemed to strengthen the natural aversion with which he was regarded, and his attendants were hustled and beaten in the streets. The Return to Rome, 1554. Parliament met again, 12 November, 1554. In order that the royal wishes might be carried out, the sheriffs had been ordered to return men of " a wise, grave, and Catholic sort." Cardinal Pole, recently appointed papal legate, landed in England a few days after the opening of the session. Mary welcomed him with boundless delight, declaring : " The day I ascended the throne, I did not feel such joy." In answer to a petition from Parliament the Legate, on St. Andrew's Day (29 November), solemnly received the realm " again into the unity of our own Mother the Holy Church." This reunion would never have come to pass, even in a packed parlia- ment, but for his assurance that the Pope had consented to waive the restoration of the Church lands. Parliament then completed the revival of the old order by repealing " all statutes, articles, and pro- visions against the See Apostolic of Rome since the twentieth year of King Henry VIII," and restoring all the heresy laws. The Marian Persecutions, 1555-1558. Then began four horrible years of persecution which have stained indelibly the memory of the Queen and fastened upon her the name of " Bloody Mary." Up to this time she had been comparatively lenient. The national opposi- tion which had manifested itself in armed rebellion really marked the 362 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND turning point in her reign. Other causes, however, contributed to change her policy. Philip, who had married her purely for reasons of State, grew colder and colder, and soon left the country, to return only once again when he wanted aid; then Mary was denied what she most desired, an heir to perpetuate her name; and finally her health, never robust, grew steadily worse. While these facts help to explain the cruelty of her methods, it must not be forgotten that Mary regarded it as her duty to extirpate heresy and restore the purity of the faith ; in her own words, " She had been predestined and preserved by God to the succession of the crown for no other end save that He might make use of her above all else in bringing back the realm to the Catholic faith." x Moreover, there was no idea of toleration in those days, 2 heresy was regarded as a loathsome disease to be stamped out at all cost ; thousands on the Continent suffered for their faith ; Mary was not alone in thinking that obstinate heretics should suffer death for " the great horror of their offense and the manifest example of other Christians " ; and disregard of suffering and of human life were a feature of the age. Still, if Mary's lot had been a happier one and her subjects had not risen against her, she might have softened her stern sense of duty by considerations of policy and humanity. Parliament shares the blame for the persecutions which followed. Gardiner advised the step ; but he hoped that a few examples would be sufficient, and he died less than a year after the persecutions had begun. Even while he lived, his hands were tied ; because having separated from Rome with Henry VIII, his orthodoxy was not above suspicion. 3 Pole was too gentle a spirit to enter into heresy hunting with any zeal, but Mary forced him into line and persuaded him that hitherto he had been too mild. Nevertheless, he more than once admonished the bishops to moderation. Philip, keen scenter and torturer of heretics in his own dominions, took no share in the pro- ceedings in England 4 ; he saw that, with inadequate machinery and the trend of opinion against it, such a policy could not succeed, and for political reasons he desired to be popular. Bishop Bonner .has often been charged with exceptional activity and cruelty 8 ; but he seldom spoke at the examinations, while after an accused person had been condemned he often worked secretly to make him recant. His reputation seems to have been due to the fact that there were more executions in his diocese than elsewhere. It contained, however, the bulk of the heretics ; and, furthermore, the Queen frequently had to 1 An example of her attitude may be seen in an order that, during executions in London, "some good and pious sermons should be preached." 2 The violence of the reformers did not tend to encourage it; when, for example, a dog was tonsured like a priest, a cat was dressed in clerical vestments, and the most violent and abusive pamphlets were circulated. 3 Not a single person, however, was burned in his diocese, while he lived. 4 Renard, the Imperial ambassador, also suggested less rigorous methods. 8 The historian Froude calls him " the common cut-throat and slaughter-general of all the bishops of England." THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 363 spur his lagging zeal. When he felt duty bound, he proceeded with energy; he was hot-tempered and treated prisoners roughly, but more likely to frighten them into recanting than because he was blood- thirsty. The Martyrs. Mary's victims numbered nearly 300, a total greater than that in Henry VIII's reign of thirty-eight years or Eliza- beth's of forty-five. 1 The area of persecution was confined mainly to southeastern and eastern England. 2 London furnished 128, or almost one half. John Rogers, famous for his version of the English Bible, was the first to suffer. Originally a priest of the old faith, he had been converted to Protestantism by William Tyndale, whom he met in the Low Countries. On 4 February, 1555, he was burned at Smith- field in the presence of his eleven children. Little in stature he was of great courage, and his wife comforted him " in such manner that it seemed as if he had been led to a wedding." A few days after he was followed to the stake by Dr. Rowland Taylor, esteemed for his learning and loved for his faithfal pastoral ministration. He, too, had once been a priest of the Church of Rome. He was burned in his own parish at Hadleigh in Suffolk, where he had refused to allow a priest to say mass. He parted serenely from his wife and children and a throng of sorrowing parishioners. As the flames crept round him one of the executioners cast a fagot and hit him on the head. As the blood ran down his face he said gently : " O friend, I have harm enough, what needed that?" Then he stood without crying or moving till he was struck with a halberd and fell dead in the fire. On the same day and at the same hour, in his former diocese of Gloucester, Bishop Hooper suffered martyrdom with noble courage. On 16 October Latirner r the matchless popular orator " downright father Hugh" and Bishop Ridley were burned at Oxford, whither they had been taken some time before to defend their position in solemn disputation. Latimer had, at the opening of the reign, been offered a chance to flee, but though " a sore bruised man, about threescore and seven years of age," he stoutly refused. While in prison he joked merrily with his keeper, telling him that " if he did not guard him better, he would escape," and that " he thought he would burn, but he was like to starve for cold." At the stake he called to his weaker companion : " Be of good comfort, Master Ridley ; we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as, I trust, shall never be put out." At the last he received the flame as if embrac- ing it, and stroking his face with his hands, bathed them in the fire, crying out vehemently in his own English tongue : " Father in Heaven, receive my soul." 1 Yet this is less than half the number that suffered in Spain in a single year. 2 They were distributed mainly as follows: London, 128; Canterbury, 55; Norwich, 46; Oxford, 7; the other 31 were spread through various counties. As to classes: 5 were bishops; 21 clergy; 8 gentlemen; 84 artisans; 100 husband- men and laborers, 55 women and 4 children. 364 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Execution of Cranmer, 1556. Cranmer, who had served as Primate under the Pope, was tried under a papal commission. Per- plexed and fearful of suffering, he signed at least six recantations before he was finally condemned. Yet his end was truly heroic. Confessing himself " a wretched caitiff and a miserable sinner," he thrust first into the flam esjLhehand which had signed the recantation, crying : " Thfs hand .hath offended. 7 ' ' So^p~eHshed7TorMarcF~iy567^ The gentle souf "of wavering courage, the man born to pass peaceful days in cloistered shades, torn from them to be the unwilling pilot of revolution." The effect upon the people was tremendous. The chosen leader of the ecclesiastical system of Henry VIII, the author of the eloquent and beautiful Book of Common Prayer, the Primate of the National Church, had been martyred in the interest and through the agency of a potentate whom the sovereign and Parliament had once discarded. Of the humbler victims the number is too great to speak, though their con- stancy deserves to be proclaimed through the ages. It shows the hold that the new doctrines had gained on the hearts of the people. Plainly such examples encouraged rather than frightened the weaker. Even the most devoted Romanists recoiled, but the stern, misguided Queen persisted in the useless butchery. The very week before her death five went to the stake. The Departure of Philip, 1555. Everything, however, worked against her. Cardinal Caraffa, who became Pope as Paul IV, in- sisted upon the restoration of the church lands, thus alienating many of her Roman Catholic supporters. On 29 August, 1555, Philip left her. Devoted as she was to him, Mary's temper was very trying ; he was growing steadily more unpopular, and he had given up hope of succeeding to the English throne. On 25 October, his father handed over to him the Flemish provinces and, in January, 1556, the kingdom of Spain. Besides the extirpation of heretics, Mary's chief occupation during her loneliness was to discharge her conscience by restoring to the Church the revenues torn from it by the Crown. She set up anew some of the ancient monastic establishments and gave money to edu- cate poor children. War with France, 1557. Loss of Calais, 1558. Late in 1556 war broke out between France and Spain. From 18 March to 3 July, 1557, Philip was again in England, seeking aid against his enemy. His efforts were furthered most opportunely by the landing in York- shire, 24 April, of a body of exiles led by Thomas Stafford, grandson of the last Duke of Buckingham, who declared that he came to defeat the " devilish devices " of Mary and to deliver the country from a foreign usurper. He was quickly disposed of. The French King denied all connection with the undertaking; nevertheless, England declared war on him, 7 June. On 6 January, 1558, Calais, the last English possession on French soil, was captured by the Duke of Guise. Three months later Mary, Queen of Scots, was married to the French Dauphin. At home the English prospects were as dark and threaten- THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 365 ing as they were abroad. An ague fever raged through the land during the summer and autumn of 1557 and 1558, corn was dear, trade and agriculture languished, and heavy taxes were imposed to meet the cost of the unsuccessful and unpopular war. " The Queen does all she can," wrote Philip's ambassador ; " her will is good and her heart stout, but everything else is wrong." Death of Queen Mary, 1558. In the midst of sullen discontent en- gendered by persecution, foreign and papal intermeddling, financial stress, and national humiliation, for which she was largely to blame and for which her subjects held her w r holly responsible, Mary suc- cumbed to the prevailing epidemic. She had suffered for years from headache, palpitation of the heart, and dropsy, and this combined with mental anguish due to the hatred of subjects, the failure of her policy, and the neglect of Philip, made her an easy victim. The loss of Calais, " the fairest jewel " of her kingdom, was the crowning grief. " When I am dead and opened," she said in her last illness, " you will find Calais lying upon my heart." She died 17 November, 1558. By her own request she was buried in the habit of a nun and not in her robes of state. Pole, who had succeeded Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, followed her to the grave within a few hours. To zealous Protestants she was " Bloody Mary," the " Wicked Jezebel of England," cruel, vindictive, one who delighted in shedding innocent blood. Yet by nature she was kind and charitable. At her acces- sion she declared that " she minded not to compel any of her subjects " to embrace the old faith " until such time as further order by common assent shall be taken thereunto," and, until Wyatt's rebellion, she spared many who had plotted to exclude her from the throne. Her marriage to Philip was the greatest mistake of her life. It outraged national sentiment and ruined what chance there was of making her religious policy prevail. The oppositions which it excited, and its other unhappy consequences, accentuated her austere sense of duty into blind fanaticism, and made her persist with sickening savageness in burning the bodies of her subjects to save their souls. In a prayer book said to be hers, the pages which contain the prayers for the unity of the Holy Catholic Church are stained with tears and much handling. The Results of the Marian Exile. The activity of the Marian exiles, who flooded the country with furious and inflammatory writings, made the lot of those who remained behind much harder than it might otherwise have been. 1 At the beginning of the reign all foreign exiles had been ordered to leave the realm within twenty-four days, under pain of imprisonment and loss of goods. About 800 migrated, to- gether with 200 English disciples. They settled chiefly in Lutheran Frankfort and Strassburg, in Zwinglian Zurich, and Calvinistic Geneva. While views of these various reformers had penetrated into 1 John Knox's " Faithful Admonition to the Profession of God's Truth in Eng- land" and his "Blasts of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women," while by no means the most violent, will show their temper. / 7 *--Tate was regarded as the servant, not the master of the Church. Yet there was one fundamental difference between the two. The Roman or- ganization was monarchical, while the Calvinistic was, in theory at least, f republican. The pastors and elders were supposed to be the representatives, the chosen instruments of the congregation. As a matter of fact, wherever Calvinism got a foothold the presbyters sought to gain complete control in political as well as religious affairs. 1 This is the chief reason why the mass of Englishmen ultimately rejected it ; not, however, before it had accomplished a great work. It was men holding Presbyterian views who began, in the reign of Elizabeth, to protest against the power of the sovereign to determine the religion of the subject. Under the Stuarts they united in Parliament with men who had other grievances, and thus launched that mixed political and religious movement known as the Puritan Revolution. So the main force in " calling Kingship to account " was largely due to what the Marian exiles learned from the disciples of Calvin, who aimed to 1 A government controlled by the clergy is known as a " theocracy." THE ENGLISH COUNTER-REFORMATION 367 make the Reformation something more than a mere transfer of religious headship. In attacking the royal supremacy over the Church they contributed to limit its power in other fields as well. The Scotch Reformation. The overthrow of the Church of Rome in Scotland is unique in that it was brought about, not under of, but in opposition to, the sovereign On the death of James V, the Earl of Arran was chosen (Governor of the Realm, an office which he held for twelve years. He favored Protestant doctrines and an English alliance", but he was weak, indolent, and vacillating, and the control of the government was gradually secured by Cardinal Beaton and Mary of Guise, who finally became Regent in 1554. The Queen Dowager was a big, powerful woman of great ability, who naturally strove to maintain Roman Catholic ascendancy under a French alliance. There were three elements ranged against her ; the Protestants, the anti^ French_party, and the nobles, poor and greedy, who coveted the riches of the Church. As early as 1528, Patrick Hamilton had been burned for heresy. It was said that his " reek . . . infected all it blew on " ; certainly, several who witnessed his martyrdom became Protestants. However, it was the burning of George Wishart, i March, 1546, which occasioned the first rising. Immediately after his death a body of nobles banded together and murdered in his bed, 29 May, Cardinal Beaton, the great and worldly Archbishop of St. Andrews's, author of Wishart's death. They seized the castle of St. Andrews's where they were joined by many of the anti-Catholic, anti- French party. John Knox and his Work. Among those who came was John Knox (1505-1575), who, more than any other man, was the author and organizer of the Scotch Reformation. Hard, narrow, but a born leader, eloquent, unselfish, and uncompromising, he amply deserved the epitaph graven on his tomb : " Here lies one who never feared the face of man." In July, 1547, when the castle surrendered to a com- bined force of French and Scots, he was taken prisoner, and served in the French galleys till February, 1549. From then till the death of Edward VI he was a preacher in England, part of the time a royal chaplain. Shortly after Mary's accession, he fled to the Continent, where he met Calvin, whose views he adopted. He soon settled in Geneva and became a minister of the English congregation. In the autumn of 1555 he was back in Scotland, where he found that the Protestant movement had made rapid progress. He remained in the country less than a year, when he returned to Geneva for another sojourn, which lasted till early in 1559. During his brief visit to Scotland he started an organization of the nobles which resulted, 3 December, 1557, in a bond or " covenant " to " establish the most blessed word of God and his congregation." It was signed by the Earls of Argyle and Morton, by Lord James Stuart, half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots, and by many other nobles and gentry. These C" Lords of the Congregation, 'jj as they were called, were actuated by the same threefold motives as those who had been opposing Mary v/ 368 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of Guise for years and those who had combined to murder Beaton. A petition framed in 1558 showed that they demanded reform in the Church, " the right of public and private prayer in common speech, of explaining and expounding the Scriptures, and of communion in both kinds." The history of their further progress belongs to the reign of Elizabeth. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Pollard, Political History, chs. VI-IX. Innes, England under the Tudors, chs. XIV, Xy. Cambridge Modern History, II, ch. XV (bibliography, pp. 802-805). Froude, History of England, chs. V, VI. Lingard, V, chs. V, VI. M. J. Stone, Mary I, Queen of England (1901) ; an apology for Mary. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. IV, ch. IV. Ecclesiastical. Wakeman, ch. XIV. J. Gairdner, English Church, chs. XVI-XX. Dixon, V. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments; popularly known as the Book of Martyrs (first published in 1563 ; best edition, Townshend's, 8 vols., 1843-1849) ; al- though marred by inaccuracies and bias, this is the classic contemporary account of the Marian martyrs. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, rios. 163-166. CHAPTER XXIV THE ELIZABETHAN RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT AND THE EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN (1558-1572) Elizabeth's Accession and Character. When Elizabeth received the news that she was Queen of England, she cried : " This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." It was a great heritage, and one which brought with it tremendous problems for a young woman of twenty-five. The new Queen, however, was endowed with rare qualities which had been sharpened by hard schooling in the world of men and books. Hers was a puzzling, contradictory nature, though the gold glittered brightly through the dross. She had her mother's vanity and uncertainties of temper, together with the unscrupulousness of both her parents ; but also she possessed the caution and prudence of Henry VII, and the imperiousness, tact, and charm of manner which made Henry VIII so irresistible. She could couple " mildness with majesty," she could command or cajole, or jest as the occasion demanded, and was an adept in the art of dark- ening counsel with well-sounding but meaningless words. Courtiers and other flatterers have magnified her beauty ; but in her youth she was certainly striking and attractive in appearance. Her figure was tall and well proportioned, she had a broad, commanding brow, a fine, olive-tinted complexion, hazel eyes, and a profusion of auburn hair. Her physical vigor and endurance were remarkable ; she could hunt all day, dance or watch masques and pageants all night, and when necessary apply herself unremittingly to business. Withal, in spite of her changeableness and vanity, she was very much of a man in her apparent lack of nerves, which made her fearless and insensible to pain, and in her coarseness in word and action. Her intellectual attainments had, as was the case with most of the Tudors, been im- proved under the most competent tutors procurable. She spoke French and Italian with ease, and knew a little Greek: when she visited Oxford and Cambridge, she was able to deliver addresses in Latin, and, as late as 1597, she treated the Polish ambassador to an extempore Latin speech. She was also proficient in music. On the other hand, she cared little for poetic or dramatic literature ; and, partly from indifference, partly from parsimony, she did almost nothing for that wonderful group of writers which made her reign so famous. Her Joyless Youth and Her Diplomatic Courtships. Her youth had only been less hard than that of her sister Mary. Declared 2B 369 370 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND illegitimate in 1536 she only recovered her place in the line of suc- cession three years before her father's death. Parental, brotherly and sisterly affection were all excluded from her life. Her first love affair was with Somerset's self-seeking brother, who aimed to use her as an instrument of his ambition. She was charged with complicity in his plots, from which she did not escape without a dark smirch on her good name. From that experience she learned a valuable but hard lesson to control her impulses and to trust no one but herself. He was the first of a long line of suitors, who, with the exception of her favorite, the Earl of Leicester, represented the great reigning houses of Europe. Her familiarities with Leicester caused much comment, while her romantic flights when she was nearing fifty, with the Duke of Alencon, nearly twenty years her junior, reached the height of absurdity. Her courtships, however, were merely a part of the great diplomatic game which she played so successfully through- out her reign. While to gain political advantage she led men on, she was determined never to marry. This question, as well as that of the succession, she was bound that Parliament should not discuss. Those members who presumed to disobey were overwhelmed with her wrath. Elizabeth was as lacking in religious sense as she was in scruple and delicacy. She had no sympathy with the advanced Protestantism of Edward's reign and still less with Mary's Roman Catholic restoration. She went to mass and seemed to be reconciled with her sister; but it was only for the sake of expediency, and it was in these years that she developed that practice of artfully evasive answers which came to be more and more characteristic. 1 . Elizabeth's Favorites and Councilors. Sure that they would not influence her judgment at crises, the Queen all through life in- dulged her passion for the flattery of handsome, accomplished men, and kept a large following of favorites. The chief of them all was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, grandson of Henry VII's extortioner and son of the still more notorious Northumberland. Able to charm by his external graces, he was self-indulgent, ambitious, incompetent, and false. His stepson, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was "a pleasing and fruitless object " whom Elizabeth took up in her old age. " Transported with an overdesire and thirstiness after fame," he was headstrong and insolent. With a reach far exceeding his grasp he made a botch of all that he undertook. Sir Walter Raleigh, with far greater abilities and merits than either, came to a tragic end in the next reign. For serious business Elizabeth chose good, wise ministers. William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1572-1598), was her chief 1 When asked if she believed in transubstantiation, she resorted to the following Delphic answer : " Christ was the word that spake it. He took the bread and brake it, And what his words did make it, That I believe and take it." adviser for forty years, acting first as Secretary of State and then as Lord Treasurer. Trained to the law, he had served his political ap- prenticeship under Somerset and Northumberland. During the Marian reaction he had saved himself by a judicious if unheroic con- formity. Yet he proved worthy of the confidence that Elizabeth re- posed in him. Lacking the visions and ideals of the highest type of statesmanship he was cautious, sane, methodical, and amazingly industrious. His only incentives and rewards for his public service were love of work, his attachment to the Queen, and the good of Eng- land. Owing to the royal parsimony, he received no adequate com- pensation even for his actual outlays, and but for his hereditary for- tune he would have died poor. Francis Walsingham (1530-1590) served as Secretary of State from 1573 till his death. He was a zealous Protestant, unrivaled for his skill in organizing the secret service, in unraveling plots against the throne, and excellently versed in foreign affairs. Sir Nicholas Bacon, brother-in-law of Cecil and father of the famous Francis, filled the office of Lord Keeper for the first thirty years of the reign. Learned in the law, eloquent of speech, diligent, able, and of a cheery humor withal, he was a man " whose goodness preserved his greatness from suspicion, envy, and hate." In spite of their capacity and devotion. Elizabeth was often at odds with her ministers, largely because of their excessive Protestant zeal. Her outlook was doubtless broader than theirs ; for while they were convinced that the only hope of safety lay in a rigid anti- Catholic regime, she saw the wisdom of attaching moderates of both parties to her side, realizing that if she committed herself to the ultra- Protestant policy, it would inevitably provoke civil and foreign war. A true daughter of Henry VIII and heir to his system, the mass of the people who had been swung too far forward under Edward and too far back under Mary looked to her to bring peace and prosperity out of division and poverty. Her Problems and Policy. The exhausted country was deeply in debt. Twojarti^ nf r^jjginm extremists were striving for mastery. Mary had been dragged by her Spanish consort into a disastrous war with France, and the French King with one foot on Calais and another ,in Scotland loomed up doubly threatening. Foreign powers and a part of ElizaFeth's own subjects held her to be a heretic, and no true heir of her father. Mary, Queen of Scots, the next orthodox heir, was united in marriage to the Dauphin. .Spain, too, might conceivably compose her political differences with her northern neighbor and com- bine in a grand Catholic alliance to crush this one of the few remain- ing outposts of Protestantism. It was the aim of Elizabeth to pre- vent such an eventuality. But she sought to achieve her purpose by diplomacy, steering clear of wars and alliances, and contenting herself with occasional so far as possible secret aid to the Protes- tants in Scotland and the Netherlands and the Huguenots in France. There were three reasons. She desired to give her overburdened 372 country a chance to rest and to develpp its resources. Moreover, she hoped, by preserving neutrality, to unite all classes of her subjects irrespective of party. Finally, she was proud of her diplomatic gifts. Her economy, so necessary at first, soon degenerated into stinginess. She allowed Burghley to pay his own expenses when he negotiated a treaty with Scotland, and she grudged money necessary to meet more than one crisis in her reign. Her diplomacy, too, was frequently noth- ing but deceit. 1 Yet with all her vanity, caprice, and pettiness Eliza- beth had a true love for her people, and in times of stress could rise to the noblest heights. In general, her hesitating policy was best, since it enabled her to play off conflicting forces one against another, thereby gaining time, the healing properties of which she understood so well. 2 Her policy must be judged by its fruits. She left Protestant- ism established on a secure foundation, she insured a peaceful suc- cession which led to the ultimate union with Scotland, she found poverty and strife and left prosperity and national unity. Peace with France, 1559. One of the new Queen's first steps was to refuse an offer of marriage from Philip II, and to declare to Parlia- ment her intention to remain single. It was an heroic choice. It meant that with the help of her people she was to solve her problems independently, not as a province of Spain. In April, 1550, by the treaty of Cateau Cambresis she made peace with France by yielding Calais. Though it looked humiliating, the cession relieved the country of great expense and helped in the withdrawal from foreign complica- tions. Philip, who also made peace, married Isabella of France. Nevertheless, and in spite of his recent rebuff, he had no mind to assume a hostile attitude to England ; for the preservation of her power would act as a check on his dangerous rival. The Religious Settlement, 1558-1559. While extricating the State from foreign entanglements, Elizabeth also had turned her at- tention to the religious settlement. Political expediency rather than any deep conviction shaped her views. Other reasons beside the desire of uniting the moderates determined her to steer a middle course. She preferred the old service set up by her father. " New- fangledness " and Roman Catholicism were equally objectionable to her : the former because it stood for popular or clerical control ; the latter because it looked to the Pope as supreme ruler. Pending the meeting of Parliament, she issued a proclamation ordering the continuance of the old services, and appointed a commission of divines 1 Yet that was and long continued to be all too common. In the next reign Sir Henry Wotton denned an ambassador as "an honest man appointed to lie (which then meant "sojourn" as well) abroad for the good of his country." More than one ambassador has misled another by telling the truth. It was said of two famous statesmen that "Mazarin never lied and always deceived," and that Metternich "always lied and never deceived." 2 Once she asked: "Mr. Speaker, what has passed in the Lower House?" He replied: "May it please your Majesty, seven weeks." Perhaps the chief thing which passed in her reign was forty-five years. EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 373 to revise the second Prayer Book of Edward VI. Parliament met 25 January, 1559. The strength of the Romanist party was greatly weakened because of the death of ten Marian bishops within the pre- vious year ; but the remnant fought hard, and it was not till the end of April that a settlement was reached. It was based upon two acts. Barring a few modifications, notably by the Act of Uniformity of 1662, the Elizabethan Settlement is practically that of the Church of England to-day. The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, 1559. By the first, the " Act for Restoring the Ancient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesias- tical and Spiritual ' ' popularly known as the " Act of Supremacy " the reactionary legislation of Mary was repealed, and most of the antipapal laws of Henry VIII were restored. A few of Henry's claims were not revived ; for example, the title of " Supreme Head of the Church." By refusing this title Elizabeth avoided giving offense both to the Catholics who thought it belonged only to the Pope, and to the Puritans who recognized only Christ. 1 She assumed instead the title of " Supreme Governor as well in spiritual and ec- clesiastical causes as in temporal." The Act of Supremacy gave to the sovereign the right to delegate the royal authority in ecclesiastical affairs to commissioners. Nothing, however, could be condemned as heresy which had not been declared such by the Scriptures, by one of the General Councils of the Church, or by Parliament with the consent of Convocation. Obedience to the Act was secured by an oath imposed upon all clergymen and holders of civil office. Those who maintained the authority of any foreign prince or prelate were subject to penalties, ranging from forfeiture for the first offense to death for the third. The second measure, the " Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer," enforced the form of service of the revised Prayer Book and prohibited all others. Ministers who disobeyed were pun- ished. Every one refusing to go to church had to pay twelve pence for the poor. The Elizabethan Settlement apparently satisfied the bulk of the people. Many shuddered at the late persecutions, or found papal supremacy and all its accompaniments distasteful. Others were too indifferent or too timid to resist. Of 10,000 clergymen, less than 200 refused the new Oath of Supremacy. Many extremists were restrained from resistance for fear of endangering national unity and independ- ence. Nevertheless, it was found necessary within a few years to exclude Roman Catholics from the House of Commons and to impose restrictions and penalties, known as the " penal statutes," upon the obstinate. Extreme Protestants were dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts, because acts against them could not be carried through the Commons. Submission to the Established Church was regarded as a test of loyalty to the State ; and in those troublous times dis- 1 From the words of the Scripture, "One is your head, even Christ." 374 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND obedience was regarded as the blackest of crimes " not a singular sin," but " the whole puddle and sink of sins against God and man." The bishops, all but one of whom opposed the Settlement, either fled abroad or were deprived and imprisoned. 1 In December Matthew Parker (1504-1571) was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in place of Pole. The prospect had caused him many " displeasant cogitations," for he had lived in obscurity in Mary's reign, devoting himself to the sweet leisure of study. Wise and moderate as well as learned, he desired ever to conciliate, though during bis fifteen years as Primate he was forced into sharp opposition against the Puritans. The Triumph of the Scotch Protestants, 1559-1560. No sooner had Elizabeth brought English affairs into some degree of order than she was drawn into the struggle across the border. John Knox re- turned to Scotland in 1559 and at once took the lead against Mary of Guise. An attempt to suppress the Protestant preachers furnished the immediate occasion, but back of it was a growing feeling against French influence. When one truce after another had been made and broken, the Lords of the Congregation in October poured into Edinburgh, seized the castle, and declared the Regent deposed. Mean- time, they had applied to Elizabeth for aid. The chance to break the power of the Franco-Catholic party was tempting ; but Elizabeth feared that intervention might furnish a precedent for foreign powers and her own Catholic subjects to combine against her authority. Nevertheless, by the treaty of Berwick, February, 1560, she agreed to aid the Scots in expelling the French, provided that they continued to acknowledge the Queen. It happened, fortunately for the rebels, that the French Government had its hands full. In March a con- spiracy had broken out with an attempt to seize Francis II 2 at Am- boise. After the suppression of the plot, the French cause received another blow from the death of the Regent, June, 1560. On 6 July, a peace was arranged at Edinburgh between commissioners represent- ing France and Scotland. By the Treaty of Edinburgh : Mary and Francis were to cease using the English arms which they had quar- tered on their shield after the death of Mary Tudor ; no Frenchman was henceforth to hold any important office in Scotland ; French soldiers were to be sent out of the country ; and until Mary's return the government was to be vested in a council, part appointed by her, part by the Scotch estates. Mary refused to sign the treaty; but the Lords of the Congregation proceeded to carry out the reformation for which they had fought. In August, 1560, they called a meeting of the Estates, which renounced the authority of the Pope ; con- demned all practices contrary to a new creed drawn up on the Genevan model by John Knox and his brother ministers ; and forbade the 1 The Bishop of Winchester, who preached Mary's funeral sermon, mortally affronted Elizabeth by his unfortunate reference to the text : "A living dog is better than a dead lion." 2 He succeeded his father, Henry II, July, 1559. EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 375 saying or hearing mass under penalty of forfeiture for the first offense, exile for the second, and death for the third. The ministers also drew up a scheme of church government, known as the First Book of Discipline, which, though not officially adopted, was accepted by many. 1 In 1564 Knox's Service Book, the " Book of Common Order," was issued. With a confession of faith, a scheme of government, and a form of public worship, the foundations of the future Church of Scotland were laid. The Return of Mary to Scotland, 1561. Meantime, in December, 1560, Francis II had died, and, in August of the following year, Mary returned to Scotland. Her guiding aim was to secure the succession to the English throne. The rivalry between her and Elizabeth, which now became acute, was only ended by Mary's execution more than a quarter of a century later. At the date of her arrival in Scotland she was eighteen years old. Educated in the most cultivated and pleasure-loving court of Europe, her accomplishments, added to her personal charm, made her well-nigh irresistible. She was daring, persistent, and unscrupulous as well. In her struggle with Elizabeth, however, she was seriously handicapped. Her loves and hates fre- quently prevailed over her State policy, whereas Elizabeth, equally fearless and unscrupulous, always kept her feelings under control ; Elizabeth's interests, too, were generally identical with those of the English people, while Mary looked on the Scotch solely as a means of furthering her own ambitions. Indeed, her personal interests and passions at times dominated even her religion. 2 Finally, poor as they were, the resources of England far exceeded those of Scotland. In spite of herself Mary advanced the cause of the Reformation. Her claims to the English throne forced Elizabeth to seek the support of her Protestant subjects and drew patriotic Catholics to her side. It also insured to Protestant England the friendship of Philip II as a counterpoise to Franco-Scotch ascendancy. A similar fear led Elizabeth to lend effective, if grudging, aid to the Protestant lords. And to outbid her rival, Mary after she came back to Scotland tacitly allowed the existing system to continue. Mary's Marriage to Darnley, 1565. Mary's uncles, the Guises, were anxious to strengthen her position by another marriage. Don Carlos, son of Philip II, was proposed ; but signs of his later insanity soon began to be manifest. Elizabeth suggested Leicester, baited with a promise of the English succession ; but even if seriously meant, nothing came of the proposal. All the while, Mary, partly owing to her winning graces, partly to the repellent austerity of Knox and his ministers, w r as growing steadily stronger. Suddenly, 29 July, 1565, she married her cousin, Lord Darnley. Thus she broke away from 1 It was superseded by the Second Book of Discipline in 1581. 2 For example, she married her cousin Darnley three months before a dispensa- tion arrived from Rome, and she was united to her third husband, Bothwell, im- mediately after his divorce by a Protestant bishop. 376 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the leading strings of France, from her half brother, Lord James Stewart, 1 leader of the dominant Protestants, and put herself at the head of the Catholic party in Scotland and England. Mary's motives were this time political, not romantic. Darnley was, she said, " of the blood of England and Scotland, next to myself in succession, a Stuart by name, so as to keep still the surname so pleasing to the Scotch, of the same religion as myself, and would respect me as he would be obliged by the honor I did him." The Catholic cause seemed triumphant. Moray and the Protestant lords, after an un- successful appeal to arms, fled to England, and Mary set to work to induce the French and Spanish to sink their political jealousies in a common war for the destruction of Protestantism. She was destined to bitter disappointment. Darnley 's Breach with Mary. His Murder, 1567. Darnley, " a long, girl-faced boy," proved weak, dissipated, and presuming. His excesses disgusted the Queen, while he, infuriated at his exclusion from all authority, laid the blame on Mary's secretary, David Rizzio. So he was easily persuaded to enter into a bond with the exiled lords to bring them back and dispose of his rival. On 9 March, 1566, he sought out the Queen in Holyrood palace. He was followed by a body of armed men, who burst into Mary's chamber, tore " Davy the Fiddler " from her skirts, where he clung for protection, dragged him to the door, stabbed him, and flung his body down the stairs. Mary met the situation with promptness and decision. Feigning reconcilia- tion with her ineffectual consort, she drew him from his fellow con- spirators, and restored to favor such of the Protestant lords as had not been involved in the crime. Her position was greatly strength- ened, 19 June, 1566, by the birth of a son, destined to become King both of England and Scotland. " The Queen of Soots," moaned Elizabeth when she heard the news, " is mother of a fair son, and I am but a barren stalk." Darnley, however, grew steadily more contemptible in Mary's eyes. Her natural aversion to him was rendered complete by a passionate attachment which she had formed for the Earl of Bothwell, a reckless, aspiring noble, recently returned from an exile in France. Although a Protestant, Bothwell was the declared enemy of Moray and the more cautious of his party, now back at court. On 9 February, 1657, Kirk o' Field, the house in which Darnley, just recovering from a serious illness, was lodged, was blown up and his dead body was found in the adjoining garden. Mary, who brought him to the house, had left him only a few hours before the explosion. Mary's Defeat and Flight to England, 1567-1568. Though Both- well was accused with one voice, no one dared to appear against him. After his acquittal at a trial which was nothing more than a farce, he took Mary captive, apparently by arrangement planned with her 1 Earl of Moray in 1562. EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 377 beforehand. Having secured a divorce from his own wife, he and the Queen were married, 15 May, 1567. This outrageous proceeding led to a revolt. 15 June, Mary was overcome and surrendered at Car- bery Hill, on condition that Bothwell be allowed to escape. She herself was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, forced to yield the throne to her infant son, and to nominate Moray Regent. She escaped after a few months only to receive another defeat at Langside, in May, 1568. In despair she fled across the border and threw herself on the support of Elizabeth. The English Queen with her rival at her feet was most embarrassed as to how to dispose of her. If she restored her to her throne, it would alienate the Protestant Scots. To imprison her in England might precipitate a combination between the English Catho- lics and the Catholic Powers. It seemed equally dangerous to leave her at large, either in England or in France, to form an inevitable center of plots against the English throne. The Trial of Mary and her Captivity, 1569-1587. Mary demanded a hearing against her subjects. Elizabeth welcomed this as a means of gaining time, so in October a body of commissioners, representing respectively the two Queens and the rebellious Scots, met at York. After successive adjournments, first to Westminster and then to Hampton Court, Elizabeth was able to announce a characteristically indefinite conclusion. Moray's party were told that nothing could be found against them which might " impair their honor or allegiance," while Mary was comforted by the assurance that she had done nothing " whereby the Queen of England should conceive an evil opinion of her." 1 Nevertheless, she was held a captive for nearly twenty years. Fortunately for England, the French and Spanish kings were for a time too fully occupied with their own affairs to attempt her release, and Mary proved a valuable hostage. The Rising of the Northern Earls, 1569. Not long after Mary's arrival in England the plotting began. Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, son of the poet Surrey, although a Protestant, planned to marry her. Lacking courage to declare himself, 2 he, nevertheless, aroused Eliza- beth's suspicions, who, in October, 1569, had him locked up in the Tower, where he was held till the following year. A fortnight after his arrest a great rebellion broke out in the north, led by the Earls 1 The most famous piece of evidence laid before the commissioners was the so- called "Casket Letters." It is alleged that they were found in a silver casket left behind by Bothwell in his flight. Some scholars believe them genuine, others maintain that they are forgeries. The most reasonable view is that most of these letters were actually written by Mary but were altered by the Protestant lords after they got them in their hands. In the form in which they survive, they con- demn the Queen beyond a doubt. Even without them, her guilt of everything short of participation in the actual murder of her husband is reasonably clear. She hated him and loved Bothwell. She must have known that there was a plot against Darnley; she brought him to a house accessible to his enemies; she left him alone there ; and she married the man accused of his murder. 2 Apparently his timidity was solely political ; for he had already been married three times. 378 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of Westmoreland and Northumberland. As in the case of the Pil- grimage of Grace, the movement was due to a mixture of religious, political, and economic causes. The Catholics wanted the restoration of the old religion, the nobles were embittered at the upstarts who controlled the royal councils and at the encroachments upon their ancient franchises by the Tudor monarchy. Many, too, resented the fact that the Council of the North sat only at York instead of going about a circuit, which involved heavy traveling expenses for suitors. Finally, while in the south there was great access of pros- perity, due to maritime enterprise and extension of commerce, the north not only did not share in this, but was still suffering from the destruction of the monasteries, added to which its wool trade was suddenly curtailed by recent disturbances in the Netherlands. The specific demands of the insurgents were : the restoration of the old religion, the purging of new men from the Council, the release of Nor- folk, and the restoration of Mary to her throne. Once more, how- ever, lack of concert among them proved fatal, with the result that the Queen's army, under the Earl of Sussex, was soon able to restore order. A few gentlemen and about 800 of the common sort were executed. The leaders fled to Scotland. Westmoreland escaped to the Netherlands, but Northumberland was sold by a traitor and put to death. Yet, though the rebellion was crushed, Elizabeth's danger was not yet over, for a strong party still survived who firmly believed that she had no right to rule and that it was their religious duty to put Mary Stuart in her place. They looked to Rome for support, and when occasion offered intrigued with Spain and France. Elizabeth and the Catholics. Elizabeth sought to meet the Roman Catholic danger in two ways : abroad, by stirring up the Protestant subjects of the rulers whom she feared ; at home, by restrictive legis- lation. She demanded only outward conformity ; for, as she proudly declared, she " made no windows into men's souls." Moreover, no one was put to death for religion during the first seventeen years of her reign. Persecution was forced upon her by political necessity. Liberty of worship was forbidden from the first ; but the restrictions later imposed were due in most cases to aggressions from Rome or to marked successes of the Catholic cause abroad. The events of 1562 illustrate this. The Pope struck a hard blow at the loyalty of the moderate Catholics by a brief in which he denounced the Prayer Book and forbade the faithful to attend the services of the Church of England. In France, i March, a body of fanatical followers of the Duke of Guise fell upon and massacred a congregation of French Huguenots assembled for worship under an edict of toleration granted less than two months before. Civil war broke out in consequence, and Conde, the Huguenot leader, applied to Elizabeth for aid. With her usual caution she extended it grudgingly. Conde, however, was defeated and taken prisoner at Dreux, 19 December, 1562, a reverse that was only partially counterbalanced by the assassination of the EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 379 Duke of Guise in February, 1563. Catherine de' Medici, Regent for her son, Charles IX, patched up a truce with Conde and drove the English troops out of Havre, which Elizabeth had received as the price of her aid to the Huguenots. Having committed herself and lost, she saw the need of strengthening herself at home. So the Forty- two articles revised and reduced to thirty-nine were adopted by Con- vocation (1563). Also, an act of Parliament extended the Oath of Supremacy to members of the House of Commons, to schoolmasters, and lawyers. Furthermore, the Court of High Commission, author- ized by the Act of Supremacy, began actively to inquire into the faith of the clergy. The Counter-Reformation. There was still great danger that England might be engulfed in the " Counter-Reformation," as the great movement was called by which the Church of Rome sought to reform itself and to recover the countries which had broken away. Practically every spark of heresy was stamped out in Spain and Italy, France was retained by hard righting, so were ten of the seventeen provinces in the Low Countries. Poland, southern Germany, and, later, Bohemia were all won back. The causes of the Roman Catholic renascence were many and various. To some degree it was a resump- tion of a movement interrupted by the Protestant Revolution, to some degree it was stimulated by an effort to deal with the abuses at which the revolution had struck. Four main factors played a part in its progress. First, zealous and religious Popes were elected in place of the warriors, the men of sin, and the semipagan humanists of the pre-Reformation period. Secondly, the councils of progressive and high-thinking men began to be heard, who, following in the wake of Erasmus and his fellows, sought to regenerate the Church from within, and, in this way, to tempt back those who had wandered from the fold. The Jesuits. The third and most aggressive factor in the Counter- Reformation was the famous Society of Jesus. It was the creation of Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight born in 1491, who at the age of thirty was wounded while fighting in Navarre. As he lay during his recovery racked with pain he formed the plan of a great religious order with the aim of overcoming those outside the pale of the Church, heretics, Jews, infidels, and heathen. The basis of his organization was to be perfect obedience and absolute devotion to the supreme ecclesiastical authority. The members were to be soldiers of Christ in a grand spiritual campaign to convert the world and to suppress free thought and free inquiry. Loyola prepared himself for his work by a long course of study and discipline. The Society of Jesus re- ceived the sanction of Paul IV in 1540, and Loyola became its first general in 1541, though Laynez, whom he met at the University of Paris, was the controlling spirit from the first. Before the death of the founder there existed more than a hundred colleges or homes for training Jesuits, with an immense number of schools under their 380 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND influence besides. The Order, numbering thousands and extending over Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, was divided into twelve prov- inces. Each was under a provincial, while the general at Rome wielded power over popes and princes. 1 The Council of Trent, 1545-1563. The Council of Trent, the fourth factor in counteracting the Protestant Reformation, was opened in 1545, and continued its session intermittently till 1563. Here the Jesuits prevailed over the party of mediation. Owing to friction between Pope and Emperor, little was accomplished during the first two sessions. Its epoch-making work was done in the third and last, from January, 1562, to December, 1563. The leading -doctrines of Protestantism, such as individual interpretation of the Bible, and justification by faith, were condemned. The chief dogmas of the Church regarding indulgences, purgatory, invocation of the saints were defined more rigidly ; the supremacy of the Pope was reaffirmed ; glaring abuses were reformed ; and stricter discipline was introduced. Thus reformed and reorganized, strengthened by the terrible arm of the Inquisition, the Church of Rome, under pious and energetic popes, sought the support of Spain and France, the two greatest temporal powers of Catholic Europe, and started anew on its road of recovery and conquest. England, however, who had so much to fear from this powerful combination was to enjoy a respite for some years. Philip II, keen as he was to reestablish the power of the Church, aimed to bring it about by means of his own authority, resting on a monarchy strong and widely extended. For some years he held jealously aloof from France, because he feared the ambition of the Guises, who were seeking to establish their power in that country and to extend it across the Channel by making Mary Stuart Queen of England. Later, however, he gave his support to the Holy League, founded in 1576, to annihilate the Huguenots and to elevate one of the Guise family to the throne of France. During the interval the Guises were occupied in a series of religious wars with the Huguenots, while Philip himself was called upon to face a revolt of his Protestant subjects in the Low Countries. The Revolt of the Netherlands, 1567. The Low Countries, or the Netherlands, comprising the modern kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, consisted, at that time, of seventeen separate provinces, each with its own constitution, assembly of estates, and stadholder or local governor. Business common to all was transacted in a general assembly composed of the estates of the various provinces. Charles V had ruled with great moderation, respecting carefully their provincial 1 They were greatly assisted in their work of suppressing reform tendencies by the erection of the Supreme Tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome in 1542. It was due to Cardinal Caraffa, a fanatical Neapolitan, who as Paul IV was Pope, 1555- J SS9- The Inquisition was as old as the twelfth century; and, since the time of Queen Isabella, it had become in Spain an elaborate organization of courts and officials and a terrible engine of destruction against Moors, Jews, and heretics. EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 381 privileges to which they clung tenaciously. In return he drew from the prosperous Netherland burghers most of his money for his French wars. Philip II, unlike his father, had not been brought up among them and was Spanish to the core. Cold and unbending, he deter- mined to mold them into the vast religious and political system comprehending his dominions in Europe, America, and the Eastern Ocean, which he directed from the Escorial, his lonely palace near Madrid. In 1559 he appointed, as his representative in the Nether- lands, his half sister, Margaret of Parma. Her chief minister, Car- dinal Granvella, studiously neglected the Council of State composed of native nobles, and roused such a storm of opposition by unpopular measures that he was recalled in 1564. The combination against him was led by William of Orange. 1 Count Egmont, and Count Horn. Granvella's departure, however, failed to allay the discontent, owing to the activity of the Inquisition in punishing heresy. Estab- lished in the country in 1522 it had since been greatly strengthened, notably by an edict of 1555. Philip not only refused to repeal his edict, but ordered the promulgation of the canons of the Council of Trent and bade the magistrates assist the ecclesiastical officials in their work. In consequence, the nobles and people united in a bond known as the " Compromise," pledging themselves to uproot and expel the Inquisition, which they declared to be " iniquitous, contrary to all laws human and divine." A great popular outburst, accompanied by image breaking in Antwerp and other chief cities, finally brought the Regent, 25 August, 1566, to publish an " Accord," abolishing the Inquisition, and allowing Protestant doctrine to be preached in places where it was already established. This concession, coupled with the violence of the multitude, brought about a reaction. Many of the nobles, including Egmont and Horn, returned to their allegiance, though the Prince of Orange held aloof and withdrew to Germany. Philip, instead of meeting his subjects halfway, adopted the advice of the Duke of Alva, the most uncompromising of his generals, and sent him with Spanish troops to repress and punish those who had pre- sumed to rebel against his authority. Directly on his arrival, in May, 1567, Alva set up a tribunal known as the " Blood Council " to try those concerned in the recent outbreak. Among those put to death were Egmont and Horn. William of Orange, who during his. exile had become a Calvinist, led an army against the savage execu- tioner ; but had to withdraw defeated. In 1568 Alva seemed justified in boasting that he had " extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion . . . and established peace." The Ridolfi Plot and the Execution of Norfolk, 1572. Thus the situation, so far as England was concerned, was full of serious menace. Alva was triumphant in the Netherlands. In France the Huguenots were defeated in 1569 at the battle of Jarnac, where their brilliant 1 William of Nassau, called William of Orange from the principality of Orange- Chalons in France, which he inherited from his cousin. 382 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND General Conde was killed. Owing to jealousy of Spain, Admiral Coligny, the greatest and noblest of their leaders, managed, August, 1570, to secure favorable terms, but their position was very unstable. In Scotland the Protestant cause received a serious blow from the assassination of the Regent Moray, 23 January of the same year. To cap all, Pius V, a former Dominican inquisitor and a fervid zealot, issued a Jbull 1 of excommunication against Queen Elizabeth. Her reply was a new senes of measures against the Catholics. In 1571 Parliament declared it^ jiigh^ treaso.n_to call the Queen a heretic, to affirm that any particular person was Tier successor, 2 or to publish any papal bull against her. Also it confirmed the Thirty-nine Ar- ticles already adopted. In this year " Ridolfi's Plot " came to light. The chief agent was a Florentine merchant resident in England, whose object was, with the aid of Alva, Philip II, and the Pope, to liberate Mary and to marry her to the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk paid the penalty with his head, 1572. Following closely upon the collapse of the Northern rebellion of 1569, his execution marks the end of the old nobility who, ever since the accession of the Tudors, had fought a losing fight against the centralization of the monarchy. A prophecy had circulated that Elizabeth would not survive the thirteenth year of her reign. That was now belied. If the clouds still hung heavy, she had already achieved much and was steadily gaining ground. She had settled the religion of her realm, she had helped to set up Protestantism in Scotland, she held her rival captive, she had put down a dangerous rising, and while Catholicism was gaining ground abroad, its two leading exponents, France and Spain, were at odds with each other and busy repressing religious revolts among their own subjects. Further dangers were in store for England's Queen ; but when they came, she proved ready to meet them, backed by the moder- ate men of both camps, who saw that the salvation of their country depended upon united effort. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Pollard, Political History, chs. XI-XVII. Innes, England under the Tudors, chs. XVI-XVIII. Cambridge Modern History, II, ch. XVI (bibliography, pp. 806-813) a brilliant study. Froude, History of England, VI-XII ; Lingard, VI. Creighton, Queen Elizabeth (1909); the best biography of the Queen. Creighton, The Age of Elizabeth (6th ed., 1885) ; a good brief survey. M. A. S. Hume, The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth (1896) and The Great Lord Burghley (1898) are useful. For relations with Scotland. Cambridge Modern History, III, ch. VIII (bibliog- raphy, pp. 810-815) is an a l e and impartial survey of the Mary Stuart problem. See also P. H. Brown, Scotland, II, bk. V, chs. II, III ; Andrew Lang, History of Scotland, chs. I, II (1900-1902) ; and W. L. Mathieson, Politics and Religion (1902). J. R. Seeley, Growth and British Policy (2 vols., 1895), I, pt. I, is a stimulating and suggestive account of the broader features of the diplomacy of the reign. 1 Known as the Bull Regnans in excelcis. 2 This was, of course, aimed at Mary and her adherents. EARLY YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 383 Ecclesiastical. Wakeman, ch. XV. W. H. Frere, History of the English Church, 1588-1602 (1904). Dixon, chs. V, VI. F. Proctor ; (ed. W. H. Frere), New History of the Book of Common Prayer (1901). H. Gee, The Elizabethan Prayer Book and Ornaments (1902). H. N. Birt, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (1907) treats the subject from the Roman Catholic standpoint. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 167 ff. ; for a more com- plete selection, G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents (1894, new ed., 1913), pp. 1-249. CHAPTER XXV ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE (1572-1603) The Projected Anglo-French Alliance, 1570-1573. The success of Spanish arms in the Netherlands was followed by a drawing to- gether of England and France. As a means of bringing it about the Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles IX, 1 was proposed as a husband for Elizabeth, and from 1570 to 1572 one of her most notable courtships ran its course. France at this time was practically governed by the masterful Catherine de' Medici, mother of the nominal King, who was a weakling both in mind and body. Elizabeth had no mind to marry Anjou ; but she wanted to forestall a proposed alliance between him and Mary Stuart, and to go just far enough to keep Catherine from combining either with the Guises or Spain. At the same time, she was prepared to prevent the French from supplanting the Spanish in the Low Countries. Her tortuous course was suddenly interrupted by a wild stroke of Catherine's. Alva's triumph was short lived. His bloodthirstiness and his oppressive taxation had roused the Nether- lands to fury; encouraged by French and English aid, town after town revolted, and in July, 1572, four of the northern provinces united under William of Orange as Stadholder. About the same time Charles IX fell under the influence of Coligny. Momentarily freed from the fear of Spain, Catherine, who recoiled at the thought of Huguenot ascendancy, combined with the hated Guises to get rid of her son's new mentor and to destroy his followers. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 24 August, 1572. The oppor- tunity came when the marriage of Henry of Navarre one of the Huguenot leaders to Charles' sister, Margaret of Valois, 18 August, 1572, brought large numbers of the party to Paris. Representing to her feeble-minded son that his throne, his religion, and, indeed, his life were in danger, Catherine prevailed upon him to order a general mas- sacre. It began in the early morning of St. Bartholomew's Day, 24 August. Under the sanction of the royal decree personal hatreds and religious fanaticism were given full rein. Coligny was the most notable victim, though few of the leaders, except Henry of Navarre, escaped. The slaughter, spreading from Paris to the other towns of France, lasted for days. The number of those who perished has been estimated all the way from 10,000 to 100,000, but dependable statistics are lacking. Strange stories are told of the joy of Catholic potentates. 1 Charles succeeded his brother Francis II in 1560. He reigned till 1574, when Anjou became king as Henry III. 384 ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 385 Gregory XIII ordered a public thanksgiving, and had a medal struck to commemorate the event. Philip II is reported to have laughed for the first time in his life. 1 However, it has been urged in extenuation that they saw in Catherine's horrible deed, not a cold-blooded massacre, but the just punishment for a plot discovered before it was fully hatched. England was plunged in deepest gloom, and when the French ambassador succeeded in obtaining an audience, he was received by the whole court in mourning. The Union of Utrecht, 1579. Alva, now that the Netherlands were cut off from French help, hoped to crush them utterly ; but his ruth- less methods only stirred them to more desperate resistance. Philip, in despair, soon recalled him, and sent a successor pledged to a more pacific policy. The French Government, too, was not long in recog- nizing the futility of the policy of bloodshed and sought to conciliate the Huguenots by a new edict of toleration. In 1576 the troops in the Netherlands mutinied for lack of pay. Seizing Antwerp, they pro- ceded to sack and plunder and to drive out or kill the merchants. As a result of this " Spanish Fury," which reduced to ruin the richest commercial city in Europe, all the seventeen provinces bound them- selves together to expel the Spaniards. Don John of Austria, half brother of Philip, arrived as Governor late in the year. A general famed throughout Christendom, he planned to reduce the Netherlands forthwith, to free Mary, marry her, and make himself King of England. Less than two years after his arrival, death cut short his towering ambitions before he had accomplished even the first of his tasks. His successor, Alexander of Parma, was not only an able general, but artful as well. He managed to break up the combination of the seventeen provinces by fomenting religious dissension. The ten southern, prevailingly Catholic, formed a separate union and gradu- ally fell back to Spain. The seven northern, 2 by the Union of Utrecht, 1579, combined under William of Orange, and ultimately, after an heroic struggle, achieved their independence. The Alencon Marriage Project. In 1580 Philip II sent Alva to conquer Portugal, where the dying out of the legitimate male line gave him a claim through his mother, of which he was not slow to take advantage. The conquest completed, 3 he redoubled his efforts against the Nether landers. In March he declared William of Orange under the ban and offered 25,000 crowns to any one who would deliver him up dead or alive. William, hoping thereby to secure the aid of France and England, induced five of the provinces to choose the Duke of Anjou as their head. 4 Elizabeth, after she had recovered from the 1 Though this story has been denied. 2 The Seven United Provinces were : Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelderland, Overyssel, Groningen, and Friesland. 3 Portugal remained under the Spanish monarchy till 1640. 4 Formerly Duke of Alencon, he became Duke of Anjou on his brother's succes- sion to the throne as Henry III, 1574. 2C 386 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND shock of St. Bartholomew, had accepted him as her suitor in place of his elder brother, with whom she had carried on such a fitful, puzzling courtship. The present Anjou was ugly, small, misshapen, pock- marked, with a huge swollen nose, and was twenty years younger than the Queen. Her subjects opposed the match stoutly. 1 But Elizabeth professed to be very fond of him ; she called him her petite grenouille, and flirted with him most ridiculously. He visited her in 1579 and again in 1581, when marriage articles were actually drawn up. Once more, however, she was only playing a part ; for while she expressed the greatest grief in parting, he had to leave with the contract uncon- cluded. She continued her professions after his return to the Nether- lands. In his high office he proved faithless and incompetent, and, failing to accomplish anything, he withdrew to Paris, where he died in 1584. Roman Catholic Movements against Elizabeth in Ireland and Scot- land. The rising of 1569 had failed, the bull of Pius V had proved as empty in effect as it was terrifying in form, and the daring plan of Don John had come to nothing. But the number of the disaffected in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales was large. So a plan was concocted by certain English exiles, with the sanction of Gregory XIII, to strike at Queen Elizabeth in all three places simultaneously. Ireland offered a peculiarly favorable field. Henry VIII had alienated many by his attempts to bribe the chiefs with tribal lands, and attempts in Mary's reign to plant English settlers in western Leinster had only increased the bitterness. While the natives were in constant turmoil, the Eng- lish officials, strong enough for oppression and extortion, had not sufficient forces to maintain order. In consequence, Irishmen listened eagerly to papal emissaries who promised deliverance from tyranny. In July, 1579, James Fitzmorris, brother of the powerful Earl of Des- mond, landed in Kerry with a few Spanish troops. Designing to raise the country in the name of the Pope, he built a fort at Smerwick on the shore of Dingle Bay. He was killed in the first encounter with the English forces ; but his brother, the Earl, joined the rising, while Gregory sent 800 Italians and Spaniards to reenforce the Smerwick garrison. Lord Grey de Wilton, sent out as Lord Deputy, made short work of reducing the fort and slaughtered its defenders, an achieve- ment which Elizabeth acknowledged joyfully as an act of God. Des- mond, who had escaped, was tracked down and slain. Thus ended the attempt in Ireland. Followed by devastations and seizures, its only result was to widen the breach between England and her subject people. In Scotland an attempt at a Catholic revival was made through Esme Stewart, Seigneur d'Aubigny, sent in 1519 by the Guises with the 1 John Stubbs, a Puritan, wrote a book entitled "The Discovery of a Gaping Gulph, wherein England is like to be swallowed up by another French marriage ; if the Lord forbid not the Banns by letting her see the Sin and Punishment thereof." But when his right hand was cut off as a punishment, he loyally waved the stump over his head, crying : "God save the Queen." ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 387 design of converting James VI and restoring the French alliance. Handsome, accomplished, and adroit, he gained a complete ascendancy over the young King, his cousin, who created him Duke of Lennox. Having removed the chief obstacle in his way by procuring the execu- tion of the Earl of Morton Regent of the kingdom, and a stanch Protestant and favorer of the English on the pretext of his com- plicity in Darnley's murder, the royal favorite was for some months virtually master of Scotland. He was on the point of calling in a force of Spanish troops when, in August, 1582, a group of nobles led by the Earl of Gowrie * seized King James while hunting and took him to Gowrie House. When the young captive cried in anger and fright, one of the band grimly retorted : " Better bairns greet than bearded men." He was forced to order Lennox to leave the country. After a period of aimless lingering the defeated intriguer withdrew to France, where he died soon after. The SflafofilT Priests and Jesuits in England, 1579-1581. The third center of attack was in England itself. In 1568 a seminary had been founded at Douay for the training of English Catholics. Ten years later, owing to the revolt in the Netherlands, it was trans- ferred to Rheums. In 1579 Gregory XIII founded an English college at Rome. These institutions were due to the zeal inspired by the Jesuits. Burning with enthusiasm, the Englishmen who went from them 2 strove to convert their Protestant countrymen and to arouse the native Catholics from their lethargy. Unfortunately for the success of their plan, it could not be realized without overturning the established system of Church and State and disposing of Elizabeth. In June, 1581, a mission led by two Jesuits, Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons, landed in England. Moving from place to place in disguise, they preached to large crowds, they set up a printing press, circulated controversial pamphlets, and converted considerable num- bers. Alarmed at their success, the Government passed an act of Parliament " to restrain Her Majesty's subjects in their due alle- giance " which declared it high treason to convert the Queen's subjects to the Church of Rome or to aid or to conceal those engaged in such work. Heavy fines were imposed on any priest who said mass or on any one who refused 3 to go to church. A rigid persecution was begun; houses were searched for concealed priests; Campion, and some of the other Jesuits were captured and put to death ; but Parsons escaped. He was a restless intriguer who troubled the Government for years to come. Campion, on the other hand, was a high-minded enthusiast of captivating eloquence. Further Measures against the Roman Catholics, 1584-1593. In 1583 Francis Throgmorton devised a plot to kill the Queen and, with 1 Called the Ruthven Raid, from the family name of the Earl of Gowrie. 2 Known as "Seminary priests" when they took holy orders. 3 Such persons were called "recusants." The fine 20 a month, too heavy to be enforced, was intended mainly as a threat. 3 88 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the aid of French and Spanish Catholics, to elevate Mary to the throne. It was discovered in season ; but the Protestant cause re- ceived a heavy blow by the assassination of William the Silent l in July of the following year. The result was a bond of association drawn up by a body of loyal Englishmen. All to whom it was offered for signature pledged themselves to defend their Queen against attack, to accept no one for her successor " by whom or for whom any such detestable act shall be attempted or committed " and to " prosecute such persons to the death." This voluntary association was legalized by Parliament early in 1585. Another act ordered all Jesuits and Seminary priests to quit the realm within forty days, and declared any found thereafter, or any who had harbored them guilty of high treason. Children of Catholics studying abroad were to return under pain of disinheritance. The final anti-Catholic Act of the reign, passed in 1593, provided that recusants of the wealthier sort should be forbidden to travel more than five miles from their homes, 2 and that those of the poorer class should be banished. Any one sus- pected of being a Jesuit or Seminary priest, who refused to answer the charge, might be imprisoned until he consented to be examined. The Protestant Extremists. Meantime, since the beginning of the reign, the extreme Protestants had been giving serious trouble. Three classes may be distinguished : the Puritans or moderate Nonconfor- mists, who wanted to stay in the Church, but desired to " purify " its services from forms and ceremonies savoring of Rome; the Pres- byterians, who aimed to substitute their form of government for the Episcopal form established by law; finally, the Separatists, called Independents or Congregationalists in a later time, 3 who insisted on the right of each congregation to manage its own affairs. The ex- tremer views of the Protestants came largely from the Marian exiles, who flocked back after Elizabeth's accession. Differing among them- selves on many fundamental points, they agreed in denouncing what they regarded as " Romish " forms and ceremonies. While the moderates were to some extent compromised by the zealots, they were vastly better off in this respect than the less extreme Roman Catholics, who had to suffer for the intrigues and plots of papal agents and foreign Powers. The " Vestiarian Controversy." - The Puritans struck their first blow at the established order by a proposal introduced into Convoca- tion in 1563 to prune away certain " Romish " observances. It was defeated in the Lower House by a majority of one. Thereupon, in the parishes where they were strong enough, they began to meet in The popular name of William of Orange. 2 They were kept in England as a source of revenue from the fines which might be imposed on them. 3 Those of Elizabeth's time are usually known as Brownists, from Robert Browne, who founded a congregation at Norwich in 1580, but the sect had already come into existence ten years earlier while Browne was still an undergraduate at Cam- bridge. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 389 " Conventicles," at which they held services according to their own rule instead of those prescribed in the Prayer Book. Elizabeth desired to avoid trouble ; but various reasons determined her to enforce the law. Not only did they oppose the ritual to which she was attached, not only was their contempt of form and denunciation of amusements unpalatable to the majority of her subjects, but their action defied the royal authority on which the established forms were based. So in 1565, by her command, Archbishop Parker issued a series of " Adver- tisements " denning the necessary forms and ceremonies. The result was the " Vestiarian " controversy, so-called because the Puritan clergy " scrupled " to wear the prescribed vestments ; but their opposition extended to many forms and ceremonies, such as observance of saints' days, the sign of the cross in baptism, and the use of organs. The Presbyterians. About 1570 the Presbyterians entered the field w r ith an onslaught upon the very structure of the Episcopal Church. Naturally, the bishops, whom they sought to eliminate, fought them to a man. The Presbyterian leader was Thomas Cart-_ wright, a Cambridge professor of divinity, learned and devout, but Tacking in judgment and restraint. In two "Admonitions to Parlia- t ment," in 1572, he and his party denounced the government of bishops as contrary to the word of God and demanded government by pre: byters. Not only were their views startlingly democraic,T>ut their language was immeasurably violent. A mild sample is their descrip- tion of the Archbishop's court as " the filthy quagmire and poisoned plash of all abominations that do infect the whole realm." The advent of the Separatists about the same time added another element of confusion. In 1583 the Court of High Commission was put on a permanent footing with enlarged powers, though for ten years previ- ously it had been active in enforcing the Act of Uniformity against Protestants as well as Catholics. Grindal, who succeeded Parker in 1576, was suspended the following year for refusing to suppress "proph- esyings "or " exercises," that is, meetings which those of advanced views had come to hold for religious discussions. Restored the year before his death, he was followed as Archbishop in 1583 by Whitgift, an orthodox and energetic prelate, who, however, was greatly ham- pered from the fact that Protestantism had come to secure strong sympathizers in the Council and Parliament. 1 The Marprelate Libels, 1588. Attempts at repression only \/ embittered the extremists. They replied with violent abuse which reached its height in the Martin Marprelate libels in 1588. In them the Archbishop was graced with such names as " Beelzebub of Canter- bury, the Canterbury Caiphus ; Esau, a monstrous anti-Christ ; a 1 Burghley, for example, declared, with reference to articles of Inquiry which Whitgift framed in 1583 for enforcing subscription to Royal Supremacy, the Liturgy, and the Thirty-nine Articles, that they were "so curiously penned, that I think the Inquisition in Spain use not so many questions to comprehend and trap their prey . . . rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any." 390 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND most bloody oppressor of God's saints." The bishops were : " false governors of the Church ; petty popes ; proud, popish, profane, pre- sumptuous, paltry, pestilent, pernicious prelates and usurpers ; enemies of God and the State." The clergy were : " popish priests, ale hunters, drunkards, dolts, hogs, dogs, wolves, desperate and forlorn atheists, a crew of bloody soul murderers, sacrilegious church robbers." These pronouncements of certain hot zealots, " who for Zion's sake could not hold their peace," were bound to hurt the cause of the earnest, moder- ate men opposed to the Elizabethan State Church. Indeed, the very year in which the libels appeared marked a reaction toward the Estab- lishment. Many other circumstances contributed to this. For one thing, numbers came to realize that it was both graceless and futile to engender strife against a sovereign who, however sternly she repressed extremists, had done so much for the Protestant cause. She was growing old and they could wait to push their claims under a succes- sor to whom they were not bound by such ties of gratitude. More- over, the ceremonies of the Church of England, which many of the older generation associated with the Romish practices which pre- vailed during the cruel persecutions of Mary, were hallowed by youth- ful memories to the majority of the younger folk. 1 But there were many irreconcilables. Accordingly, Parliament, in response to a royal demand " to compel by some sharp means to a more due obedi- ence," passed in 1593 an act " against seditious sectaries and dis- loyal persons." It provided, among other things, that those who frequented conventicles or assailed the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical should abjure the realm and never return under pain of death. In this way, as in the case of the poorer Catholics, numbers of the more determined left the country or were driven out. In the same year three, including Pj^nry, the chief author of the Marprelate libels, suffered for their faith, though the cause assigned was malicious defaming of the Queen with intent to stir up rebellion. Elizabeth's Intervention in the Netherlands, 1585. Doubtless the chief reason for harmonizing religious differences was the necessity of meeting a great invasion sent by Philip II and the burst of loyalty which followed its triumphant repulse. The attack was due mainly to two causes : English intervention in the Netherlands, and the aggressiveness of the English sea power. With the murder of William of Orange and the continued successes of Alexander of Parma, the cause of the Netherlanders seemed to be doomed. Their only hope was in foreign aid. At first they turned to Henry III of France with an offer of sovereignty. Though he declined, Philip was alarmed ; for the French King was childless, and his next heir was Henry of Navarre, who had succeeded Coligny as leader of the Huguenots. So, in 1585, he formed a new treaty with Henry of Guise, leader of the 1 Also, Richard Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, the first four books of which ap- peared in 1594, by its calm, persuasive, and dignified defense of the established order, contributed in later years to convince numbers of the Nonconformists. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 391 Catholic League, for the purpose of excluding Henry of Navarre from the succession and to extirpate Protestantism in France and the Low Countries. Henry III, allowing his religious sentiments to pre- vail over his fear of Spain and the Guises, joined with them. Eliza- beth, who had hitherto lent only enough assistance to the revolt to keep it alive, saw that the time for active intervention had come. Nevertheless, she, too, refused the offer of sovereignty. Annexation would have greatly strengthened her maritime and colonial power; for the Dutch were unrivaled at sea and had during recent years captured many of the Spanish and Portuguese foreign possessions. Yet it would inevitably provoke a war with France which she still hoped to avert. However, with her accustomed thrift, she demanded from the Dutch certain " cautionary towns " Brill and Flushing among the number as pledges for expenses incurred. Then she issued a " Declaration of Causes," moving her to intervene. They were in substance : to help them protect their towns from " sacking and devastation," to aid them to recover their ancient liberties, and " so to preserve the ancient commerce betwixt our people and those coun- tries." Toward the end of 1585 Leicester was sent over with a force of 5000 foot and 1000 horse ; but he proved self-seeking to a degree only exceeded by his untrustworthiness and incompetence. On his arrival he accepted in the Queen's name the office of Governor of the Netherlands. When the enraged Queen berated him in wrathful letters he could only excuse himself in languishing replies fulsome in flattery. Cramped from lack of funds, unable to gain the confidence of the Netherlands, and opposed by Parma, the greatest general of the time, he accomplished nothing. Wags put in his mouth the words, veni, vidi, redii. 1 The only engagement which he fought was a skir- mish at Zutphen, where his nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, the ideal gentle- man of the age and a notable figure in Elizabethan literature, was mortally wounded, September, I586. 2 Leicester's futile expedition is only important as a leading cause of Philip's attack on England. The Rise of the Elizabethan Sea Power. Even more alarming to the Spanish King than the English intervention in the Netherlands were the attacks of English seamen, notably of Francis Drake, upon his commerce and his American possessions. Since the accession of Elizabeth the maritime power of the country had entered upon a growth which ultimately brought it to a height unequaled in the world's history. The royal navy, after a decline which had set in upon the death of Henry VIII, 3 had more than recovered its strength at the 1 "I came, I saw, I returned," a brilliant distortion of Caesar's famous, veni, vidi, vici. 2 As he was dying a bottle of water was brought him, but as he raised it to his lips a sorely wounded soldier was carried past, who looked longingly on it. Sidney at once handed it to him with the words, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." 3 Henry VIII had left 53 ships ; by Elizabeth's accession the number had sunk to 26. Elizabeth had 34 in 1588 ; but their average size was twice as large as those of Henry VIII. with an aggregate tonnage 15 per cent greater. 392 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND eve of Philip's invasion. But it was not to the royal navy that the notable achievements of the reign are due. It was the peculiar work of the explorers and of sea rovers or privateers, recruited from the merchant marine. They braved the perils of unknown seas and un- known lands, they broke through the colonial and commercial mo- nopoly of Spain, and strove as well to strike deadly blows at Philip's world-wide religious and political domination. Thus fame and booty, the profit and glory of England, and the defense and spread of Protestantism mingled curiously and effectively to spur them on. And in the Queen they found a persistent if shifty supporter ; for she shared in their profits and gained by their victories. Though her policy was in essence defensive to preserve national independence and Protestantism she sought to realize it, to a considerable degree, by offensive means. While Philip as the leader of the Counter-Reforma- tion threatened her political and religious security, Elizabeth was the greater aggressor. She had no mind to declare war ; but she sent aid to the Dutch in revolt, first " underhand "and at length openly, and from the beginning of her reign she steadily kindled the enthusiasm of her subjects for buccaneering enterprises against the Spanish com- merce and the Spanish colonies. Taking advantage of the rudimental state of international law, she sought to shield herself from the conse- quences of her acts under the pretext that she was not responsible for the acts of her subjects. The English Buccaneers and their Aggressions against Spain. The pioneer of the Elizabethan " sea dogs " was John Hawkins, who initiated the traffic in slaves from the Guinea coast of Africa to Spanish America. The Queen, it is shameful to relate, shared in his profits. His young cousin Francis Drake (1540-1596) accompanied him on his second voyage, and commanded a ship on a third and more famous one in 1567. They were attacked in the Mexican port of San Juan d'Ulloa, 1 whence they escaped only after the bulk of their crew had been massacred. While they had given great provocation, the act was a piece of deliberate treachery and determined Drake to devote the remainder of his life to a relentless war against Spain and her possessions in the New World. To his countrymen, a hero for whose fame " the ocean sea was not sufficient room," he was, in the eyes of the Spanish, a devil incarnate. Elizabeth replied to the incident at San Juan by seizing, in December, 1568, Genoese ships laden with Spanish treasure for the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands. With amazing effrontery she justified the step on the ground that, having saved it from the privateers, she was entitled to take it as a loan. In 1572-1573 Drake led a daring expedition to the Isthmus of Darien; though he failed to secure the annual shipment of treasure from Peru, he gathered abundant booty and obtained his first glimpse of the Pacific. His prayer that he might once navigate those waters was 1 The roadstead of Vera Cruz. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 393 answered in his famous voyage round the world, 1577-1580. Here, again, he marked his course by devastation and plunder. Yet the magnitude of his achievement and the fortitude which he displayed amply merited the acclaim which greeted him on his return. Thrifty Elizabeth rewarded him with a knighthood for the share of treasure which he brought her. It was these men and such as they who caused Philip to tremble for the safety of his lands and trade, upon which the prosperity of his Empire depended ; and they all played a part in his repulse soon to come. For some years before this he had sought to check Elizabeth's aggressions by seizing ships in Spanish waters. Her reply was to issue letters of reprisal and to send privateers to the scene of action. Most disastrous to the enemy were the aggressions of Drake in 1585. Strik- ing first at the coast of Spain, he seized a quantity of shipping in Vigo Bay ; thence he passed to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, 1 overcoming San Domingo, Carthagena, and other Spanish possessions, and plundering and destroying as he went. The simultaneous opera- tions of Drake and Leicester led Philip to plan a joint attack on Eng- land from Spain and the Netherlands. Under cover of a fleet Parma was to land an army, the English Catholics were to rise for Mary, Elizabeth was to be disposed of, and Parma was to marry the new Queen and govern the country for his master. Babington's Plot, 1586. Execution of Mary. The miscarriage of another plot in behalf of Mary, in the late spring of 1586, shattered this project, but at the same time furnished Philip with another pretext for invading England. Babington's plot, as it was called, took its name from the leader of a group of young men about court who aimed, with foreign help, to carry it through. While the charge has never been proved that Walsingham's agents devised or suggested the plan as a means of getting rid of Mary, it is certain that the resourceful Secretary got wind of it almost at its inception and allowed it to develop until he could acquire or manufacture enough evidence to suit his purpose. In October, 1586, Mary was brought to trial and sentenced to death under the Act passed in 1585 for Elizabeth's pro- tection. Parliament, which met on the agth, petitioned for the im- mediate execution of the sentence ; but the Queen hesitated. Possi- bly she shrank from bloodshed ; more likely she dreaded to lay hands upon an anointed sovereign and feared the effect on the Catholic powers of the Continent ; then, too, in spite of the constant plots which Mary inspired, Elizabeth still regarded her as a valuable hostage and an obstacle to other claimants. After two months of vacillation, and after she had made a vain effort to induce Mary's keeper, Sir Amyas Paulet, to murder his royal captive, she finally signed the death warrant, and handed it over to Secretary Davison, without, however, giving him any authority to carry it out. The Council determined 1 Strictly speaking, the Spanish mainland along the north coast of South America, but popularly and vaguely, the Caribbean Sea and the neighboring waters. 394 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to assume the responsibility. By its order Mary Stuart was beheaded, 8 February, 1587, at Fotheringay Castle, going to her death with mag- nificent fortitude. In contrast, Elizabeth's actions seem petty. She protested to France and Scotland that she was innocent of the deed, and imprisoned poor Davison in the Tower. He was soon released, but only on payment of a heavy fine, and was dismissed forever from her service. The Sailing of the Armada, 1588. Philip, though he could now pose as the avenger of Mary's death, had less chance of attacking the English Catholics than if he had arrived in time to attempt her release from captivity. Now they distrusted him as a claimant J to the English throne and a subjugator of their liberties. Before he had completed his ponderous preparations, the terrible Drake again assumed the offensive. Sailing from Plymouth harbor, in April, 1587, he made for Cadiz, plundered the town, and destroyed a vast amount of stores and shipping, and darted thence to Lisbon Bay, creating havoc with the fleet which the Spanish commander Santa Cruz was making ready ; next he intercepted off Cape St. Vincent a squadron of transports from the Mediterranean, and passed on to the Azores, where he captured a Spanish East Indiaman laden with treasure. This exploit, which he called " singeing the King of Spain's beard," not only brought him much booty, but frustrated Philip's plans for that year. At length, in May, 1588, the great Armada 2 was ready to sail. In the meantime Santa Cruz had died and the Duke of Medina Sidonia who succeeded him was far his inferior in ability. The stars in their courses seemed to fight for England. At the very start the Armada encountered a furious storm off Lisbon, which so crippled and scattered the ships that the second and final start was delayed till 1 2 July. Comparative Strength of the English and Spanish Fleets. At least three serious obstacles confronted the invaders. Parma's army, on which they counted, was blockaded by a Dutch fleet, and that blockade would have to be broken. Then it was necessary to overcome the English in the Channel in order to convey his army across. Finally, Parma, if he succeeded in landing, would have to conquer the country, and, in all probability, in the teeth of opposition even from the Catho- lics. The critical struggle took place in the Channel, and in spite of the terror of the Spanish name and the imposing appearance of the Spanish fleet, the English captains anticipated a victory from the out- set. 3 Elizabeth, to be sure, was not well prepared ; for she had hoped, by withdrawing her forces from the Netherlands and by involving Parma in protracted negotiations, to avert war. But her commander, Lord 1 Mary before her death had disinherited her son James in his favor. Philip based his claim on his descent from a marriage of John of Gaunt with a Portuguese princess. 3 A Spanish word "armed," meaning a great fleet. 3 The Spanish, however, seem to have been equally confident ; for they took with them 300 monks, priests, and officers of the Inquisition to begin the work of conversion directly upon landing. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 395 Howard of Effingham, was a man of experience, prudence, and valor, and had some of the most brilliant sea fighters of the age to help him. The Spanish fleet numbered 130 ships, with a. total tonnage and an equipment of men and guns double the English. On the other hand, while the English royal navy counted only 34 ships, others, contrib- uted by the nobles, the gentry, and the seaports, brought their aggre- gate up to 197. Moreover, the Spanish galleons were high fore and aft, offering excellent marks for the English gunners. Also they were unable to move rapidly a serious impediment to their classic style of fighting, which consisted of closing with the enemy and making use of their superior numbers in hand-to-hand encounters. The English, with ships lighter and better handled, kept the weather gauge, and, firing three times to the enemy's one, poured their shot with deadly effect into their lofty exposed hulks. The clumsy Spanish, on their part, wasted their fire in a vain effort to disable the vessels beyond their reach by aiming at their rigging. The English Camp at Tilbury. The English land forces were commanded by the inefficient Leicester, but he was assisted by more than one competent leader. The main camp was established at Til- bury with a view of protecting London or of marching to any point of the neighboring coast where a beacon light should flash a signal of danger. " It was a pleasant sight," wrote a contemporary, "to behold the soldiers as they marched toward Tilbury, their cheerful countenances, courageous words, and gestures, dancing and leaping wheresoever they came, and, in the camp, their utmost felicity was in the hope of fight with the enemy when ofttimes divers rumors ran of their foe's approach, and that present battle would be given them. Then were they as joyful at such news as if lusty giants were to run a race." Here Elizabeth appeared before them, mounted on a war horse, holding a general's staff, and arrayed in a breastplate of steel. Followed by a page who bore her helmet, she rode bareheaded through the ranks, and roused them to the highest pitch of loyalty by her stir- ring words. " I am come among you at this time," she said, " being resolved in the midst of the heat and the battle to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of a feeble woman, but I have the heart of a King and a King of England too." No wonder they prayed heartily the Spaniards might land quickly, and " when they knew they were fled, they began to lament." Ten days before, a final overwhelming vic- tory in the Channel had destroyed all prospects of a Spanish landing. The Destruction of the Armada. On 19 July, 1588, the long- expected Armada was sighted off the Lizard, on the Cornwall coast, " approaching very slowly, though with full sails, the wind being, as it were, weary of wafting them, and the ocean groaning under their weight." After a series of encounters, in which the invaders were repulsed off Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, they started across the 3 g6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Channel to join Parma. When they reached the harbor of Calais, the English turned loose a number of fire ships, scattering their vessels in all directions. This was Sunday, 28 July. The next day, before they had time to recover, they were engaged by practically the whole English fleet, and, although they fought desperately, they were obliged to break and flee. The victors were in no condition to pursue them ; their ammunition was exhausted, provisions had run short, and disease had broken out ; for such meat as they had was putrid and their beer was sour. While all this was due largely to the faulty and inadequate supply system, inevitable in those days, Elizabeth's parsimony was at least partly to blame. Indeed, Howard had to draw on his own fortune, by no means large, to succor men whose sufferings were contracted in the service of their country and their Queen. The " invincible Armada " sped northward pursued by a stiff gale, rounded the north of Scotland, and headed back by a course laid to the west of Ireland. Scarcely more than half of those who started ever reached Spain again. Some were lost in fighting, some were wrecked on the shores of Norway, many more on the Scotch and Irish coasts, part of the latter slain by the natives and by English officials. Wind and weather had fought against the proud Spaniard; yet, after all has been said, the result was chiefly due to the courage and skill of Eng- lish seamen. Significance of the Repulse of the Armada. Philip II failed to realize this : " I sent it (the Armada) against man," he said, " not against the billows. I thank God, by whose generous hand I am gifted with such power, that I could easily, if I chose, place another fleet upon the seas." But, though he continued the war so long as he lived, his energies were divided between England, France, and the Netherlands, and he never made another attempt, like that of 1588, to conquer the kingdom of Elizabeth. The repulse of the Armada marked a grandly significant moment in the history of England. It justified at home and abroad Elizabeth's wise policy of moderation. She had bribed her people with peace, light taxes, and the fostering of trade, and had prosecuted religious extremists only so far as necessi- ties of State demanded. She maintained no standing army and only a small navy, nor was it necessary ; for when the crisis came, her sub- jects, forgetting their religious differences, flocked' to the defense of their sovereign and their kingdom. And the victory was not only an indication, it was also a further cause of national unity. Achievement in a common national undertaking drew more closely together subjects of all shades of opinion. For the first time, too, it revealed to Chris- tendom the greatness of English sea power and marked the beginning of the end of the Spanish maritime supremacy, one of the leading causes of her ultimate downfall. New Aggressions against Spain. The younger generation were thirsting for great exploits. Not content with preying upon Spain's commerce and worrying her with occasional dashes against her coasts, ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 397 they aspired to break up her dominion beyond the seas and to set up an English dominion in its place. At the head of this party stood Essex, a nephew of Leicester, and Raleigh, who wanted to override the older, wiser, and more cautious councilors like Burghley and Walsingham. An expedition, sent in 1589 for the purpose of restor- ing Don Antonio to the throne of Portugal, is an instance of their extreme aggressive policy. Elizabeth gave her sanction and even went so far as to furnish some ships and money, but the main expense was borne by Drake and Norris. On the way they were joined by Essex whom the Queen, fearing that harm might come to him, had sought to keep at home. Except for some slight damage to Spain, the invaders accomplished little. Attacks on Lisbon and Coruna accomplished nothing, and the Portuguese failed to rise. The Triumph of Henry of Navarre. Meantime, events in France were working in England's favor. Although he had joined the League, Henry III resented being merely a tool of the Duke of Guise. So he had him assassinated by the royal bodyguard, 23 December, 1588. When Guise's brother, the Duke of Mayenne, led the forces of the League against him, the King allied himself with Henry of Navarre, who succeeded to the throne when Henry III was himself murdered by a fanatical Dominican, 2 August, 1 589. The League declared for the Cardinal of Bourbon with Philip II as protector of the realm. But Henry III won a great battle at Ivryin 1590, the Cardinal died, and by declaring himself a Catholic, 23 July, 1593, Henry drew many of the more moderate to his side, and before the close of the next year the Duke of Mayenne had consented to terms. The new King, however, who said that " Paris was worth a mass," only changed his religion for State purposes, and in 1598 by the Edict of Nantes he granted a generous toleration to Huguenots. The Final Stages of the Struggle between Elizabeth and Philip II. - In 1596 Philip's forces had captured Calais. Thereupon, England and the Dutch, combining forces with France, sent a joint expedition against Cadiz. Admiral Howard commanded the fleet and Essex the land forces. Again Cadiz was sacked and its shipping destroyed. The English soldiers, however, were held in restraint by Howard, who, having accomplished the work for which he was sent, insisted upon returning. This was the last great naval expedition of the reign against Spain. Burghley succeeded in persuading the Queen to make his son Robert Secretary of State, and the peace party was able to put a check upon the fiery Cecil faction. But they did not yield without a struggle ; for a hot dispute in the Council is recorded, in 1598, when the venerable Lord Treasurer drew out a Prayer Book and pointed to the passage : " Men full of blood shall not live out half their days." Philip, in 1596, sent another fleet against England, and, in 1597, still another against Ireland, but neither reached its destination. In this latter year Essex showed that he was as futile as he was ambitious. A celebrated expedition to the Azores under his leadership, known as 398 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the " Island Voyage," failed to intercept a Spanish treasure fleet from America, chiefly owing to his blunders. In 1598 Henry IV concluded a peace with Spain, leaving Philip free to pursue his designs on Eng- land and the Netherlands, but Philip died the very same year, after a rule of over forty years. He had failed as the Catholic champion of Europe, he had failed to maintain his power in the Netherlands and his monopoly in the New World. He left to his successors a bankrupt kingdom and an expensive system of government, and prepared the way for the dissolution of the heritage of his father. The Execution of Essex and the Conquest of Ireland. In March, 1599, much against his will, Essex was sent to put down a rebellion in Ireland led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Here again he failed. He delayed for some time to go against the rebel Earl ; and then, con- trary to orders, he made peace and returned to England. Trusting too much to his popularity, he burst into the Queen's presence unan- nounced and mud-stained with travel. He was tried, deprived of office, and sentenced to remain a prisoner in his own house. Infuri- ated by his punishment, he gathered his supporters and tried to over- awe his enemies by an armed demonstration. He was overcome, tried, and condemned to death as a traitor on a charge of seeking to change the royal policy by force. He was executed 21 February, 1601. Elizabeth signed the death warrant with a heavy heart, and never recovered from the shock. 1 By the end of 1602 Lord Mountjoy, Essex's successor, brought Tyrone to submission. Elizabeth's Last Years. The repulse of the Armada marked the climax of Elizabeth's glory. The years that followed were years of increasing loneliness and isolation. Her favorites and her trusted councilors dropped off one by one : Anjou in 1584 ; Leicester in 1588 ; Walsingham in 1598. The system which she represented had out- lived its time ; the old absolutism had served its turn, and new men and new policies were eagerly awaiting their chance. The romance, too, of her life was ended ; for even at court her popularity declined with her fading charms. The admiration of the younger courtiers came to be more and more a pretense. Yet, old as she was, she re- fused to face the prospect of death or to provide for the succession, and clung to vain display till the last. A German traveler, who saw her on her way to her chapel at Greenwich on a December Sunday in 1598, describes her pomp and ceremony, her imposing train, her auburn wig surmounted by a crown, her pearl earrings, her magnificent gown adorned with jewels, and her collar of gold. The people who spoke to her knelt, so he relates, and as she passed by, she replied graciously to them, to some in English, to some in French, to some in Italian. On another occasion when the Bishop of St. Davids ventured 1 Their relations had been curious. Once in the Council when a dispute arose over Irish affairs Essex had turned his back on the Queen. She gave him a box on the ear. He put his hand on his sword, declaring that he would not brook such an affront from Henry VIII himself. ELIZABETH'S ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE 399 to preach on the text, " Lord, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," she burst out stormily : " He might have kept his arithmetic to himself, but I see that the greatest clerks are not the wisest men." Yet, too, there were times when she showed flashes of that tact and insight which had been so charac- teristic of her in her prime. In 1601 when Parliament, called to grant money for the Irish war, forced her to revoke some grants of monop- olies, regarded as burdensome, she yielded very gracefully saying: " There is no jewel, be it never of so rich a price, which I prefer before this jewel, I mean your love." In answer to their thanks she declared' : " I have more cause to thank you all than you me; for, had I not received a knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lap of an error only from lack of true information." Yet, when the subject had been raised four years earlier, she had expressed the hope that " her loving subjects would not take away her prerogative," and had done nothing. Elizabeth's Death, 24 March, 1603. Elizabeth died 24 March, 1603, in the seventieth year of her age and the forty-sixth of her reign. The story goes that the Council sought eagerly for a sign from her as to whom she wanted to succeed her, that 22 March, she declared, " I will have no rascal's son in my seat," none but a King, and that should be " our cousin " the King of Scotland, and that, later, when she became speechless she expressed a preference for him by signs. All this has been doubted. As a matter of fact, the Council had already settled on James VI. The Queen had no legal right to fix the suc- cessor, though the Council may have sought to strengthen their decision by her sanction. Judged by its achievements, Elizabeth's reign was notable. She maintained the established religion without civil war. She kept England from being absorbed by either the House of Valois or the House of Hapsburg. By preventing the question of the succession from being decided prematurely, she prepared peace- fully the way for the Scotch Protestant line and the union of two coun- tries that naturally belonged together. While she kept England out of war, she diverted its energies into trade, exploration, and coloniza- tion, thus helping to lay the foundations of its future greatness. She was blessed with a long reign in which she labored to educate her people into a sense of unity and national self-consciousness. She trusted to time, which blessed her policy, though it was ruthless to her as a woman. Truly, it might be said of her, more than of most, " the individual withers, but the world grows more and more." FOR ADDITIONAL READING Pollard, Political History, chs. XVIII-XXII, XXIV. limes, England under the Tudors, chs. XIX-XXVI. Cambridge Modern History, III, chs. VIII, IX, X (bibliog- raphies, pp. 816-824). M. A. S. Hume, Treason and Plot (1901) deals with the strug- gles of the Roman Catholics for supremacy in the last years of Elizabeth. E. P. 400 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth (vol. I, 1914) ; the most thorough account of the history of the period. See also the references for ch. XXIV above. KINGS OF FRANCE, 1483-1610 CHARLES VIII, 1483-1498 Louis XII, 1498-1515, great-grandson of Louis, Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI I Claude = Francis I, 1515-1547, also a great-grandson of Louis of Orleans I HENRY 11 = Catharine de' Medici 1547-1549 I r. FRANCIS II, CHARLES IX, HENRY III, Francis, Margaret= HENRY IV 1559-1560, 1560-1574 1574-1589, Duke of (Henry of Navarre), m. Mary suitor of Alencon, 1589-1610, a de- Queen of Queen suitor of scendant of Robert, Scots Elizabeth Queen son of St. Louis, Elizabeth (1226-1270) THE HOWARDS John Howard, created Duke of Norfolk, killed at Bosworth, 1485 Thomas, Earl of Surrey, victor at Flodden, 1513, Duke of Norfolk, 1514, d. 1514 I 1 1 1 Thomas, Edmund William, Elizabeth = = Thomas Duke of 1 created Lord Boleyn Norfolk, Katherine. Howard of d. 1554 m. Henry VIII, Effingham Anne Boleyn, executed, 1542 I m. Hen ry VIII, Charles, executed, 1536 Henry, Earl commander of Surrey, against the Queen Elizabeth, beheaded, 1547 Armada, 1588, 1558-1603 created Earl Thomas, Duke of Nottingham, of Norfolk, 1590, d. 1624 beheaded, 1572 CHAPTER XXVI ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND (1558-1603) The Strength of the Later Elizabethan Monarchy. After Elizabeth had weathered the storms of the first part of her reign, the monarchy seemed to be even stronger than under her triumphant father. Neces- sity, sentiment, and gratitude all contributed to this apparent result. The Protestants of every shade of opinion had been forced to support her through fear of civil war and foreign invasion. They clung to her against Mary Stuart, backed by France and the Papacy and, at length, by Spain. After Mary's death the moderate Catholics ranged them- selves on Elizabeth's side against the Spanish invasion and the con- quest which it threatened to involve. The sentiment of chivalrous devotion to a woman, although it took absurdly extravagant forms, particularly at Court, was another real source of strength that the Queen, not from vanity alone, knew how to foster. Finally, the gentry and the commercial and trading classes were bound to the throne by ties of material interest and gratitude. Henry VII had done much for them; Henry VIII had shared with them the spoils of the monasteries and contributed to their prosperity in other ways ; under Elizabeth came peace, economical rule, depredations against Spain, and the expansion of trade, together with the glorious deliver- ance of 1588. Opposition and Sources of Weakness. Nevertheless, while the monarchy at Elizabeth's death appeared even stronger than under the first two Henrys of the Tudor line, forces were already at work which indicated that absolutism was tottering. A new order of things was inevitable, though the change was precipitated by the advent of a new dynasty. The very services rendered by the Tudors, and particularly by Elizabeth, had put the subjects of the realm in a position to assert themselves. They no longer feared the old nobility who had oppressed them in the past and had been responsible for the terrible disorders of the fifteenth century ; they were no longer threat- ened with a Catholic successor ; the combination between France and Scotland had been broken by the union of the English and Scotch crowns ; Spain had been repulsed and the Roman Catholic party had shrunk to a mere faction of plotters who were looked at askance by the loyal members of their own communion ; and Ireland, long a storm center, seemed for the moment quelled. The grievances, actual 2D 491 402 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and potential, against which the disaffected could now assert them- selves were both religious and political. While religious strife prac- tically ceased after the Armada, the extreme Protestants had no.t been crushed ; they were only awaiting more auspicious times. Under James I they raised their heads, and finally gained ascendancy under his son. Since the bishops and their followers among the clergy turned to the Crown for support and sought to strengthen their posi- tion by exalting the royal prerogative, their opponents turned to Par- liament, combining with those whose grievances were primarily polit- ical, with those who were opposed to arbitrary taxation and the jurisdiction of the extraordinary courts which had grown up under the Tudors. This accounts for the complex character of what is known in history as the " Puritan Revolution." In order to follow the conflict in all its bearings, it is necessary to understand the situa- tion in Church and State on the eve of the struggle. The Royal Supremacy over the Church. The sovereign was supreme governor over all ecclesiastical persons and causes, and, directly or indirectly, controlled the legislation, administration, and revenues of the Church. Convocation was summoned and dissolved by the Crown, and none of its acts was valid without the royal assent. 1 Among various revenues derived from the clergy were first fruits and tenths, clerical subsidies voted in Convocation, and occasional benev- olences. Also, the administration of ecclesiastical finances and justice was under royal control from the fact that the bishops were appointees of the Crown. The regular Church courts were those of the archdeacon, the bishop, and the archbishop. Their competence extended over temporal as well as spiritual causes ; for, in addition to sacrilege, heresy, perjury, and immorality, probate and divorce fell within their scope. 2 Appeals in the last instance went to the High Court of Delegates composed of judges appointed by the sovereign whenever need arose. 3 Until 1641, however, the ordinary ecclesiasti- cal courts were practically superseded by the Court of High Commis- sion, empowered by the Act of Supremacy 'to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to inquire into and punish heresy and other offenses of a like nature. Several commissions were issued during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I to leading prelates and ministers of the Crown. At first the energies of this court were devoted to enforc- ing the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity against the Romanists ; but when it began to be used against the Protestants as well, it came to be hated more and more until, on the eve of the Civil War, it was 1 After Convocation, in 1604, passed a series of particularly arbitrary canons, Parliament made a vain effort to provide that no canon affecting the life, liberty, or property of laymen should be valid without its assent ; this was defeated, though the judges generally interpreted the law in the parliamentary sense. 2 Ecclesiastical jurisdiction over matrimonial and testamentary cases was taken away in 1857. 8 In 1833 its duties were taken over by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 403 finally suppressed. The lawyers attacked it on the ground that it exceeded its powers ; but the hostility whicH it excited was due rather to its oppressive practices. It might act without a jury from the first, while in the later commissions no provision for trial by jury was pro- vided. By the so-called ex officio oath it could oblige the accused to answer any question that might be put to him, quite contrary to the fundamental provision of common law that no man could be obliged to testify against himself. The Crown and Parliament. After the break with Rome the Tudors had used Parliament as a mere instrument of government. Elizabeth's most notable acts, though framed by herself and her councilors, all received parliamentary sanction. But the right of summoning, proroguing, and dissolving were in her hands, and she preferred to summon that body as infrequently as possible. During forty-five years she called, at irregular intervals, ten parliaments which met for thirteen short sessions, aggregating not more than one hundred and thirty-five weeks, or, to put it in another way, during her whole reign Parliament was only in session one seventeenth of the time. Moreover, when it was called together, the sovereign had vari- ous means of controlling its composition and workings. In the Upper House the bishops, composing a third of the total membership, were royal nominees. The temporal peers, of whom there were about sixty, could be controlled by favor, by new creations and promotions. Elizabeth made much use of the former, but comparatively little of the latter. 1 The membership in the Lower House could be regulated by the establishing of new boroughs. Sixty-two date from Eliza- beth's reign, 2 some from the sparsely inhabited Cornish districts ; but, in general, there was little corruption for Crown purposes. The in- crease of representation was a natural outcome of growth of popula- tion and a reliance on the support of the middle classes. Moreover, it was easy to control Parliament in other ways. With no railroads or telegraphs, without even good roads or an adequate postal service, and when public meetings and caucuses were unknown, no effective opposition could be organized outside. Nor, with such short and in- frequent sessions, was much to be feared from the disaffected after they had assembled. Furthermore, the names of the members were known to the Government before they were to each other ; important measures were introduced by the royal councilors ; and the election of the Speaker was controlled by the Crown. If, in spite of all, an opposition member appeared dangerous, Elizabeth would forbid his attendance or order his imprisonment. Also, she might forbid the discussion of an unwelcome bill, or withdraw it in the midst of a dis- cussion. In the last instance she could resort to the veto. The priv- ileges of freedom from arrest in civil suits and freedom of speech, 1 Henry VII created or promoted 20; Henry VIII, 66; Edward, 22; Mary, 9; Elizabeth, 29. 2 Henry VIII had created 5 ; Edward, 22 ; and Mary, 14. 404 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND though claimed by the Commons throughout the reign, were not se- cured until the following century. The Privy Council. Under Elizabeth the actual government was in the hands of the Privy Council, not in Parliament. Now the Houses control the government through the Cabinet members, at that time the sovereign managed the Houses through the agency of the Council, composed of devoted royal servants. It numbered seventeen or eighteen members, mostly laymen, nominated by the Queen. Its functions were threefold : legislative, executive or ad- ministrative, and judicial. Its business extended over a most varied field, local government, industry and trade, Irish, colonial, and foreign affairs. The Council's legislation, usually at the instance of the sov- ereign, was in the form of ordinances or proclamations. These, as well as the regular statutes, were executed by means of administrative orders issued by the Secretary (or Secretaries, for there were generally two) who had come to supersede the Chancellor as the chief officer of State. Judicial functions were exercised in the Star Chamber ses- sions. Altogether, the system of government by council was very simple and workable and might be very oppressive under a despotic ruler. It framed and executed its own measures and even on occasion tried cases arising from them. Revenues and Taxation. Ordinary Crown Revenues. Taxation formed a leading issue in the coming struggle, partly because the sub- ject wished to protect his purse, and partly because the control of supply was an effective weapon against absolutism. In ordinary times the sovereign was expected " to live of his own " ; but the Crown revenues were far from adequate. Elizabeth, with all her economy, left a debt. The ordinary revenues, largely under royal control, were derived from several sources, (i) Crown lands yielded somewhat, how much it is difficult to say, since these lands were constantly re- quired and constantly given away. (2) Feudal dues, i.e. aids, ward- ships, marriages, escheats, etc., yielded about 45,000 a year ; but the wasteful system of collection took far more from those who were as- sessed than actually went to the Queen. Purveyance, too, was a partic- ularly grievous burden. (3) Court fees and fines, especially the Court of Star Chamber, furnished a third source of royal revenue. (4) With the growth of trade, duties on exports and imports came to be a con- siderable element of income. The bulk of these duties were derived from tonnage and poundage, which since the Yorkist period had been granted to each successive sovereign for life at the beginning of the reign. The hereditary income from duties, particularly from wool, dating from 1275, had ceased to be very profitable with the rise of the cloth industry. In addition to tonnage and poundage and the hered- itary customs, the Crown claimed the right to levy certain additional duties known as " impositions." The Tudors employed these largely to regulate trade. When James sought to make them a source of rev- enue Parliament resisted; but they continued to be levied till 1641. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 405 Monopolies, Benevolences, and Forced Loans. Besides the feudal dues and impositions there were other royal exactions, resisted even under the popular Tudors, which were among the main factors in the Puritan Revolution. In 1601 Elizabeth had been wise enough to re- call some of the most objectionable patents of monopoly. Under James, however, new ones sprang up and the evil grew until he was forced to pass an act abolishing certain classes of them. But the statute contained certain exemptions by which his son Charles unwisely endeavored to profit. More objectionable still were benevolences and forced loans. The Tudor Henrys had revived benevolences abolished in 1484 by Richard III on the ground that as a usurper his legislation was invalid. They maintained also that they were not taxes, but gifts. Elizabeth, however, rarely, if ever, exacted benev- olences. James and Charles tried to impose them, though with no great success. Forced loans, while older, did not become at all fre- quent till the time of the Yorkists. Henry VIII, with parliamentary sanction, repudiated most of his. Elizabeth usually repaid hers, though not often in money. Extraordinary Grants by Parliament: Extraordinary grants im- posed by direct taxation were wholly in the hands of Parliament. They were of two sorts, (i) Tenths and fifteenths, consisting origi- nally of a tenth of the income of burgesses and a fifteenth from the shires, came to be fixed in the fourteenth century at 39,000 for each as- sessment. Owing to exemptions and other causes, this form of taxa- tion came to be a very unequal burden and was never imposed after 1624. (2) Meantime, as early as the time of the Tudors, a new form of direct tax the subsidy had appeared. Even earlier, this term had been used loosely as a name for additional customs. In its later and stricter sense it meant a parliamentary tax of 45. in the pound on land, and 2s. 8d. on goods. In the time of Elizabeth a subsidy had become fixed at about 80,000 ; but with the rise in prices and the decrease in the value of money it came to be worth far less. Unable to secure adequate revenue from the taxes under the control of Par- liament, the first two Stuarts resorted to the irregular devices already enumerated, thus fostering, if they did not create, one of the chief grievances which led to the final catastrophe. The Justices of the Peace and the Common Law Courts. Only less fruitful in precipitating the conflict was the arbitrary jurisdiction exercised by the various special courts set up during the Tudor period. Just as the High Commission came to supplant the regular Church courts, so these extraordinary tribunals superseded, to a large degree, the normal judicial system. Lowest in the scale of the latter were the justices of the peace. Descending from certain peace officers of the late twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, who were " little more than constables on a large scale," they were, in the fourteenth century, in- trusted with judicial functions. In the Tudor period they were chosen by the Chancellor from the landed gentry in the counties and from the 406 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND magistracies in cities and boroughs. A single justice could commit, but it required two for a judicial decision. In such petty sessions, as they came to be called, they dealt with minor criminal cases. More important ones were reserved for the Quarter Sessions, so-called be- cause they were held four times a year. Next above -the Quarter Sessions were the Assizes held at the county seat and presided over by one of the King's justices, assisted by such of the local justices as were commissioned to sit with him. Above the Assizes were the three common law courts sitting at Westminster. 1 The Court of King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas had each a chief justice and three associate or puisne judges. The judges in the Exchequer Court were called barons. The Court of Exchequer Chamber was a court of still higher resort. It consisted sometimes of all twelve judges, more often of the eight who had not previously heard the case. Oc- casionally a specially important case would be referred to all twelve judges at the start. In the last instance a case went either to the Privy Council or the House of Lords. Even over these common law courts the sovereign had great control ; for their judges were appointed by the Crown, usually during pleasure. While Elizabeth was careful not to abuse her powers, James and Charles were constantly meddling, consulting the judges before a case came up in court, and often remov- ing those who opposed their will. The Special Jurisdictions. Of the special courts Chancery, of course, greatly antedated the Tudors. Primarily designed to decide questions of equity, its jurisdiction was often employed to invade the proper field of the common law courts. Among the Tudor creations were certain local courts modeled after Star Chamber, notably the President and Council in the North Parts and the Council of Wales and the Marches, set up in 1539 and 1542, respectively, for dealing with disturbances on the borders. Ireland had a similar tribunal in the Court of Castle Chamber. Other bodies were established for dealing with particular branches of the revenue, such as the Courts of Augmentations, of First Fruits, and of Wards and Liveries. In most cases their original purpose was justified ; but their powers were greatly abused, and few of them survived the Puritan Revolution. A griev- ance closely related to these arbitrary jurisdictions was the many searching laws of treason to which the subjects were exposed. Henry VIII, in order to establish his ecclesiastical supremacy and to regu- late the succession, greatly extended the law which had been defined for generations by the famous 25 Edward III of 1352. All together, Henry passed nine laws on the subject, which were all repealed in the next reign. Though new ones were enacted they were nothing like so stringent. Elizabeth's were designed both to main- tain her supremacy and to protect her against rival claimants to the throne. 1 It was their judges who held the Assizes when the central courts were not in sessions. England was divided into several circuits for the purpose. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 407 Local Government. The Elizabethan period is especially impor- tant in the history of local government, partly because of the changes introduced and the activity displayed, and partly because it was the system in which our colonial fathers were trained, and which they developed in their new homes. Old institutions were losing much of their vitality. The sheriff, for instance, declined in importance. His military duties were taken over by the lords lieutenant of the county. This official 1 dating from Edward VI was head of the county militia organized under commissions of array and called out by his orders. He was responsible for his county in times of in- surrection and invasion, he had absolute power at such times, receiv- ing indemnity in advance for the consequences of its exercise. The sheriff's judicial and administrative duties passed to the hands of the justices of the peace. Their activity in the latter field began in con- nection with the Statutes of Laborers. It became their work to license beggars, to force the sturdy to work, and to repress vagrants. With the passage of the poor laws and the recusancy acts more burdens were laid upon them ; regulation of wages and prices, management of roads and prisons, and many other duties were added. Indeed, such " stacks of statutes " fell to their lot that " the alphabet has become the one possible connecting thread in describing their duties." Although appointed by the Crown they were landed gentry of local interests, the same class that furnished the knights of the shire. Thus they acted as a powerful check against royal despotism. The famous Justice Coke rhapsodically declared in describing the system : " It is such a form of subordinate government for the tranquillity and quiet of the realm, as no part of the Christian world hath the like." 2 The smallest administrative division was the parish. It looked after the maintenance of the church services ; it had the care of the roads within its borders, and was responsible for the support of its poor, levy- ing rates for each of these purposes. Each parish furnished its quota for the lord lieutenant's levy and was intrusted with police powers exer- cised by elected constables. Some parishes, too, supported or helped to support schools. Business was transacted in parish meetings under the charge of church wardens, assisted by a committee ranging from eight to twenty-four members. The whole was known as a vestry, which was generally a close corporation, i.e. vacancies were filled by surviving members. The city and borough governments were grow- ing equally oligarchical throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies. So, from the Council to the parish, there was a complete but well-knit system of administration, in which, however, none but the select few had any share. 1 His military powers survived till 1871. Similar functions were intrusted to the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which were especially responsible for the defense of the coast. 2 Since 1888 their administrative duties have been largely absorbed by elected county councils. 4 o8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Material Conditions. Except for the humbler folk the Elizabethan period was one of increased prosperity, of improved methods of farm- ing, of the growth of manufactures, of the extension of trade and com- merce. This was partly due to the Queen herself, to her restoration of the coinage, to her peaceful policy, economy, and light taxes, and to her encouragement of exploration and maritime enterprise. Her efforts, however, would not have been so successful but for favoring circumstances. England, as a wool-producing country, was bound, in the long run, to prevail as a manufacturer of cloth. The necessity of feeding those engaged in the new industry made arable farming again profitable. Moreover, from her position on the very threshold of the Atlantic seaboard, it was inevitable that the Island Kingdom should profit by the discovery of the New World and the new trade routes. Also the revolt of the Netherlands and the ruin of Antwerp gave London and the other English commercial cities opportunities which they were not slow to seize. The Restoration of the Coinage. The disorganization of the cur- rency, begun under Henry VIII, continued through the next reign ; while Mary, in spite of well-meant efforts, was able to accomplish little, owing largely to the expense involved in her Spanish connec- tion, and to her endeavor to restore to Rome church properties ap- propriated under her two predecessors. It remained for Elizabeth to carry out the task. She called in the debased coins at a figure far below that at which they circulated and somewhat less than their real value. In their place she issued pure, new coins. The first proc- lamation was put forth at Michaelmas 1560, and within a year the Queen could congratulate herself on having overcome the " hideous monster of base money." Although the step involved some tem- porary hardship, confidence was soon restored, trade soon felt the good effects, and the Government even made a small profit from the transac- tion. The extension of credit combined with the improved currency to help the growth of business. Discarding the old notion that all lending at interest was usurious and wrong, both Henry VIII and Elizabeth recognized the legality of moderate interest. 1 Owing to the policy of mercantilism, to the expansion of trade and commerce, and to the privateering against Spain, prices kept rising ; but the rise was of a healthier sort than that due to scarcity and debased money. Since rents and wages went up more slowly, the landlords and laborers did not feel the change so fully or so quickly as the merchant and manu- facturer. The increasing demand for the products of the soil steadily improved the condition of the landed gentry, however, and gave the laborers more regular employment. Many of the former, too, in- vested in trading and buccaneering enterprises which brought them 1 In 1571 it was fixed at 10 per cent. One curious effect of the recognition of money lending was to weaken the royal power ; for later sovereigns began to bor- row from the merchants and goldsmiths, thus making themselves more or less dependent on a class whose principles were generally democratic. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 409 large returns. Prosperity had developed to such a point in 1569 that the Government which had hitherto borrowed abroad placed a loan at home. Development of Agriculture. The revival of farming was so marked in Elizabeth's reign that it has been termed a period of agri- cultural counter-revolution. Country gentlemen began again to turn" their attention to the cultivation of their estates. Agricultural writers once more began to discuss improved methods, and new sources of profit began to arise from market gardening. Sheep raising had to contend against various obstacles. For one thing, the practice of enclosing was still discouraged by law; in 1597, for instance, an act was passed providing that land which had been made pasture since the Queen's accession should be reconverted to tillage and that none then under the plow should be diverted to grazing. Also there was decline in the price of wool, possibly owing to a temporary overstock- ing of the market, more likely because rich pasturage coarsened the quality. This latter result was due to the development of mixed farming, or convertible husbandry, when lands used for tillage one year were turned into pasture the next, and vice versa. In addition to the growth of population and the increasing demand for food supplies the revival of tillage was greatly favored by the policy of the Queen. When the price of corn was moderate, she encouraged its export in the interest of the farmer and the shipper. Only in times of scarcity was export- checked in the interest of the consumer. One exception, how- ever, was made on political grounds ; after hostilities opened with Spain no foodstuffs could be sent to that kingdom at all. New and better roads opened new markets at home, more attention was paid to fertilizing, and, with the revival of market gardening, onions, cab- bages, carrots, and parsnips began to be grown. Thomas Tusser, whose Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry appeared in 1573, was an enthusiastic advocate of a new form of enclosure which began to prevail in the eighteenth century, and consisted in doing away with the common fields, the scattered strips, and the communal cultivation, and in consolidating holdings in the hands of individual owners or tillers of the soil. Progressive in this, Tusser was backward in other respects ; for he scarcely mentions the use of manure, he does not consider the subject of draining, and, apparently, was ignorant of the uses of clover and artificial grass. In these respects he had much to learn from Barnaby Googe whose Four Books of Husbandry appeared in 1577. Some effort was made to reclaim swamp lands by drainage, but it was not until the next century that much was accomplished. In general it may be said that, relatively to tillage and cattle raising, sheep farming was becoming less profitable, and that most of the enclosures were for the purpose of convertible husbandry. Discovery and Exploration. The notable exploits of Elizabethan seamen have influenced profoundly the history of England and the history of the world in a multitude of ways. In them the spirit of 410 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the Renascence was wonderfully manifested, and geographical knowl- edge, literature, religion, commerce, industry, colonization, and the spread of civilization all bear the marks of their achievements. They circumnavigated the globe, they opened Russia and the East to English trade, they extended English commerce into the Mediterranean and along the African coast ; they took the first step toward securing a foothold in India ; they undertook Arctic voyages in search of north- east and northwest passages to Cathay, and they made possible the beginnings of English colonization in America. The Opening up of Russia and Central Asia. The opening up of Russia began with an attempt on the part of two daring explorers, Richard Chancellor and Sir Hugh Willoughby, in search of the north- east passage. Their instructions were drawn up by Sebastian Cabot, " Geographer Royal " of England, while the funds for this " new and strange navigation" were supplied by " certain grave citizens of London " with an eye to new markets. The preparations were com- pleted in the reign of Edward VI, though the actual start was not undertaken until after the accession of Mary in 1553. Of the three ships which began the voyage two, including Willoughby's, were lost, and Chancellor, " very heavy, pensive, and sorrowful," proceeded alone. He rounded the North Cape, passed southward to the White Sea, and landed near the present Archangel. Thence he journeyed fifteen hundred miles on sledges to Moscow, the court of Ivan the Terrible, King of the Muscovites. After remaining three months he went back to England with letters from Ivan and an account of the condition and resources of his kingdom. Chancellor was drowned on his return from a subsequent voyage, but the Muscovite ambas- sador who accompanied him was received at Mary's court in Feb- ruary, 1557. Though during this reign other voyages were made to the Levant and to the coast of Africa, Chancellor's stands out as the notable achievement. Having secured a foothold in Russia and the favor of the Tsar, English enterprise was extended, under Elizabeth, by journeys along the shores of the Caspian Sea into Turkestan and northern Persia. Valuable commercial privileges were secured in all these countries. The pioneer in marking out the new routes to cen- tral Asia was Anthony Jenkinson, a seasoned traveler who had ranged from the Arctic Ocean to northern Africa. The death of Ivan in 1584 marked the decline of English trade in this direction. The Dutch broke in upon the monopoly, and new fields of commerce and other routes to the further east were sought. The Mediterranean. The Overland and Sea Routes to India. One was an overland route from the Mediterranean, a natural develop- ment from the Turkey trade which was being pushed forward vigor- ously. Traders and explorers visited Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh, and other famous places of ancient times. Most notable of all was an over- land expedition led by John Newberrie and Ralph Fitch. Starting from Syria in 1583 they went in company as far as the western coast ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 411 of India. There Fitch parted company with Newberrie, and pene- trated to Bengal and other parts of the eastern side of the peninsula, probably the first Englishman who ever made the -journey. The other route was by sea around southern Africa. Though, evn before the accession of Elizabeth, English seamen had -broken through the monopoly which the Portuguese had long enjoyed along the African coast, it was not till 1591 that any of them ventured to round the Cape of Good Hope. In that year James Lancaster and George Ray- mond accomplished the feat. 1 They returned in 1594, having gone as far as Malacca and Ceylon. Meantime, since their revolt from Spain, the Dutch had begun to supplant the Portuguese in the East Indies, and the success of their trading companies and the monopoly which they in turn were seeking to establish 2 led, in conjunction with the stories brought back by Newberrie, Fitch, Lancaster, and Raymond, to the foundation of the English East India Company. The English Seamen in the Western World. Biggest, however, in results, as we view them, were the voyages to our American shores, and the first steps toward colonization within the limits of the present United States. The Cabots had prepared the way in the reign of Henry VII. Little more was done till Elizabeth's time. Hawkins' three voyages, " forcing (the Spanish American colonists) to friendly commerce " in slaves, and Drake's expedition, when he first saw the Pacific in 1572, stirred the spirit of English maritime adventure. The crowning achievement was Drake's circumnavigation of " the whole globe of the earth " from 1577 to 1580. He braved all sorts of hard- ships : mutiny, storm, and danger of the Spanish. After passing the straits of Magellan his little fleet of five vessels was reduced to one the Pelican, which he had rechristened the Golden Hind. He ravaged the coasts of Chili and Peru, possessed himself of immense treasure, and, after exploring the coast of California, returned by way of the Cape of Good Hope. There was still much speculation as to the pos- sibility of a northwest passage, and Englishmen hoped to discover gold as well as a trade route in the bleak northern regions. Thither Martin Frobisher made three voyages (1576-1578), adding much to the knowledge of Greenland and Labrador. Ten years later John Davis, an agent like himself of a syndicate of merchants and courtiers, con- tinued his work. His name survives in Davis Straits. Early English Attempts at Colonization. Attempts at conquest and settlement followed in the wake of these voyages of discovery and plundering raids. The pioneer was Sir Humphrey Gilbert who in 1578 received a patent for " the planting of our people in America." Failing in his first two voyages, he sailed again in 1583 and reached the 1 The Portuguese, Bartholomew Diaz, was the first to round the Cape of Good Hope, in 1486. In 1497-1498 Vasco da Gama made his celebrated voyage from Portugal to India. 2 Their various trading companies were united into the Dutch East India Com- pany in 1602. 4 i2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND coast of Newfoundland, where he planted the first colony in British North America. On his return voyage he went down with his ship off the southern Azores, crying with pious courage to those in a neigh- boring vessel : " We are as near heaven by sea as by land." His half brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, took over his patent. To prepare the way for future colonization he sent out in 1584 an expedition " at his charge in direction " which explored the coast of North Carolina. The region was named " Virginia," after England's virgin Queen. Three unsuc- cessful attempts to plant a settlement followed, culminating in the famous " lost colony " led by John White. It was notable, among other things, for the birth of Virginia Dare, 18 August, 1587, the first English child born in the New World. Although it was not until the settlement of Jamestown, nearly twenty years later, that a permanent English colony was established, Raleigh deserves credit for his efforts in a work so big in future results. He himself never set foot on the shores of North America. In 1595, however, he made a voyage to Guiana, in search for El Dorado, the fabulous city of Manoa, where the chief of the natives was supposed to cover his body with gold dust and to bathe in a sacred lake where the water was full of gold and precious stones. Raleigh's expedition gave the English their claim to the present British Guiana. Besides these voyages thus briefly described, the Elizabethan seamen undertook numberless others to remote lands and distant seas. The whole wonderful story may be read in the stirring pages of the contemporary Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616), whose Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation has been called " the prose epic of the modern English Nation, our unrivaled treasury of material for the history of geography, discovery, and colonization, our best collection of the ex- ploits of the heroes in whom the new era was revealed." Foreign Trade. Governmental regulation of trade still prevailed. In the first and fifth years of the reign new navigation laws were passed, partly for protection and partly to foster English seamanship. The latter motive also played a part in the encouragement of the fisheries, which explains why England, a Protestant country not only enforced fast days by law, but added Wednesday as a new " fish day." In order to nurse infant industries, the importation of certain manufac- tured goods and the export of raw materials (except wool, which was an English staple) were discouraged. One curious enactment pro- vided that on Sundays and holidays every English subject over six years of age must wear a cap of native manufacture or pay a fine. 1 Monopolies were another means of fostering English industry and commerce, though, later in the reign, they were also employed as a means of adding to the royal revenues. All sorts of luxuries and some necessities were imported. Foreign trade was largely monopolized by great merchant companies. The old Merchant Adventurers who had 1 The "woolsack" on which the Chancellor sits in the House of Lords had its origin in the same effort to foster the national industry. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 413 'received a patent from Henry VII were incorporated with extended privileges in 1564. In addition, many new companies were founded. Chief among them were the Russia Company ; the Eastland, for trading with the Baltic ; and the Levant Company, which controlled the commerce with Turkey, Syria, and Asia Minor. The Guinea, or African Company, had the exclusive right of supplying Spanish America with slaves, which they exchanged for hides, sugar, ginger and pearls. More noteworthy than all the rest was the " Association for trading with India," founded in 1599. In the following year it received a charter from Elizabeth, authorizing its members to trade in all parts of India unclaimed by other countries. This was the origin of the famous East India Company which laid the foundations of the present Indian Empire of Great Britain. In 1568 a meeting place for merchants in London was completed. It was the gift of Thomas Gresham, a rich financier, and was named by Elizabeth "The Royal Exchange." While the Dutch still led in almost all branches of com- merce, and while agriculture still remained England's chief industry, this period is marked by progress in manufactures and trade which led within two centuries to her preeminence over all rivals. Burghley's Economic Policy. This great development was due, in a considerable degree, to Burghley, who had a large share in its direction. He showed the same practical sagacity and caution in the administration of economic problems as he manifested in political affairs. With him the strength of the State was the main aim, and much of his industrial and commercial legislation was designed toward that end. He developed mining and manufacturing with the purpose of enabling England to supply her own ordnance and ammunition. In order to increase the effectiveness of the navy, he took steps to preserve the timberlands, to increase the native supply of hemp and sailcloth, and actively encouraged the merchant marine. Among the means which he employed were the formation of trading companies, granting patents of monopoly, fostering the fisheries, and improving the harbors. In some respects his policy was sharply opposed to that of Elizabeth : he was against piracy, which she secretly encouraged, and he disapproved of the navigation laws on the ground that, while they helped the growth of English shipping, they encouraged the im- portation of luxuries, such as wines, silks, and spices. Internal Trade and Industry. Although they were handicapped by various restrictions, industry was greatly stimulated by immigrants from France and Flanders, who went in limited numbers to towns authorized by license to receive them, introducing, among other things, thread and lace making and silk weaving. The gilds which had long regulated industry, at first independently and then under central control, were already on the decline before the Reformation. The confiscation of their religious and charitable funds under Henry VIII and Edward VI practically forced them to the wall. In many places " livery companies " were formed to take their place. The new 4H A HISTORY OF ENGLAND organizations, 1 which were associations of employers authorized by* the Crown instead of the municipalities, often included several trades. Their aim was to supervise the quality of wares, 2 to keep records of entered apprentices, and to protect the natives of corporate towns in competition with aliens. In order to control better the conditions of labor and production, Elizabeth, in the fifth year of her reign, passed the famous Statute of Artificers. It aimed, among other things, to secure a sufficient supply of agricultural laborers, and at the same time to check the decline of the corporate towns as industrial centers. All able-bodied men, with certain exceptions noted in the act, were liable to serve as agricultural laborers. Measures were framed to prevent irregular and brief employment, migration of laborers, artifi- cers, and vagrants, and a term of apprenticeship was fixed at seven years in both town and country. In the choice of apprentices the rural districts and the corporate towns were given special advantages over market towns. This checked the drift toward the newer towns where conditions of employment had been unregulated and lax. Also, the Act intrusted the assessment of wages to the justices of the peace acting under the supervision of the Council. Wages were no longer arbitrarily fixed, as had been the case under the old Statutes of La- borers, but were to be regulated according to plenty or scarcity and according to local conditions. While as time went on the justices were given greater independent powers, and while they occasionally en- forced them so late as the eighteenth century, assessments had ceased, as a regular practice, before the close of the seventeenth. When the Statute was repealed in 1813, after a long life of two centuries and a half, it had become a mere legal curiosity. Public Health. The population, in spite of destructive visitations of the plague, was steadily increasing. 3 The authorities came to rec- ognize that the crowded quarters of the large cities were dangerous centers for the spread of infection. In London this was especially marked in the ring of poor parishes about the walls of London, which for some distance were " pestered with filthy cottages." Accordingly, in 1590, an ordinance was issued prohibiting the building on new sites within a radius of three miles of the city gates, or the subdividing of existing dwellings into two or more tenements. 4 The population in this year was estimated to be about 125,000, and appears to have 1 Not to be confused with the merchant companies who traded abroad. 2 Though they were less effective for this purpose than the gilds had been. Regu- lation as to quality of goods, and of prices, weights, and measures as well, were also attempted through the clerks of the market. * It has been estimated that in normal years the births exceeded the christen- ings by about 25 per cent. 4 Elizabeth's successor, James I, had an equal aversion to the increase of the population in London : "The .growth of the capital," he declared, "resembleth that of the head of a rickety child in which an excessive influx of humours draweth and impoverisheth the members and at the same time generatith distempers in the over- loaded parts." ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 415 nearly doubled in fifty years. In 1551 the sweating sickness dis- appeared as suddenly as it had appeared sixty-seven years before. All through Elizabeth's reign, however, epidemics of ague and in- fluenza, such as had contributed to carry off her predecessor, were frequent. Even yet scavengers were appointed only in times of crisis ; in ordinary times responsibility for sanitary precautions still rested with the householders. The Poor Laws. - Important as were the poor laws of Henry VIII in foreshadowing new principles, he failed to provide effective means for enforcing them. While something was done to improve his system under both Edward and Mary, it remained for the government of Eliza- beth to put the laws in a shape which survived in most of their fea- tures down to the nineteenth century. The famous " Old Poor Law " of 1 60 1 was really only the embodiment in permanent form of a series of statutes extending from 1563 to 1598. In substance it provided that : contributions for the relief of the poor should be compulsory ; habitations were to be provided for the impotent and aged ; children of paupers were to be apprenticed ; stocks of hemp and wool were to be furnished for the employment of sturdy idlers ; and houses of cor- rection were to be set up for those who obstinately refused to work. Royal Progresses. The Queen, in her love of gayety, her tireless pursuit of pleasure, and her fondness for magnificent display, 1 natu- rally set the fashion for her people, particularly the Court and the upper classes. This ostentation was peculiarly manifest in the royal prog- resses when she was entertained so lavishly as to bring many noble- men and gentlemen to the verge of ruin. These journeys and visits served various purposes. They gratified the Queen's inordinate vanity ; they were a part of her economy, for during long intervals she was supported in fitting state at the expense of others ; and finally they kept her before her subjects and stimulated rivalry in loyalty. The most famous of the entertainments in her honor was that pro- vided by Leicester at Kenilworth Castle, where she stayed three weeks in the summer of 1575. The visit furnished the setting for a famous novel of Sir Walter Scott's, and possibly the wonderful doings may have served to quicken the imagination of a ten-year-old lad from the neighboring town of Stratford William Shakespeare. There were all sorts of pageantry and poetry, giants, nymphs, fireworks, a floating island in a pool in front of the palace, hunting, tilting, bear baiting, tumbling, rustic sports, songs, and masques. Such festivities, though on a less elaborate scale, multiplied as the years went on. Not only nobles and gentry, but citizens and burgesses, and the scholars of the two Universities vied with one another in honoring their Queen. Dress and Manner of Living. Extravagance and artificiality were characteristic of the dress, the manners, and the speech of the period. Women dressed their hair in most elaborate fashions. They sur- 1 In spite of her parsimony, she left a wardrobe of 3000 gowns. 416 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND rounded their necks with enormous ruffs held by wire or starch, and wore huge farthingales or hoop skirts. It was said that " women were the least part of themselves " and took longer to rig than ships. And the men were fully as bad. They perfumed themselves with musk and civet. They wore tight-fitting nether stocks, above these trunk hose, surmounted by padded doublets or jackets. With highly ornamented cloaks slung over their shoulders, with gaudy befeathered hats, girt with swords and adorned with bracelets and earrings, they presented an imposing show. Harington, godson of the Queen, de- clared with penetrating cynicism : " We go brave in apparel that we may be taken for better men than we are, we use much bombastings and quiltings to seem better framed, better shouldered, smaller waisted, and fuller thighed than we are, we use perfume both inward and outer to seem sweeter, wear corked shoes to seem taller, use courteous salu- tations to seem kinder, lowly obeisance to seem humbler, and grave and godly communication to seem wiser and devouter than we be." The dress of the laborer was of necessity very plain ; but sumptuary laws were passed from time to time to check the extravagance of the lower classes and to encourage the use of homemade woolens. There were abundant sports and diversions in town and country. The man of fashion lounged in the nave of St. Paul's of a morning. He dined at a tavern, drinking heavily and smoking tobacco, a practice intro- duced from the New World before the close of the reign. Then he might choose between bull and bear baitings and the theater for further amusements. Masques and interludes were frequent, and, for the hardier sort, tennis, football, wrestling, fencing, tilting, hunting, and hawking. There were still numerous holidays, each with its appro- priate festival, with mummings, games, and abundant eating and drinking. The merits of soap were not yet fully 'recognized, though refinements and luxuries were on the increase, such as chimneys, glass windows, and carpets in place of lattice and rushes. Plate and glass- ware were abundant among the wealthy, while the poor used pewter. In eating knives supplanted the fingers more and more, and forks were soon to appear. Many artificers and farmers even began to have beds hung with tapestry and to discard logs of wood and sacks of chaff for pillows. Timber houses gave way to dwellings of brick and stone. There was great lament over these changes : it was said that when houses were of willow there were men of oak and that now there were houses of oak, there were men of straw. Architecture. By Elizabeth's time men had ceased to use the Gothic style in building. Wolsey, who has been called ".the last pro- fessor of the Gothic," has left us beautiful examples in Hampton Court and the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford. The classical Italian, which had begun to work its way in, was at first a mixture of Italian and Gothic. It was chiefly employed in secular building; for, from the Reformation to well into the seventeenth century, church building of original artistic design practically ceased. Henry VIII, described as ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 417 " the only Phoenix of his time for fine and curious masonrie," was as fond of fine buildings as he was of fine clothes. He did somewhat himself, the magnificent Wolsey did more, and a few of the nobles and courtiers followed their example. However, they were too poor to build very extensively. It was only with the increase of wealth and the rising of standards of comfort in Elizabeth's time that such mag- nificent palaces as Kenilworth began to raise their heads. Then, too, a number of stately and artistic country mansions were erected. In the early part of the reign the Old English, rambling and picturesque in effect, still predominated over the Italian. Haddon Hall, the famous Derbyshire countryseat of the Dukes of Rutland rebuilt in this period, is a fine example. The ruined castle of Kenilworth, and Longleat l in Wiltshire, said to be the first well-built house in the kingdom, illustrate the somewhat later style when the Italian, with greater symmetry of plan, had come to prevail. The influence of the classical Renascence was even more marked in Gresham's Royal Exchange. As might be expected, Elizabeth had her likeness per- petuated in many portraits. 2 She had no painter to correspond with the Holbein of Henry VIII or the Van Dyke of Charles I, a fact more pleasing to her thrift than her vanity. Lack of Progress in Science. Except for a treatise on the mag- net by William Gilbert, in 1600, there were few real steps in advance between the Reformation and the time of the Stuarts. Belief in witchcraft and sorcery still held sway over men's minds ; indeed, the first English statute on the subject was passed in 1541. Al- chemists and quacks had great vogue. The Lady Margaret Pro- fessor of Divinity resigned his chair to devote himself to the study of transmutation of metals. Paracelsus, that prince of charlatans and visionaries, had been dead less than twenty years when Elizabeth came to the throne; she herself gave ear to the siren tones of a beauty doctor. Dr. Dee, however, who was reputed a famous alchemist, used his pretended calling to cover the fact that he was a political agent of the Queen. The revival of Greek medical science contributed to prolong a popular belief in astrology, while the progress of the Copernican system was undermining its basic prin- ciples. Jerome Cardan, a famous physician and professor of the art, who found it wise to flee after he had predicted a long life for Edward VI, had been the guest of Sir John Cheke. The Elizabethan Age an Epoch in the World's Literature. The three main achievements of the Elizabethan age were : the establish- ment of Protestantism ; the remarkable impulse in maritime enterprise ; and the wonderful literary outburst, unparalleled in the world's his- 1 It was built by Sir John Thynne, and still remains in his family, now represented by the Marquises of Bath. 2 They are generally characterized, in the biting language of a later critic, Hor- ace Walpole, by "a pale Roman nose, a head loaded with a crown and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster farthingale and a bushel of pearls." 4 i8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tory, save possibly in the era of Pericles. The third remains to be considered. Up to this time England had produced only one writer of worldwide and enduring fame the genial and incomparable Chaucer. While from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign promising writers were in evidence, it was not until after 1580 that the product became distinctive. It was even later, in the last decade of the reign, that the b'est work of Shakespeare and Spenser, the Essays of Bacon, the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, the early plays of " rare Ben Jonson," as well as many other splendid pieces of writing, gave it its preeminence. These ten years have never been matched in any period or country. In seeking to account for the phenomenon it is hardly enough to say that it was due simply to the fact that a number of men of unusual gifts of expression chanced to be born about the same time. There was a spirit aw r ake producing a varied and intri- cate complex of causes which quickened their imagination and stirred them to speech. First, there was the influence of the Italian Renas- cence. Those who first drank from that invigorating source were primarily interested in religious problems, and the ecclesiastical up- heaval which followed diverted men for a time from pure literature. Before the end of the reign of Henry VIII, Wyatt and Surrey had shown evidence of contact with the Italian and classical models. First, under Elizabeth, however, Englishmen took their full share of the heritage, a share which grew and throve to a manifold increase. Then the discoveries and explorations, and the strange new outlook on the world which they brought, broadened their mental horizon and gave them stimulating food for thought. And finally the triumph over Catholicism and Spain aroused a national consciousness and a pride which clamored for utterance. Translations. The works of the ancients and of the Italians of the Renascence were opened to Englishmen largely through adaptations and translations. The old printer Caxton had led the way. From his time until Elizabeth the most notable production of this sort was Surrey's jEneid. Then they followed thick and fast. In 1566 ap- peared William Painter's Palace of Pleasure, a collection of stories from the Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, which furnished a rich store of material for the Elizabethan dramatists. Another source from which they drew freely was Plutarch's Lives, done into English by Thomas North in 1579. Most of the earlier work in this field was by lesser men; but later such renderings as Chapman's Iliad (1598), Harington's Orlando Furioso (1591), and Florio's Montaigne (1603) deservedly rank as works of art. Prose Literature. Early Affectation. "Euphuism." -Immatur- ity, the use of these foreign models, and the prevailing affectation led to much pedantry, extravagance, and obscurity among the earlier writers of the reign. The oft-quoted protest of Thomas Wilson, in his Art of Rhetorique, doubtless had an influence in the long run to check the use of " inkhorn English " and French or " Italianated " idioms. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND " Some seek," he said, " so far outlandish English that they forget altogether their mother's language. Some far-journeyed gentlemen at their return home, like as they go in foreign apparel, so they will powder their talk in oversea language. These mystical wise men and poetical clerks will speak nothing but quaint proverbs and blind alle- gories : delighting much in their own darkness, especially when none can tell what they say." Roger Ascham, himself such a master of vigorous, plain, but gracious English, declared that " he that will write well in any tongue must speak as the common people do, and think as wise men do," and lamented that " many English writers have not done so, but, using strange words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark." But the young writers of the new age were too impetuous and too bubbling over with ardor to take him as a model, nor did the impressive and grave simplicity of the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible translations of the previous generation appeal to them. It was only after a period of luxuriant extravagance that the ripe, finished, and gorgeous, but dignified style of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean era was attained. The summit of affectation was manifested in John Lyly's Euphues, 1579, a romance in which a slender story serves as a framework for striking antitheses, labored and far-fetched figures of speech, and longsome reflections on education and words. Taken up by the Queen, the work was enthu- siastically received at court, where a new style of speaking, known as " Euphuism," came into vogue. An inevitable reaction followed, and it was attacked and caricatured, notably by Shakespeare. While the ridicule was deserved, Euphues accomplished somewhat for the im- provement of morals and culture and the refinement of current speech. The Middle Period. Sir Philip Sidney. Sir Philip Sidney (1564- 1586), the ideal gentleman of the age, whose short life was crowded with activity as a soldier, statesman, and poet, marks the transition from the earlier to the later period. His Arcadia, written about 1580 and published in 1590, is not very unlike a medieval romance, inter- woven with bits of pastoral poetry. Although he was an outspoken critic of the work of Lyly, Sidney's first book is marked to a con- siderable degree by the same faults of artificiality and diffuseness. On the other hand, it is illuminated by passages of real beauty and was immensely popular for nearly two centuries, until the advent of the modern novel, of which it was a forerunner, superseded the type. His Apologie for Poetrie, 1 1581, one of the earliest pieces of English criticism, is greatly superior to the Arcadia. One passage will illus- trate the wondrous charm of his phrasing at its best. " Nature," he says, " never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done, neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much loved earth more lovely." Altogether, Sidney marks a genuine advance in clearness, 1 Or Defense of Poesie. 420 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND genuineness of feeling, and beauty of expression. Another evidence of the beginnings of scholarly criticism is to be found in the Art of English Poesie, 1589, attributed to Puttenham. The Crowning Decade. As was the case with all other forms of Elizabethan literature, the truly great prose did not appear until the last decade of the reign. The Ecclesiastical Polity has already been mentioned in enumerating the forces which contributed to allay the strife between Puritan and Anglican. With " sweet reasonableness " the " judicious Hooker " sought to justify the Church of England by a threefold appeal : to Scripture and primitive practice ; to reason ; and to the needs of the times ; arguing that its policy best accorded with all three. Aside from its polemical importance it is a recognized monument of classic English prose. Equally significant in form, and even more in ' substance, because of their more general appeal, are the Essays of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), which appeared first in 1597. Many regard him as England's greatest intellectual product. Though he esteemed Latin to be the only tongue fit for learned com- munication, and wrote in English only with misgivings, his style, in spite of its occasional formality and overgreat use of Latinized ex- pressions, is remarkable for its vigor, wit, incisiveness, and pith. In addition, he projected a vast Latin treatise which should comprehend all learning and science ; but the parts which he actually finished were not published till the next reign The Advancement of Learning in 1605, and the Novum Organum in 1620. Of the latter, King James once said that it was like the " peace of God," because " it passeth all understanding." Of the men who supported themselves by their pens most wrote chiefly for the theater; yet, altogether, they pro- duced a large body of miscellaneous writing prose fiction and controversial pamphlets. Perhaps the most worthy of note are Robert Greene's Repentance and A Groat's Worth of Wit which tell of his own irregular life, all too characteristic of the set in which he moved, and Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde, a romance regarded as the most perfect bit of prose fiction of the time, from which Shakespeare got the plot of As You Like It. Thomas Nash (1565-1601), too, who died in poverty at an early age, wrote forceful biting prose, decorated with words which he coined from Greek, Latin, and Italian. He entered into various controversies, attacking with especial bitterness the Puritan authors of the Marprelate libels. His Unfortunate Traveller or the Adventures of Jack Wilton, a romance of reckless ex- ploits, is an interesting anticipation of one type of modern novel. Elizabethan Historical Writing. Throughout the reign men were producing important historical works. The learned Archbishop Parker rescued documents and records dispersed by the dissolution of the monasteries ; he provided for editions of various early chronicles, and compiled a volume himself on the Church and the Archbishops of Canterbury. John Foxe (1516-1581), one of the Marian exiles, published in 1563 the first English edition of his famous Acts and ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 421 Monuments popularly known as the " Book of Martyrs." In 1578 appeared Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, which furnished Shake- speare with the materials for his historical plays, and for two of his grandest tragedies. Chief among those who assisted Holinshed, " men of commendable diligence, though not of the deepest judgment," was William Harrison, whose Description of England, full of quaint humor, wide observation, and graphic pictures, is the main authority for contemporary social conditions. John Stow's Survey of London, 1598, is a mine of information on the buildings and streets of the Elizabethan city. Other historical works reflect the larger world that writers of the age were coming to know. Richard Hakluyt's Principatt Navigations outshines them all. Richard Knolles' Generall Historic of the Turks (1604), though in later times valued chiefly for its style, 'was for a century regarded as the most considerable historical work which any Englishman had yet undertaken. Sir Walter Raleigh, during seven years of his imprisonment in the next reign, 1607-1614, wrote on a History of the World, which he only carried to 130 B.C. Poetry. Notwithstanding the masterpieces in prose which date from this time, it is in its poetry that the age is really distinctive. There was a constantly swelling stream of sonnets, lyrics, pastorals, epics, and above all of dramas, of unsurpassed richness, variety, and beauty. Tottel's Miscellany, 1557, containing the songs and sonnets of Wyatt, Surrey, and others, was the first of a long series of anthologies which became especially numerous from the middle of Elizabeth's reign ; most of them, however, with titles more enticing than their contents warranted. There were for instance: A Para- dise of Dainty Devices, 1576; A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inven- tions, 1578; and A Handfull of Pleasant Delites, 1584. Indeed, for over twenty years, from the appearance of Wyatt's and Surrey's verses, there was a long fallow period when minor poets were busy, but before the real harvest had begun to ripen. The Shepherd's Calendar, 1579, of Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) marks the transi- tion between the period of beginnings and the glorious final decade of the reign. Meantime, Philip Sidney had begun his charming group of sonnets entitled Astrophel and Stella, 1 though they were not published till 1591. They were dedicated to Penelope Devereux, the sister of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, and are markworthy not only for their own sake, but for their influence on Shakespeare's matchless collection. Only a work especially devoted to literary history could give an adequate description of the mass of exquisite songs and lyrics which appeared either independently or, set like jewels, in contemporary stories and plays. The " great epic of Eliza- bethan England," ranking as a narrative poem 2 only second to Mil- 1 They were written during the years from 1575-1583. 2 That is, on a single theme. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales dealt with a group of subjects. 422 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND ton's Paradise Lost, was Spenser's Faerie Queene, 1590-1596. It was cast in the form of a medieval romance ; but in substance is an allegorical manifestation of the spirit of the age a defense of Protestantism, and a glorification of Elizabeth as the champion of truth and virtue against Papal Rome. Spenser planned to write twelve books, and though he only finished half his work, it remains, nevertheless, the longest great poem in the English language. Those who pass on through its lengthy monotonous stretches and grapple with its learned allusions, " aged accents and untimely words," will be amply rewarded by its noble ideality, the wondrous wealth of its imagery, and its ravishing melodies. The Drama. English and Roman Sources. Rich and beautiful as was the Elizabethan literature in all its manifold forms, the su- preme achievement was in the drama. Beginning about 1580, it reached its zenith in the last years of Elizabeth and the early years of James. While the Elizabethan drama was distinctly an expression of the spirit of the age, inspired and strongly influenced by the study of revived classical and Italian models, it was not wholly unaffected by the popular and court festivals and the religious representations which had been developing for centuries on the native soil. The pageants and masques, the mysteries, miracle and morality plays, the interludes 1 and mummings which delighted the medieval English- men furnished one source for the Elizabethan drama. From them came the local color, the life, and the old-time jollity. The other source is to be found in the Roman dramas, revived in the Italy of the Renascence. They served as models of style and structure, and provided many of the plots. 2 Masters of the great public schools prepared scenes from the Roman comedy writers, chiefly Plautus and Terence, for their boys to act, either in Latin or in English translation or imitation. Early English Comedies and Tragedies. Nicholas Udall marked an epoch when, about 1541, he wrote in English from a Latin model Ralph Roister Doister, the first regular English comedy. Next came Gammer Gurton's Needle, supposed to have been played at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566. The authorship has never been clearly established. Coarse and homely but quaint and merry, it is a thor- oughly English product and gives a graphic picture of sixteenth- century village life. In tragedy the chief model was Seneca. From 1560 to 1581 ten of his plays were translated. The first English tragedy in the approved classical style was Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex, based on an old British legend from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Written by two young gentlemen of the Inner Temple, Thomas Nor- 1 " Interludes " were so-called because they were usually played between the courses at dinners in the houses of great noblemen. Mummings get their name from the fact that the players went about masked and acted in pantomime. 2 While the scenes of the Elizabethan writers were laid in far-off countries in bygone days, their characters were English to the core. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 423 ton and Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, it was presented before Queen Elizabeth in 1561. Though the later writers departed wisely from the ancient Roman type they were profoundly influenced by it. The first half of Elizabeth's reign was not productive of significant dramatic works. While plays of all sorts were written, it was largely a time of experiment. The " University Group." - The " great dramatic period " opened first with the so-called " University Group." The list includes many names. George Peele, who wrote plays, pageants, and mis- cellaneous verse, was brilliant and versatile, but was weak in power of construction. This is seen in his David and Bethsabe, which is full of fine, detached passages. His Old Wives' Tale furnished a basis for Milton's Comus. Peele and Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), who ex- celled chiefly in lyric poetry, were Oxford men. Preeminent among the Cambridge group was Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). He was the author of many remarkable plays Tamburlaine (about 1587), The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus (1588), The Jew of Malta, and Edward II (1593). Also he wrote much of the second and third parts of Henry VI, which Shakespeare revised and completed. Much other work, too, he produced before he was killed in a drunken brawl at the age of twenty-nine. His Tamburlaine marked an epoch in tragedy, and his sonorous uneven blank verse far excelled that of any poet who had oreceded him. With that " fine madness . . . which rightly should possess a poet's brain," and with an amazing mingling of bombast and sublimity, he set forth the soaring flights of human ambition, for power in Tamburlaine, for knowledge in Faustus, for wealth in the Jew of Malta. In spite of his lack of humor and restraint, some leading critics have ranked him among the world's great poets. ' Robert Greene went first to Cambridge and later to Oxford. Before he died at the age of thirty-two from a surfeit, it is said, of pickled herring and Rhenish wine he had written over thirty romances and pam- phlets and five plays. Although his prose, and the poetry scattered through it, are superior to any of his dramas, one of the latter, The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bungay, contains glowing pictures of healthy country life. Altogether, the " University Group struck out one of the faultiest but one of the most original and vigor- ous kinds of literature that the world has seen." While it is full of extravagance and horror, it is charged with passion and power. If many of the plots are ill constructed and embodied in language often overwrought, frequent passages of lofty eloquence and rare sweetness more than make atonement. The lives of most of this set were as tempestuous as their works, and, with one or two exceptions, they came to a sad and untimely end. William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. The English drama reached its culmination in Shakespeare, indeed without a peer in any language. Something, but not overmuch, is known about him. He was born in Stratford-on-Avon in 1564. He married and had children. He 4 2 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND went to London in 1586, where he became an actor and wrote plays. He prospered, purchased shares in two theaters, was able to relieve his father from serious financial embarrassments, and to buy the largest house in his native town. Thither he retired in 1611, and there he spent the last five years of his life, in easy circumstances, and active in social, business, and civic affairs. It is not strange that so little is known about him, for he came of a family of no distinction, he did not go to a university, he did not belong to an honored profes- sion, and little or nothing that he wrote, save a few poems, was pub- lished with his authority in his lifetime. But we have in his works a priceless possession. For twenty years, from about 1591 when be wrote Love's Labour's Lost, until about 1611 when he completed The Tempest, he was actively writing. During this time he produced nearly forty plays, besides the sonnets and the poems Venus and Adonis and Lucrece. The plays include many sorts : history, comedy, light and grave, tragedy, and dramatic romance, He portrays every mood from mirth and joy to black despair, and every class of society from peasant to king. He deals with every phase of human passion : love, jealousy, ambition, and resignation. He told Englishmen their history, and reflected to posterity the life of his own age. Careless of his fame, he, nevertheless, drew a noble tribute from his contem- porary, Ben Jonson. Though while he lived his works appeared mostly in pirated editions, and are not mentioned in his will, they were collected in a folio edition in 1623, and thus have come down to us. The Shakespearean Theater. The means for presenting the won- derful dramas of that age were curiously primitive. The early mystery or miracle plays had been given in churches and churchyards, then on moving carts or pageants. Others were rendered in noblemen's halls or in the courtyards of inns, the audience looking down from surrounding galleries. Still others were produced privately at court. By the middle of Elizabeth's reign independent theaters had begun to spring up. They were placed in the suburbs, since for reasons of public policy the authorities refused to have them in London. The first was " The Theater," built in the northern environs in 1576. Here Shakespeare first acted. Destroyed by fire, it was replaced by The Globe on the south bank of the Thames. Afterwards the actors pushed into the city, and before the close of the century there were eleven playhouses in London and the adjoining districts. They were very simple structures, circular or octagonal in shape. The center or pit where the poorer classes stood was open to the sky, affording the only light. 1 The surrounding galleries only were roofed. The fash- ionable classes sat here or on the stage, lounging, eating, smoking, talking, and flirting, and interrupting the actors when it pleased them. Female parts were played by young men. While costumes were often 1 Though plays were given in the afternoon it grows dark very early in London in the autumn and winter. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 425 rich, scenery and properties were most primitive. A change of scene was indicated by a placard: a lantern represented the moon; a wooden cannon and a pasteboard tower a siege. Yet the absence of elaborate scenery had its advantages ; it fixed attention on the play, and it called forth some of Shakespeare's finest descriptive passages. The Successors of Shakespeare. While no one reached the height of Shakespeare, the great age of Elizabethan drama continued under the Stuarts until an ordinance of 1642 closed the theaters for many years. Foremost among the younger contemporaries and suc- cessors of Shakespeare was Ben Jonson (1573-1637), poet laureate of James I, literary dictator of his time and king of tavern wits. Learned, rugged, and fearless, it was said that he would rather lose his friend than his jest. He struggled for a purer classicism against the prevail- ing romantic tendencies, but drew lifelike pictures of his time; he strove for workmanlike restraint, though he could fashion sweet, beautiful lyrics. It would take pages merely to enumerate the names and plays of hosts of others. George Chapman, John Marston, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton, John Web- ster, John Ford, Philip Massinger, and that " double star of the heavens of poetry," Beaumont and Fletcher, are the foremost. In spite of their achievements, the drama steadily declined under James and Charles. The youthful ardor was gone, and the growing Puritan spirit was hostile. By way of reaction, playwrights catered more to the rabble and the courtier with coarseness and sensational horror. Many fine pieces continued to be written, but the greatest literary work now came to be produced in other fields. " Merrie England," throbbing with fullness of life, was yielding to riotousness and dissipation at one extreme, at the other to soberer ideals and practice. Final Estimate of the Elizabethan Period. Altogether, Elizabeth's long reign of forty-five years, though blemished by traits of mean- ness, shuffling, and evasion, was a period of glorious achievement. Her court was a center of pomp and magnificence, learning and states- manship, where polished gentlemen, brilliant adventurers, wise coun- cilors and judges strove with each other for her favor. If the peace, prosperity, and industrial development, the ecclesiastical settlement, and the wonderful literary outburst were not all her work, they all redounded to her credit. For a time Elizabeth seemed the most absolute, the strongest, and the most popular of all the rulers of her house. But the splendor and strength of her power reached maturity during the years just following the Armada. As she approached the close of her reign the luster of her glory had begun to dim and the vigor of her power to decline. Her people began to wait impatiently for her decease to open the way for new men and new measures. Those who valued religious and political liberty more than wealth eagerly greeted the new dynasty from Scotland. 426 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR ADDITIONAL READING Constitutional. Prothero, Statutes, introduction, pp. i-cxxv ; an admirable survey. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, A Discourse on the Commonwealth of England (written about 1568, four years before the author became a Secretary of State; first published in 1583; the best and most recent edition, 1906, ed. L. Alston). Taswell-Langmead, ch. XII. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. IV, ch. V. Hallam, History of England, I, chs. III-V. Social and industrial. Innes, England under the Tudors, ch. XXVIII. Traill, Social England, III, chs. XI, XII. Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce (ed. 1907), II, pp. 1-164. Ashley, English Economic History, II, especially ch. V, on "The Relief of the Poor." Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, chs. Ill, IV. Prothero English Farming, ch. IV. E. M. Leonard, Early History of English Poor Relief, (1900). Hubert Hall, Society in the Elizabethan Age (1901). Stephenson, The Elizabethan People (1910). G. Unwin, Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1904). Harrison's famous Description of England, from Holinshed's Chronicle, is reprinted in the "Camelot Series," ed. L. Withington, n.d. Maritime enterprise, the Navy and the Army. Pollard, ch. XVI ; Innes, ch. XXIII. Froude, English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century (1895). Oppenheim, Administration of the Royal Navy, I. J. S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy (2 vols. , 1898) and The Successors of Drake (1900). Selections from Hakluyt's Voyages, ed. by E. J. Payne (2 series, 1893-1900) and C. R. Beazley (1907). J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army (vol. I, 1900) ; the standard military history. Literature. Moody and Lovett, chs. III-VI. Cambridge History of Literature, III, IV, V, VI, with full bibliography at end of vols. Jusserand, Literary History of the English People, II. Taine, English Literature, I, II, bk. II, chs. I-V. Saints- bury, History of Elizabethan Literature (1890). Cambridge Modern History, III, ch. XI (with bibliography pp. 825-828). Pollard, ch. XXIII; Innes, ch. XXVII. Sidney Lee, Life of Shakespeare (1898) ; the standard biography. Sir Walter Raleigh, William Shakespeare (1907) ; a charming appreciation. For the Church, see references to chs. XXIV and XXV, together with R. G. Usher, The Reconstruction of the English Church (2 vols., 1910). CHAPTER XXVII JAMES I AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION (1603-1625) The Significance of the Accession of James I. The accession of the Stuarts in the person of James I, 24 March, 1603, was fraught with consequences. United and prosperous, the mass of the English people were now eager to throw off the Tudor absolutism, and to ask for more liberty. There was much in the' old system which they opposed, and that not only stood in the way of free religious and political development, but might, under a new line of sovereigns, menace the little which they still enjoyed. There was the State Church absolutely under royal control ; there were the extraordinary courts, all independent of common law guarantees, and there were taxes and exactions, oppressive in themselves, but peculiarly danger- ous from the fact that they made the sovereign independent of Par- liament. These were the special grievances, actual or potential. The main issue which was tried out under the Stuarts was whether the sovereignty supposed to rest in the King-in-Parliament should, in cases of conflict, be exercised by the monarch or by the body which stood between him and the people. In other words, should the Tudor system continue, or should the country return to the form which had prevailed for a season under the Lancastrians? During the struggle which followed, all sorts of questions bearing on the main point arose, questions of religion, taxation, parliamentary privilege, and the scope of the courts. The result was victory for Parliament. In this, England led the countries of continental Europe by nearly two centuries ; for in them the tendency during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was toward increasing absolutism, and the tide did not turn till the French Revolution. Changes in England seemed inevitable ; yet, had the line of Tudors continued, they might, with their traditions and their sense of the needs and temper of their sub- jects, have managed it in a peaceful and gradual way without a civil war. The King's Early Scotch Environment. James, called upon to face a situation grave enough for any one, " turned out to be one of those curiosities which the laws of inheritance occasionally bring to the notice of mankind." Not only did he represent an alien house to whom the English were bound by no ties of gratitude, but he was totally unfitted by training and temperament to rule a country where 427 428 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the ideal was constitutional government. A feeble, rickety infant, scarcely more than a year- old, he had succeeded to the throne of Scotland as James VI, 24^iilyf 1^567. \¬kriinority-was added to those which had plagued the coutitry for two centuries. Internal and border wars had torn the kingdom for ages. The barons con- tended against the Crown, Highland chiefs fought against Lowland lords, and .each fought among themselves. Throughout the land there wasrrightfuUtontejiipt i&Vu.fla'n life. The border was wasted by the constant passage of Southron and Scot, and the wild Highlander lived by pillage. Much of the soil was barren, and ow T ing to the pre- vailing strife, still more remained uncultivated. The chief wealth was in small black cattle which could be driven away in time of danger. The whole population did not far exceed 600,000. Glasgow was as yet an obscure village which did not attain full burgh rights till 1636. Edinburgh, with a population of 30,000, was the center of wealth and culture, though even there riot and feud were rampant. Parliament was not a representative body but a collection of factions. It con- sisted of assemblies of the various estates, with the initiative in the hands of the "Lords of the Articles," - a committee, or series of committees, of the nobles, barons, clergy, boroughs, and officers of State, in theory elected by the estates, in fact controlled by the King or the interests which happened to be dominant. The King rarely went to it for supplies, and the nobles redressed their own grievances. The religious grievances added another element of discord. While the Reformation was aimed against real abuses in the ancient Church, it was directed by greedy nobles who appropriated the greater part of its temporal goods. The General Assembly of the new church not only demanded a more adequate share of the ecclesiastical property, but the right to interfere in state affairs. Finally, the intrigues of the French and the Romanists, on the one hand, and of Elizabeth's agents, on the other, contributed still further to weaken national sentiment and to promote lawlessness. Truly, the little James grew up in troublous times. Before he was fifteen years old five regents had come and gone, two murdered, one executed, and only one died a natural death. When barely sixteen, he had been seized by the Ruthvens and forced to expel his dearest companion, and again, three years before he came to England, these same Ruthvens sought his life. 1 What Scotland needed was not so much liberty as a settled central government. James, weak in position and temperament, sought to make himself strong by the only means open to him, by dissimulation and intrigue, a policy upon which he came to pride himself, and which he dignified by the name of " Kingcraft." He also used this method in another of his dearest aims, the attainment of the English succession : supporting, sometimes Elizabeth ; at others, intriguing with the Pope or the King of Spain. So he had grown up 1 The mysterious "Cowrie Conspiracy," 1600, is one of the puzzles of history. BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 429 to thread a tortuous way between a rapacious, turbulent nobility and a gloomy, fanatical, domineering clergy ; between an English and a French party ; between, indeed, all sorts of conflicting forces. Character of the King. There were many good points about James. He had the good of his subjects at heart. He strove for peace and aimed to be the reconciler of factions and the arbiter of warring nations. He had a touch of Scotch shrewdness, he was kind- hearted, and on the whole good natured. Gifted with considerable natural ability, he had been carefully educated by George Buchanan, the most learned Scotsman of his time. But James was a pedant rather than a scholar ; he paraded rather than applied his learning " the wisest fool in Christendom," Sully, the minister of Henry IV, called him. Naturally indolent, he justified his idleness on the ground that " he could not work long consecutively, but when he did work, he Was worth any six men put together." Conceited as he was, he was naturally timid and infirm of purpose. It has been said that while he always saw both sides of a question, he never saw them at the same time and so was not a statesman. He was impatient of detail and irritated at contradiction. Once on receiving some dis- quieting news from abroad as he sat down to dinner, he flung the meat from the table and the dish after it, and threatened to hang the cook. Yet he was always ready, after his flurries were over, to ask forgive- ness of any one whom he had offended. In general, however, his manners were rough and uncouth. His appearance, too, lacked dignity; for though he was above middle height and well made, a sprawling gait, rolling eyes, and a tongue too large for his mouth gave him a very unkingly appearance. He was only fond of clothes in the sense that he insisted on keeping and wearing a costume once acquired a very long time. From his youth up he was easily led by favorites : Esme Stewart, Robert Carr, George Vi liers, each in turn gained an ascendancy over him, more by their personal graces than by their attainments. While Elizabeth only amused herself with men of this stamp in her lighter moments, James allowed them to manage his public affairs. The death of Robert Cecil l deprived him of his only able administrator. James' queen, Anne of Denmark, was not a help to him. Although faithful, kindly, and personally popular, she was frivolous and extravagant, spending vast sums on plays, progresses, clothes, jewels, and buildings. Moreover, she inclined toward Rome and was reported to be a convert, although she finally died a Protestant. James' Views on the Prerogative : " The Divine Right of Kings." A most fruitful source of discord between James and his subjects was his exalted notions concerning the origin and nature of monarchy. The Tudors had refrained from vain theorizing and had acted ; James talked big and alienated his subjects, though he managed to prevent 1 Created Earl of Salisbury in 1605, Secretary of State 1596-1608, Lord Treas- urer from 1608 to 1612. 430 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND matters from coming to a crisis during his reign. " He was a formalist rather than a tyrant." He had already shaped his views before he came to England. In the True Law of Free Monarchies he had asserted that a " free monarch " that is, one free from all restraint from his subjects was created by God and accountable to God alone. While he admitted that a good king should govern in the popular interest, he contended that rebellion could, under no circumstances, be justified. Such views in themselves were enough to arouse the bitterest opposi- tion. James only added fuel to the fire by his astounding manner of stating them. " The State of Monarchy," he announced in a speech before Parliament in 1610, " is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. . . . That as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy ... so is it seditious in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power." His very accession to the English throne served to strengthen his opinion on the subject. He was really barred on three grounds : the will of Henry VIII had excluded the Stuart line ; his mother Mary had disinherited him in favor of Philip II in 1585 ; and, as an alien, one not born on English soil, he could not inherit anything appertain- ing to that country. He had many rivals, fourteen in all, but each was disqualified or unacceptable for one reason or another. Yet there were many reasons, aside from the fact that he was the next lineal heir, which contributed to the choice of James. The majority of Englishmen realized the advantage of absorbing Scotland in a personal union. Moreover, Catholics and extreme Protestants were both ready to welcome him ; the former because he was the son of a martyr to their faith, the latter because he had been brought up a Presbyterian. The new sovereign, however, felt that he came to the English throne solely by virtue of his birthright, a view that was confirmed by the Act of Recognition passed in his first Parliament which declared him King " by the goodness of God Almighty and lawful right of descent." James I and the Puritans. The Millenary Petition, 1603. First the Protestants and then the Catholics were destined to sore disap- pointment. On his way to London l in April, 1603, James was pre- sented with a petition embodying the demands of the Puritan 2 clergy. The Millenary Petition, as it was called, 3 asked : I, that the ritual of the Church be purged of Romish forms and ceremonies, such as the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, and the wearing of the cap and surplice, and that holidays be decreased and the Sabbath be better 1 At the beginning of his journey he showed how little he understood English procedure by ordering a cutpurse who was brought before him to be strung up forthwith without even the form of a trial. 2 Those who wanted to stay in the Church while purifying it of certain abuses. 3 Because it was supposed to have been signed by 1000 clergymen. As a matter of fact, it was assented to by about 800. BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 431 observed ; II, that less strictness be required in subscription to the articles, and more care be taken to secure learned preachers ; III, that such abuses as non-residence, pluralities, 1 cornmendams 2 be abolished ; IV, that oppressive customs in the ecclesiastical courts be remedied their expensive procedure, their excommunication for trivial matters, and their use of the ex-ojficio oath. The Hampton Court Conference, 1604. In January, 1604, James arranged a conference between representatives of their party on the one hand, and certain bishops and clergy of the Established Church on the other. The King himself presided. He had been bred a Calvinist, he favored Calvinistic theology, he was fond of argument, tolerant of other men's opinions, and too kind-hearted to be a persecu- tor. At the same time, he had Jaeen overawed and browbeaten by Presbyterian ministers from his youth up. As late as 1596, for ex- ample, Andrew Melville had ventured to pluck the sleeve of his august sovereign and to call him " God's silly vassal." His personal expe- riences only accentuated his distrust of the Presbyterian theory that all men were equal in the sight of God, that the Church was independ- ent of State control, and of the Presbyterian practice of interfering in secular affairs. In shining contrast, to his mind, was the English custom where the sovereign appointed the bishops and through them controlled the Church. " No bishop, no king " was his motto. He was on the lookout for any political bearing in the Puritan demands, and when, in the midst of the discussion, their leader, Reynolds, began to outline a scheme of government, he burst out: " If you aim at Scotch presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick shall meet and cen- sure me and my Council. . . . Stay, I pray, for one seven years, before you demand ; and then if you find me grown pursey and fat, I may perchance hearken unto you." After a long harangue he con- cluded with the ominous threat to the Puritans-. " I will make them conform themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." It was a new and delicious sensation for him when the Bishop of London threw himself on his knees, protesting : " My heart melteth with joy that Almighty God, of his singular mercy, hath given us such a King, as, since Christ's time the like hath not been." The only results of the Conference were a few alterations in the liturgy and the decision to translate the Scriptures which bore fruit in the famous King James' version, 1611. Before the close of 1604 a proc- lamation was issued depriving of their livings those who refused to conform. Some of the irreconcilables went to the Low Countries, whence they migrated later and founded Plymouth Colony. James and the Catholics. The turn of the Catholics soon came. Much had contributed to nourish their hopes in Mary's son. Even 1 The holding of many church offices in one hand. 2 The keeping of a living vacant by a bishop that he might draw the revenue during the interval. 432 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND after his accession he continued to correspond with the Pope and with Spain, while his wife held out the prospect that he might become a convert. He was averse to persecution, he desired papal support, and aimed at a Spanish alliance. So, after some delay, he remitted the recusancy fines, and, in August, 1604, by the Treaty of London, he made peace with Spain, leaving the Dutch to shift for themselves, though he still allowed his subjects to volunteer in their service. Nevertheless, he could not accept the papal claim to be above earthly rulers, and shuddered at the right which they asserted of deposing princes when the occasion demanded. Moreover, the Catholics mul- tiplied so soon as they received the encouragement, James became agitated by accusations that he was leaning toward Rome, and resented the Pope's refusal to excommunicate certain turbulent members of his flock who were disturbing the repose of the kingdom. As early as February, 1604, he issued a proclamation banishing priests ; in June, Parliament passed an act confirming and extending the penal laws of Elizabeth, and before the end of the summer the royal justices were busy enforcing them. The Gunpowder Plot, 1605. The result was to precipitate a dangerous plot, already in the making. Robert Catesby, a Warwick- shire squire whose family had suffered for the old faith, was the lead- ing spirit. Among the conspirators whom he enlisted was Guy Fawkes, a young Englishman who had been serving in the Spanish army in the Netherlands. After some delays and changes in their plan they at length hired a house with a cellar running under the Parliament buildings. There they deposited twenty barrels of gun- powder which they covered with iron bars, faggots, and billets of wood. Their design was to blow up the Lords and Commons, together with James and his eldest son Prince Henry, when the session opened in November, 1605. Beyond this they contemplated a general rising of the Catholics in the west midlands, the seizure of Prince Charles and Princess Elizabeth, and the setting up of a new government. Too many, however, were taken into the secret, the plot was disclosed to Salisbury, and Fawkes was surprised and seized in the cellar. Catesby, with a number of his fellow-plotters who had escaped to the scene of the projected rising, were shot in an attempt to bring it about. Several others who were captured were tried and executed, together with Fawkes. Under the name of Guy Fawkes' Day, 5 November came to be celebrated as the anniversary of the discovery of the Gun- powder Plot, with bonfires and fireworks, and remained a national holiday for over two centuries. By way of retaliation Parliament in 1606 passed two acts greatly increasing Roman Catholic disabilities and imposing a new oath of allegiance, expressly denying the papal power of deposition on all recusants. Another act followed in 1610. These penalties were not enforced, partly because the pacific King did not want to drive the Catholics to desperation, partly because he was frequently in negotiation with Spain. Their existence, however, BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 433 was a constant grievance to the Catholic subjects, while the failure to enforce them was a source of resentment to the Protestants. Initial Difficulties with Parliament. Parliament, which met for its first session 19 March, 1604, came into conflict with James, from the very start. His opening speech, though reasonable and dignified in many respects, was marked by evidences of his characteristic vanity and grotesqueness. He pointed out, for instance, the great blessings which God had, in his person, bestowed upon the whole people, among them the " union of two ancient and famous kingdoms " divinely united, " both in language and religion and similitude of manners." With a soaring Jacobean flight he declared : " What God hath joined, then let no man separate. I am the husband and the whole isle is my lawful wife : I am the head and it is my body : I am the shepherd and it is my flock." Finding at the conclusion of his speech that the Commons had not been admitted, he had them called in, and the poor Lords had to hear it all over again. Before proceeding to other busi- ness two important cases of privilege were settled. By Goodwin's case it was determined that the Commons should henceforth be the sole judge of election returns of their members. While bound to decide on partisan grounds they could not safely leave to the Crown a priv- ilege which would inevitably be employed to exclude members hostile to the royal policy. CJn the case of Sir Thomas Shirley it was established that members during the session, and for an interval of forty days before and after, should be exempt from arrest for debt. \ This took from the King another possible means of keeping out his opponents. Encouraged by these two victories, the Commons made a vain effort to do away with the ancient grievance of purveyance and to buy from the King his old feudal rights of wardship and marriage. Also, they were unable to secure relief for those who scrupled to con- form to certain Church ceremonies. James, on his part, was defeated in his efforts to obtain parliamentary union with Scotland and a vote of supplies. Of all the issues, however, one more fundamental and significant than all the rest was denned. The King took the ground that the Commons " derived all matters of privilege from him." In a notable Apology which was drawn up and read in the House before the close of the session * they declared that the King had been " greatly wronged by misinformation," and that their privileges, of free elec- tion, freedom from arrest, and freedom of speech, were their lawful inheritance and not a gift from the sovereign. In other words, that they were an inalienable right which could not be withdrawn. In this reply to the royal challenge they took a position about which a fierce struggle was waged for nearly a century, a struggle from which Parlia- ment ultimately emerged victorious. James' Financial Embarrassments. The King's chief weakness was his need of money. He had inherited the debt contracted by 1 It was never presented to the King. 2F 434 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Elizabeth in her war with Spain ; but, more serious still, there was an alarming annual excess of expenditures over revenue. This was due partly to royal extravagance, though still more to the increasing needs of the State, and to the fact that the royal income had been fixed when money went further than it did at this time. The stand- ard of living was growing steadily higher, conditions were becoming more complex, and the influx of precious metals was still sending up prices. It speaks volumes that the thrifty Elizabeth had left a deficit. It was the duty of the Stuarts to economize or, by timely concessions, to obtain larger grants from Parliament. That they did neither accounts for their final overthrow. James lacked the patience and ability to manage financial details and the firmness and inclination to cut down the expenses of his court and to refuse the demands of his favorites. So he had constantly to watch for means to increase his revenue. One of these was the levying of impositions. The Bate Case and Impositions, 1606-1610. In 1606, Bate, a Turkey merchant, refused to pay an imposition on a consignment of currants. On the case being referred to the Court of Exchequer the barons decided in javor of the King. There was some legal ground for this decision ; because, while it was recognized that direct taxes could not be imposed without parliamentary consent, there was no general prohibition comprehending all indirect taxes. Moreover, it had been customary for certain sovereigns, particularly the Tudors, to impose such duties as a means of encouraging native industries or of striking a blow at the trade of hostile powers. Nevertheless, the power was fraught with dangerous consequences. 1 Kings might em- ploy it, not merely for the regulation of commerce, but in order to raise a revenue independent of Parliament. James' intentions were soon evident. In 1608 Salisbury issued a new Book of Rates f or tariff _scheduje, in which he greatly increased the revenue from tonnage and poundage, adding, at the same time, impositions to the amount of 70,000 a year. He greatly reduced the deficit and the debt, though there was still much need of money when Parliament assembled 9 February, 1610. The Great Contract, 1610. While the King was concerned chiefly with supply, the Commons were intent upon redress of grievances, financial, religious, and legal. Among the former the question of im- positions had taken a place side by side with purveyance and feudal dues. Then there was great dissatisfaction over the treatment of the Nonconformists. And finally, the common law judges were trying 1 The Barons of the Exchequer in delivering their opinion made two declarations that were particularly disquieting. One was that, over and above his ordinary power in which he was bound by law, the sovereign was vested with an extraordi- nary power which he might exercise for the good of the kingdom free from all restraint. While justifiable on some occasions, this put a dangerous weapon in the royal hands. The other was that the concessions made by one sovereign did not bind his successors, which meant that the battle for liberty might have to be fought over and over again in each successive reign. BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 435 vainly to curb the extensive and arbitrary jurisdiction of the extraor- dinary courts. The Commons offered a permanent annual grant of 100,000 in return for feudal dues. The King demanded 200,000. They not only refused, but in spite of James' attempts to stop them, they proceeded to discuss his right to levy impositions. After some haggling they agreed to the grant of 200,000 a year, provided that purveyance as well as feudal dues were given up. Then the matter was laid over till autumn. But when they met again, the Commons insisted on including the redress of various other grievances. The King, on his part, felt that 200,000 was an inadequate compensation for what he was asked to yield. Thus the Great Contract, as it was called, came to nothing. Worse than that, the bitterness engendered by the struggle marked another step in the breach between the Crown and Parliament. Relations with Scotland to 1612. Meantime, the Scotch question was producing friction that was to be a serious factor in the coming conflict. There were serious obstacles in the way of the union which James strove so ardently to bring about. Centuries of disturbance along the border and the harsh laws framed to meet it had fostered the bitterest animosity between the two peoples who dwelt on either side. Moreover, union would involve free trade, and the English were set against meeting the competition of the frugal and industrious Scot. The question of their status offered another difficulty. If they were declared subjects, they might hold English lands and offices, and the extent to which James might favor his indigent and greedy countrymen was viewed with alarm. The hostile border laws were repealed, but free trade did not come till 1707. In a suit brought in 1607 in behalf of Robert Calvin, or Colville, the Court of Exchequer Chamber decided that posL nati i or Scotchmen born after the union, were natural English subjects. As the English opposed James' plan for a union, so the Scotch Presbyterians struggled against his restoration of the episcopal system, 1 a process which took him from 1599 to 1612 to effect. Courts of High Commission were set up; bishops were made moderators of the provincial synods and given the power of ordination and supervision over the ecclesiastical decisions of synods and presbyteries. These bishops were designed by the King and the nobles for the control of the Church, while the Presby- terian clergy represented the bulk of the people. Thus anti-Episcopa- lianism came to be identified with national independence. James was wise enough not to push his victory too far ; but the ecclesiastical policy of his son was one of the moving causes of the disaster which overtook him. Irish Difficulties. In spite of Lord Mountjoy's conquest, Ireland presented even greater difficulties than Scotland. Unable to main- 1 Bishops, whom the Scotch nobles employed as creatures in collecting church revenues, had been in existence from 1572 to 1592. From 1592 to 1599 the Presby- terians were triumphant. 436 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tain a standing army, England's only hope was in conciliation. In view of the turbulent and backward condition of the people, absolutely different in temperament from the English, and in view of the native hatred of the Church of England, the prospect seemed hopeless enough. But the land question proved the worst stumbling block of all. The colonists of Mary and Elizabeth were in general a thrifty and progres- sive class, but they were provided with estates which justly belonged to the Irish. These confiscations and the exploitation of the unscru- pulous officials stung the natives to fury. James, however, sent out a wise and liberal-minded lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, who with a free hand might have accomplished wonders. As it was, he put an end to martial law and pardoned offenses committed before the acces- sion of James. Also, he turned much of the tribal land which the chiefs had secured from Henry VIII into individual freeholds and trans- ferred the tribal dependents into tenants with fixed obligations and rents protected by English law. In religious affairs, bound unfortu- nately at the start by royal orders, he made futile attempts to enforce conformity. When he afterward sought to strengthen the Church by regulating such abuses as patronage, pluralities, and non-residence, and by putting in conscientious ministers, he found that he had begun too late. The situation became impossible. Persecution only nerved the priests to greater efforts ; toleration multiplied their number and influence. The Plantation of Ulster, 1611. Another step on colonization made matters worse. In 1607 the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, accused of plotting, left the country. Their flight, and an unsuccessful rebel- lion led by one of Tyrconnel's chief vassals, enabled the Crown to appropriate vast estates. The lands thus acquired were utilized for the celebrated Plantation of Ulster in 1611. Against Chichester's advice the most fertile tracts were allotted to English and Scotch settlers and undertakers. 1 The bulk of the natives were deported to other parts of the island, though a few received land grants in the province, and many others were allowed to remain as tenants and laborers. As in the case of the previous plantations, the economic results were excellent, but, politically, new bitterness was engendered which bore fruit thirty years later in a bloody rebellion. The English Colonies in North America. While troubles were accumulating for James in England, Scotland and Ireland, the colony at Jamestown had been founded, May, 1607. Disappointed in its hopes of finding gold, poor, suffering, and starving it hung on, mainly owing to the courage and energy of Captain John Smith, until reen- forcements and supplies secured its permanence. This settlement and those at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay a few years later mark the beginning of our great English America. The story of how they grew and flourished belongs properly to the history of the United 1 Speculators or promoters. BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 437 States ; but it is well worth noting that the seeds were planted in the reign of queer King James. The Deaths of Salisbury and Prince Henry and the Marriage of Elizabeth. After the failure of the Great Contract the King got on for nearly four years without a Parliament, ever more and more hard put to it for money. After the death of Salisbury, 24 May, 1612, he acted as his own Chief Minister under the influence of frivolous, incom- petent, and self-seeking favorites. On 6 November he lost his eldest son Henry, a promising lad of eighteen, spirited and popular, who, had he lived, might have averted the catastrophe which came in the reign of his brother Charles. In February, 1613, the Princess Elizabeth married Frederick, Count Palatine of the Rhine, the leading Calvinist prince in Germany. This marriage is notable in two respects. It drew England into the whirlpool of the Thirty Years' War which raged on the Continent from 1618 to 1648. Also, it furnished the founder of the present reigning house ; for the Elector of Hanover, who became George I of England in 1714, was the grandson of Frederick and Eliza- beth. The " Addled Parliament," 1614. In February, 1614, James called his second Parliament * ; but, contrary to good advice, he de- cided to exclude impositions and all questions of an ecclesiastical nature from the grievances he was willing to redress. Certain men undertook to secure him a majority ; but in his opening speech he dis- avowed all connection with them. 2 Their efforts, whether authorized or not, seem to have hurt his cause, for the elections went decidedly against him. While most of the old opposition leaders were returned, nearly two-thirds of the House were new men. Among them were Sir John Eliot and Sir Thomas Wentworth, the former destined to be a mar- tyr to the parliamentary, the latter to the royal cause. The session opened 5 April. After two months spent in discussing grievances, Parliament was dissolved without having made a grant or passed a single measure. Hence it was called the " Addled Parliament." Four members were sent to the Tower, others were ordered not to leave London, and still others were deprived of their office of justice of the peace. Those imprisoned and detained were soon set free, but it was ominous for the cause of liberty of speech that men who had ventured to oppose the royal will should have been thus treated. Grievances during the Interparliamentary Period, 1614-1620. (i) Financial. Then followed another and longer period of nearly seven years when James tried to get on -without a Parliament. During the interval, popular opposition was excited by the continuance of old grievances and by the addition of new ones. A leading cause of dis- content lay in James' futile schemes for raising money, though none of them proved specially burdensome. Already in 1611 he had created 1 The first had held five sessions from 1604 to 1611. 2 Seven years later he referred to them as a "strange kind of beast called under- takers a name which in my nature I abhor." 438 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND a new title, that of baronet. Persons with incomes of 1000 a year were eligible on payment of 1080 in three annual installments. 1 In 1616 a plan was devised of selling peerages at 10,000 apiece, a prac- tice designed not only to increase the King's income, but to add to his supporters in the Upper House. Happily only a few purchasers came forward. Also, the nefarious practice of buying and selling offices, prohibited by a statute of Edward VI, was vigorously pursued. Only the rich and the unscrupulous and mean-spirited, the one by purchase and the others by scheming and fawning, could hope to obtain places, and hence royal government became a chaos of intrigue. In 1614 letters from the Council were sent out asking for benevolences, but in three years they yielded only 66,000, less than a single subsidy, and called forth protests from some counties, refusals to pay from others. The sale of the Dutch cautionary towns in 1616 was much criticized, yet while less than the amount of the debt was accepted, it was not a bad bargain. (2) Legal. The Crown and the Judges. More significant was a conflict which came to a head between the Crown and the judges. The King and his supporters maintained that there were occasions when reasons of State should prevail over strict legal rules ; but in carrying out his policy he sought to set himself above the law and to make the judges mere creatures of the royal will. Charles went even further, thus contributing another cause of revolution ; for the people, deprived of the protection of the courts, saw no other recourse except an appeal to arms. At the beginning of James' reign, before it was evident that their jurisdiction was to be infringed upon, the judges were, as the Bate and Post-nati cases indicated, inclined to. support the Crown. This was due largely and on the whole their attitude is quite explicable to their love of precedent and their failure to take into account the political bearings of an issue. It is true, too, that most judicial appointments were during royal pleasure ; but through- out the reign of Elizabeth no judge had been removed for differing with the sovereign. Their attitude changed when attempts were made to encroach upon their common law jurisdiction. Sir Edward Coke and Prohibitions. In the struggle which followed Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) took the lead. He was harsh, avari- cious, and narrow. As Attorney-General, 1594-1606, he had shown himself one of the most brutal prosecutors who ever served the Stuarts. His treatment of Raleigh furnishes a good example of his methods. " Thou hast a Spanish heart and thyself art a viper of hell," he cried at one stage of the trial. He first began to oppose the King after he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1606. Though his motives were solely personal and professional, his prodigious learning and his savage aggressiveness made him an invaluable champion of the popular cause. The struggle opened over prohibitions, or the 1 They were not entitled to sit in the House of Lords. The money was used for colonization in Ireland, and the payment was afterwards remitted. 439 right of the common law courts to restrain the ecclesiastical tribunals from proceeding with a case until the judges decided whether it lay within their field. According to Coke's own account he gave the King some very wholesome advice, at a conference on the question in 1607, to the effect that, although his Majesty was highly endowed by nature, he lacked the requisite legal learning to deal with matters affecting the life and property of his subjects, and when James replied : "Then I shall be under the law, which is treason to affirm," he retorted by adroitly citing the famous w r ords of Bracton : " The King is under no man but God and the law." While there is reason for doubting whether he showed such presence of mind on this occasion, he abun- dantly proved his courage more than once ; though at another confer- ence in 1609 when the King threatened to strike him, he groveled to the ground. The judges finally had to yield on prohibitions ; but in 1610 they managed to carry another point, that the King could create no new offenses by proclamation. Peacham's Case, Commendams, and the Fall of Coke. Another clash came in 1614 over Peacham's case. Peacham was a clergyman who wrote a sermon reflecting on the King and government, which was found in manuscript in his study. His defense was that he did not in- tend the sermon for publication. But the authorities saw in it evi- dence of a far-reaching plot. So poor Peacham was tried, tortured on the rack, and convicted. He finally died in prison. Before the trial James called in the judges for consultation. Nowadays the sovereign goes to the Attorney-General for legal advice. The objec- tion to taking the opinions of the judges beforehand was that it pre- judiced them in hearing the case and gave the King a chance to dictate what their decision should be. Coke stanchly opposed the action of James ; but on the narrow technical ground, which would be hard to sustain, that it was against the custom of the realm. In 1616 the conflict between the King and Coke reached a crisis. A suit was brought against the Bishop of Lichfield on account of a commendam which he held as the gift of the Crown. James ordered the judges to stay proceedings until he could inquire whether royal rights were in- volved. They paid no attention until they were summoned before him. There they fell on their knees and agreed to obey his will. Coke alone held out, refusing to say anything further than that when a case came before him, he would act as_became a judge. He was sus- pended forthwith and ordered to correct his reports. James expected that he would cull from them remarks reflecting on the prerogative. When the dauntless Justice returned with five clerical errors corrected, he was dismissed from office. The next year James relented so far as to restore him to the Council, but he never recovered his seat on the bench. In the next Parliament he appeared in the opposition ranks, where he rendered valiant service. (Coke and the judges, so far as they followed him, performed a great work in striving to hold the King to the limitations of the law ; but it was well that they did not realize 440 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND their ambition to act as arbiters in the great political questions at issue between the sovereign and his people, for that would have resulted in legal domination, fully as dangerous to liberty and progress as royal tyranny. (3) Immorality at Court. The Essex Divorce, 1613. A third cause of friction was in the frivolity, extravagance, and riotous life at court which shocked the growing Puritan sentiment. James himself loved study and learned discourses, his life was pure, and he was never overcome by .liquor. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the society of boon companions, he mingled with those of evil lives, and did nothing to reform his court. In 1606 a play was performed before him in which the women of high station who participated were too drunk to act their parts. What most aroused the public, however, was an unsavory scandal involving the royal favorite, Robert Carr. A Scotch lad, gifted with nothing but a handsome person, he began as a page at court and rose steadily. In 1613, when he had become Viscount Rochester and the King's confidential secretary, he brought about the divorce of Frances Howard from the Earl of Essex. 1 Soon after he was made Earl of Somerset and married Lady Essex. His elevation made him arrogant, and his marriage brought him into close relations with the powerful Howard family who favored an alliance with Spain. So the opponents of the divorce, among them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the anti-Spanish party, and those who were personally embittered combined to overthrow him. The Queen, too, jealous of the royal favors to Somerset, joined their side. The Rise of Villiers and the Fall of Somerset. In 1614 they brought to court as a rival, George Villiers, son of an obscure Leices- tershire knight, and a youth of rare personal charm, clever, audacious, and ambitious. While he was supplanting the old favorite, certain startling facts came to light. Sir Thomas Overbury, Somerset's closest confidant, who had opposed his marriage, was found murdered in the Tower. The crime was traced to the agents of Lady Somerset. She and her husband were brought to trial and sentenced to death. This was commuted to imprisonment in the Tower, where they re- mained until 1622. James, after the case was clear to him, labored honestly to see justice done ; but the affair cast a dark shadow on the court. Villiers' influence proved more dangerous than that of Somer- set because he came to play a greater role in public affairs. Not with- out administrative capacity, his efforts to put himself forward led to an investigation of the existing regime, largely in the hands of the Howards, which unearthed much incompetence and corruption. Villiers himself succeeded the Earl of Nottingham, better known under the name of Lord Howard of Effingham, as Lord High Admiral. Poor Nottingham, now grown old, was largely the victim of less scrupulous members of his family. The policy of Villiers, or Buckingham as he 1 She was a daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. Essex was a son of Elizabeth's old favorite. He later became a leader on the parliamentary side. should henceforth be called, 1 was chiefly personal. Originally, for instance, he opposed Spain because the Howards were pro-Spanish. When they were overthrown, he shifted his ground to attach himself more closely to James. (4) The Spanish Marriage Negotiations, 1604-1618. The rela- tions with Spain marked another breach between James and his sub- jects and led to a series of parliamentary crises. The peace with Spain in 1604 had been followed by negotiations for a marriage between Prince Henry and Anna Maria, eldest daughter of Philip III. James was particularly anxious to bring it about, as a means of cementing an alliance which he ardently desired for many reasons : he wanted to prevent the recurrence of hostilities which had occupied so much of the previous reign; he admired the Spanish absolutism; and he aspired, with Spanish support, to become the peacemaker of Europe. Philip, however, demanded concessions that James dared not grant, chief among them toleration for Roman Catholics and the education by the Spanish mother of any heir from the marriage. In their first stage the negotiations never got very far. In 1611 they were reopened at the instance of the Spanish ambassador. Meantime, Anna Maria had been promised to Louis XIII of France. So her younger sister Maria Anna was substituted. The dowry was now another reason which appealed to James, since the failure of the Great Contract had left him badly off for funds. Though Henry was disinclined to marry any one not of his own faith, it was his untimely death in 1612 that again put an end to the negotiations. Shortly afterwards Spain sent to England, Don Diego Sarmiento, better known under his later title of Count Gondomar, an adroit diplomat who gained a remarkable ascendancy over James, for which he was correspondingly feared and hated by the English people. Spain had, in 1609, concluded a twelve- year truce with the Netherlands which had only a few years more to run. In case war again broke out it would be essential to stand well with England who commanded the sea route to the Low Countries, and, through the territories of James' son-in-law, the best available road by land. So negotiations were resumed, this time for a marriage between Charles and Maria Anna. 2 Again, however, marriage nego- tiations were blocked, chiefly owing to the difficulty of relaxing the 1 In 1617 he was created Earl of Buckingham and, in 1623, Duke. 2 The Spanish influences which controlled James led to the sacrifice of the old Elizabethan hero, Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been sentenced to death in 1604 for an alleged plot to put a rival candidate on the throne. On his representation that there was a valuable gold mine in Guiana which he had visited in 1595, James, sorely in need of money and hard pressed by the anti-Spanish faction, granted Raleigh a commission to make "a voyage in South America, or elsewhere, inhabited by hea- then or savage people to discover profitable commodities," one fifth of which were to go to the Crown. At the same time, James assured Sarmiento that if any Spanish possessions were attacked, the leader would pay the penalty. The expedition did destroy a Spanish town on the Orinoco. When Raleigh returned in June, 1618 James had him beheaded, though on the old charge of treason. 442 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND penal laws, and were only resumed after the English King had been drawn into the Thirty Years' War. The Beginning of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1620. The war was brought on by difficulties growing out of the Reformation settlement. By the Religious Peace of Augsburg of 1555 the Lutheran princes of the German Empire had been granted equal rights with the Catholics. No agreement, however, had been reached on the subject of " Eccle- siastical Reservations " or the forfeiture of offices and incomes by bishops and abbots who became Protestants ; nor were any privileges accorded to the Calvinists, a steadily increasing party. These eccle- siastical questions were complicated by others of a political nature. The German princes were striving for independence against the Emperor, and in Bohemia, where he was King, the national feeling was acute. In 1608, a Protestant Union was formed under the leadership of the Count Palatine Frederick IV, father of James' future son-in-law, which called forth, in 1609, a Catholic League under Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. A series of events in Bohemia led to the first outbreak of the war. The childless Emperor Matthias (1612-1619) secured the succession for his cousin Ferdinand, a pupil of the Jesuits. 1 Owing to the bitter resistance of the Protestant estates, the Imperial authorities proceeded to close their churches and to put the administration of the country into^the hands of ten governors, seven of whom were Catholics. The signal for revolt was the so-called " Defenestration " of Prague, 23 May, 1 6 1 8, when two of the governors and their secretary were thrown from a window of the castle. On the death of Matthias, the Bohe- mians, refusing to acknowledge Ferdinand as their King, chose the Count Palatine Frederick V. Ferdinand, who was elected Emperor at Frankfort, leagued with Maximilian of Bavaria and Philip III of Spain. A Spanish general Spinola invaded the Palatinate, while, 8 November, 1620, Frederick himself was decisively defeated at White Hill near Prague. He was driven out of Bohemia, his own palatine lands were confiscated, and he fled to Holland. 2 What began as a revolt in Bohemia became a general European conflict, drawing into its vortex England, Denmark, Sweden, and France, and directed against the ascendancy of the Spanish and imperial branches of the House of Hapsburg and the Counter- Reformation. Divergent Views of James and the Popular Party regarding the War. James was finally moved to intervene, but solely in order to recover the Palatinate for his son-in-law, a purpose which he sought to effect by securing the good offices of Spain through the long-contemplated mar- riage alliance. Owing, however, to the need of money to carry on his 1 In theory the Emperor was elected. As a matter of fact, from 1438 till the dissolution of the Holy Roman or German Empire in 1806, a member of the Aus- trian House of Hapsburg was always chosen. In 1526 the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary had been annexed to the House of Austria in a personal union. 2 From his brief rule he was known as the "Winter King." The phrase refers to the snow kings or snow men which children build. BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 443 diplomacy, he was obliged to call another Parliament. The result was to precipitate a fresh conflict with his subjects ; for the majority re- garded Spain as the prime mover in a great Catholic aggression which could best be met by a " war of diversion " ; that is, a naval war directed against the Spanish for the purpose of diverting them from the imperial' alliance. Indeed, they were in no hurry even for that, since England was much stronger and Spain was much weaker than in the days be- fore the Armada. So the Commons seized the occasion to demand the redress of pressing grievances and the recognition of fundamental constitutional rights. The First Session of the Parliament of 1621. Monopolies and the Revival of Impeachments. The session opened 30 January, 1621. Although James was treating with Gondomar, he asked for a grant of 500,000 to raise an army for the recovery of the Palatinate. The Commons voted a preliminary grant of two subsidies (about 150,000), after which they turned to the discussion of grievances. Among them were the non-enforcement of the recusancy laws and infringe- ments on the liberty of speech ; but they devoted their chief attention to abuses connected with monopolies. Even to-day monopolies are recognized by law in the case of patents and copyrights ; at that time they went much farther and included the exclusive right of dealing in certain commodities, of trading in a particular district, or of carrying on a specified industry. There were many reasons why this should have been so. The dangers from pirates and savages, the uncertain- ties of unknown lands and seas, the risk of shipwreck in small and weakly constructed ships made it necessary to offer unusual privileges in order to induce men to venture their lives and their capital. As a means of building up industries, monopolies were granted, not only to inventors, but to all who introduced new processes from abroad. In many cases there was a special justification : in the making of gun- powder, saltpeter, and ordnance, to insure a home supply of materials of war and to keep the manufacture in trusted hands ; in the manufac- ture of gold and silver thread, because those who received the privilege agreed to import the bullion, thus increasing the supply of precious metals ; in the case of the glassmakers, because they promised to use coal in place of wood in their blast furnaces. Licenses, too, were required from inns and alehouses for the restriction and regulation of the traffic in drink. James probably derived less revenue from monop- olies than had Elizabeth in her last years. The chief complaint was that he granted them to favorites who made a large profit jrom acting as figureheads in companies or from reselling their rights. Moreover, those who had the supervision of inns and alehouses frequently used their powers for extortion and blackmail. In the investigation which Parliament now undertook, two of the worst offenders, Mompesson and Michell, were called to account. Mompesson escaped by jumping out of the window of the House, and fled to the Continent. Michell was severely punished. James abolished the worst offenses by proc- 444 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND lamation ; and by an act of 1624 monopolies, with certain exceptions, 1 were done away with. Francis Bacon (1561-1626). This session is also notable for the impeachment of Francis Bacon on charges of judicial corruption. A younger son of Elizabeth's Lord Keeper and a nephew of Burghley's wife, he had risen very slowly in spite of his family connections and his unusual abilities. Since 1618 he had been Lord Chancellor. Created Baron Verulam in that same year, he had been promoted in 1621 to the title of Viscount St. Albans. At once a man of affairs and a man of letters, he wrote on many subjects philosophy, scientific theory, literature, history, and law. His views on politics were broad and liberal. He favored a strong monarchy resting on the support of the people and acting for the popular good, informed and advised by a loyal Parliament. He advocated the union of England and Scotland, the civilizing of Ireland, the extension of colonization, the broadening of the Established Church, and liberal reforms in the law. In the struggle with Coke he had stood for interpreting legal questions on large grounds of policy rather than upon technical precedents. Al- ways prone, however, to overlook practical difficulties, he failed to recognize that Parliament would no longer tolerate even a benevolent despot, and that, in any event, James was not .the man to exercise such powers. Yet as he saw plan after plan fail he continued in office as a supporter of the Crown. He may, however, have failed to sense the situation ; he may have felt that he could do some good, at any rate ; or he may have been a time server. The latter seems the most likely. Aside from his vast intellect, his sobriety, and industry he had few commendable qualities. He was cold, lacking in affection, and fond of comfort and display. He basely deserted Essex, who had been his devoted friend ; he stooped to the most servile flattery in his rela- tion with James and Buckingham; he was ever ready with worldly wise council ; indeed, the poet Pope did not greatly exaggerate m calling him the " wisest, wittiest, meanest of mankind." His Impeachment and Fall, 1621. He had taken the government side on the legality of monopolies. The Commons were, in conse- quence, very ready to listen to complaints brought against him for accepting money from suitors while their cases were pending in Chan r eery, and proceeded to impeach him. Bacon was at length forced to admit that while he had never allowed gifts to influence him, he had been guilty of accepting both presents and loans from those who had suits in his, court. Public officials were in those days regularly in re- ceipt of pay from companies and even from foreign countries, and it was also customary for judges to accept gifts from successful suitors. Bacon with a salary inadequate for his office, particularly in view of the pomp and circumstance of his household, also notoriously loose 1 These exceptions were : (i) new inventions ; (2) charters to trading companies ; (3) certain municipal privileges; (4) some specified manufactures, e.g. glass and gunpowder. BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 445 in money matters and contemptuous of forms, had simply neglected to wait until he rendered his decisions. Yet a man of his abilities and ideals should have been above, not below, the standard of his time. His confession is one of the most ignominious in history : " I do . . . confess that in the points charged upon me, although they should be taken as I have declared them, there is a great deal of corruption and neglect, for which I am heartily and penitently sorry. ... I beseech your lordships to be merciful unto a broken reed." The sentence im- posed upon him was a heavy one ; but more to mark Parliament's opinion of the enormity of the offense than with any thought that it would be fully executed. He was to pay a fine of 40,000, to be im- prisoned in the Tower, to give up the Great Seal ; he was declared in- capable of holding any office of State or of sitting in Parliament, and forbidden to come to court. He acknowledged " the sentence just and for reformation's sake fit," though he declared that he was the " justest Chancellor " since his father's death. The fine and im- prisonment were remitted, and the old man retired to achieve by his studies a reputation which he had failed to attain as an officer of State. Neither in his case, nor in those of Mompesson and Michell were all the technical rules of impeachments strictly adhered to ; but, in a general way, they mark the revival of a practice which had been in disuse for over a century and a half. James grew weary of the continual discussion of grievances, partic- ularly when Parliament refused to grant him further supplies, so he ordered an adjournment. Before separating, the Commons declared that " if the treaty (with Spain) failed, they would be ready on re- assembling to adventure their lives and estates for the maintenance of the cause of God and of his Majesty's royal issue." Second Session of the Parliament of 1621. In the autumn session, the difference over foreign policy developed into a momentous quarrel which reopened the whole question of privilege. James hoped that if the marriage between Charles and the Infanta were brought about that the Spanish would intervene to restore Frederick by force if nec- essary. In order to prevent the English from sending an army to aid the continental Protestants, Gondomar was instructed to nurse the King in his delusion. The Commons, fearing that the Catholics were unduly encouraged, framed a petition, asking that the Prince marry one of his own religion ; calling for the execution of the penal laws ; and for a war against Spain. A long and bitter correspondence re- sulted in which the King forbade the Commons " to meddle with mys- teries of State," asserting again that their privileges were derived from the grace of his ancestors. He declared, however, that, so long as they confined themselves within proper limits, "he would be careful to pre- serve their lawful liberties." More than one picturesque incident enlivened the controversy. Gondomar, when he saw the petition, wrote James, then at Newmarket, an amazing letter. " If it were not," he said, " that he depended upon the King's goodness to punish the 446 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND seditious insolence of the House of Commons, he would have left the kingdom already." " This," he added, " it would have been my duty to do, as you would have ceased to be a King here, and as I have no army here at present to punish these people myself." 1 Later when the Commons sent a deputation with a second petition, James cried, " Bring stools for the ambassadors," implying that they were assuming the position of an independent power. Finally they framed a protes- tation in which they declared that " their liberties and privileges were the inherited birthright of the subjects of England ; the State, the de- fense of the realm, the laws and grievances were proper matters for them to debate ; the members have liberty of speech, and freedom from all imprisonment for speaking on matters touching Parliamentary business." The King adjourned the session 19 December, and, shortly after Christmas, sent for the Journal and tore out the protesta- tion with his own hands. .Again opposition members were imprisoned or confined to their houses in London. On 6 January, 1622, Parlia- ment was dissolved. 2 To the old disputes over religion and taxation a new one had been added, that over foreign policy. The Journey of Charles and Buckingham to Spain, 1623. The Spaniards determined to keep James at odds with his subjects in order to avoid the least chance of English intervention in the continental war. To that end, Gondomar encouraged Charles and Buckingham in a hare-brained project. They were to cross to France, journey incognito to Madrid, where the Prince was to woo the Infanta in per- son. The distracted King, with many tears for the safety of his "Baby Charles " and his " Steenie," 3 was at length forced to consent early in 1623. The visit in the end failed of its object, although Charles agreed to the hardest terms short of changing his religion. The In- fanta, good, simple, but narrow, abhorred the thought of allying her- self with a heretic. Once when her importunate lover sought an inter- view in the palace garden, she fled in dismay. Marriage articles were indeed drawn up and accepted by both James and Charles before the latter left Madrid in September ; but the Spanish prevented him from taking the Infanta with him by requiring first that full toleration should be granted to English Catholics. Two months later, when it 1 His arrogance may be explained in the light of a conversation that James had with him after the dissolution of the Addled Parliament, in which the King said: "The House of Commons is a body without a head. The members give their opinions in a disorderly manner. At their meetings nothing is heard but shouts, cries, and confusion. I am surprised that my ancestors should have per- mitted such an institution to come into existence. I am a stranger and found it here when I arrived, so I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get rid of." He was only consoled by the thought that without his assent the words and acts of Parliament were "altogether worthless." 2 Gondomar wrote to his master: "It is the best thing which has happened in the interests of Spain and the Catholic religion since Luther began to preach heresy a hundred years ago." 3 A pet name which he gave to Buckingham from a fancied resemblance to a portrait of St. Stephen, BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 447 became clear that Spain would grant no aid in recovering the Palati- nate, negotiations were broken off. The initiative was taken by Buck- ingham whose self-importance had been wounded by the lack of con- sideration shown him at the Spanish court. Moreover, the popularity which would result from an anti-Spanish policy was a temptation which he could not resist. Indeed, he made up his mind to go to the length of war and dragged Charles along with him. The Parliament of 1624. Breach with Spain. A new Parliament met, 19 February, 1624. James, who had hitherto refused to consider the right of the Commons to discuss foreign politics, now consented to ask their advice. Buckingham told all the assembled members the story of the journey to Spain, insisted that the Spanish had never in- tended to help recover the Palatinate, and urged that the marriage treaty be canceled. James had come to see that war was necessary ; but he would only consent to a land war for the recovery of the Palati- nate ; Parliament was still bent on fighting Spain at sea, while Buck- ingham was keen for both. It was a part of his plan to ally with the Dutch, the Danes, and the German princes, assisting them with Eng- lish subsidies. Parliament voted three subsidies and three fifteenths, less than half the sum asked for. Moreover, the purposes of the grant were distinctly specified, and, in order to insure their observance, it was provided that the money should be paid to treasurers appointed by Parliament. This marks the revival of the practice of appropriation of supply. Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex and Lord Treasurer, the only man who ever succeeded in bringing James' finances into any kind of shape, was impeached. 1 He was charged with corruption, though the real reason for the proceeding was his opposition to Buck- ingham and the war with Spain. James shrewdly prophesied to his son and his favorite who led the charge, that they were preparing rods for their own backs. Parliament was prorogued till autumn; but it never met again during the reign. The French Marriage Treaty, 1624. The King simply did not dare to face the Houses. On the failure of the Spanish marriage, negotia- tions had been opened with France for a marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII ; but James promised dis- tinctly that no concessions would be made to the recusants in conse- quence of any such alliance. However, Cardinal Richelieu, Louis's adroit and able chief minister, forced the weak King and his weak son to agree to a secret article guaranteeing a relaxation of the penal laws. On these terms the marriage treaty was ratified in December, 1624. France, though anxious to strike a blow at the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, had no mind as yet to assist the German heretics. Mean- time, James had agreed with Count Mansfeld, a German soldier of fortune, to furnish him an army of 10,000 foot and 3000 horse together with 20,000 a month for their support, on condition that France do 1 In his trial the rules governing impeachments were followed. 448 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the like. Owing to the restricted terms of the recent grant, the King had no money for the Mansfeld expedition, nor had he any troops or ships. Nevertheless, advances were squeezed from the parliamentary treasurers, and a rabble of raw, pressed men was assembled. France, who would hear of nothing but an attack on the Spanish Netherlands, refused to allow Mansfeld to pass through her territory on the way to the Palatinate. So, in the dead of winter, he had to lead his half-clad troops into Holland, where more than three quarters of them perished of cold and starvation. In the spring the miserable remnant returned to England. Unable properly to equip the Mansfeld expedition, James, spurred on by his son and the reckless Buckingham, had also bound himself by agreements to furnish subsidies to the Dutch and to Chris- tian IV of Denmark. Death of James, 1625. Estimate of his Reign. In March, 1625, the poor old King, much reduced by gout and worry, was attacked by an ague, from which he died on the 2yth. As a ruler he had been a failure. His problem in a critical time had been to economize and to gain the good will of his subjects. Yet he was lavish to the last, and, what with the expenses in connection with foreign affairs, he left the treasury too poor to give him a royal burial. He disappointed the Catholics and he disappointed the Puritans. He quarreled with the judges and he quarreled with Parliament. While he never acted without some color of legality, many of his measures ran counter to the temper of the times. By his pompousness and love of theorizing he alienated his subjects, and by his failure to meet crises with decision he forfeited their confidence. A 1 through his reign he strove, in the teeth of Protestant prejudice and Elizabethan tradition, for an alliance with Spain and lived to see his pet project destroyed by his son and his favorite. His only essay in war the Mansfeld expedition was a pitiful failure. The fresh memory of this, the empty treasury, and a crop of differences with his subjects were his legacy to Charles. The bright spots in the reign were not due in any great degree to James. The peace which he maintained was favorable to industry, commerce, and prosperity; but the light taxes, which contributed greatly to the result, were due to necessity rather than to policy. Also, the settlements leading to a vast colonial empire in the New World have him to thank only so far as he drove the Nonconformists from England. Again, while he shares with Elizabeth the glory of the greatest age of the world's literature, he was, in spite of his scholarly tastes, as innocent as his predecessor of assisting the movement. Very notable gains were made by the Commons. They secured the right of deciding contested elections and the right of freedom from arrest. They remonstrated successfully against creating new offenses by proc- lamation. They asserted their right to debate all matters of public concern and to appropriate supplies for purposes which they desig- nated. On the other hand, they protested vainly against imposi- tions and failed deservedly in an attempt to judge and punish of- BEGINNINGS OF THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 449 fenses not committed against their own House. What James himself strove for he generally failed to attain; the achievements of the period were only to a very slight degree his work. 1 FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. F. C. Montague, Political History, 1603-1660 (1907) , chs. I-V ; an ac- curate account of the main course of events (annotated list of authorities, pp. 482-493) . G. M. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 1603-1714 (1904) ; a work of unusual brilliancy and suggestiveness, an excellent supplement to Montague (annotated bibliography, pp. 527-534). Cambridge Modern History, III, chs. XVII, XVIII (bibli- ography, without notes, pp. 847-859) . S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642 (10 vols., 1883-1884), chs. I-V ; a monumental work, the authority on the period, but confined almost exclusively to the political and ecclesiastical aspects of the subject. L. von Ranke, History of England (Eng.tr. 1875), I, bk. V,chs. I-V ; next to Gardiner the best detailed work, particularly valuable for foreign relations. Lingard, VII, chs. I-III. T. Carlyle, Historical Sketches (1891) ; a picturesque and stimulating work. Special. Seeley, British Policy, I, pt. II, chs. I-III. J. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean (1904), I. J. N. Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings (1896). Constitutional. Hallam, I, ch. VI. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. V, ch. I ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. XIII. Maitland, Constitutional History of England, period III ; sketch of the public law at the death of James I. Church. Wakeman, ch. XVI ; Frere, English Church, chs. XVII-XXI. Usher, Reconstruction of the English Church. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 181-188. Prothero, Select Statutes, 250-446. THE STUARTS JAMES I = Anne of Denmark, 1603-1625 | d. 1619 1 1 Henry, CHARLES 1 d. 1612 1625-1649 1 1 , Elizabeth = d. 1662 = Frederick of the Palatinate CHARLES II, 1660-1685 1 I JAMES II, Mary = William 1685-1688, d. 1660 of d. 1701 Orange, 1 d. 1650 1 1 JAMES ANNE, MARY= WILLIAM III, (the old 1702-1714 1688-1694 1688-1702 Pretender), b. 1688, d. 1765 1 Prince Rupert, d. 1682 Prince Maurice, Sophia = Elector of Hanover d. 1652 d. 1714 George I, 1714-1727 George II 1 James was the author of a work entitled a Counterblast against Tobacco. When his tomb was opened some years ago a pipe was found, evidently left by a work- man. Thus, says Gardiner, the greatest authority on the period: "James was defied even in death." 2G CHAPTER XXVIII CHARLES I AND THE PRECIPITATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE (1625-1640) Personal Traits of Charles I. Charles I, who came to the throne 27 March, 1625, had many of the qualities of a popular sovereign. Handsome and of a noble presence, he was a skillful athlete, and bore himself with the courage of a thoroughbred. He was reserved in speech, 1 and, indeed, was quite free of these peculiarities which had made his father so often ridiculous. He was an accomplished critic of art and music, keenly appreciative of all that was beautiful in the world about him. At the same time, he was deeply religious, sacrificing everything for his convictions, and living unspotted amidst the dis- sipations of his Court. On the other hand, he lacked that power of reading the temper of the times, and that gift of voicing the feelings of his subjects which had made the Tudors so irresistible. Without the imagination and sympathy necessary to the understanding of other men's views, he regarded every one who differed from him as an enemy ; while he prided himself on the legality of his measures, he failed to see that what had the sanction of the law might at times be absolutely inexpedient. Much influenced by the few to whom he gave his con- fidence, he clung obstinately to an opinion he had once formed. Worse than all, he was secretive and evasive. Many of his views were so at variance with public opinion that he sought to conceal them ; he made promises which he found himself unable to keep, and, sometimes, even entered into engagements with mental reservations which would enable him to elude what he did not consider to be for the public good. He ascended the throne fresh from having broken his agreement with re- gard to the French marriage treaty, and, as time went on, it became more and more evident that his word was not to be trusted. Political Problems. In his unwisdom and in the difficulties which he had to face, he went far beyond his father in overriding the common law, and in attempting to raise money in extraparliamentary ways. Spurred on by Buckingham, he had aroused popular enthusiasm by forcing the timid old King to abandon his peace policy ; but he and his favorite planned to conduct the war in a manner quite out of ac- cord with that advocated by Parliament ; they entered into engage- ments which that body was not asked to approve, and they conducted their military operations with a rashness, an incompetence, and a 1 Due partly to a slight impediment. 450 CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 45 1 lack of success which forfeited the confidence of the nation. Conse- quently, the Commons when they were called together would not grant the supplies necessary to meet the situation. This forced the King to resort to the irregular measures which, in conjunction with his reli- gious policy, led to the revolt which finally cost him his head. Religious Problems. While the Puritans had failed to receive under James the concessions which they desired, they had not been actively persecuted. Silently, but effectively, their views were being preserved and spread by means of Bible reading, prayer, and services in private houses, sometimes by the parson, more often by the father of the family. Already chafing under restraint they were now brought face to face with a critical situation. The victories of the Catholics in the Continental War, the relaxation in the penal laws, first as a concession to Spain and then to France, and the King's marriage aroused the gravest apprehensions. Furthermore, while James had been content with the existing Establishment, Charles was a High Churchman. He wanted, so far as possible, to restore the liturgy and the ecclesiastical organization of the pre- Reformation days. This was partly because he loved the splendid ancient ceremonial, but chiefly because of the chance to strengthen his royal powers. The High Anglican divines, as a means of securing the great offices in Church and State and counteracting the Puritan tendencies for the people, sought his ear and magnified the prerogative to ridiculous heights. 1 So the issue was not merely religious, it was political as well. Two parties were ranged against each other, one in close alliance with the Crown, the other with Parliament. The Puritan Parliamentary Party. Though the Puritan party in- cluded many high-souled, cultivated gentlemen, and was to produce in John Milton a poet unsurpassed for scholarship, nobleness of thought, and sweetness and dignity of expression, its general attitude was hard and ungracious. The spirit of the Renascence love of beauty in its manifold aspects, interest in man and his pursuits appealed but little to them. The old English Sunday with its picturesque and boisterous merriment was an abomination in their eyes. Standing for the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, they had scant sympathy for philo- sophical and historical studies. They wanted to enter the lists against the great Catholic combination on the Continent, but only after the King had redressed domestic grievances and had agreed upon a plan of hostilities of which they approved. At home they insisted upon the enforcement of the penal laws, and they desired to put down the 1 A good example may be found in a sermon preached by the royal chaplain, Roger Manwaring, 4 July, 1627, in which he declared that where a King "com- mands flatly against the law of God," subjects who disobey are "to endure with patience whatsoever penalty his pleasure shall inflict upon them," and that if he com- manded things not against the law of God, even if not in accord with the law of the land, "no subject might disobey without hazard of his own damnation." This doctrine Manwaring applied to taxes which Charles sought to impose independently of Parliament. 452 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Anglicans as well as various sects of religious extremists which had recently sprung up. They did not oppose an established church as such, but they opposed one upheld by the Crown and bishops with forms and ceremonies which they denounced as " popish," and which they held responsible for the moral laxness which they saw about them, particularly at Court. Narrow as it seemed, their protest against ceremonies was deeply significant. Harmless or even beneficial to those for whom they had a meaning, no man who regarded such ob- servances as vain, idle, or idolatrous could, without sacrificing his moral and spiritual integrity, accept them simply because they were imposed by authority. The Puritans fought, not for any principle of toleration, but for their own supremacy. Yet, in so doing, they deepened the spiritual independence of the people, they struck at despotism, and, if they did not gain the ascendancy at which they aimed, they secured a large measure of political freedom for their country and prepared the way for a religious liberty that came slowly, but none the less surely. The High Church Royalist Party. The High Church party stood for a revival of medieval ceremonialism and held exalted views regarding the origin and functions of the Church. As against the Puritans who regarded the Bible as the sole source of Christian truth and laid chief emphasis on the relation of the individual soul toward God, they held with Cranmer that the Bible must be interpreted by the individual only in the light of the writings of the early fathers and of the customs of the primitive Church. Also, adopting the arguments of Hooker, they sought to justify the existing system on the ground of its histori- cal continuity and the needs of the times. They laid stress on the divine origin of Episcopacy, and looked to the Church, particularly through the efficacy of her sacraments, as the necessary vehicle of salvation. Since they rejected predestination, they came to be called Arminians, from the followers of Arminius (1560-1609), a Protestant divine whose doctrines had been condemned by the orthodox Calvin- ists at the Synod of Dort in 1618. The High Church leaders denied that they were Arminians, and with justice, for they had nothing in common with the sect of that name except in the rejection of predes- tination. Their purpose in repudiating this particular doctrine was not primarily theological but to weaken their opponents who accepted it, and to exalt the Church as an instrument of grace. While the standpoint of the royalist party was broader than that of the Puritans, it was unfortunate that they sought to impose their views by insist- ing upon absolute conformity and by magnifying the King's preroga- tive in Church and State as a means of crushing their opponents. Yet both parties were equally intolerant and both were equally aggressive. The Royal Advisers. Incompetent himself to deal with the polit- ical and religious problems which confronted him, Charles was pecul- iarly unfortunate in his advisers. Indeed, it is an evidence of his in- capacity that he should have chosen such men. Buckingham was CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 453 rash, self-confident, and incapable. The four years of his ascendancy, from 1624 to 1628, were marked by failure abroad and by constant conflicts between the Crown and Parliament at home. Six ill-pre- pared expeditions went to the Continent and each returned ingloriously. While the result was due partly to the inadequacy of the English mili- tary machinery consequent upon a long peace, and partly to the tight hold of the Commons upon the purse strings, the chief fault was Buckingham's. Thomas Wentworth, later Earl of Strafford, who began as an opponent of the Court party and afterwards changed sides, was an honest and competent administrator ; but he had no conception of the meaning and force of public opinion. Kind and loyal to his sup- porters, he was arrogant and overbearing to his opponents. His ideal he summed up in the word " thorough," which meant carrying through, 1 by force, if necessary, any policy which he chose to adopt. Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), when she married Charles, was a maiden of fifteen, and for some time was too absorbed in pleasure to take any interest in politics. Not long after her arrival, however, she began to quarrel with her husband over the status of the Catholics. After the assassina- tion of Buckingham in 1628, they became reconciled and were hence- forth devoted to one another. In spite of this and of the courage which she showed in the troublous years to come, Henrietta proved an evil genius to the King and the country. Bred in an atmosphere of absolu- tism and Catholicism, ignorant of the ways and temper of Englishmen, and dominated by papal agents, she put worthless men into office, she egged Charles on to some of his rashest and most unpopular acts, culminating in a disastrous policy of foreign intrigue. 2 In addition to these mischievous councilors there was the group of religious en- thusiasts who surrounded the throne. Chief among them was William Laud, who became Bishop of London in 1828 and Archbishop of 'Canter- bury in 1633, " the most conscientious, the most energetic, and the most indiscreet man " in the realm. As head of the Church he bent all his efforts to enforce conformity, and came to share with Strafford the chief power in the state as well. Charles' First Parliament, 18 June-i2 August, 1625. When Charles met his first Parliament, he was pledged to pay subsidies to his allies amounting to 700,000 annually; he was married to his French bride, and he had promised to relax the penal laws. The op- position, counting many strong and effective leaders, had no sym- pathy with a continental war ; they were determined to keep control 1 The two words then had the same meaning. 2 The very marriage in itself was attended with innumerable dire consequences. It involved a promise of toleration to Catholics which embittered the English when it was discovered, and led to a temporary breach with France when it was not kept. For fear of disclosing the provisions of the treaty, Mansfeld's expedition went to destruction unprovided with parliamentary grants, which might have altered the result. The marriage, too, was the first step in a fatal French alliance which lasted through the reigns of two of Henrietta's sons and contributed to the loss of the throne by the second. 454 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of the taxes, and were bitterly suspicious of the Catholics. The royal supporters were few and weak, while the King made the fatal mistake of not explaining at once what he meant to do, how much he needed, and for what objects. So Parliament, after voting only two subsidies, fell to discussing grievances again. On account of the plague raging in London, the Houses were adjourned, 1 1 July, to meet at Oxford, i August. When the King pressed for supply, the Commons, turning their attention to foreign affairs, expressed their distrust of the royal advisers, especially Buckingham, who had aroused such en- thusiasm in the last Parliament. In order to stop the discussion Charles ordered a dissolution, 12 August. Even the act, customary at the beginning of each reign, granting tonnage and poundage failed to pass. 1 The Cadiz Expedition, 1625. That autumn, Charles and Buck- ingham, hoping to increase their scanty funds by rich booty and to recover their lost prestige by a glorious success, sent an expedition against Cadiz. The invaders were unable to take the town, or to capture the ships in the harbor, and allowed a plate fleet to slip by them. The troops got drunk on Spanish wine and became unruly. Storm-tossed; starving, and sick, the expedition straggled back to Plymouth late in November, another miserable failure. Charles' Second Parliament, 6 February-is June, 1626. Pressed by his financial needs, Charles called a second Parliament, which met 6 February, 1626. While he was reluctant to meet the Houses, Buckingham, vain and fond of applause, was more sanguine. In 162.4 he had carried all before him, and he still hoped by some great stroke of war or diplomacy to regain the popular confidence which had been forfeited by deception and mishap. To guard against resistance the leaders of the opposition in the last Parliament had been disqual- ified for reelection by appointments to sheriff doms. However, an unex- pected opponent came to the front in Eliot, vice-admiral of Devon. He had formerly been a friend of Buckingham, . but the shameless miscarriage of the Cadiz expedition and the deplorable condition of the returning soldiers and sailors had stirred his pity and inflamed his wrath. Again the King sullenly refused to confide his policy to Par- liament, while Carleton, one of his supporters, referred in debate to the French peasants who were "thin as ghosts and wore wooden shoes," as an intimation of what the English subjects might come to if they resisted too far. The Impeachment of Buckingham, 1626. Eliot forced the fighting by demanding an inquiry into the " recent disaster," denouncing Buckingham as the cause of all the mischief. Eliot, though violent and partisan, was a lofty-minded patriot. He was not in any sense a republican, but an advocate of a form of monarchy in which Parliament 1 The Commons, hoping to settle the question of impositions before they bound themselves for the whole reign, had passed a tonnage and poundage bill for one year ; but in the hurry of events it did not get through the Lords. CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 455 should be supreme. Following his attack, articles of impeachment against Buckingham were framed. He was accused of procuring an undue number of offices for himself, of showering titles and pensions upon his kindred, of appropriating public moneys to his own use, of gross neglect and mismanagement of public affairs, and, curiously enough, of administering medicine to James in his last illness, which, it was implied, had hastened his death. Owing to their ignorance of the details of the governmental policy and administration, to the con- fusion of the royal accounts, and the corrupt, loose practices of the times, it was difficult for the accusers to prove their case in the specific counts which they had drawn up. Moreover, the King had supported the favorite in all his acts, and, by assuming the responsibility, placed an insurmountable obstacle in the way of conviction. Nevertheless, Buckingham's mismanagement and incompetence was publicly ex- posed, while, for the first time since the pre-Tudor period, the Commons had ventured, on grounds of public policy, to assail a minister enjoy- ing the unlimited confidence of the sovereign. On June 15 Charles stopped the impeachment by a dissolution. In order to save his favorite Charles lost the grant which the Commons had resolved to vote him. In the sorest straits for money he tried all sorts of de- vices. He levied tonnage and poundage by his own authority, he sought a loan from the city of London, he called upon the maritime countries for ships, and he made a vain effort, through the justices of the peace, to secure as a free gift the amount which would have been assessed had the subsidy bill passed. At length he resorted to a forced loan, dismissing Chief Justice Crewe because he would not declare it legal. Some eighty gentlemen, including Eliot and Wentworth, were imprisoned for refusing to lend, while many of the commoner sort were pressed as soldiers. Out of 350,000 asked for, 236,000 was secured, but at the price of sullen and widespread discontent. The War with France and the Expedition to Rhe, 1627. In the spring of 1627 a war with France, which had long been brewing, was declared. Toward the close of the last reign Richelieu had exacted an impossible promise that the English would loan him a fleet to be used " against whomsoever except the King of Great Britain." When it became clear that he was to employ it to reduce the Huguenots at La Rochelle, who were in revolt, Charles and Buckingham, unable to face the popular outcry, had tried to elude the obligation by instigating Admiral Pennington to stir his crews to mutiny. Eventually the French got the ships without the men. Such double dealing accen- tuated the distrust of the English and alienated the French. There were numerous other causes of friction. French ships trading with Spain and the Netherlands were searched and condemned, even before formal trial in the English prize courts. Also, King Charles was not only unable to relax the penal laws against the English Catholics, but he was even obliged to dismiss the Queen's French attendants, and, after much shuffling, to declare himself the protector of the French 4$6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Huguenots. Unable to supply the promised subsidies to the conti- nental allies and unable to deal an effective blow against Spain, Buck- ingham prepared a great stroke against the new foe. In June, 1627, he sent an expedition which landed on the island of Rhe, opposite La Rochelle, with the object of securing abase for assisting the beleaguered citizens and for attacking the French coast and shipping. Bucking- ham himself showed both courage and energy in the undertaking, but the English, resenting the forced loan and without confidence in the leader, gave him no support. The troops, ill-supplied and ill- organized, were utterly devoid of spirit and enthusiasm. Necessary reinforcements and supplies were delayed from want of money, and when they arrived, could not be landed, owing to storms. In October the French drove the invaders from the island. The Five Knights' Case, 1627. Following this fresh humiliation, five knights, 1 who were among those imprisoned for refusing to con- tribute to the recent loan, brought their case to trial by suing for a writ of habeas corpus. 2 Fearing to state the reason for their deten- tion, Charles had assigned no cause except the command of the King. After reviewing the evidence, the judges decided to send the knights back to prison, although they refused to give an opinion that, under all circumstances, the sovereign might hold the subject in confinement solely by virtue of his royal authority. Nevertheless, the decision was ominous for the subject who looked to the protection of the law against royal oppression. Charles, still hoping to obtain the needed supplies, soon released all the prisoners and called a third Parliament to meet 17 March, 1628. Charles' Third Parliament, 1628. While it was now imperative for him to give up his foreign policy or to recover the good will of his people, he met the Houses defiantly. " If they would not do their duty by granting supplies," he declared in his opening speech, " he would use other means which God had put into his hand." " Take this not as a threat," he added, " for I scorn to threaten any but my equals." His failures he attributed, not to his own mistakes, but to lack of parliamentary support. The Commons had come together to secure a more definite recognition of the liberties of Englishmen, and in this they were probably rendering a greater service to progress, religious and political, than if they had yielded to despotism and voted 1 One of them was Sir Thomas Darnel, hence the case is sometimes called Darnel's Case. 2 As it was against the spirit of English law for a subject to be detained in prison without cause shown, the writ of habeas corpus had been devised in order that the judges might inquire into the case and, in view of the sufficiency or insufficiency of the evidence, release the prisoner, admit him to bail, or remand him to prison. It had always been the custom for the sovereign, for reasons of State, to order the arrest of persons dangerous to the public safety without any further reason than the royal command. In the present instance, however, no one was conspiring against the State ; the only offense of those imprisoned was resistance to unparlia- mentary taxation. CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 457 to send armies abroad. Some noble and influential peers supported them ; but the mass of the Upper House, consisting of scions of worn- out families and court parasites, counted for little. Before the open- ing of the session the chief men of the opposition had met and agreed to drop the proceedings against Buckingham until they had secured redress of recent and pressing grievances. In addition to the arbi- trary exactions and the imprisonment or impressment of those who had refused to pay, soldiers had been billeted on private houses, con- suming the goods and menacing the quiet and security of those who occupied them. Although there was peace in the country they were under the government of martial law, which was feared as a dangerous encroachment. The Commons agreed to grant five sub- sidies in return for the removal of these evils. Wentworth, who thought it sufficient to define the law for the future without wrangling over the past, planned a bill providing that arbitrary taxation and imprisonment and billeting should henceforth be illegal. Charles refused to accept the bill or to give any security but his royal word that he would maintain his subjects in the freedom of their persons and the safety of their estates. The Petition of Right, 1628. Thereupon, Coke proposed that they proceed by way of petition. 1 The Lords, after a vain effort to insert a clause assuring the King that they did not mean to encroach on his prerogative, joined the Commons in a measure which went beyond Wentworth's bill in enumerating past violations of the right of the subject and in condemning martial law. Charles, after trying to wriggle out with another vague promise, was at length obliged to give his formal assent, 7 June. 2 The Petition of Right, as it was called, provided that : (i) No man hereafter should be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge without common consent by act of Parliament ; (2) no freeman should be imprisoned or detained without cause shown ; (3) that soldiers should not be billeted in private homes ; (4) that commissions to punish soldiers by martial law should be revoked and no more issued. This Petition of Right, " the first statutory restriction on the power of the Crown since the accession of the Tudors," has always been regarded as one of the great landmarks in the progress of English popular liberty, ranking with Magna Carta, and with the later Bill of Rights. Nevertheless, it left more than one question unsettled. Indeed, no sooner had the King given his assent than the Commons proceeded with a remonstrance which they had already drawn up. In it they demanded the enforcement of the penal laws, denounced the High Church party, and again asked for the removal of Buckingham. 1 With all the force of a statute, it had this advantage, that if accepted by the King and the Lords, it went into operation at once, while a statute had to wait until the end of the session before taking effect. 2 The customary form of assent in the case of a statute was le roy le veult; in the case of a petition it was soil droitfait com me il est desire. 458 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND When Charles found that they were drawing up a remonstrance on tonnage and poundage as well, he dissolved Parliament with " a sharp speech," 26 June, 1628. The Murder of Buckingham and the " Apostasy " of Wentworth, 1628. Less than two months had passed when, 23 August, Buck- ingham, while superintending the embarkation of a fleet at Ports- mouth, was stabbed by John Felton, who had served as a lieutenant on the recent expedition to Rhe. Brooding over personal wrongs for he had been denied promotion and even arrears of pay he had come to believe that it was his public duty to rid the country of one whom so many regarded as a tyrant and a villain. The crime, though received with general rejoicing, only embittered the King without doing any good. While he never again loved or trusted any one as he had the departed favorite, he turned to new councilors equally regardless of the popular will. The vacant place was gradually assumed by Wentworth, who had already in July passed over to the royalist party. In December he was made President of the Council of the North, in the following year he was admitted to the Privy Council, and he went on increasing in favor and influence until, at the time of his execution in 1641, he was the King's chief adviser. Wentworth has been accused of apostasy, though with scant justice. While he had, with rare courage and at great personal sacrifice, fought the King for years, it was because he was opposed to the Buckingham r6gime which ran counter to his ideals of peace abroad and efficient administration at home. An aristocrat by birth and temper he had no sympathy with Puritanism and parliamentary supremacy. Pos- sibly he may have felt some pique when the Commons preferred the counsels of Eliot and Coke to his own, but the Petition of Right and the Remonstrance went to lengths that he could not follow. There- fore he turned back. When Buckingham, the chief obstacle which had stood in his way, was removed, he welcomed the chance to put into practice the policies which he had long cherished. Tonnage and Poundage and Religious Innovations. The Peti- tion of Right left two pressing questions unsettled. One concerned the royal right to levy tonnage and poundage without parliamentary grant, the other concerned religion. The King maintained that since Parliament had, in failing to grant him tonnage and poundage, departed from a long-recognized custom, he was entitled to collect it on his own authority. The Commons argued that by the Petition of Right he had yielded any right which he might have possessed. This he denied on the ground that tonnage and poundage was not included under " gift, loan, benevolence, or tax." Since a " tax " was then gener- ally understood to mean a direct tax, there seems to be little doubt that, technically, he was in the right. His case is further strengthened from the fact that the leaders who carried the Petition had decided to deal with it separately, and that they actually had a special ton- nage and poundage bill before them. Whatever legal rights Charles CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 459 may have had, his attempts to enforce them were bitterly resisted. In reply he imprisoned some, and seized the goods of others who re- fused to pay, so that Richard Chambers was led to declare that in no part of the world, even in Turkey, were merchants so oppressed and wrung as they were in England. The religious issue had reached an equally acute stage. When his High Church supporters were sharply attacked, the King sought to shield them by pardons and promotions. Then, in November, 1628, he issued a Declaration * prohibiting further disputes on Church questions, and providing that all necessary changes, unless contrary to the laws and customs of the land, should be settled in Convocation with the royal approval. While the High Church writers as well as their opponents were thus silenced, the King's Declaration was received with great distru'st and discontent, for it vested the control of ecclesiastical affairs for the future in a body dominated by the bishops, who were the creatures of the sovereign, rather than in Parliament, which voiced the popular will. The Eliot Resolutions, 1629. When Charles' third Parliament met for its second session, 20 January, 1629, the Commons began a busy discussion of the religious differences and of the treatment of the merchants who refused to pay tonnage and poundage. Seeing that he was to get nothing but complaints, the King ordered them to adjourn. The news caused a tumult, and, when the Speaker sought to leave the chair, two members, Holies and Valentine, held him down by main force while Holies repeated from memory three reso- lutions which Eliot had drawn up. 2 They declared that : "Whosoever shall bring in innovations in religion, or by favor seek to extend or introduce Popery or Arminianism, or other opinions disagreeing from the true and orthodox Church, shall be reputed a capital enemy to this Kingdom and Commonwealth. " Whosoever shall counsel or advise the . . . levying of ... tonnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, or shall be an actor or instrument therein, shall be likewise reputed an innovator in the Govern- ment and a capital enemy of this Kingdom and Commonwealth. "If any merchant, or other person whatsoever, shall voluntarily . . . pay . . . tonnage and poundage not being granted by Barliament, he shall likewise be reputed a betrayer of the liberty of England and an enemy to the same." While the King's officers were pounding at the door, the resolutions were carried. Then the excited throng who had pressed and shouted about the Speaker's chair left the House. Thus ended the last Parlia- ment which Charles was to hold for eleven years. The Significance of the Dissolution of 1629. A crisis marking an inevitable breach had arisen. If the King could at pleasure interrupt 1 It was prefixed to a new edition of the Thirty-nine Articles and is still con- tained in the English Book of Common Prayer. 2 Eliot, despairing of their passage, had thrown them into the fire, probably to avoid having incriminating evidence in his possession. 460 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND debate on public grievances, popular representation was an empty form. On the other hand, if his royal orders could be openly resisted, Charles Stuart had ceased to be King. The religious issue, too, had been sharply defined. The King, by his late Declaration, had reserved the settlement of Church affairs to a body under his own control ; now Parliament sought to assume a right which they denied to him. Eliot and eight other members concerned in the recent disturbances were arrested on an indefinite charge of sedition and contempt. An attempt on the part of some to obtain their release by habeas corpus was first evaded and then offered on terms which they could not accept. When finally brought to trial, the majority made submission. Eliot died in the Tower, 27 November, 1632. In his last illness the King refused him leave to go into the country for his health, and when he died, replied to his son's request with the brutal order : " Let Sir John Eliot be buried in the Church of that parish where he died." Holies escaped abroad ; but Valentine, and Strode, another of the eight, remained in prison till 1640. The Period of Personal Government, 1629-1640. The Commons had failed in their effort to dictate to their sovereign, but Charles was determined never to call another representative assembly until his people had come to a better mind. During the eleven years that he governed without a Parliament he had an opportunity to do one of two things to establish a despotism on the basis of a standing army or to conciliate his subjects. He did neither. He took no measures to strengthen effectually the organs of central government, while by his inefficiency, his ill-advised measures, and his disregard of public opinion he forfeited the scant regard and respect which his subjects cherished for him at the beginning of the reign. The royal impolicy was manifested in diverse ways : in vacillation and duplicity in foreign relations ; in taking money from the people by methods inexpedient and of doubtful legality ; in allowing Laud and his party full scope to carry out a program which ran counter to the wishes of the majority ; in offending the moral sense of the graver sort by the license allowed at Court and by the harsh treatment meted out to those who protested; in breaking down respect for the judi- ciary, the guardian of the laws ; and, finally, by a rash attempt to introduce episcopacy in Scotland. (i) Foreign Policy. Buckingham's foreign policy had at least the merits of energy ; but even that disappeared with his death. In April, 1629, the war with France was ended by the peace of Susa. Hostilities with Spain were concluded by a treaty signed at Madrid in 1630. Then followed a series of futile negotiations with these two countries and with various Protestant powers. Charles aimed to recover the Palatinate and to assert the supremacy of England over the narrow seas ; but his untrustworthiness drew on him the contempt of the great continental leaders, while by his inaction he lost the chance of increasing his popularity at home and abroad. CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 461 (2) Arbitrary Taxation. The King's irregular methods of raising money, though bolstered up with a show of legality, proved one of the chief means of alienating his subjects. He continued to levy tonnage and poundage and impositions regardless of public feeling. The~merchants grumbled a great deal, though, recognizing that a trade burdened with customs was better than no trade at all, they ceased to resist after the peace with Spain. But the war debts, the demands of a magnificent court, and the uneconomical administration made it necessary to resort to all sorts of devices to increase the revenue. One was the revival, in 1630, of Distraint of knighthood^, which required all freeholders of 40 a year tcT assume the dubious honor burdened -with heavy obligations or else pay a fine. In 1634 an attempt was made to resuryey the^boundaries^QLthe royal forests which had remained fixed since a great perambulation, or survey, in the reign of Edward I. The object was mainly to exact fines from those accused of encroachment. In three years only 23,000 was realized and at the cost of estranging a number of great landowners, the class most inclined toward the Crown. Equally perverse ingenuity was shown in the creation of new monopolies. Since the act of 1624 had excepted corporations and trading companies from its prohibi- tions, licenses were granted to a number of such organizations for the manufacture of soap^ j$tarh, Jbeer, and qthejc. commodities. The extreme hatred oF patentees was well voiced by a parliament man a few years later. He described them as a " nest of wasps, or swarm of vermin, which have overcrept the land," and, " like the frogs of Egypt, have got possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room free from them ; they sip in our cup, they dip in our dish, they sit by our fire ; we find them in the dye-vat, wash-bowl and powdering tub . . . they have marked and sealed us from head to foot." It should be borne in mind, however, that the decline in the value of money and a steady rise in prices was constantly decreasing the fixed revenues of the Crown. Moreover, the country was prosperous and the financial exactions fell on special classes best able to bear them. Nevertheless, discontent at the royal attempt to raise money independently of Par- liament became more widespread as the years went on until a crisis came in the year 1637. (3) Religion and Morals. The Laudian Policy. Meantime, the differences about questions of religion and morals were reaching an acute stage. The King's chief agent in Church affairs, Archbishop 1 A curious trial resulted from a challenge issued by the independent soap makers to the Soap Company. Two piles of soiled clothes were produced and two washerwomen were set to work before the lord mayor and aldermen of London, together with "other worshipful persons," who pronounced in favor of the Com- pany's soap. Also, testimonials were circulated signed by eighty persons, including peeresses and laundresses ; but in the end the company had to yield to its rival. Aside from being a monopoly, it was additionally unpopular from the fact that many of its number were Roman Catholics; its product was therefore called "popish soap." 462 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Laud, was doubly dangerous to the Puritans ; because by acquiring the leading voice in the Privy Council, the headship of important committees and commissions, and the control of the courts of High Commission and Star Chamber, he gathered into his hands all the machinery, both ecclesiastical and temporal, for enforcing his drastic policy. His tireless industry and his mastery of detail made him a remarkable administrator. On the other hand, with his narrow, rigid views, his lack of imagination, his hot temper, and overbearing manners he was the very opposite of a statesman. He was fearless, honest, and absolutely unselfish in his devotion to duty. He was not bloodthirsty, for he put no one to death ; but he sanctioned cruel punishments. However, few advocates of mercy and toleration had yet dared to raise their voices. Those in higher places who spared opponents and offenders, did so mainly from good nature or indiffer- ence : qualities quite alien to the spirit of Laud. He was no respecter of persons : noble, husbandman, or artisan who resisted his system were dealt with alike. While this was commendable, he showed a fatal lack of discrimination in other respects. He restored church buildings whose original beauty had been marred by neglect, he cleared St. Paul's of tradesmen and lawyers who used the holy place for base traffic, he made war on corruption and religious sloth, but, at the same time, he persecuted men who, from sincere conviction, refused to par- ticipate in the ceremonies which he was laboring to extend throughout the land. Caring nothing for speculative opinions, he was not in- clined to inquire too strictly what people believed so long as they conformed. He strove for unity ; but his test was uniformity. 1 He had no aesthetic ideals ; love of beauty, pomp, and ceremony did not prompt him to revive ancient usages, but an overpowering feeling for order and prescribed rule. Where he found these lacking he con- cluded that there was no religion. Hence the Puritan, the indifferent, and the profane were alike in his eyes. He was determined to suppress every breath of hostile expression in the press, in the pulpit, the parish church, and the conventicle. A few examples will illustrate his methods and his tireless activity. Finding that many churches had special lecturers, usually employed by the municipal corporations, who preached to the congregation after the regular service, he did away with them by prohibiting any man from preaching who did not hold a regular living. Likewise, he provided that no one except noblemen should have private chaplains without special permission. He would brook no lay control and allow no one to have a share in religious teaching who was not subject to the established religious tests. One Henry Sherfield was fined 500 1 "I labored nothing," he once wrote, "more than that the external worship of God too much slighted in most parts of the Kingdom might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be, being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church where uniformity is shut out at the church door." CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 463 for smashing a church window that he thought idolatrous,, not be- cause Laud did not agree with him, but because he had resisted his Bishop in the matter. The Metropolitical Visitations, 1634-1637. In 1634, the year after he became Archbishop, he revived the old practice of metropolitical visitations, 1 and during the next three years he visited in person or by deputy every parish in every diocese in his province of Canterbury. Careful inquiries were made concerning the condition of church buildings and furniture, and concerning the character and orthodoxy of the clergy, whether they wore the prescribed vestments and fol- lowed the order of service in the Prayer Book, whether they allowed any of their congregation to attend conventicles. Much corruption, irreverence, and neglect were found. Many clergymen were pro- fane, abusive, and loose in their conduct. Men slouched into church with their hats on, or disturbed the service outside. Pigs were allowed in many places to root up the church yard. 2 A previous regulation had provided that the communion table should, when not in use, be placed where the altar stood, but during the ministration should be moved to the nave or the chancel. Nevertheless, it was usually left in the body of the church, with the result that men used it for a writ- ing table and left their hats or even sat upon it. Laud stopped all this by providing that it should be placed always altarwise in the east end of the church. While he did much good work, his failure to distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy stirred up a cu- riously general opposition. The loose-liver, proceeded against in the ecclesiastical courts, the country squire who resented the enhanced power of the parson, the lawyer who chafed against the increased jurisdiction of the Church tribunals, and the Courtiers who disliked the bishops usurping great offices of State were all aroused. The Puritan Sentiment and Current Morality. On the other hand, the Puritan conscience was shocked at what they considered to be the high-handed encouragement of immorality. In 1618, in order to counteract the zeal of certain magistrates in Lancashire, James had issued a Declaration of Sports which authorized the con- tinuance of games on Sunday. There were three good reasons for this : to hinder the conversion to Catholicism of those who believed that innocent and lawful recreations were f rowned upon by the Estab- lishment ; to prevent idleness and tippling ; and to encourage the sub- jects to strengthen their bodies for the more effective defense of the realm. In 1633, the Declaration, which had been promulgated in only one diocese, was published throughout the land, and ministers were ordered to read it from the pulpit under pain of suspension or 1 So-called because he conducted them as Metropolitan of the Province. 2 Lord Castleton's bailiff had torn the lead from the roof of the parish church and had melted it on the floor of the sacred edifice. When some ran through to the crypt below, he even burned a coffin with a body in it to recover what lead he had lost. 464 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND deprivation. Then, in Somerset, it was the custom to celebrate the anniversary of the patron saints of churches on the Sunday following. These " wakes," as they were called, were frequently scenes of drunk- enness and disorder. When Chief Justice Richardson made an effort to stop this abuse he was forbidden to ride on the western circuit again. All this seemed to the Puritans nothing more than governmental sanc- tion of Sabbath breaking. The Censorship of the Press. By a rigid censorship of the press and by the brutal punishment of those who evaded its restrictions, an attempt was made to check attacks on the existing system. Many of those suppressed or punished were violent and abusive in their language and unreasonable in their standards, but there was much to justify their protests, so that in silencing them, voices were stifled that cried for better things. The first sufferers, in spite of the cruel pains inflicted on them, attracted little attention. Among them was Alexander Leighton, a fiery and uneasy Scot. In his writings he had alluded to the Queen as a " Canaanite and an idolatress " and had attacked the bishops as " Knobs, wens and bunchy popish flesh," as " trumpery of anti-Christ " whom he counseled Parliament to smite under the fifth rib. In 1630 he was arrested, sentenced to pay a fine of 10,000, to have his ears cropped, be pilloried and whipped, and to remain in prison for life. Though part of the sentence was remitted he was only released from prison ten years later. In 1632 William Prynne, a barrister of vast learning, but narrow-minded and contentious, denounced the theater in a work entitled, Histrio- mastix; a Scourge of Stage Players, and received as hard measure as Leighton. Continuing his jeremiads from prison, he was called to account again in 1637, together with two others, Henry Burton and John Bastwicke, chiefly for onslaughts on the episcopacy. Each was sentenced in the Star Chamber to pay a fine of 5000, to stand in the pillory, to lose his ears, and to be imprisoned. Since Prynne's ears were already cropped, the stumps were gleaned, and he was branded with the letters " S. L." l But whereas the former sentences had passed unnoticed, this time the sufferers were surrounded by a sympathetic, grieving multitude. Nevertheless, in company with John Lilburne, another tempestuous spirit, who was caught circulating Puritanical books, they had to languish in prison till 1640. Fear of the Revival of Roman Catholicism. Another thing which contributed to alienate the subject was the widespread suspicion that the King and his advisers were on the road to Rome. Laud, as a matter of fact, regarded the Roman Church as a branch of the Catholic communion ; but thought it was severed by errors and innovations from the truer traditions preserved in the Church of England. He may have looked forward to a time when the two might be again united, but, in his opinion, the time was not yet. Indeed, shortly after his 1 That is, "Seditious Libeller," but he interpreted them to mean "Scars of Laud." CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 465 accession as Archbishop, he had refused a Cardinal's hat, declaring : " Something dwells within me which will not suffer me to accept . . . till Rome be other than it is." Charles, too, was stanchly orthodox ; but the Queen was a Catholic, and many of the court ladies were attracted by the gorgeous Roman ritual. Moreover, the King, in his desire to please Henrietta Maria, admitted papal legates and allowed concessions to worshipers of the old faith. A number of conversions resulted. Laud did all in his power to check the movement, but he was far from successful. Furthermore, since he personally preferred Romanists to Puritans and ruthlessly suppressed the latter, he was blamed for such Romeward tendency as there was. The Significance of the Religious Discontent. The significance of the discontent aroused by the Laudian policy is difficult to realize in the present day when men have such varied interests, when they may think what they like, and worship where they please. In the early seventeenth century the mass of Englishmen, beyond the routine of their daily life, had almost no intellectual resource save religion. Their reading was confined to the Bible and a few devotional and theo- logical works. Their instruction in morals and philosophy came largely from the sermons in- the parish church. There they were obliged to go and worship. When they were forced to participate in ceremonies which many of them regarded as idolatrous and to hear doctrines which their reason could not accept, it was inevitable that when the chance offered, their pent-up fury would burst forth with terrific consequences. For years, however, after the crisis of 1629, there was no open resist- ance. 1 The reason why it was so slow in coming lies on the surface. Since Parliament no longer met, there were no means of focusing and expressing public discontent. The press was muzzled. There were no public meetings, and, if any had been attempted, they would have been suppressed as seditious riots. There was no party organization and no adequate means of communication. Even gatherings at the tavern or alehouses or at the homes of the great merchants and gentry were dangerous, for they might be reported by spies. The fighting nobles who had once led the people against the Crown had been crushed under the Tudors, and the modern political agitators had not yet come to their own. So the bulk, even of the Puritans, conformed to the ecclesiastical regulations, either half-heartedly or sullenly; most of them meeting to worship and pray in secret. Others fled to America no less than 20,000 it is estimated to develop in the New World religious and political ideas and practices which were stifled in the Old. The turn of the tide in England came in 1637. The first manifestation was the popular demonstration about the pillory 1 Clarendon, the most famous of the contemporary historians, states that "after some short unquietness of the people . . . there quickly followed so excellent a composure throughout the whole Kingdom, that the like peace and tranquillity for ten years was never enjoyed by any nation." 2H 4 66 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND for Prynne and his fellow sufferers. In the same year came a burst of public excitement over the case of John Hampden and a rising in Scotland. All these formed "in an ascending scale of importance the first three steps of the popular movement which brought Charles to the scaffold." (4) Ship Money. Origin and Aim. With the Puritans in a state of sullen rage against the Laudian system, with many other grievances crying to be redressed, Charles undertook to impose one more financial e.xa.r.tion. All his ingenious but ill-judged expedients had been unpopular. Ship money proved to be the most " famous and disastrous " in its consequences. It called forth the first notable resistance, and it convinced the mass of the subjects that they could not depend upon the judges to protect popular rights. In spite of Coke's brave stand they had remained generally subservient. In 1627, on the question of habeas corpus, and again in 1629, in the case of Eliot and the other members, they had bowed to the royal will. They were still consulted beforehand, and those who showed the slight- est independence were dismissed. 1 There was no doubt that Charles was confronted by an urgent problem. The Dutch had grown to be the leading commercial power of Europe ; they carried more than half the goods to and from English ports, while their navy was the finest afloat. France, too, under the energetic Richelieu, was develop- ing a considerable sea power and was negotiating a treaty with the United Provinces for the partition of the Spanish Netherlands which lay between. In addition to the competition from the French and the Dutch, English shipping was gravely menaced by pirates from Algiers and Dunkirk, who scoured the Channel. Her merchant marine was in a deplorable state compared with the glorious days of Elizabeth, and the sovereignty of the seas, asserted by English monarchs since the first Edward, was in danger of becoming an empty boast. It was at this critical juncture that Charles proposed to the King of Spain that, in return for assistance in recovering the Palatinate, he would send out a fleet to maintain his supremacy in the Channel and protect Flanders. Though Philip received the project coldly the English King went ahead, and at the suggestion of his Attorney-General Noy, called on his subjects for ship money. With his characteristic want of frankness he concealed his designs against the French and Dutch, alleging merely that he aimed to clear the Channel of pirates. It was an old custom to call on the port towns and maritime counties for ships, while the levying of money instead, though very infrequent, was not unknown. Under the Tudors the practice had almost died out. In 1619 James had collected money from the ports to equip an expedition against Algiers, and in 1626 Charles raised a fleet in the same way. The first of the writs which he now issued, in October, 1634, was confined to the port towns. Since the country was at 1 This happened to Crewe in 1626 ; to Walter in 1629 ; to Heath in 1634. CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 467 peace and since money and not ships were asked for, the suspicion arose that a new scheme of direct taxation independent of Parliament was intendgd.^ In spite of some grumbling, however, the levy was paid without resistance. As a matter of fact, during the summer of 1635, Charles actually sent out a fleet which did good service. On 4 August, a second writ was issued, calling for twice the amount of the first and including the inland towns and counties. Public opinion was so roused that Charles consulted the judges in December and obtained an opinion from ten out of twelve that : " When the Kingdom was in danger, whereof his Majesty was the only judge, the charge ought to be borne by the Kingdom in general." When a third and even a fourth levy followed in 1636 and 1637, it became evident that here was an opportunity for a permanent and general tax "a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and an everlasting supply for all occasions." Feeling surged higher and higher, and calls were even heard for a Parliament. Hoping to stem the tide, Charles had, in February, 1637, referred to the judges again. This time he man- aged to get a favorable opinion signed by all twelve. 1 Hampden's Case, 1637. Among those who refused to pay his assess- ment in 1635 was John Hampden, a wealthy Buckingham squire. Though it amounted to only 20 shillings, his case was made the test. The trial was opened in November, 1637, before the full bench of twelve judges, and judgment was rendered in the following June. Hamp- den's counsel argued that a long series of statutes ending with the Pe- tition of Right forbade the King to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament. One of the counsel, Holborne, even denied that the sovereign was the sole judge of danger. The other, St. John, while admitting that point, maintained that before embarking on an offen- sive war there was always time to summon Parliament, and that in case of invasion the subjects could be called upon to defend the realm. In the present instance there was no danger of invasion. Charles' side was presented in the arguments of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General and in the opinions of the judges who decided for him. They sought to show that ship money was not a tax, that there were precedents for money levies upon the whole land, and that the King was sole judge of danger by virtue of absolute and inherent right. 2 Chief Justice Finch of the Common Pleas went to extreme lengths in asserting that the law gave the King the duty of defending the country, and, in consequence, the right of levying money for that purpose. "Acts of Parliament to take away his royal power in the defense of his Kingdom are void," he declared; " they are void 1 The two who had held out before acquiesced only because they were persuaded that it was customary for the minority to yield. 2 Justice Berkeley boldly asserted that : "The law is of itself an old and trusty servant of the King's ; it is his instrument or means which he useth to govern his people by. I never heard or read that lex was Rex; but it is common and most true that Rex is lex," 468 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Acts of Parliament to bind the King not to command the subjects, their persons and goods, and I say their money too, for no Acts of Parliament make any difference." According to Finch, the battle which Parliament had been waging for centuries to secure the power of the purse had been fought in vain. The sovereign, by the simple assertion that the kingdom was in danger, could impose whatever taxes he chose. Three of the judges were bold enough to declare that it was contrary to the law to levy any charges without consent of Parliament, though in time of danger the King could press every man and ship in the realm. Two others decided for Hampden on tech- nical grounds. Seven decided against him. For nearly four years ship money continued a legal source of revenue and was occasionally collected. The constitutional and political results of the Hampden case were momentous. It was evident that the judges would not protect the liberties of the subject, and that some of them at least had scant regard for what Parliament had gained in the past. With depend- ence on established law thus shaken the way was opened for revo- lution. Hampden became the hero of the hour. " The eyes of all men were fixed on him as their Patrice Pater, and the pilot who must steer the vessel through the tempests and storms that threatened it." (5) The Outbreak in Scotland. The outbreak in Scotland which also began in the memorable year 1637, was fraught with two notable consequences. It forced the King to call another Parliament, thus giving his English subjects a chance for concerted action, which culminated in civil war. Furthermore, it threw the Scotch on the parliamentary side, a fact which contributed appreciably to Charles' ultimate defeat. James, who boasted that " he knew the stomach " of his Scotch subjects, had been very cautious in his policy. To be sure, he had restored episcopacy, but in a modified form. He had established a Court of High Commission, and had sought to reduce the powers of the General Assembly ; but he had left the Kirk Sessions practically undisturbed. Only once, in the Five Articles of Perth, 1618, the most important of which provided that the communion should be received kneeling, did he interfere in worship and cere- mony. It was Charles and Laud who brought on the crisis. The Catholic marriage aroused the suspicion of the Scots at the very be- ginning of the reign, and every act which followed deepened their distrust. The King refused to annul the Five Articles; he made arrangements with regard to Crown and Church lands and titles, which, although not without justification, alienated the nobility, and he proceeded to fill important offices of State with bishops. The King's Journey to Scotland. The New Liturgy and Canons. In 1633 the King, accompanied by Laud, visited Scotland, where he was crowned with great display, though the coldness of his demeanor made an extremely unfavorable impression. Shocked at the lack of propriety in outward religious observance, which was due partly to conviction and partly to poverty, he determined to introduce far- CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 469 reaching changes. Accordingly, on his return to England he launched a series of high-handed measures. In October, 1634, he set up a new Court of High Commission with greatly extended powers. In- May, 1635, he gave his assent to a new Book of Canons, 1 which were pub- lished the following year. Drawn up without ever being referred to the General Assembly or Parliament, they declared the King absolute head of the Church. He also authorized a new Service Book which was sent down to Scotland in May, 1637. " Laud's Liturgy " or the " Popish-English-Scottish-Mass-Service-Book," as it was called, was unsparingly denounced; because its ceremonies smelled of the mass; because it followed the English model ; and because it was imposed by royal authority. 2 The Resistance against the New Service. The Scottish_National _ Covenant. The first attempt to read the new service was made 23 August, 1637, at St. Giles', Edinburgh. The two Scotch arch- bishops, the bishops, the lords of the Council, and other magnates were assembled " to give solemnity to the occasion." But directly the Dean started to read, there arose " such an uncouth noise and hubbub in the church that not any one could hear or be heard." Women were particularly active in the tumult which followed. One " she zealot," hearing a gentleman reading the responses behind her, turned round with the cry : " Traitor, dost thou say mass at my ear ? " and slapped him across the face with her Bible. Archbishop Spottis- woode, who tried to quell the uproar, was driven home with stones and abuse. The riot at St. Giles' represented the sentiment thoughout the country. Charles was flooded with supplications from all classes nobles, gentry, ministers, and burghers begging that the hated liturgy be suppressed ; but he was deaf to all appeals. In November the four classes chose a group of four committees, or " Tables," to represent their cause. They demanded the recall of the liturgy and the removal of the bishops from the Scotch Privy Council. There- upon, Charles issued a proclamation declaring all meetings and suppli- cations treasonable. The Scotch leaders, by way of reply, caused a bond or agreement to be drawn up, February, 1638. ("This " National Covenant " pledged the signers to renounce all errors and innovations of the Church of Rome and to take an oath for the defense of the Crown and true religion.) These two contradictory principles of devotion to Presbyterianism and__of_loyalty to the King plaved a curious part in the struggles to follow. Often the Scots were in arms against him; but only, they insisted, in defense of their religion. In March, the Covenant was presented for signature in the church of Greyfriars, Edinburgh ; but such a vast crowd thronged to subscribe that it was taken and laid on a tombstone outside. Almost everywhere through- out Scotland it was signed with equal enthusiasm. Where enthusiasm 1 I.e. a body of rules for governing the Church. 2 It was drawn up by the Scotch bishops in consultation with Laud and the King. 470 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND was lacking, persuasion and threats even were employed to secure sig- natures. Futile Negotiations and Preparations for War. In order to stem the rising tide, the Marquis of Hamilton was appointed royal commis- sioner in Scotland. It was agreed that a free Assembly and a free Parliament should meet and Charles even professed his willingness to revoke the Court of High Commission and to recall the canons and liturgy. But he refused to accept the Covenant. He insisted, also, that the Assembly should consist solely of clergymen, including bishops, while the Scots were determined to exclude the latter and to admit laymen. In defiance of the royal wishes, an Assembly, constituted after the Scotch plan, met at Glasgow, 21 November, 1638. Paying no attention to Hamilton's order to dissolve, they deposed the bishops, nullified the canons, the liturgy, and the Five Articles, and abolished the High Commission Court. Charles, who had only promised such con- cessions as he offered in order to gain time, had, by the spring of 1639, completed an elaborate plan for invading Scotland by land and sea, and for combining with it a rising of his supporters in the Highlands. However, he had no funds, and his subjects, fearing that a victory on his part would further endanger their liberties and strengthen the Laudian tyranny more firmly, contributed grudgingly. For troops he had only the trained bands and a few pressed men, raw, undisci- plined, and with no enthusiasm except to get home safely. Of the 30,000 on which he had counted he managed to raise only a third. His generals were men of no military experience or capacity. The Scots, on the other hand, were fired by a tremendous zeal, and were drilled by veterans schooled in the continental wars. Their com- mander, Alexander Leslie, later Earl of Leven, had been trained under Gustavus Adolphus, the greatest captain of the age. The First Bishops' War, 1639. Each side issued manifestoes jus- tifying its own cause. Events proved that the issue was to be de- cided on the Border, whither Charles and Leslie hurried their respec- tive forces. The diversions which the English King had planned in various parts of the country came to nothing. Early in June, 1639, Leslie took up a position just north of the Border. Charles in the meantime had posted his forces south of the Tweed near Berwick. When the armies were thus brought face to face, neither wished to fight. For Charles it meant certain defeat, while the Scots feared the consequences of a victory which might arouse the national pride of Englishmen to rally to the support of the King. It is said that only one man was killed, and he by accident, in the whole war. With both sides ready to come to terms, the Pacification of Berwick was easily arranged. The Scots agreed to disband, while Charles agreed to leave the ecclesiastical questions in dispute to a General Assembly and the civil questions to a free Parliament. The Assembly met at Edinburgh, 1 2 August, and, without mentioning the Glasgow Assembly, sanctioned all its acts, replacing the Episcopal by the Presbyterian sys- CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 47: tern. Furthermore, it imposed the Covenant upon the whole nation. Charles, again merely to gain time, ratified all their measures. How- ever, when the Scotch Estates, which mel; 31 August, proceeded also to confirm the acts, the Royal Commissioner refused to give his assent and ordered a dissolution. Charles supported him in his action, so the Estates met again, 2 June, 1640, on their own authority and prepared to resume the war. Wentworth in Ireland. His recall to England as the King's Chief Minister. Charles, too, had been making ready to renew hostilities. His chief adviser was Thomas Wentworth, whom he recalled from Ireland in September, 1639. Wentworth had served there as. Lord Deputy since 1633. He had ruled with a strong hand and greatly im- proved the material conditions of the country. He had suppressed piracy, protected trade, and encouraged the flax culture in the north. He had developed a well-disciplined army. He had been successful in managing Parliament and using it as a source of supplies. Also, he had endeavored to reform the Church in order to employ it as an intellectual and moral instrument against the ascendancy of Rome. Yet he had only accentuated the bitterness of the subject people. He had to contend against the religious prejudice and anti-English feeling of the natives and the greed of the English officials and colo- nists. Then he was harsh, impatient of opposition, and high-handed in his methods. In order to keep Ireland to some degree dependent on England, he discouraged the wool manufacture and kept salt as government monopoly. One of his policies is indefensible. In the Province of Connaught certain landowners had never registered their titles, but Charles, some years before Wentworth's arrival, had agreed that sixty years' possession would bar all claims. Regardless of his master's promise, the Lord Deputy, who designed to plant English colonists in the Province, sought by means of packed juries to evict even the proprietor whose holdings antedated the term stipulated. When the jurors of Galway refused to obey his will, they were punished and their verdict set aside. Other events prevented him from es- tablishing the plantation, but the attempt was a blot on his career. On the whole, he carried out in Ireland the rule of " thorough " which he and Laud in their correspondence advocated for England. The Short Parliament, 13 April to 5 May, 1640. In January, 1640, Wentworth was promoted to the higher dignity of Lord Lieu- tenant of Ireland and created Earl of Strafford. Influenced by his success with the Irish Parliament, he advised Charles to call an English Parliament. lt might grant the supplies needed to put down the Scots ; its refusal would give the King an excuse to act on his own au- thority^ When the session opened, 13 April, all of the leading oppo- nents of the royal policy were present. Although far from extreme in their attitude, they were determined upon redress of grievances, while the King insisted that a grant of supplies should come first. John Pym, a veteran who had sat in every Parliament since 1614 and who 472 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND from the leadership which he now assumed came to be known as " King Pym," opened with a stirring speech. In a masterly survey of the events of the session of 1629 and of the period of personal rule which followed, he summed up the popular complaints under three heads : breaches of parliamentary privilege ; innovations in religion ; and invasions of private property. Committees were appointed to consider each of these subjects. Instigated by the King, the Lords suggested passing at once to the question of supply; but when the Lower House resented this, they at once disclaimed any intention of interfering with the undoubted right of the Commons to initiate money bills. After an attempted negotiation for the abandonment of ship money in return for a large grant had failed, Charles, finding that there was little chance of getting any money without conces- sions which he was unwilling to make, and that the opposition leaders were treating with the Scots, ordered a dissolution, 5 May. Although the Short Parliament sat only three weeks and did not pass a single measure, its work was " as memorable as that of any Parliament " in English history, (it brought the chiefs of the people together and gave them an opportunity ,to discuss and formulate the popular dis- content against the CrownJ Devices for raising Money after the Short Parliament. Convoca- tion continued to sit and further embittered the anti-High Church sentiment by granting six subsidies and by passing canons which proclaimed the divine right of kings and bishops, and proposed a new oath to defend the existing Establishment. Strafford, in the Council, held that, since Parliament had refused to vote the required supplies, the King was " loosed and absolved from all rules of govern- ment." His violence and arbitrariness knew no bounds. He pro- posed that an army should be raised in Ireland to assist in reducing the stubborn Scots. Hampden, he declared, should be " well whipped into his right senses," for going to law about ship money. When the city refused a loan, he proposed that some of the aldermen be hanged as examples. All sorts of expedients were tried to raise funds. Ship money and its military equivalent, " coat and conduct " money for the equipment and transport of troops, were levied. Futile attempts were made to raise loans from Spain and the Pope. A proposal to debase the currency, known as " the abominable project of brass money " l came to nothing. It was even suggested that a mass of bullion which had been sent over from other countries to be coined should be appropriated as a loan. This desperate scheme was only abandoned when the Merchants Adventurers advanced 40,000 to save English credit abroad. Also, the Government very improvidently bought from the East India Company a large consignment of pepper on credit and sold it for cash at a lower figure than the payment agreed upon. All these expedients were as unproductive as they were un- 1 The proposed coins were to bear a Latin inscription from the 68th Psalm : "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered." CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE 473 popular. Insulting placards were posted in London and a mob at- tacked the palace of the Archbishop. The Second Bishops' War, 1640. On 23 August, Charles joined his army at York. It consisted mainly of pressed men, ill-equipped, discontented, Puritan in sentiment, and violently suspicious of its officers, many of whom were reputed Romanists. The Scots, having issued a manifesto declaring that they were merely seeking their rights, that they were in full sympathy with the English, and that they would not take so much as a chicken or a pot of ale without paying for it, crossed the Border, brushed the King's forces aside, and occupied the two counties of Durham a.nd Northumberland. In the face of the crisis Charles was forced to consent to summon another Parlia- ment. Before it assembled he called a Greal Conn HI of t.hp PPPTX the jfirstjof the sort since the reign of Edward III to meet him, 24 September, at York. His aim was to obtain advice and financial aid. They guaranteed a large loan and opened negotiations with the Scots at Ripon A It was finally agreed that the invaders should remain in possession of Durham and Northumberland and receive 850 a day until a definite peace was signed. Thence the negotiations were transferred to London, where they were concluded the following August. On 28 October, 1640, the Great Council was dissolved and a few days later Parliament met. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Montague, Political History, chs. VT-X. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, chs. V, VI. Cambridge Modern History (1906), IV, ch. VIII (bibliog- raphy, pp. 884 ff.)- Gardiner, History of England, chs. V-IX. Ranke, History of England, I, bk. V, chs. VI-IX, II, bk. VI, VII. Lingard, VII, chs. IV, V. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. V, ch. II, sees. 1-6. Taswell- Langmead, ch. XIII. Hallam, I, ch. VII ; II, ch. VIII. Gardiner, Constitutional Docu- ments of the Puritan Revolution (1899), introduction pp. i-xxxii; a good summary. Special. Seeley, British Policy, I, pt. II, chs. IV, VI. G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (1898). See also ch. XXVII above. Biography. P. Gibbs, George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (1908) ; rather gossipy. I. A. Taylor, The Life of Queen Henrietta Maria (1905). Macaulay, essay on Hampden. Goldwin Smith, Three English Statesmen (1868), Pym and Cromwell. H. D. Traill, Strajford (1889). W. H. Hutton, Laud (1895). D. Masson, The Life of John Milton (6 vols., 1859-1880) chs. I, II; every other chapter is de- voted to the general history of the times. Contemporary. Clarendon, History of the Great Rebellion (best ed. W. D. Macray, 6 vols., 1886) ; a literary and historical classic, but must be read with caution, owing to the inaccuracies and prejudices of the author. Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (best ed. C. H. Firth, 2 vols., 1885) ; a rather idealized pic- ture of the highest type of Puritan gentleman. Peter Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicanus (1668) ; a life of Laud by an avowed admirer. Church. W. H. Hutton, History of the English Church from the A ccession of Charles I to the Death of Anne (1903), chs. I-VII. Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, II, bk. VI, ch. III. Cambridge Modern History, IV, chs. XVII, XVIII (bibliography, pp. 909-918). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 189-194. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 1-25. CHAPTER XXIX FROM THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT TO THE OUT- BREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR (1640-1642) The Opening of the Long Parliament. Temper and Aims. The body which assembled, 3 November, 1640, came to be known as the Long Parliament. The years through which it was destined to sit were perhaps the most eventful in English history ; they were marked by a civil war ; by the execution of a king ; and by the setting up of a short-liyed_repjiblic, the only republic that England has had. For an interval of six years the Long Parliament was in abeyance ; but toward the close of 1659 it was revived, and helped to prepare the way for the restoration of the monarchy and the Church, which came the fol- lowing year. While most of the men who had found seats in the Short Parlia- ment were reflected in the autumn of 1640, the temper both of the members and of those who returned them had changed. Convinced by the events of the intervening months that Charles and his council- ors were conspiring to crush their religious and civil liberties and to introduce Roman Catholicism, they now determined not only to remove existing grievances, but to " pull up the causes of them by the roots." Even yet, however, their intentions were not revolution- ary. They designed merely to make it impossible for the King to govern without a Parliament ; to do away with his arbitrary power of taxing and administering justice; to safeguard Protestantism; and to punish the evil advisers whom they blamed for leading the King astray. In other words, they sought to restore the form of constitution which had existed under the Lancastrians substan- tially that of the present day. If they could have agreed upon their ecclesiastical as generally as they agreed upon their political pro- gram, and if they had been able to trust the King to observe the concessions which they wrung from him in the first months of the session, the war and its extreme consequences might have been averted. But a split came on the religious question ; one party wanted to abolish Episcopacy outright, the other party wanted only to modify it. The inevitable conflict encouraged the shifty King to start intriguing again in order to recover what he had yielded, and convinced the extremists that there was no hope of peace and safety until Charles Stuart had ceased to live. 474 THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 475 The Opposition Leaders in the Commons. John Pym (1584-1643). The party chiefs who had succeeded Eliot and his fellows differed from their predecessors in organizing a great popular movement out- side the walls of Parliament. For years they had been meeting and maturing their plans in the country houses of wealthy peers and com- moners. When the Short Parliament revealed the temper of the nation they began to act. They entered into negotiations with the Scots, they organized the petition for a new Parliament, and, during the autumn elections, they rode about the country, influencing voters to choose Puritan representatives. Until his death in December, 1643, the leading spirit in the popular opposition was John Pym. Accord- ing to the contemporary historian Clarendon, " No man had more to answer for the miseries of the kingdom, or had his hand or head deeper in their contrivances." Added to unusual abilities as a debater and parliamentary tactician, developed by training in six successive Houses, he had rare gifts of popular management. According to his theory, Parliament was the chief element in the constitutional life of the nation. " The powers of Parliament," he declared in a speech in 1640, " are to the body politic as the rational faculties of the soul to man." Of the two Houses the lower was, in his opinion, the one that should carry the essential weight, while the rights of the people transcended both. 1 He held that whenever the sovereign set himself against the popular will his act amounted to a temporary abdication, during which time the executive passed to Parliament as the representative of the people. He never was a republican, though, had he lived, events might have made him such. With regard to the Church, he was as opposed to Presbyterian as to Episcopal control, and gave his support to a measure for transferring the powers of the bishops whom he regarded as agents of royal despotism, to parliamentary lay commissioners. John Hampden (1594-1643). Pym's closest associate and sup- porter was John Hampden. A country gentleman of wealth, who had been educated at Oxford and the Inns of Court, he had ranged himself in the opposition ranks from his entry into Parliament in 1620. He was among the eighty who were imprisoned for refusing to pay the forced loan ; but it was the Ship Money Case which first made him a central figure in the struggles against the Crown. When he was killed in battle in 1643, his loss is said to have caused as much con- sternation to the Puritan party " as if their whole army had been de- feated," while the Royalists regarded it as " a great deliverance to the nation." Hampden's influence was due as much to his high rank and to his character as to his abilities. He was absolutely fearless, free from private ambition, and possessed of a wonderful ascendancy over men. From the few rough notes of his speeches that survive, it is clear that he was no orator ; but his words were always to the point and 1 As early as 1629 he stated in a speech to the Commons, "The Liberties of this House are inferior to the Liberties of this Kingdom." 476 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND carried great weight. Like Pym, he sought to bring about a recon- ciliation with Charles and his people rather than to do away with monarchy. Yet he was eager to punish the evil councilors at Court and gradually became an advocate of a " root and branch " extirpa- tion of Episcopacy. Pym and Hampden were the centers of a small group, forming the " engine which moved all the rest." Cromwell and Vane. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), who had entered the House of Commons in 1628, represented Cambridge in the Short and Long Parliaments. As yet he was notable chiefly for his religious zeal and his advocacy of Puritan liberty of preaching. The fact, however, that he was a cousin both of Hampden and St. John brought him into intimate relation with the opposition chiefs: he soon became active on committees, and " very much hearkened unto." " Very ordinarily apparelled . . . his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable," and fervid in utterance, he was a man of power rather than charm. Sir Harry Vane (1613-1662), whom Milton described as " young in years, but in sage council old," had already, as a youth of twenty-four, been Governor of Massachusetts. He had ability, industry, and great powers of leadership. Almost a fanatic in his enthusiasm, he was an extreme liberal in politics and an Independent in religion, having, according to Clarendon, " swal- lowed some of the fancies and extravagancies of every sect." The Constitutional Royalists. Lucius Gary (1610-1643), Viscount Falkland in the Scotch peerage, was a gentle nature who represented the philosophical and literary liberalism of the time. His house at Great Tew, near Oxford, was for a brief period the intellectual center of England. In his search for freedom from spiritual tyranny he came to fear the Presbyterian ascendancy more than the Laudian and went over to the royal side. When his hopes were again dis- appointed, he sought and found death in the battle of Newbury, 20 September, 1643. Edward Hyde (1609-1674), later Earl of Claren- don, was one of the most active in securing the political reforms of the first session of the Long Parliament ; but he was too much attached to the Church and the prerogative to go further, so, as the tendencies of the extremists in Church and State became more and more evident, he also joined the King's party and became the leader of the Con- stitutional Royalists. His History of the Great Rebellion, written mostly during his subsequent exile, is, in spite of its prejudices and errors of fact, the great historical classic of the period. The Puritan Peers. There was a small but staunch body of Puri- tan leaders among the peers, a few of whom belonged to the little circle dominated by Pym and Hampden. Chief among them were the Earls of Essex, Manchester, Warwick, and Bedford, Viscount Saye and Sele, and Lord Brooke. Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex, (1591-1646), a son of Elizabeth's favorite, was the first husband of Frances Howard. He had been vice-admiral of the Cadiz expedi- tion, and, though already opposed to Charles' policy in Church and THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 477 State, had served as second in command in the first Bishops' War. In the Short Parliament he ranged himself definitely in the ranks of the opposition. When the Civil War broke out, he was chosen com- mander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army, but, while actuated by a high sense of duty, he lacked assertiveness, his abilities were too slen- der for the difficult situation, and he had soon to make way for a leader of more robust fiber. Edward Montague, second Earl of Man- chester (1602-1671), was " a sweet meek man " who had much the same fate. An acknowledged leader of the Puritan popular party in the House of Lords, he was made commander of the army of the Asso- ciation of the Eastern Counties after the war broke out. He was charged by Cromwell with neglect and mismanagement in prosecut- ing hostilities, and also forced into retirement. Warwick did good service as Lord High Admiral during the coming struggle. The Strength of the Long Parliament. Charles could not dismiss this Parliament nor could he resist its measures ; for it was absolutely necessary for him to obtain a grant-, either to pay off the Scottish invaders or to raise another army to resist them. London, freed from the restraint which had so long checked all demonstrations of anti-royalist and anti-episcopal expression, became the center of stirring activity "the workshop of the revolution." Pamphlets on religion and politics, and fervid sermons contributed to spread radical ideas and to rouse men to carry them into effect ; sects multi- plied; while mobs of howling apprentices and even of once sober tradesmen menaced the Court at Whitehall and fanned the zeal of Parliament at Westminister. As an act of tardy justice the victims of the Star Chamber prosecutions, Prynne, Burton, Bastwicke, Leighton, and Lilburne, were released and welcomed in the City with every mani- festation of joy. Parliament, with the Scotch and London citizens to back it, went valiantly to work. Its labors during the few months of its first session group themselves under three main heads: (i) pro- ceedings against the King's councilors ; (2) curtailing the royal powers of arbitrary taxation and administration of justice ; (3) attempts at religious reform. (i) Impeachment of Stratford and Other Councilors. Parliament had sat just a week when Strafford, " the dark-browed apostate," whom the Commons regarded as the King's evil genius and their own most dangerous enemy, was impeached and placed in custody. His idea had been to remain at York and to train the motley royal forces into an army which might be used against the popular party in case of need ; but Charles, promising that he should " not suffer in person, honor, or fortune," summoned him to London. He obeyed, with gloomy forebodings. In order to anticipate his enemies in the Com- mons, he planned to arrest the leaders on a charge of plotting with Scotch rebels. However, led by the adroit and energetic Pym, they were able to strike first. Other impeachments followed in swift suc- cession. Some escaped, but Laud, " too old and brave to fly," was 478 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND lodged in the Tower, whence he was taken four years later to the block. The charges against Strafford which the Commons sent to the House of Lords declared, in substance : that he had traitorously endeavored to subvert the laws of England and Ireland and to introduce arbitrary and tyrannical government ; that he had advised the King to reduce his subjects in Scotland and England by force of arms ; and that he had tried to enlist " papists " in support of his political schemes. " Three whole kingdoms were his accusers and eagerly sought in one death a recompense of all their sufferings." The Trial of Strafford. The trial began 22 March, 1641, in West- minster Hall, which was crowded with spectators. The throne had been prepared for the King, but he sat apart in a box with Queen Hen- rietta Maria. While it was easy to prove the accused Minister guilty of tyranny and contempt of the law, it was not possible to substantiate the charge of treason. According to the existing law, that was an offense that could be committed only against the King, and the King had approved of all that Strafford had done. Pym, to be sure, had an ingenious argument. He asserted that Strafford's many arbitrary acts, by tending to put the King above the law, really amounted to treason, because they alienated his subjects and thus were in effect directed against the royal authority. Nevertheless, the underlying charge was treason against the nation a new offense which had never been recognized by statute. As the trial drew to a, close, the managers tried to introduce as evidence some rough notes of a speech which Strafford had made in the secret Council in the previous summer, advising the King to employ an Irish army to reduce " this kingdom." They had been taken by the elder Vane, one of the royal Secretaries, and found by the young Sir Harry in his father's study. v The Lords, however, refused to accept new evidence unless the Earl were allowed a similar privilege. Even had the notes been admitted, there were at least three difficulties in employing them as a proof of treason. In the first place, the law required two witnesses, and Vane was the only one who would testify as to what Strafford had said in the Council meeting. Secondly, there was no certainty from the notes as to what was meant by " this kingdom." If it was Scotland, there was no treason in advocating the employment of an Irish army ; for the Scots were in armed rebellion against their sovereign. Finally, even if England was meant, the advice, however gravely it menaced the liberty of subject, did not legally amount to treason. A Bill of Attainder substituted for the Impeachment. At length, fearing that the accused might escape after all, some of those most bent on his destruction proposed that a bill of attainder be substituted for the impeachment. St. John voiced the hatred of the extremists when he said : " We give law to hares and deer because they be beasts of chase, it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head as they can be found, because they be beasts of prey." Even the moderate Essex was moved to declare grimly that THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 479 " stone dead hath no fellow." Though opposed at first by Pym and Hampden, the bill of attainder passed the Commons, 21 April, 1641. Charles did everything in his power to block the further progress of the measure : he offered to dismiss the Earl, and even to give his con- sent to any punishment short of the death penalty. But the mob which surged about Westminster demanded the head of " Black Tom the Tyrant," while subjects of all classes, lords, commons, clergy, and the citizens of London, combined in the signature of a protestation for the defense of Protestantism, the privileges of Parliament, and the liberties of the people. Strafford's fate was sealed by the discovery of a plot, in which the Queen rashly engaged, to bring the army down from York to overawe Parliament. In consequence of a dispute which arose between two factions of the royalist supporters, this " first army plot " was betrayed to the popular leaders. Pym seized a fitting moment to disclose the information, and the Lords, who had hitherto hesitated, voted the attainder, 8 May. Charles withheld his signature as long as he could, but, pressed by deputations from both houses and menaced by the armed and excited throng, he was obliged to sacrifice his Minister whom he had promised to protect. " If my own person only were in danger," he declared, " I would venture it all to save Lord Strafford's life ; but seeing my wife and children, and all my kingdom are concerned in it, I am forced to give way . . . my Lord Strafford's condition," he added, " is more happy than mine." When the condemned Minister heard the decision, he exclaimed : " Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men, for in them is no salvation." On 12 May, receiving Laud's benediction as he passed, he proceeded dauntlessly and haughtily to his execution on Tower Hill. He had served the King faithfully and he was put to death without warrant of law ; but he was a dangerous man who, had he been allowed to live, would have worked to destroy the lib- erties of the people and the lives of their leaders. If they had dis- regarded the law, he had set them the example. (2) Remedial Legislation. Meantime Parliament had taken steps to curtail the King's arbitrary powers. In December, 1640, monopolies had been denounced and an order passed debarring mem- J3ers_concerned in them from sitting "in theLower House. On 16 Feb- ruary, a Triennial Bill became law, providing that henceforth ParhV ment shottld meet at least once in_three years. In case the King re^ fused to call a meeting within that interval, the Lord Chancellor and the sheriffs were authorized to exercise the right of summons, while, as a last resort, the peers might assemble and the freeholders might proceed to a general election without any summons at all. This measure, designed to prevent such long interparliamentary intervals as had occurred under James and Charles, was not without precedent ; for statutes of Edward III, though obsolete at this time, had provided for annual parliaments. Another measure designed to prevent for the future the summary methods which Charles had employed to 480 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND block Buckingham's impeachment and Eliot's resolutions pro- vided that Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent. This was the only really revolutionary measure of the whole session. The King gave his assent, n May, the same day that he agreed to StrafTord's attainder. Secured against interference with its work, Parliament proceeded to deal with taxation and the extraordinary courts. Acts curtailing the Royal Power of Taxation and the Extraordinary Courts. On 22 June, 1641, a statute was passed granting tonnage and poundage for two months; but providing that thenceforth " no subsidy, custom, impost, or other charge whatsoever " should be im- posed except by consent of Parliament on merchandise imported or exported. This was followed, 5 July, by an act abolishing the Star Chamber, the Council of Wales and the Marches, the Council of the North, and other special courts. The High Commission was done away with by an act which became law the same day. In August, ship money, the enlargement of the forests, and the exaction of knighthood fines were all declared illegal. This series of measures, preventing the King from governing without Parliament and depriving him of his arbitrary powers of raising money and administering justice, furnished a constitutional arrangement satisfactory to the popular party, but failed because Charles, in spite of his promises, refused to accept without a struggle the limitations thus imposed upon his sov- ereignty. He tried all manner of devices to recover the ground he had lost : he agreed to a new army plot ; he corresponded with agents of the Pope ; and he sought to raise a party in Scotland. His wife was fertile in suggesting expedients as rash as they were futile, while in- creasing dissension over the Church question offered him the hope of strengthening his party at the expense of his opponents. (3) Differences arising over the Attempt to Settle the Church Question. Of the parties opposed to the existing Church of England it seemed for a time as if the Presbyterians would prevail. The Scotch commissioners for completing the treaty of peace brought with them to London a number of preachers who at first received a favorable hearing, partly because they denounced " his little Grace of Canter- bury," and partly because the Long Parliament needed the support of their army. But the hotness of their proselyting zeal and the expense of maintaining the Scotch forces gradually made them unpopular with one section of the English popular party. Throughout that party there was a general desire for a parliamentary regulation of the Church as well as the State, and for doing away with the Laudian innovations. Sharp differences of opinion, however, arose over the nature and extent of the changes to be undertaken. There were many who demanded the abolition of Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer. Others, while hating Laud and his party, would have been content to see bishops of a more protestant temper and somewhat modified powers in their place, and to see certain alterations in the Prayer Book. Among THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 481 the extremists, or " root and branch " men, there were at least three groups : the parliamentary majority led by Pym wanted a Puritan State church, not tolerating dissent either of Anglicans or Anabaptists, but controlled by parliamentary lay commissioners in place of bishops ; a second group, made up of a few divines backed by the Scots, clamored for a Presbyterian establishment ; a third party, led by the London Independents, strove for congregational control of doctrine and worship. The "Root and Branch Petition." On n December, 1640, "a world of honest citizens in their best apparel " came to the House of Commons " in a very modest way " with a petition containing 15,000 names, for the abolition of Episcopacy " with all its roots and branches." The matter was debated long and earnestly in the Commons, but did not get beyond the committee stage, while the Lords threw out a bill to remove bishops from their House. They also rejected on a second reading a more moderate bill on Church reform which was sent up to them from the Lower House. Moreover, in reply to a resolution of the Commons, of i September, providing for the abolition of certain specified ecclesiastical innovations, they passed one of their own, declaring that the services of the Church should be performed as appointed by act of Parliament and that those who disturbed the existing order should be punished. The Second Army Plot and the "Incident." These differences gave Charles " a majority in the Lords and a large minority in the Commons " ; but instead of fostering the moderate party he ^allowed himself to be drawn into two wild and wholly irreconcilable schemes. One was to go to Scotland to attach to himself a party that was form- ing against the extreme Covenanters. The invitation came from the Earl of Montrose, who had recently come over to the King's side. At the same time, under the baneful influence of the Queen, Charles hopefully welcomed another attempt to bring the Yorkshire army to London. The second army plot, which proved more futile than the first, served only to strengthen the suspicion against the King. He started for Scotland 10 August, 1641, concealing his real purpose under the pretext that he was going to complete arrangements for the treaty of peace. While there, a plot was hatched by the Earl of Crawford to seize Argyle, Hamilton, 1 and other convenanting leaders. It was once thought that the " Incident," as this mad fiasco was called, was the work of Montrose, and that Charles was privy to it. While that is not true, it amounted to the same thing, for men believed it. The Ulster Rebellion, 1641. In the autumn of 1641 the news of a terrible rebellion in Ulster reached England. All the ancient Irish hatred, fostered by the Elizabethan conquest, by James' planta- tion of Ulster, and Strafford's attempted spoliation of Connaught, burst into flame now that the Earl was no longer there to check it. 1 "Very active in his own preservation," he had recently left the royal for the popular party. 21 482 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Moreover, encouraged by a prospect of Catholic concessions from the King, they were determined not to submit to the. ascendancy of an ultra-Protestant Parliament. Throughout the year 1641 the Irish were busy shaping their plans. They failed in an attempt to take Dublin, but the wild and ignorant peasantry, whom the leaders could not or would not control, threw themselves on their enemies with barbarous cruelty. It is estimated that 5000 were massacred out- right, and that twice as many more perished from starvation, exposure, fright, and other causes. Rumor exaggerated the victims to fabulous numbers, ranging from 40,000 to 300,000. The English were horrified and alarmed. They attributed the outburst, not to oppression and extortion, but the savagery of the Irish worked on by the teachings of the Church of Rome. Parliament and the people saw the need of recruiting a large army to deal with the situation, but the leaders feared to trust unreservedly any considerable force to the King, be- cause it would give him just the weapon he needed to recover his power. So Pym carried a motion that Charles should either " choose those councilors ministers as should receive parliamentary approval" or Parliament would raise an army subject to its own control. This demand alienated many who had hitherto inclined to the popular side. The result was to precipitate the passage of the Grand Remon- strance, pushed through by Pym and his followers as a means of ap- pealing to the people in a more detailed and formal manner than they had yet done. The Grand Remonstrance, 1641. During the first week after the opening of the Long Parliament a motion had been introduced to draw up such a remonstrance to the King "as should be a faithful and lively representation of the state of the kingdom." It was August, however, before the proposal was adopted, and the discussion might have dragged on interminably if the Irish Rebellion had not brought the matter to a head. The Remonstrance was read in the Commons, 8 November; on the 22d it was finally discussed and passed by a vote of 159 to 148 ; i December it was presented to the King, and two weeks later it was ordered to be printed. Although addressed to the Crown, the Grand Remonstrance was, in reality as well as in intention, an " appeal to the nation," a statement of the case of the Commons against the King. It consists of a preamble and 204 num- bered clauses. They trace in considerable detail the King's mis- government, from his accession to the meeting of the Long Parlia- ment ; they describe the condition in which the Commons had found the nation at the opening of the session, the abuses which they had abolished, the reforms which they had prepared and effected, the obstacles they had met with from " evil councilors and slanderers," from army plots, Irish rebellion, and so on ; they explain and defend the scheme of the church reform of the parliamentary leaders ; and they outline the other remedial measures demanded: the establish- ment of safeguards against Roman Catholicism, of securities for the IRELAND SINCE THE. ACCESSION OF THE STUARTS Longitude 8 West 7 from 6 Greenwich 5 BOHUAY t C3.,ENSH',N.T, THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT' 483 better administration of justice, and the choice of such ministers as Parliament might have cause to confide in. An accompanying peti- tion presented the existing situation, and indicated in a general way what the framers desired in return for loyally aiding the King against the Irish. Its Significance. The document is of the deepest significance in connection with the events leading up to the Civil War. It pre- sents a condensed but adequate history of the reign from the stand- point of the parliamentary opposition ; it is a clear, concise statement of the case of the popular party, and, finally, it caused a breach in the opposition ranks resulting in the formation of the party of Con- stitutional Royalists who encouraged the King to continue the struggle. Hyde, their leader and organizer, refused for a time to accept office under the King, and remained in the Commons until May, 1642 ; but only because he thought he could better serve the royal interests in that way. The earlier clauses denouncing past misgovernment were not opposed. The fight began over the recommendations for Church reform and waxed bitter over the question of printing, which meant submitting the whole matter to the people. Members shouted, waved their hats, and even drew their swords. 1 During the factional fights which followed, the names " Cavalie_r " and "Roundhead." first came to be employed. The Attempted Arrest of the Five Members. Charles returned from Scotland late in November, 1641. Deceived by the splendor of his reception in the City and encouraged by the split in the parlia- mentary ranks, he not only returned an unsatisfactory answer to the petition, but sharpened the issue by various ill-advised acts. On 3 January, in order to avert a rumored impeachment of the Queen, and at the same time to rid himself of his most dangerous opponents, he ordered the Attorney-General to impeach five members of the House of Commons, including Pym and Hampden. 2 They were charged with subverting the fundamental laws of England, inviting a foreign power to invade the kingdom, stirring up tumults, and levying war against the King. Egged on by his wife, Charles went the next day with an armed force to seize them in person. He entered the Chapel of St. Stephen, 3 accompanied only by his nephew the young Elector Palatine; but through the open door could be seen eighty of his attendants who had crowded into the lobby. The accused members, warned of his intention, had fled by boat to the City. When Charles asked if they were in the House, Speaker Lenthall humbly evaded the 1 Cromwell is reported to have said : "If the Remonstrance had been rejected, I would have sold all I had the next morning and never seen England any more; and I know there were many other honest men of the same resolution." 2 This was a most irregular proceeding, for impeachments had hitherto never originated except in the Lower House. The name of one peer was afterward added : Viscount Mandeville, sometimes known as Lord Kimbolton. 8 The meeting place of the Commons in Westminster Hall. 484 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND question with the memorable words : " May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." Charles answered : " Well, I see all the birds are flown," and adding that he was seeking traitors, but never intended any force, he went away pursued by cries of " Privilege ! privilege ! " The incident was regarded as one of tremendous import. If the leaders who had secured the recent political concessions and who were striving for a more satisfactory religious settlement were to be treated as traitors, and if the sacred precincts of the Commons could be invaded by the sovereign with an armed force at his heels, there was little hope of any safeguarding the liberties of the subject in a peaceful parliamentary way. The Struggle for the Control of the Kingdom. Five days after his failure to arrest the members Charles withdrew from London with his family. He was never again to enter his capital except as a prisoner. On 13 February, 1642, a month after his departure, he gave his assent to two important measures : one, the .Clerical Dis- abilities Act, depriving the clergy of their temporal jurisdiction and the bishops oTtheir_ seats in the House of Lords ; the other, the _ pressmen t Act^ltuThorizing the pressing of soldiers for__siyice in Ireland. The next six months were occupied in a struggle between Parliament and the King for the control of arsenals, fortresses, militia, and other military resources of the kingdom. Parliament saw no other way to guarantee the political and religious liberties of the people, while the King realized that he could only maintain his sovereignty by frustrating their efforts. When he was advised to yield the command of the militia, at least for a time, he burst out : " By God, not for an hour. You have asked that of me in this that was never asked of a King, and with which I will not trust my wife and children." Sir John Hotham, acting under parliamentary orders, managed to seize Hull, the greatest magazine in the country, and, 23 April, when the King sought to enter, he was refused admission. The Opening of the War, 22 August, 1642. Parliament, 2 June, sent him Nineteen Propositions embodying their final demands. These included : parliamentary control of the army, _of appointments to important political and judicial offices, of the guardianship and marriage of the King's children : _the suppression oTRoman Catholicism; and thlT reform of the governmenFand liturgy oTlhe Church as Parlia- ment^ should advise . Charles refused to accept these terms. HacTtie done so he would have ceased to be King. So, aided by supplies from the Queen who had escaped abroad and pawned the crown jewels in Holland, he hastened preparations for war. Parliament did the like : they chose a committee of both Houses to provide for the safety of the kingdom ; they voted an army and appointed the Earl of Essex Captain- General. All this, they declared, was for " the safety of the King's person ; the defense of both Houses of Parliament, and those who have obeyed their orders and commands ; and the preservation THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 485 of the true religion, laws, liberties, and peace of the kingdom." Further futile negotiations followed. Then Charles marched south toward London from York, where his headquarters were. On 22 August, 1642, he raised his standard at Nottingham and the Civil War^was begun. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Montague, Political History, chs. XI, XII. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, ch. VII. Cambridge Modern History, IV, ch. IX. Gardiner, History of England, IX, X; Lingard, VII, ch. VI; Ranke, II, bk. VIII. Constitutional. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. V, ch. II, sec. 8. Hallam, II, ch. IX. Taswell-Langmead, ch, XIV. Gardiner, Documents, introduction, pp. xxxii-xliii. Special. H. L. Schoolcraft, The Genesis of the Grand Remonstrance (1902) ; an excellent study. John Forster, The Grand Remonstrance (1860), and The Arrest of the Five Members (1860). See also chs. XXVII, XXVIII above. For Biography, Church, Scotland, and Ireland see also chs. XXVII, XXVIII above. J. A. R. Marriott, Life and Times of Lucius Gary, Viscount of Falkland (1907). John Stoughton, History of Religion in England (6 vols., 1881), I ; from the Nonconformist standpoint. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 195-206; Gardiner, Documents, nos. 26-56. CHAPTER XXX FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR TO THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I (1642-1649) The Aim of the Popular Leaders in the Civil War. Even now that the issue was joined, the guiding aim of the parliamentary leaders was still merely so to restrict the powers of the Crown that the people they represented might be secure in their civil and religious liberties. The war which followed, and the resulting execution of the King, came from a final realization of the fact that Charles would not submit to any considerable loss of his powers, and that he was conspiring in every possible way to recover the ground which he had been forced to yield. The events of the past year had marked a decided advance in the parliamentary demands. Barring the settlement of the re- ligious situation, the great mass of the members in the autumn of 1641 had been satisfied with depriving the King of the extraordinary judicial powers acquired since the accession of the Tudors ; with securing control of the supplies ; with guaranteeing frequent sessions and the duration of the existing body until its work was done. By June, 1462, they found it necessary to demand safeguards against Episcopacy and Roman Catholicism, and control of the military, judicial, and administrative machinery of the government. Curiously enough, Parliament, when it raised an army to fight the King, pro- fessed to be levying war in his name to secure him against his evil advisers. 1 While during the struggle Episcopacy and monarchy were temporarily overthrown, it was only as a means to an end to preserve Protestantism and the law. The Puritan Revolution dif- fered from many of the great upheavals of history in that it was not aimed against wealth and class privileges. It was directed by pros- perous, high-souled gentlemen whose subjects were ideal and not material. Unworthy men and unworthy motives played a part in the struggle; there was some self-interest and much bigotry and in- tolerance, but the heart of the movement was sound and wholesome. The Numbers and Grouping of the Combatants. The zealous fighters on either side, however, were in a small minority. The total number in arms was about two and one half per cent of the pop- ulation. The bulk of those engaged on one side or the other were 1 Essex was directed in his commission " to rescue his Majesty's person . . . out of the hands of those desperate persons that were about him." 486 THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 487 forced into activity because they were preached against, plundered, or heavily taxed. 1 Many who had resisted the King in his encroach- ments against their liberties and property hesitated to draw their swords against him when the fatal moment for decision came. Fear of anarchy and dread of Puritan supremacy weighed heavily with numbers of them. Another powerful check was a deep-rooted in- stinct of loyalty. It is said that the motto, " Fear God, honour the King," adorned the walls of many a manor house and was an ingrained, inherited tradition, stronger in the minds of a goodly proportion of sterling country gentlemen than their .love of Protestantism and liberty. Such men leavened the mass of " alehouse rabble," the roisterers and the frivolous whose course was determined by their hatred of Puritan austerity. The nobles generally took the King's side, though enough, like Essex, Mandeville, Warwick, and Brooke, fought against him " to make rebellion respectable." 2 Others oscillated or " warily distributed their family to both sides." While the majority of the gentry also stood by the King, a considerable minority were to be found in the parliamentary ranks. Of the small freeholders or yeomen the greater part of the east and midlands were Parliament men ; the royalist following among this class was strongest in the west. As a general rule, the trading classes in the towns were strong for Parliament. The laboring classes were mostly indifferent, only fighting when they were pressed, or when it was necessary to defend their poor homes and their goods and chattels. The Anglican clergy were stanch in their royalism, as were the universities, more especially Oxford, which was, during the greater portion of the war, the King's headquarters. Most of the great Catholic families also threw in their lot with the Crown. 3 Territorial Distribution of Parliamentarians and Royalists. The north, the west, and the extreme southwest, the strongholds of royalism, were largely agricultural and pastoral, economically backward and under the control of landed magnates. The most productive agri- cultural regions and the bulk of the commerce and manufactures were in the south and east, the centers of advanced religious and political sentiment. Roughly, a line from Hull to Southampton separated the royal from the parliamentary districts, though ports and marts of trade like Bristol, Gloucester, and Plymouth in the royalist country were for Parliament. The resources of men and money were very 1 One of the moderates well expressed the sentiments of the vast majority: "I would not have the King trample on the Parliament, nor the people lessen him so much as to make a way for the people to rule us all." Hobbes, the famous phi- losopher, stated that : "If the King had money, he might have had soldiers enough, for there were very few of the common people that cared much for either of the causes, but would have taken either side for pay or plunder." 2 It is estimated that in the House of Lords 80 were royalist, 20 were neutral, and 30 for Parliament. 3 The Marquis of Worcester, who had an income of 24,000 a year, lent Charles, it is said, 120,000. 488 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND unequally distributed. The parliamentary territory contained about six sevenths of the whole population, and, to judge from the ship money assessments, possessed at least three quarters of the wealth of the entire country. Here the rich and populous London, an in- calculable source of strength, was situated. Royal Attempts to secure Alliances Abroad. But although there were general lines of cleavage socially and territorially " the war was not one of classes or districts but of ideas." Outside England, Charles sought aid in various directions ; but with ill success. In attempting to ally himself with the Irish Catholics he lost more than he gained, because of the opposition which he excited among his English subjects. In Scotland, Montrose led the wild Highland clans valiantly but vainly in his cause. The Queen was tireless in her intrigues with continental powers. The House of Orange, which was allied to the English royal family by marriage, sent some help, but could not do much, in view of the opposition of the States General. In France, Louis XIII, Henrietta's brother, died in May, 1643, an d Mazarin, who became Chief Minister, 1 preferred to see England weaken herself by continued strife, while, furthermore, he had his hands full with the Parliament of Paris and a body of disaffected nobles. To the Pope and Spain one heretic was as good as another, so they refused to listen to the entreaties of Henrietta so long as Charles continued a Protestant. Revenues of the Two Parties. The navy declared for Parliament. The hated ship money had contributed somewhat to restore it to the state from which it had declined since the glorious days of Elizabeth, but the sailors, pressed into service against their will and inade- quately clothed and fed, had no sense of loyalty to the King. In the hands of his opponents the navy was a powerful weapon ; for it enabled them to collect customs from the ports, and to prevent such aid from abroad as the lukewarm powers might be inclined to send. Also the King could not blockade and so subdue London and the great ports by stifling their commerce. Aside from the customs, Parliament collected the King's taxes and the rents from the royal estates in the districts which they controlled. But they derived the bulk of their revenue from two new forms of taxation an excise, or inland revenue duty; and a direct levy on lands and goods, known as the " monthly assessment," because it was ap- portioned in the various counties each month. Charles, for his part, had to subsist largely on plunder and gifts from his devoted followers. Having little ready money and able to collect only a portion of their normal rents, most of them were sooner or later reduced to melting their plate and sacrificing their jewels. The Two Armies. Parliament directed their side of the war through a Committee of Safety until 1643, when they united with 1 Richelieu had died in December, 1642. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 489 the Scotch. Thenceforth, Scotch representatives were admitted, and the name was changed to the Committee of Both Kingdoms. The government was carried on by means of ordinances which without the assent of the King and, later on, even without that of the Upper House had all the force of statutes. There was no standing army or professional soldiery: the forces consisted of volunteers, pressed men, and country militia or " trained bands." Most of the country magazines where the arms and armor had been kept since the time of James I were seized by Parliament, which also held possession of those at Hull and the Tower of London, the two greatest in the king- dom. Of the various forces, the least serviceable with the notable exception of those from London were the trained bands. Men who could afford it had always evaded the obligations, while furthermore, since they were changed at every muster, they were always raw and inexperienced. Then, too, they were unwilling to march outside their own counties. The best service was rendered by volunteer forces raised by private persons for the King or Parliament. In some cases, groups of counties banded together to put an army into the field. The most famous of these was the Eastern Association l whose levies rendered notable service. It was as commander of horse in the army of tl^e Eastern Association that Cromwell developed his famous regiment of " Ironsides," which became the nucleus of the victorious New Model Army. At first the parliamentary party suffered from the lack of a com- petent commander : indeed, most of their earlier generals were chosen because of their social position rather than their military capacity. The King was head of the royal forces ; but he was slow and irresolute, while Henrietta Maria, who was constantly spurring him on, was headstrong and lacking in balance. The earlier commanders-in- chief who acted^ under him were mere figureheads. His nephew Rupert, who began as commander of horse and became general in chief toward the close of the war, was a dashing cavalry leader, but utterly without caution and restraint. At the opening of the struggle both sides made the mistake of underrating their opponents. The Parliamentarians saw in the King's men a body of mincing courtiers and profane swaggerers, while the royalists contemned their enemies as shopkeepers and clodhoppers. Cromwell, however, after the first real encounter at Edgehill, recognized the mistake his side was making, and said to Hampden with shrewd penetration : " Your troops are, most of them, old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger men and persons of quality ; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honor and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of a spirit, and, take it not ill what I say . . . of a spirit that will go on as far as the gentlemen will go or you will be beaten still." 1 Consisting of the counties of Norfolk, Essex, Cambridge, Suffolk, and Hertford. 490 . A HISTORY OF ENGLAND In those days, when enclosures and fences were less common than they came to be later, cavalry had freer play, and they formed the most important arm of the service. Here the royalists had the initial advantage, for the gentry were used to riding, hunting, and martial exercises, and exacted implicit obedience from the tenantry who served under them. The infantry were about double the number of cavalry. Though, in general, they played a subordinate r61e, it was the destruction of Charles' foot soldiers at Marston Moor and Naseby which lost him the north and the south successively. Their weapons were supposed to be the pike and the musket, but many had nothing but pitchforks and cudgels, while a few appeared with the primitive bow and arrow. The parliamentary artillery, greatly developed by Cromwell, proved very effective in reducing royalist strongholds after the King had been overcome. In the beginning there was no approach to a regular uniform. Regiments appeared in red, blue, green, or white, according to the taste of the colonel who raised them : sometimes the livery of his servants was adopted. In the New Model, red, which was the favorite color among the troops of the Eastern Association, finally prevailed. Distinguishing badges were often worn ; for instance, some of the Roundheads wore orange scarfs throughout the war. Sometimes a device was assumed for a particular battle. At Newbury the Roundheads wore green twigs, at Marston Moor white handkerchiefs, or pieces of paper in their hats. More frequently battle cries were employed, such as " God with you," on one side ; " Have at you for the King," on the other. The Plan of War. In the early stages of the. _war neither side had any consistently executed plan of campaign. Charles' main aim was to recover LorTdon, while Parliament at first aimed merely to gain as much territory as possible, and, to that end, its armies wan- dered aimlessly about the country. It was only after the rise of Fairfax and Cromwell and the reorganization of the parliamentary forces into the New Model that a definite plan was adopted the defeat of the King in battle and the capture of his person. Want "of money, lack of discipline, and absence ol enthusiasm on the part of the rank and file hampered both sides, and numberless petty engagements resulted which exhausted their energies and obscured the larger features of the struggle. The Campaign of 1642. From Nottingham Charles marched west to recruit his slender forces and supplies. Essex followed him slowly. Suddenly the King turned back, with his pursuer hard on his heels, and made for London. At Edgehill, in Warwickshire, the first serious encounter of the war took place, 23 October, 1642. The result was a drawn battle. Rupert easily rode down the opposing cavalry; but, since he was unable to keep his horsemen in hand, the infantry of Essex were able to defeat those of the King before he could get back. The chief consequence of the engagement was to convince Cromwell that his party could accomplish nothing with ENGLAND AND WALES 6 West 4 Longitude 2 from 1 Greenwich East 1 BOMUY i CO.. [Sill's. K.Y. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 491 such a miscellaneous lot. Thereupon, he went off to the eastern counties to organize his famous troop. Essex pressed on to London, while Charles established himself at Oxford, which he made his head- quarters during the remainder of the war. Before the close of the year he made one more vain attempt to reach the capital ; but his failure was counterbalanced by the success of royalist forces in the southwest and the north. The peace party which had been active since the outbreak of hostilities finally succeeded in opening negotia- tions with the King, i February, 1643. These negotiations, known as the " Treaty l of Oxford," dragged on till 14 April, 1643. The terms totaj_abolition of Episcopacy; settlement of Church government ^n~TbasisJdetermmecf by -Parliament in consultation with an assembly of divinesT; parliamentary control of the army and navy_, and the liandlhg over ot the royal supporters 2 to Parliament were such as Charles couTd not accept while he could maintain an army in the field. This was the last attempt to arrange a peace for two years. Trie Campaign of 1643. The royalists in the campaign of 1643 again made London the objective point. They planned to approach and surround the City from three directions. The Earl of New- castle was to force his way from Yorkshire through the hostile eastern counties and take up a position on the north bank of the Thames. Sir Ralph Hopton with the men of Devon and Cornwall was to march through the southern counties, occupy Kent, and thus threaten the City from that direction. Charles, with the Oxford army, re- cruited from Wales and the west midlands, was to approach between them and complete the line of investment. But this well-devised plan, in spite of some preliminary successes, was frustrated mainly by the narrow fears and selfishness of the local levies and the parlia- mentary control of the ports. The Yorkshiremen would not move from home while Hull remained in the hands of the enemy ; the men of the south were of the same mind about Plymouth, and Charles found it impossible to lead his forces from the west until he had made an attempt to reduce Gloucester, which commanded the navigation of the Severn. Newcastle's Failure in the Eastern Counties. Cromwell's " Iron- sides." - During the spring and early summer Newcastle with his " northern papist army " won for Charles practically the whole land from the Scotch border to the Humber, except Hull. Then he led his unwilling forces into the counties of the Eastern Association, 3 a district which, because of its wealth and tough Puritan stock, formed the backbone of the parliamentary cause. Here Cromwell was labor- ing to organize a force of men of real ideals, strengthened by effective 1 In those days the terms "treaty" and "negotiations" were synonymous. 2 Called "delinquents" by the Parliamentarians. 3 The original five were increased by the addition of Huntington, in May, and Lincolnshire in September. 492 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND drill, and held together by adequate and regular pay. His famous regiment of horse later known as the " Ironsides " which was his particular creation, is almost unique in the history of warfare. It consisted of men of substance, largely freeholders. Their leader accepted none but " those who had the fear of God before them and made some conscience of what they did," yet so long as they were Protestants who were not " prelatists, 1 he did not care what their sect might be. Terrible against the enemy, they studiously refrained from plunder and all manner of cruelty toward non-combatants. With all the fire and dash of Rupert's men they had a stability and a restraint which their opponents lacked. Cromwell not only com- manded their respect by his military ability and his political and re- ligious principles, but won their warm affection by his " familiar rustic carriage," his love of merriment, and fondness for rough games. The new regiment first showed its strength by repulsing Newcastle in a cavalry skirmish at Gainsborough, 25 July, 1643. Though it was obliged to retreat when the latter's whole army came up, the reluctant temper of his forces obliged him to turn back. After a brief and unsuccessful siege of Hull he retired to York. Meantime, Parliament had sent Manchester into the Associated Counties with a commission to raise 10,000 foot and 5000 horse to be paid for out of the national taxes. The Failure of the Royalists from the South and West to reach London. In the west Hopton succeeded in overrunning Devon, Wiltshire, and Dorset ; he captured Taunton, Bristol, and Exeter, and 13 July, 1643, he cut to pieces, at Roundway Down, a parliamentary army under Sir William Waller. However, since Plymouth, supported by a parliamentary fleet, held out persistently, the Cornishmen re- fused to march to Kent. In the west Essex, whose army was steadily wasted by sickness and desertion, conducted a desultory and in- effective campaign centering about Oxford. In one of Rupert's numerous cavalry raids occurred the skirmish of Chalgrove Field, 1 8 June, where Hampden was mortally wounded. In spite of the in- eptitude of the parliamentarians the royalist forces would not march on London until Gloucester was captured; so, 10 August, Charles encamped before the City. Owing to frequent defeats, to pressure of taxes, and the disturbance of trade, London seethed with dis- content, and angry mobs besieged Parliament, crying, " Peace ! peace ! " Nevertheless, since compromise and surrender were alike out of the question, the only hope was to fight until a signal success was achieved. Therefore, Essex was sent with an army of 15,000, including " citizens of good account " and apprentices from the London trained bands, to raise the siege of Gloucester. Charles, withdrawing at their approach, sought to block their return to London. A fierce but indecisive battle was fought near Newbury, 20 September, 1643. The King's powder 1 That is, supporters of the Episcopal system. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 493 having given out, he slipped away during the night, leaving the Lon- don road open to his enemy. The Solemn League and Covenant, 1643. Meantime, Parliament had completed an alliance with " their brethren of Scotland " that marked the turning point of the war. The failure of the Treaty of Oxford and the royalist successes of the early part of 1643 turned the leaders again toward their former allies. The chief stumbling block was the attempt of the Scots to impose upon the English their system of doctrine and Church government. When they proposed that the Church^ pfEngland_bereforrned tt according to the example "oFlne besTreforn^d C-ti^rrhjes," meaning, ot course, Vane, one of the English commissioners, slipped in the qualifying worcls " according to the word of God," which gave a loophole to the many who regarded Independency, or Congregationalism, as the divinely ordained form. The negotiations which began in May cul- minated in the Solemn League and Covenant " for reformation and defense of religion . . . and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland," which was finally accepted by both Houses, 25 September, 1643. All the subscribers undertook to preserve the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, to reform religion in the kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, and to bring all three to the " nearest conjunction and uniformity " in religion, government, and worship ; to extirpate " Popery, prelacy . . . and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of Godliness " ; to " preserve the rights and privileges of Par- liament and the liberties of the kingdoms " ; to " defend the King's Majesty's person and authority" ; and to endeavor that the kingdom " may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity." The Scots contracted to provide an army, for the support of which the English Parliament agreed to furnish 30,000 a month. " No more important step was taken during the war. ' ' It assured the victory of Par- liament ; but the introduction of the Scots and Presbyterianism into the struggle led to a breach in the ranks of the anti-royalists which encouraged the King to persevere until he finally lost his head. The Death of Pym, 8 December, 1643. The alliance was mainly the work of Pym and was his last great undertaking; for, worn out with his arduous labors, he died, 8 December, 1643. In him the cause lost a matchless leader as it had lost a wise counselor in Hampden. They were sadly missed in the troubles soon to break out between the military chiefs and the Houses. The Westminster Assembly. As soon as it was decided to ask military aid of the Scots, reform of the Church on a Presbyterian basis became a " political necessity," and an assembly for that purpose met at Westminster Abbey, i July, 1643, nearly two months before the formal ratification of the Solemn League and Covenant. This body, notable as " the only great Protestant council ever assembled on English soil," consisted of ten peers, twenty commoners, one 494 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND hundred and twenty-one divines, three scribes, and eight Scotch commissioners. Its formal sessions continued till 22 February, 1649. Unlike the Scotch General Assembly, it was under parliamentary control ; it considered only such matters as Parliament referred to it, and its recommendations had no binding force unless they were legalized by parliamentary ordinance. Nevertheless, the Confession of Faith 1 and the Shorter and Longer Catechisms which it formu- lated, though Parliament never accepted them, remain the form of belief and instruction in the Presbyterian Church to-day. The Assembly also drew up a Directory of Worship and a Form of Church Government. The latter was accepted by Parliament, with the qualification, however, that it should be under the control of a stand- ing committee of the Houses. Although a system of Presbyterian classes was established in many counties 2 the final triumph of the army, which stood for independency and toleration against Scotch, clerical, parliamentary domination, prevented the system from ever becoming national. Indeed, in the Assembly itself, where the Pres- byterians were in the majority, the Independents managed to make themselves felt by their courage and zeal. Outside, not only Inde- pendents, but all sorts of sects, Baptists, Antinomians, and others, grew in numbers and violence. Cromwell, who, though he cared little about speculative opinions, wanted to unite all Protestants who would fight against the King, came to be the recognized leader of the anti-Presbyterian party. It only fomented the discord when Parliament, 5 February, 1644, ordered every Englishman over eighteen to take the Covenant. The Royal Parliament at Oxford, 22 January, 1644-16 April, 1645. The King summoned all members who had left Westminster to meet in a Parliament at Oxford, 22 January, 1644. It accomplished nothing, and when it began to make suggestions about economy and toleration unpalatable to the King, it was dissolved April 16, 1645. In a letter^to the Queen he congratulated himself on toeing rid of his " mongrel Parliament " and " the base and mutinous motions " it had proposed. The court at Oxford was not a place where sober parliamentary government could flourish. There the most diverse elements flocked : the Catholic who saw in a royal victory prospects of toleration ; roisterers who were repelled by Puritan fanaticism ; and those whom loyalty called with a stern voice. There was the center of fashion and frivolity ; of actors, playwrights, and poets ; of gaming, drinking, dissipation, and faction. Counsels were divided, political and military. And the King was unequal to a situation which might well have appalled a far more stable and competent man. Marston Moor, 2 July, 1644. While at the beginning of 1644 he was still master of two thirds of the kingdom, he weakened his forces by trying to garrison all the territories which he held, while his sup- J The celebrated "Westminster Confession." * The system was most effectively worked out in London and Lancashire. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 495 plies and equipment were rapidly melting away. On the other hand, though the taxpayers grumbled, the -parliamentary troops were well provided and were learning their trade in the exacting school of ex- perience. In January, 1644, the Scots, under the veteran Earl of Leven, crossed the Tweed with 18,000 foot and 3000 horse. New- castle, who had only 5000 foot and 3000 horse, shut himself up in York. In April Leven, joined -by a parliamentary army under the Fair- faxes, father and son, sat down before the city. In June they were reenforced by the army of the Eastern Association under Manchester, with Cromwell as lieutenant-general commanding the horse. On the approach of Rupert, whom Newcastle had summoned to his relief, the parliamentarians raised the siege and took up a position near Long Marston, somewhat west of York, to bar his road. But Rupert " by a dashing manceuver " circled round them and entered the city from the north. On 2 July Rupert came out and offered battle at Marston Moor. The battle which followed was the bloodiest of the whole war. 1 For five hours in the long twilight of a summer evening the combat raged. Cromwell on the left wing, stanchly supported by David Leslie, succeeded in driving Rupert from the field. Then he wheeled about, and, by a series of daring and skillful charges, saved the infantry in the center and the cavalry on the right wing from impending defeat. While the soldiers fought magnificently, it was mainly Cromwell who plucked the victory* from the enemies' hands, and he earned here from Rupert the name of " Ironsides," later transferred to his famous regiment. Cromwell attributed the success to " the Lord's blessing on the Godly party principally." " The left wing," he wrote, " which I commanded . . . beat all the Prince's horse, and God made them stubble to our sword." Though Rupert escaped with 6000 horse, the rest of the royalist army was broken up. York surrendered, and the land north of the Trent was lost to the King. This decisive victory for Cromwell and the " Godly party " marked a decided breach in the anti-royalist ranks. Fearing that the extremists might become dominant, Leven, Manchester, and Lord Fairfax before they parted sent a joint letter to the Com- mittee of Both Kingdoms, recommending the establishment of Pres- byterianism, and peace with the King. Surrender of Essex's Army at Lostwithiel, 2 September, 1644. The Presbyterians were all the more uneasy because of the reverse which overtook Essex in the late summer of this same year. Charles was able to bottle up his opponents' army in the peninsula of Fowey on the Devon coast. The cavalry broke through to Plymouth ; Essex himself escaped by boat ; but his infantry were forced to sur- render at Lostwithiel, 2 September. In London the disappointment was bitter ; for it looked as if the great gain in the north was to be 1 The united parliamentary armies numbered 20,000 foot and 7000 horse, the royalists, about the same number of horse, and 11,000 foot the largest number of men engaged in England in a single battle since the Wars of the Roses. 496 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND altogether neutralized. It was evident that Essex would have to be displaced. Charles, however, was not able to profit by his success for his supplies were short and his troops were mutinous. On his way north he was intercepted by a parliamentary army, twice the size of his own, under the command of a council of war. It was made up of many elements, among them the remnant of Essex's troops and the army of the Eastern Association which had come down from the north. In the second battle of Newbury which ensued, 27 October, 1644, Cromwell was completely victorious, but owing to the inertness of Manchester, the King was able to slip off to Oxford in the night. Cromwell's Plan for remodeling the Army. The Self-denying Ordinance. Cromwell saw that it was necessary to get rid of generals like Essex and Manchester before the cause which he had at heart could prevail. Accordingly, he made a speech in the House of Com- mons in which he laid the whole blame on Manchester for the failure to capture Charles and his army at Newbury. Manchester was not only ineffective, but he was professedly half-hearted. "If we beat the King ninety and nine times," he declared, " yet he is King still, and so will his posterity after him be ; but if the King beat us once, we shall be hanged, and our posterity made slaves." In his reply to Cromwell, he denounced him as an enemy to the nobility and Pres- byterianism, and quoted with horror his remark that : " If he met the King in battle, he -wjould as lief fire his pistol at him as at any other." The triumph of the men of action was assured when another attempt of the peace party to arrange terms by the Treaty of Uxbridge ended in a total failure, 22 February, 1645. Cromwell and his supporters saw that, in addition to getting rid of incompetent and unenthusiastic leaders, they must reorganize the whole army into an effective fighting machine, well-paid, equipped, and disciplined, consisting of spirited, zealous troops and unhampered by Presbyterian tests. He insisted .that good soldiers should not be excluded, " because they square not with you in every opinion." Although his ideas of toleration were at first purely practical he and the -army which supported him put the Protestant sects on the first recognized footing they had ever enjoyed in England. He saw that the first essential was to beat the King in the field and to postpone the settlement of other questions until that was accomplished. At his suggestion the Self-denying Ordinance, providing that the members of either House should throw down their commands, military and civil, was introduced into the Commons, 9 December, 1644. The Lords, who recognized its real purport, rejected it on the pretext that it would be unwise to change existing arrangements until the reorganization of the army had been completed. By the New Model Ordinance, introduced 23 November, the Commons had directed the Committee of Both Kingdoms " to consider of a frame and model of the whole militia." It recommended an army of 14,400 foot and 7600 horse to be " regularly paid from THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 497 taxes assessed on those parts of the country which were suffering least from the war." Sir Thomas Fairfax, a young, vigorous, and capable officer unattached to any sect or party, was named com- mander-in-chief in place of Essex, and Philip Skippon, commander of the London trained bands, was appointed sergeant major-general to succeed Manchester. The position of lieutenant-general was left vacant, but it was an open secret that it was reserved for Cromwell. The New Model Ordinance passed the Lords 15 February. One of the concessions to the Presbyterian majority in Parliament was a provision that every officer and man should take the Covenant; but, largely owing to Cromwell's influence, it was rarely enforced. There was now no further pretext for opposing the Self-denying Ordi- nance, which finally became law, 3 April, 1645. No provision had been made against the reappointment to office of members of Parliament who had resigned, and, 10 June, Cromwell became lieutenant-general. The New Model Army. It was so difficult to secure volunteers for the infantry that 8500 men had to be pressed. The cavalry were of a much finer type. 1 The officers in both branches of the service were generally of good family and godly men. Some rose from the ranks, and, indeed, from humble station, though the assertion is far from true that they were made up of " tradesmen, brewers, tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers, and the like." Gradually the zeal of the officers, guided by Fairfax and Cromwell, welded together an irresist- ible force, although the New Model never contained more than a third of the troops fighting for Parliament. As they grew steadily in strength and discipline the King's forces fell more and more into weakness and disorder. " Insomuch," says Clarendon, " as one side seemed to fight for monarchy, with the weapons of confusion, and the other to destroy the King and government with all the prin- ciples and regularity of monarchy." The Battle of Naseby, 14 June, 1645. The King a Fugitive. Directly they had organized the New Model, Fairfax and Cromwell started to overcome the King. They found him wandering about the midlands, desirous of joining Montrose in Scotland, and yet hesitating to leave his base at Oxford. The decisive battle was fought at Naseby, 14 June, 1645. Rupert, as he had done more than once before, rode down the wing opposed to him, and carried the pursuit so far that the royal infantry were annihilated before his return. Charles managed to escape with half his cavalry to the Welsh border. He still had an army in the southwest, he held many strong places ; he hoped to bring together his scattered forces, and, with the aid of the Irish, to be " in a far better condition before winter than he had been at any time since this rebellion began." But, though he eluded capture for nearly a year and though some of his supporters held out even longer, his cause was doomed. A misfortune second only 1 An indication, and a cause as well, of this superiority was the fact that cavalry- men and infantrymen received &d. and 2d. a day, respectively. 2 K 4 g8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to his defeat at Naseby was the capture of his private chest containing drafts and copies of letters to the Queen. They were published forthwith under the title of The King's Cabinet Opened, and many of his loyal supporters were alienated to learn that he was planning to repeal the laws against the Roman Catholics, and intriguing to bring Irish and foreign troops into England. Montrose in Scotland, 1644-1645. For a time Charles rested great hopes on Montrose, who, beginning with a victory at Tippermuir i September, 1644, had a year of triumphs, gaining battle after battle. But the Highlanders who composed the bulk of his army were keener on booty and vengeance against hostile clans than they were on restoring the power of the King. After each victory numbers of them would disperse to their mountain glens to deposit their spoil. With such an unstable following it was impossible to achieve permanent results; moreover, the Covenanters, who opposed him on religious grounds, were steadily reenforced by those who were infuriated by the pillaging of his uncontrollable hordes. At length, 13 September, 1645, ne was defeated at Philiphaugh and forced to flee. Charles' Intrigues with the Irish, 1642-1645. Charles had also counted much on support from Ireland. During the year following the Rebellion of 1641 the Roman Catholics, both of native and Anglo- Irish stock, had organized a Parliament under the name of " The General Assembly of Confederate Catholics." In order to secure freedom for their religion they desired to make terms with the King, while Charles was anxious to treat with them in order to release, for service in England the army which the Marquis of Ormonde was commanding against them, and with the view also of enlisting the Irish rebels in his cause. So far as the King was concerned, the whole intrigue was unw r ise and dishonest : unwise since he was bound to lose more than he could possibly gain by employing Irish troops in England; dishonest, since he could not observe the promises which he made. After months of negotiating, a " cessation " was concluded, 15 September, 1643, by which both parties were to cease righting, pending a definitive peace. In July, 1644, the King em- powered Ormonde, now Lord Lieutenant, to resume negotiations. When the Irish insisted upon freedom of worship and the repeal of the laws rejecting papal jurisdiction, knowing that Ormonde, who was a Protestant, would listen to no such terms, he sent the Catholic Earl of Glamorgan with vague instructions to treat behind the back of the Lord Lieutenant. Glamorgan arrived, 25 August, 1645 ; and, although the Irish even increased their original demands, he signed a secret treaty granting all they asked. A copy of this treaty was discovered and published, and Glamorgan was arrested. Although Charles disavowed this arrangement, he was unable to clear himself from suspicion, nor had he got the least of help for all the risk he had run. The Queen, who had again gone abroad in November, 1644, was equally unsuccessful with the continental Powers. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 499 The End of the First Civil Wax, 1646. Without any prospect of foreign help, it was only a question of time how long Charles and his few remaining adherents could hold out. The defeat of Goring, his general in the southwest, at Langport, 10 July, 1645, broke up his last field army. It only remained to reduce the garrisons and to secure the territories held by remnants of the royal forces. On 1 1 September, Rupert was obliged to surrender Bristol, whereat Charles, although he was quite unable to relieve the City, was so enraged that he de- prived him of his command and sent him a pass to go beyond the seas. " I confess," he admitted, when Rupert advised him to surrender, " that speaking as a mere soldier or statesman . . . there is no possi- bility but of my ruin, but as a Christian, I must tell you that God will not suffer rebels to prosper, or this cause to be overthrown." After the news of one reverse after another had reached him, he finally left Oxford, 25 April, 1646. The Scotch, who were besieging Newark, had offered their mediation, and, after considering whether he should not try to escape to the Continent, he finally decided to trust such vague assurance as they were willing to offer. Riding into their camp, 5 May, he only left it as a prisoner. Oxford yielded, 24 June, and with the surrender of Raglan Castle, 19 August, the first Civil War was over, though the King's flag was flying at Harleck, far off on the Welsh coast, till March, 1647. Effective leadership, good pay, discipline, and the enthusiasm of the guiding element had enabled the New Model to triumph. State of Parties at the Close of the War, in 1646. During the three years from the beginning of Charles' captivity to his death in 1649, he was occupied in tortuous and futile intrigues to recover his liberty and his authority. The divided state of parties offered him at least a prospect of success. He could still count on a small body of English royalists who were ever ready to fight again if they got the chance, and he still nourished hopes in the Irish Catholics with whom he was constantly in communication. Parliament, which had begun the struggle in behalf of popular liberties, was pledged to Presbyterianism, 1 and had of late come to be chiefly con- cerned with stemming the rising power of Cromwell and the army, mainly Independents and advocates of toleration for all Protestant sects. It only widened the breach when the army became con- vinced of the necessity of doing away with the monarchy. The Scots, whose chief aim was to preserve their religion at home and to extend it in England, naturally ranged themselves with Parliament against the army. The bulk of the English people were anxious for peace. Pushed into the struggle by the fervor of the minority, they had under- gone much loss and suffering from the inevitable disorganization of trade, from, increased taxes, and, in spite of the relatively humane character of the war, from plundering and pillage. 1 In spite of 150 new members known as the "Recruiters," who had been elected to fill the vacancies caused by the desertion of the royalists, the Presbyterians were still in the majority. 5 oo A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Parliamentary Intolerance. Notwithstanding the tireless intrigues of the King it might have been possible to have effected a settlement if the Commons had been more tolerant and conciliatory. They failed to realize the need of reconciling either the royalists or the army. To win over the former it was essential to grant them a measure of toleration and to show some tenderness in the matter of their estates. Instead of that, the dominant party agreed that the " Prayer Book was an abominable idol in the land " and that " it was high time to remove this brazen serpent and grind it to powder." So it was for- bidden by law, while 2000 of the Anglican clergy were expelled from their benefices with a reservation of one fifth of their incomes for their families. Besides certain royalists altogether exempted from pardon, others were forced to compound for their " delinquency," either by complete forfeiture of their estates, or, more .generally, by " sequestration." In the latter case the estates were seized by the State, whence they could be recovered by their original owners only by yielding from a sixth to a half of their value. Sad are the tales of the men who chose the side of the King, and of their wives and chil- dren as well. Regrettable and impolitic as was its treatment of the vanquished royalists, it was the height of folly and ingratitude for Parliament to oppose the army which had fought and won its battles. The scheme of the Westminster Assembly which it had legalized remained chiefly a paper plan. The success of Cromwell and his Ironsides at Marston Moor and of the New Model at Naseby were realities which immeasurably strengthened the cause of the Independents and the sects. " I beseech you not to discourage them," wrote Cromwell to the Speaker after Naseby, and this plea for toleration was the con- stant burden of his song. Parliament's reply was repeated attempts to come to terms with the King, to get rid of the army, and to suppress the sects. In September, 1646, bills were read without a division " by which Unitarians and free-thinking heretics could be put to death, and Baptists and other sectaries imprisoned for life, solely on ac- count of their . . . opinions ; " and, in December, the Commons resolved " that no layman would be permitted to preach or expound the Scriptures." Many of the parliamentary leaders were embittered from the fact that they had been excluded from the army by the Self- denying Ordinance, yet they were no doubt partly sincere in pro- testing that they were striving to check disorder and confusion. Also, by persecuting the extremists, they hoped to strengthen their hold on the sober Roundhead element and to placate the moderate Cavaliers to whom they denied the Prayer Book. The Scots deliver the King to Parliament, January, 1647. While the King, since the autumn before his captivity, had been treating secretly both with Parliament and the Scots, he refused, in the matter of religion, to concede anything more than a toleration ; for, like his father, he believed that " the nature of Presbyterian government THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 501 is to steal the crown from the King's head." Indeed, he frankly told the Scots that he would rather lose his crown than his soul. The parliamentary commissioners presented to him the terms of the Houses in the Propositions of Newcastle, 13 July, 1646. They provided, among other things, that Charles should take the Covenant and allow it to be enforced on all his subjects ; that he should agree to a ref- ormation of the Church on a Presbyterian basis with no toleration for the sects ; that Parliament should control the army and navy for twenty years, and settle its future administration at the end of that time. Charles at first returned an evasive answer, and then framed counter-propositions which were rejected. The Queen urged him to take the Covenant as a means of cementing a Scotch alliance, but that also he refused to do. As a result, the Scots drew closer to Parliament, and January, 1647, they delivered up the King, in return for payment of arrears of pay and of the expenses which they had incurred in the war just closed. It is unfair to accuse them of selling their sovereign ; they only gave him up after they had failed to arrange terms on which their countrymen would support him and in return for what was fairly due them. Charles was escorted to Holmby House in Northamptonshire amid such popular demonstrations of loyalty, ringing of bells, and booming of cannon that he deceived himself into believing that the old love for the monarchy had re- turned, and was encouraged to persist in his crooked and complicated diplomacy. Parliament and the Army. Parliament, with the King in their hands, thought that if they could manage to disband the New Model, they might force their terms upon him and secure a Presbyterian settlement. They were horrified at the increase of extremists, religious and political Fifth Monarchy men, 1 Baptists, Seekers, Republicans, and Levelers 2 in the army and among its supporters. Furthermore, they wanted to cut down military expenses, since the taxes which they had to impose to meet them contributed to their unpopularity. Their plan was to enlist some of the troops for the Irish service, to keep a few for garrison duty, and to disband the rest about one half the New Model. The army refused to agree, except upon their own terms toleration, indemnity for past acts, and arrears of pay terms to which Parliament would hot listen. " If they be thus scornfully dealt withal whilst the sword is in their hands," they argued, " what shall their usage be when they are dis- solved ! " Their attitude was so defiant that Parliament grudgingly offered an adequate concession of arrears. At the very same time 1 A party who looked for the fifth kingdom, foretold in the Old Testament, when the saints should reign on earth. It got its name from the fact that it was to fol- low in succession to the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires. 2 A party that wanted to level all political distinctions, and who came to advo- cate manhood suffrage and fundamental laws for the preservation of the natural rights of man. S 02 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND they were scheming to call in the Scots again, to bring down the artillery from Oxford, and to convey the King to London. In order to work more effectively, each of the regiments of the New Model chose two agents, called "^agitators," 1 who, in combination with the council of the generals, actectlis a rival representative body to Parliament. Since Fairfax had no strong religious convictions or ability in statesmanship, the burden of leadership fell on Cromwell. From his seat in Parliament and from his place in the Army Council he strove to be a peacemaker, urging concession on one hand and obedience on the other. " What we gain in a free way," he declared, " is better than twice as much in a forced way, and will be more truly yours and our posterity's." It was only after long hesitation that he made up his mind to extreme measures, and then he acted with his customary decision and energy. The Army secure the King and march to London. On 31 May, 1647, he sent Cornet Joyce with a troop of soldiers to prevent Par- liament's removing the King from Holmby House. Joyce, on his arrival, decided to seize the royal captive and take him to Newmarket, where the army was then quartered. When Charles asked him for his commission, he pointed to his troopers, saying : " Here is my commis- sion." Charles replied : " It is as fair a commission and as well written as I have seen ... in my life." He went willingly; for, having failed to arrange terms with Parliament, he was glad to try his chances with the army. The army, who had taken a solemn engagement not to disband until they had obtained satisfactory con- cessions, began to draw toward London. They demanded that Parlia- ment should fix a date for its dissolution, and insisted upon the im- mediate suspension of eleven members whom they charged with sowing dissension and conspiring against the rights and privileges of the sub- ject. The eleven were obliged to withdraw; but when the army halted on its onward march, a mob rose in the City and forced Parlia- ment to revoke even the inadequate concession to which it had agreed, and to readmit the eleven members. The army, however, would brook no opposition; 6 August, they entered London, and the eleven members again took flight. The Heads of Proposals. Meantime, the army chiefs had sought to come to terms with the King, offering to restore him to the throne and to accept Episcopacy if he would grant toleration. The scheme of the saner element was formulated in the " Heads of Proposals," sketched by Cromwell's son-in-law, General Ireton, 17 July, 1647, and later amended by the Army Council. While allowing Parliament adequate powers for the control of the sovereign and the administra- tion of the government, it provided checks against parliamentary omnipotence, and outlined a series of reforms by which the people should have more voice in public affairs and a more adequate repre- 1 From an old word meaning "to act." The form "adjutator" is erroneous. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 503 sentation. Special precautions were taken to safeguard religious liberty against Presbyterian intolerance. It was a far-sighted, states- man-like plan, but it was in advance of the times and failed to satisfy either party : it was too democratic and too tolerant for the royalist, and too conservative and too balanced for the extremists. Its pro- visions anticipated many principles religious toleration, reform of the parliamentary system, and Cabinet government which now obtain in modern England as the result of a long and painful progress. The Transformation in the Army. In the debates -in the Army Council Ireton took the lead. Cromwell, keen as he was in seeing the needs of the moment and swift in action, was not inclined to look far into the future. He still sought to mediate and still hoped to preserve the monarchy, which he continued to regard for some time as the only stable form of government. It was only when he came to realize that the religious freedom which he and his companions had won at the risk of their lives could never be secure so long as Charles Stuart remained king, that he made up his mind to dispose of him and of his royal office. While he arrived at this conclusion only slowly, he took the lead in carrying it into effect. Ireton and many others saw, long before he did, that Charles was but only playing parties off one against another until he could raise a sufficient force for a second civil war. At first the zealots in the New Model were chiefly in the cavalry ; the infantry, largely pressed men and hirelings, contained many men who, although not deep-grounded in their convictions, were rather inclined to support Presbyterianism and Parliament. A number of causes, however, tended to alter their temper. For one thing, the denial of their reasonable requests alienated them from Parliament. Then the Presbyterian chaplains, as a rule, left their regiments to enter the livings from which the Episcopal clergy had been expelled. The preachers who remained, and the officers, 1 exerted a steadily growing influence ; furthermore, as the star of the army rose more and more in the ascend- ant, volunteers flocked to replace the pressed men; the enthusiasm, always contagious, spread rapidly, and those who remained were touched with the prevailing temper. " It would do you good," wrote Cromwell, 3 September, 1650, " to see and hear our poor foot go up and down making their boast of God." Rise of Democratic Opinion in the Army. The political trans- formation was equally striking. It was in this period that English democratic opinion took rise. Evolved by certain advanced thinkers, it was first voiced in the debates in the Army Council, and quickly permeated the whole body. Embodied in plans for a written constitu- tion which failed to survive, these fundamental ideas of democracy, equality of opportunity for every man, and government by the people as well as for the people, or universal manhood suffrage, after lying dormant for a century and more, came to the front in the Ameri- 1 It was estimated that in June, 1647, two thirds were Independents. 504 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND can and French Revolutions. In the United States they have had a continuous life, while, after being crushed out for a time by the forces of reaction, they have come to prevail again in many countries of the Old World. The Levelers voiced the doctrines of democracy in their extremest form. Bitterly they declaimed against monarchy and all class distinctions. "What were the Lords of England," they demanded, " but William the Conqueror's colonels? or the Barons but his majors ? or the Knights but his captains? " and they declared that they would set the people free from this usurped authority and have no more kings or lords. " The meanest man in England," they insisted, " had the right to a share in the election of his rulers." It had been the custom, hitherto, for the leaders in the battle for liberty to base their claims on constitutional precedents on the birthright of Englishmen. It marked a new and significant departure when Colonel Rainsborough, as the spokesman of the advanced party in the Army Council, appealed to the natural rights of man. " The poorest he that is in England," he said with quaint directness, " hath a life to live as the greatest he. And, therefore ... it's clear that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government." x Republicanism and universal suffrage, however, were not the ideals of the majority of Englishmen of^tha^jday. Fearing that only confusion and anarchy would result, many even of the army leaders, with Cromwell in the vanguard, fought strenuously to preserve the law of the land. Yet the men whom they condemned as visionaries and fanatics, and who were unable to make their views prevail at that time, were contending for principles which are the bone and sinew of modern political life. The Social Levelers or " Diggers. " On the other hand, the more conservative members of the party of political and religious progress were wise in their efforts to hold the radicals in check ; for revolutions, unless they are carefully guided, are bound to be wrecked by their very excesses. As it was, all sorts of queer sects and parties grew and multiplied. For example, a body of social levelers came into being who went far beyond the political group. Their leader was Gerard Winstanley, who wrote many tracts to prove that the earth was not made for a few but for all men. In 1649 they made a vain effort to plow and dig up the common on St. George's Hill, Surrey, from which they got the name " Diggers." In general, their principles seem to have been those lying at the basis of communism in all ages. The " Engagement," 1647. Charles, urged on by the Scottish commissioners, with whom he was still treating, fled from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight, n November, 1647. After an attempt 1 The views of the political levelers were formally presented in the "Case of the Army fully Stated," 9 October, 1647. Three weeks later appeared the "Agree- ment of the People" in which the principles stated in the previous document were fully developed. After the execution of the King it was submitted to Parliament in a somewhat modified form. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 505 to procure a vessel in which to escape abroad had miscarried he was forced unwillingly to take a refuge in Carisbrooke Castle. While he went on negotiating with all parties, he was inclining more and more to the Scots with whom he signed a treaty, 26 December, 1647, known as the " Engagement." Charles, on his part, undertook to confirm the Covenant by statute, to protect those who had taken it, and to allow a Presbyterian settlement for three years, on condition that the Church should, at the end of that period, be regulated by himself and the Houses. In return, the Scots agreed to support the King's demand for the disbandment of the army, and, if this were refused, to publish a manifesto as a preliminary to invading England, asserting certain royal prerogatives, including the " negative voice " or royal veto power, and control over the militia and the great offices of State. It is practically certain that Charles had no intention of binding himself permanently by the Engagement. Had he succeeded in his plans he would doubtless have reestablished Episcopacy at the end of the three years, and used his " negative voice " to prevent any settlement to which he was opposed. For the moment, however, he was all for the Scots, and adopted such an uncompromising attitude toward Parliament that they broke off all negotiations with him. The Second Civil War, 1648. The King counted on a royalist reaction^ to support thejjcottish invasion, and there was much in the situaHorTTo encourage his hopes. Among moderate men, respect for Parliament was steadily diminishing, with some because of its ineffec- tiveness, with others because of its intolerance; many more were frightened at the prospect of army rule ; while the austerity of Puri- tanism, whether of the Parliament or of the army sort, offered a most unlovely prospect to the pleasure-loving Englishman. Yet it was one thing to manifest discontent and quite another to join in rebellion. The mass of the people during the Second Civil War " looked on in bewildered neutrality." Presbyterian soldiers in a few garrisons declared for the King, and so did the more pronounced Cavaliers ; but there were no considerable risings except in Wales, Kent, and Essex. The result was fatal to the King ; for the crisis brought Parliament and the Army together once more and healed the breach between Cromwell and the extremists. The first outbreak of the war occurred in South Wales when the commander of Pembroke Castle declared for the King. On his way to quell it, Cromwell met the Agitators at Windsor. At a solemn prayer meeting, lasting three days, it was resolved that : " It was our duty if ever the Lord brought us back in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed, and the mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's cause and the people in these poor nations." Pembroke yielded, n July; the dan- ger in Wales was over, and Cromwell was free to march against the Scots who had crossed the border on the 8th. They were led by the Marquis of Hamilton, who represented the royalist party in Scotland, So6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND which aimed to release the King and to secure the supremacy of Pres- byterianism in England. Arrayed against them was another Scotch party led by Argyle which would not fight for a monarch who refused the Covenant. Hamilton entered England with an army of 10,000, speedily increased to 24,000 by English and Irish volunteers. It was an ill-assorted alliance ; the soldiers were mostly raw and undisciplined, and their leader had "neither military ability nor decision of charac- ter." Cromwell intercepted them in Lancashire and made short work of them in the three days' running fight of Preston, Wigan, and Warring- ton, 17-19 August. Fairfax crushed out the revolts in Kent and Essex. All Charles' plans had miscarried, and he was soon to meet the fate which the army leaders had voiced in their prayer. Pride's Purge, 6 December, 1648. For the moment, however, the old discord and intrigues were resumed. Though Parliament had joined with the army in the face of pressing danger they were still fearful of religious and political radicalism, 1 and were even yet ready to restore the King if he would agree to Presbyterianism and aid them to suppress the sects. When, with this end in view, they resumed negotiations with him at Newport in the Isle of Wight, in September, the army proceeded to act with decision. They issued a remonstrance drawn up by Ireton, declaring that it was impossible to devise terms that would bind the King, and that it was just to execute him as a traitor for his attempts to turn a limited monarchy into an absolute monarchy ; i December, they removed him to Hurst Castle, a lonely fortress on the Hampshire coast, and next they framed a public decla- ration, appealing from the existing Parliament " unto the extraordinary judgment of God and his people." The House of Commons was so defiant that nothing remained but to dissolve it or to purge it of its most uncompromising members. To dissolve meant to run the risk of a House still more hostile. So, 6 December, 1648, a force of soldiers under Colonel Pride was stationed at the door where the Commons entered. Those known to oppose the views of the army were turned back, and those who resisted were arrested. There were ninety-six of the former and forty-seven of the latter. The " Rump " that remained was in no sense a representative body, Taut merely' a group of members depending for their places on the support of the soldiers. That evening Cromwell returned from the north; whileTie had not" instigated the recent steps he approved of them, and, from this time on, he took the lead. The High Court of Justice and the Trial of the King. The Rump soon showed its temper by passing a resolution that, according to the fundamental laws of the kingdom,(it was treason in the King to levy war against Parliament and the kingdom?) This was followed by three more resolutions to the effect : " that the people are, under God, the original of all just power ; that the Commons of England, in Par- 1 In the previous May they had passed an ordinance making heresy and blas- phemy capital crimes. THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR 507 liament assembled, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation ; and that whatsoever is enacted ... by the Commons in Parliament assembled, hath the force of law . . . although the consent and concurrence of the King and the House of Lords be not held thereunto." The term " ordi- nance " was now discarded, and, 6 January, 1649, an act was passed erecting a High Court of Justice of 135 persons to try the King, though only 68 appeared, 20 January, the day the trial opened at Westminster Hall. Sergeant Bradshaw, a lawyer of repute, was chosen president. When the name of Fairfax was called, a voice from the crowd answered : " He has more wit than to be here." The King, who had in the mean- time been brought from Hurst by way of Windsor, was seated in a crimson chair in front of the bar. He refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court in any way. The charge set forth that: " Charles Stuart, being admitted King of England with a limited power, out of a wicked design to erect an unlimited power, had traitor- ously levied war against the Parliament and people of England, thereby causing the death of many thousands, and had repeated and per- severed in his offense." Accordingly, he was impeached as a " tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy of the Com- monwealth of England." Again the same voice interrupted: "It is a lie." The speaker turned out to be Lady Fairfax. The sentence was finally pronounced on the ayth; and Charles, amid cries of " Justice ! " and " Execution ! " was led out of the court. The death warrant was signed by 58 of the justices, including Cromwell and Ireton. The Execution of the King, 30 January, 1649. Charles, after taking leave of Henry and Elizabeth, the only two of his children then in England, was beheaded, 30 January, 1649, on a scaffold in front of the banqueting house of Whitehall. His quiet dignity and courage made a wonderful impression on the multitude who, when the head, severed from his body, was exposed to them, answered with a deep groan and pressed forward to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood. 1 In his dying speech Charles disclaimed all guilt for the Civil War, declared again the unlawfulness of his sentence, and said : " For the people truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whosoever ; but I must tell you that their liberty and their freedom consists in having of government those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in the government, sirs, that is nothing pertaining to them ; a subject and a sovereign are clean different things." Sincere in his religious and 1 Many, however, may have been prompted in this action by the fancied me- dicinal properties of the King's blood, for the royal touch was supposed to heal scrofula and kindred diseases. The popular sympathy was greatly accentuated by the appearance, a few days after the execution, of Eikon Basilike, the Portraiture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitude and his Sufferings, a book reported to be by the King, but probably written by Dr. John Gauden, subsequently Bishop of Worcester. 508 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND political convictions, no doubt, he failed to understand his people. In his eyes those who resisted him were bad subjects and bad Chris- tians against whom deceit and force were legitimate weapons. There is a story that one night, as his body lay in state, a muffled figure appeared, lifted the shroud, and, gazing on the royal features, mur- mured: " Cruel necessity." This is said to have been Cromwell, who had, some days before the trial, declared : " We will cut off his head with the crown upon it." " The dark lantern of the spirit,'' that inner voice which guided all his actions, had told him that the recent victories were a certain sign that God approved the course of his people. " Cruel necessity " was the only justification. The exe- cution of the King went far beyond the wishes of the majority, and those who brought it about made the mistake of trying to cloak their action under forms of law. It was not a time for law or pity; for there was no hope of peace until Charles Stuart the incarnation of obstinacy and duplicity was dead. Many troublous years were to follow, and monarchy and the Church of England were to be restored; but, owing to the daring act of those grim men of 1649, it was not the same despotic monarchy or the same all-powerful Church. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Montague, Political History, chs. XIII-XV. Trevelyan , England under the Stuarts, chs. VII, IX. Cambridge Modern History, chs. X, XI (bibliography, pp. 884-896). Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War (4 vols., 1893) ; Lingard, VIII, chs. I-III ; Ranke, II, bk. IX. J. L. Sandford, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion (1858). Constitutional. Gardiner, Documents, introduction, pp. xliii-lvi; Hallam, II, ch. X, pt. I ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. XIV. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. V, ch. III. C. H. Firth, The House of Lords during the Civil War (1910). Biography. T. Carlyle, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (best ed. S. C. Lomas 3 vols., 1904) ; an effectual vindication of Cromwell's sincerity. The best modern lives of Cromwell are : S. R. Gardiner (1899) ; C. H. Firth (1900) ; and J. Morley (1900). W. W. Ireland, Life of Sir Henry Vane the Younger (1905). E. C. Wade, John Pym (1912). Military and Naval. C. H. Firth, Cromwell's Army (1902) ; the authority on the subject. T. S. Baldock, Cromwell as a Soldier (1899). C. R. Markham, Life of Lord Fairfax (1870); anti-Cromwellian. Fortescue, British Army, I. W. L. Clowes, The Royal Navy (7 vols., 1897-1903), I. Oppenheim, The Royal Navy. Hannay, Royal Navy. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean. Church. W. H. Hutton, History of the English Church, ch. VIII. Cambridge Modern History, IV, ch. XII, "The Westminster Assembly" (bibliography, p. 897). W. A. Shaw, History of the English Church, 1640-1660 (2 vols., 1900) ; an exhaustive treatment. Stoughton, Religion in England, I. G. B. Tatham, The Puritans in Power, a Study of the English Church from 1640 to 1660 (1913). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 207-212. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 57-85. CHAPTER XXXI THE KINGLESS DECADE: THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PRO- TECTORATE (1649-1660) "Pcxtx^n^o The Commonwealth : the First National Republic. Early in February, 1649, within a week after the execution of Charles, the Rump carried resolutions confirmed by acts passed in March, that the House of Lords and the office of King were unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous, and ought to be abolished. Later in the same month it named a Council of State, consisting of 41 members, 31 of whom were selected from the House of Commons, to carry on the executive work of the government. On 19 May, England was declared to be a Com- monwealth. Thus the first national republic in the world's history had come into being. 1 Not only was_the English Commonwealth a unicjue experiment in government, butTt was the creation of a minority. " In form a democracy," it was in reality " an oligarchy, half religious, half military, ruling over an incomparably greater number of dis- affected subjects." The Anglicans, the Presbyterians, and the Roman Catholics wanted a monarchy, with the sects absolutely excluded from power and toleration. The bulk of the people were hostile to military domination, heavy taxation, interruption of business, and meddling with their pastimes. Even those who upheld the Common- wealth were divided among themselves. Fifth Monarchy men, Levelers, Communists, each wanted a freer system, or one more suited to their peculiar ideas. Now that the King was disposed of, the army too, whose pay was still in arrears, were insistent that Parliament should take steps either to limit its own power or fix a date for dissolution. 2 The Refusal of the Rump to fix a Date for its Dissolution. Already, 15 January, 1649, while the King was still alive, the Army Council had issued an amended form of the Agreement of the People, in substance " a scheme of republican government based on the Heads of Proposals." It was designed mainly to guard against the despotism of Parliament, 1 Ancient Athens and Rome and the medieval Italian republics were merely city states, in the government of which all the citizens were supposed to participate. Representation and federation were only imperfectly understood and employed. The United Netherlands were under the domination of Holland with the chief executive office or stadholderate hereditary in the House of Orange. The Federa- tion of Swiss cantons was a mere league. 2 Even the remnant to which they had reduced it was too independent and assertive. 59 5io A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and provided, among other things, that the existing body should be dissolved, 30 April, 1649. While the Rump passed many acts in accordance with its recommendations, it never adopted the scheme as a whole, and disregarded the suggestions fixing the date of its own termination. There is much to be said for Parliament, unrepresenta- tive and masterful as it was ; its members might well hesitate to accept the new Constitution; for it contained many startling innovations which might have been difficult to alter after they had been tested by practice, since there was no provision for amendments. Moreover, in the event of its dissolution, there was grave peril that the royalists might raise their heads or that the extremists might gain the upper hand. In the one case another civil war was inevitable ; in the other, confusion and anarchy. The new Government was in a very illogical position. fit had seized control in the name of the people, but the bulk of the people opposed its authority?) The Forces of Discontent and Disorder. John Lilburne, " Free- born John," was the chief spokesman of the political Levelers. Twice he was tried and acquitted, and once in the interval was exiled by a special act of Parliament. The announcement of his first acquittal was greeted with " a loud and unanimous shout," lasting for " about half an hour without intermission, which made the judges for fear turn pale and hang down their heads." Cromwell, whom Lilburne had once heard declare angrily before the Council that " there was no other way to deal with these men but to break them or they will break you," aroused his bitterest ire. " You will scarce speak to Cromwell," he cried, " but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and call God to record. He will weep, howl, and repent, even while he doth smite you under the fifth rib." While Cromwell had no sympathy with unrestricted parliamentary control, he was determined that order should be preserved. Thus, when an effort to disband sev- eral of the regiments led to a series of mutinies, he combined promptly with Fairfax in putting them down. Anarchy in England was only one of the many problems to be faced. Scotland, Ireland, and more than one of the American Colonies had declared for Charles II. A portion of the fleet was royalist, and, partly in the royal interest, partly for gain, preyed upon the commerce of their opponents. Since the attitude of foreign Powers was also menacing, English ships at sea, English merchants, and English ambassadors were in serious peril. (Altogether, the new Government had undertaken a tremendous and complicated task: to set up an adequate central authority in place of monarchy ; to prevent the restoration of the Stuarts ; to settle the religious question ; to unify three kingdoms ; to maintain the sea power ; to secure the colonial possessions, and to safeguard the national commerce^ Cromwell, erelong, assumed the leadership in all this work and maintained it while he lived. The Conquest of Ireland, 1649. The danger from Ireland was most pressing. Ormonde, who had retired for a time in consequence THE KINGLESS DECADE 511 of the King's crooked and underhanded negotiations with the Catho- lics, returned in 1648, and succeeded in uniting the Catholic and Protestant royalists. After the execution of the elder Charles they proclaimed his son Charles II. They secured practically all Ireland, except Dublin, which the parliamentary commander managed to hold only by the most strenuous efforts. In order to meet this crisis, Crom- well was appointed commander-in-chief and governor for three years; he arrived in August, 1649, determined to break the power of the royalists, to reduce the country, and to avenge the massacre of 1641. In September he appeared before Drogheda, where the enemy were strongly fortified. Setting up his siege guns, he battered down the walls, took the city by storm, and ordered the garrison put to the sword. He has been bitterly condemned for this ruthless bloodshed, though somewhat has been urged in defense of his conduct. It was the law of the day to put to the sword garrisons holding untenable positions and refusing to surrender, and in the Irish war no quarter had been given on either side. Moreover, eminent generals have justified such single acts of slaughter as a means of preventing a pro- tracted war. Cromwell himself deplored the act as a melancholy necessity, regarding himself at the same time as a chosen agent to visit the righteous judgment of God upon the authors of the massacre of 1641. Yet, after all has been said, the proceeding remains the darkest blot in his career. For the massacre of Wexford, which fol- lowed shortly, he was apparently less to blame. Within ten months he had conquered eastern Ireland, Ormonde's unstable alliance fell to pieces, and the backbone of the war was broken. In August, 1650, Cromwell, leaving Ireton and Ludlow to conquer the natives in the west, hurried home, for the situation in Scotland demanded attention. The " Cromwellian Settlement," 1652. Two years were required to complete the subjugation of Ireland, at a cost, from fighting, famine, and pestilence, of the lives of a third of the inhabitants. The scheme formulated in 1652 by the Rump for dealing with the conquered is known as the " Cromwellian Settlement." Although the details were not devised by him, it was made possible by his victories, it met with his approval, and was carried out under his supervision. It extended the measures of colonization and repression which had replaced Henry VHI's ill-fated attempt at conciliation. The Catholic religion was suppressed, and the Celtic owners were dispossessed of their remaining lands in Leinster, Munster, and Ulster, receiving nominal compensation in the wild, remote, and unfruitful Connaught. Their holdings were given to those who had furnished money for the Irish wars and to the generals and soldiers. The common people, the laborers and artisans, were not included in the deportation. Then the possessions of the lesser men among the new grantees were speedily swallowed up by the greater. The few yeomen who were left threw in their lot with the natives and swelled the ranks of the discontented. 5 i2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Situation in Scotland. After the crushing defeat of the Scottish royalists in 1648 the extreme Covenanters under Argyle be- came dominant. Bitterly opposed to the English Independents and the policy of toleration espoused by the victorious army, they offered to support Charles II, on condition that he take the Covenant. Al- though inclined to Roman Catholicism, the Prince, a typical " gilt mountebank," was as indifferent to religious as he was to moral prin- ciples. So, in the extreme necessity to which he was reduced, he followed the suggestion of some of his advisers " to promise anything and break the promise when you can." Nevertheless, it was not without " great passion and bitter execration " that he accepted the hard terms imposed upon him at Breda. Perhaps the basest act in his utterly selfish career was his cool repudiation of Montrose who, " with one small -ship, a few men, and a little money," had gone to Scotland in March, to fight his cause. Defeated, 27 April, 1650, at Corbiesdale, Montrose was captured a few days later and executed at Edinburgh, meeting his fate with a heroism that won its own reward. It was easy for Charles to turn his back on those who had served him unsuccessfully and to declare that he had not taken the Covenant " upon any sinister intention and crooked design for attaining his own ends " ; but he had to pay a heavy price for his apostasy. He was not allowed to speak in council, he had to listen to long sermons, he was prohibited from dancing, card playing and even from walking on Sunday afternoons. 1 He was obliged to bewail his own sins and those of his house, his father's hearkening to evil counsel and his mother's idolatry, until he protested : " I think I ought to repent, too, that I was ever born." Later he declared that he would rather be hanged than ever set foot again in that hated land. The Invasion of Scotland and the Battle of Dunbar, 1650. Fairfax, who had no sympathy with the policy of the Commonwealth, resigned his command in June, 1650. Cromwell, appointed to succeed him, was commissioned to invade Scotland, and crossed the border 22 July. He sent before him a declaration from Parliament and the army to the " saints and partakers in the faith of God's Elect in Scotland," beseeching them not to desert the cause of the brethren in England. When they rejected his advances, he was forced to resort to arms. Frustrated in an attempt to take Edinburgh by sickness among his troops, lack of supplies obliged him to retreat to the coast, where, at Dunbar, the Scots under David Leslie, succeeded in hemming him in between the mountains and the sea. When they had every chance of reducing the English in a short time, they gave way to overconfidence and to the impatience of the ministers and the committee of the Scotch Estates. Before daybreak, 3 September, 1650, they came down from their commanding position and offered battle. The issue was decided by one of Cromwell's irresistible cavalry charges. " Let God arise 1 Golf, because it was a game "without vanity," was the only recreation al- lowed him. THE KINGLESS DECADE 513 and let his enemies be scattered," he cried, as he dashed through their ranks just as the morning sun rose. The Scots invade England. The Battle of Worcester, 1651. The remnant of the defeated army retired to Stirling, while Cromwell advanced and took Edinburgh. Dunbar had broken the ascendancy of the rigid Covenanters. The " Engagers " * were admitted to an alliance, the shifty Argyle went into retirement, and, i January, 1651, Charles was crowned at Scone. Thereupon, Cromwell, with daring strategy, crossed the Firth of Forth, thus cutting his enemies off from the Highlands upon which they depended for recruits and supplies. At the same time, he left the road to England open. The Scots had no choice but to march south across the Border, though the invasion would inevitably arouse the national sentiment of the bulk of the English. They started 31 July, 1650, by the fatal Lancashire road. Cromwell hastened after them along a parallel route through York- shire, and Charles' army, much worn down by English forces which had been harassing his flanks and rear, was overtaken at Worcester. There, 3 September, 1651, on the anniversary of Dunbar, a fierce battle was fought. Charles, who manfully plunged into the fray, after he had for some time breathlessly followed events from the cathedral tower, only fled when the last hope was gone. A reward of 1000 for a " tall man above two yards high, with dark brown hair, scarcely to be distinguished from black " failed to secure his capture. After six weeks of thrilling adventures, in which the courage and re- source of the fugitive were only matched by the devotion of his fol- lowers, he made his way to France to wait for better times. Worces- ter's fight was Cromwell's "crowning mercy." Never again during his lifetime was England in danger of invasion. Scotland soon yielded. Compared with the Irish, the Scots were dealt with tenderly. The army of occupation was kindly disposed, and the Kirk, although deprived of its control in the State and its power to persecute, was left unmolested. It now remained to establish the Commonwealth securely in England and to assert its power in the colonies, on the seas, and abroad. The Sea Power of the Commonwealth. Before the close of 1651 the fleet of the Commonwealth, chiefly through the abilities of Blake, who had won his spurs as a land commander during the Civil Wars, had successfully asserted its dominion of the seas. Prince Rupert, who had taken over the command of the royal navy, 2 was able to ac- complish little. The island possessions of the royalists in the Channel were forced to yield, and, after the news of Worcester, Virginia, the Bermudas, and the Barbadoes, which had declared for the King, and where many royalist exiles had taken refuge, acknowledged the author- ity of Parliament. Yet the- notable success of the navy under the Commonwealth, while it enhanced the prestige of the Commonwealth, x The party who had signed the " Engagement" with Charles I. 2 Many of the land commanders of the period showed this amphibious capacity. 2L 5H A HISTORY OF ENGLAND was attended with results which contributed to the ultimate downfall of the Government. In the two years from 1649 to 1651 the navy was more than doubled: instead of contenting themselves with keeping the peace and protecting commerce, the leaders were tempted to use the weapons which they had forged in maritime conflicts, first against the Dutch, and subsequently against Spain. Although they inflicted great injury on their adversaries and took rich prizes, English com- merce suffered and the heavy taxes necessary to maintain the fleet, abnormally large for those times, roused violent opposition. The First Dutch War, 1652-1654. A war against the Dutch broke out in July, 1652. The causes of friction were commercial and polit- ical. In the East Indies there was long-standing rivalry which had led to bloody encounters ; at Amboyna, for instance, the Dutch had, in 1623, massacred a body of English traders, a deed for which they steadily refused to make compensation. The English, for their part, refused to recognize the right of the Dutch to fish for herring in the North Sea ; against the latter's claim that free ships made free goods, they insisted on searching their ships for royalist arms; and they demanded that the Dutch recognize the English supremacy in the narrow seas by lowering their colors when ships of the two countries met. These differences were all commercial, the political were equally serious. In 1649 the royalists at the Hague had murdered the Eng- lish representative, Dorislaus ; and the Estates General not only rejected an alliance with the Commonwealth, but refused its demands to expel the royalist exiles, or to proscribe the House of Orange, whose adherents were openly hostile to the new Government, and to whom the new English regime was further opposed as an hereditary dynasty allied by marriage to the Stuarts. Finally, in October, 1651, the Eng- lish aimed a blow at the Dutch carrying trade by a Navigation Act/ providing that no goods should 'be imported from Asia, Atnca, or" America save in English or Colonial ships, or from any European country, except in English ships or those of the country that produced the goods. 1 In the conflict which followed, though the honors were about even in actual engagements, the English, on the whole, had the advantage. The Dutch ships were smaller, they were less adequately manned, and their guns were lighter ; they had a larger commerce and more colonies to defend, and their internal administration had been weakened by discord among the various provinces since the death of the Stadholder William in i65o. 2 The Growing Opposition to the Commonwealth. While the Com- monwealth had asserted its power by force of arms in all directions, the existing arrangement failed to win the approval of the bulk of the nation. The Council of State was efficient and honest ; but the Rump . 1 This act, however, which was apparently not very rigidly enforced, was not made a pretext for war. 2 He left a posthumous child, later famous as William of Orange and William III of England. THE KINGLESS DECADE 515 Parliament contained many members who were charged with self- seeking and corruption, in the fines imposed upon the malignants, in the sequestration of royalist estates, and in the sale of Crown and Church lands. After the Irish and Scots had been subdued, the army, which objected to seeing a fragment of Parliament continuing to govern the country for an unlimited period, was in a position to assert itself. 1 Parliament, on their part, felt that an appeal to the country in a general election would jeopardize the whole existing system. In order to deal with the recent crises, they had not only been obliged to impose heavy taxes, but to suppress the writings of those who opposed their policy, and, in general, to resort to such arbitrary measures that they were bound to be beaten at the polls. Their austerity added to their general unpopularity : they put a stop to church festivals ; they closed the theaters ; they tried to enforce morality by law ; and to stifle innocent merriment in a regime of gloom. While allowing a fair degree of freedom to Protestants, they failed to set up a satisfac- tory religious settlement, or to undertake much-desired reforms in law and finance. Cromwell dissolves the Rump, 20 April, 1653. Finally, 2 August, 1652, the officers of the army formulated a petition, embodying the demands of the more progressive sort, and again insisting on arrears of pay. When nothing came of it, Cromwell began reluctantly to realize that Parliament was as serious an obstruction to the cause which he had at heart as Charles had been. Gradually he became convinced that the only hope lay in his assuming the executive 2 ; but, as usual, he proceeded cautiously. While he was coming to this conclusion, the Rump planned a step which determined him to get rid of it. The members, instead of providing for a general election, decided to pro- long their own powers by filling the vacant seats in their body with men of whose qualifications they should themselves be the judge. Directly he heard the news, Cromwell, clad in plain woolen clothes and worsted stockings, hurried to the House, followed by a guard of soldiers. With his hat on his head he strode up and down the floor. At the close of an angry speech in which he overwhelmed them with grave charges, he cried : "Come, come, I will put an end to your prating. You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament ; I will put an end to your sitting. Call them in, call them in." As the soldiers came, in response to his order, Vane began to protest in vigor- ous language. Cromwell turned upon him, shouting : "Oh, Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane ! " Then he seized the mace, saying, " What shall we do with this bauble? 1 It was further alienated by the excessive development of the navy and the Dutch war. 2 As early as December, 1651, he declared that a "settlement with somewhat of a monarchical power in it would be very effectual." A little later in a private conversation he threw out the suggestion : "What if a man should take upon him to be King?" S i6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND There, take it away." The Speaker was forcibly pulled from his chair by one of the officers. Seeking to justify himself, Cromwell declared to the assembled members : " It is you who have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day that he would rather slay me than put me to the doing of this work." Then, snatching up the offending bill and putting it under his cloak, he commanded the doors to be locked, and hurried away. Some wag put a sign on the Parliament building which read: "This House to let unfurnished." Cromwell's action, though meant for the best, was really more violent than anything that Charles had attempted. It remained to be seen whether he could build up a better edifice than he had pulled down. The Nominated Parliament, July-December, 1653. Immediately after the dissolution of the Rump, the army replaced the Council of State by a provisional council with Cromwell at the head. Fearing to appeal to the country at large, the new body determined to secure an assembly of godly men of their own way of thinking. To that end, they wrote to the Congregational ministers of each county asking them to name suitable persons, from which lists they made their selections, adding names of their own. Thus, they assembled a body of 140 members, 129 from England, 5 from Scotland, and 6 from Ire- land, to whom they handed over the powers of the State on condition that, after devising a new scheme of representation, it should bring its own sessions to a close within fifteen months. Thus the Nomi- nated or Little or Barebones Parliament, 1 as it has been variously called, was intended to be a constituent assembly only ; but, composed of zealous reformers, it chose a Council of State, appointed committees to consider the needs of the Church and the nation ; and proceeded with the work properly belonging to the body it was supposed to choose. 2 Most of their proposed reforms were good in themselves ; indeed, many of them have since been adopted, but they were in advance of the time. So, 12 December, 1653, the more moderate members, who although in a minority voiced the sense of the majority outside, held an early sit- ting and resigned their powers into the hands of Cromwell. Those who resisted were expelled by the troops. 3 If the Rump had not been ready to go far enough, its successor had gone too far. The creature of the army, it had sought to free itself and the English people from the power of the sword ; it failed because it aroused the fear that it was going to introduce the domination of the sects and radicalism. The Instrument of Government. Cromwell made Lord Protector, December, 1653. Upon the overthrow of the Nominated Parliament 1 It got its name from one of its members, Praise-God Barebone, a leather mer- chant of London. 2 Among their drastic reforms they proposed to reduce the laws of England to a cqde that should be of "no greater bigness than a pocket book." 3 According to a royalist story a colonel asked those who lingered what they were doing: "We are seeking the Lord," was the reply. "Then you should go elsewhere," he retorted, "for to my knowledge the Lord has not been here these twelve years past." THE KINGLESS DECADE 517 the officers of the army presented a scheme known as the Instrument , vesting the supreme power in a single person, assisted, and to some extent controlled, by a council and a parliament. ' The Instrument is notable as the first written constitution for governing a nation in modern times, 1 and the only one which England has ever had in actual operation. On 16 December, Cromwell accepted office as Lord Protector. He was to hold office for life and his successors were to be chosen by the Council of State. This body was to consist of 13 to 21 members named in the Instrument. For each future vacancy Parliament was to name six persons, from whom the Council would select two, the final choice resting with the Protector. Powers of legislation and extraordinary taxation 2 were vested in Parliament, though between sessions the Protector and Council could issue ordi- nances which might be afterwards confirmed or disallowed by Parlia- ment. The Protector had no power of veto, though he could withhold his assent to a bill for twenty days. It was provided that Parliament should meet at least once in three years and that each session should last at least five months. The right to vote was somewhat extended, though supporters of the King were to be temporarily excluded and Roman Catholics disqualified. The Christian religion as contained in the Scriptures 3 was to be professed by the Nation. There was to be an established church, but a provision less objectionable than tithes was to be made for its support. Full liberty was allowed to believers in Jesus Christ, though this was not to extend to " Popery or Prelacy," or to those who disturbed the peace, or practiced licentiousness. The Instrument was, on the whole, a good attempt to steer between the despotism of a single person and a single house. The Protector was checked by the Council, and his acts could be reviewed by the courts. On the other hand, he was, to some extent, protected against Parliament by the fixed revenue for the ordinary needs of the State and by. the suspensive veto. Yet the arrangement was not without its flaws. There was no provision for amendment, and the relations between the executive and the legislature were not as they are at present. A modern Parliament can exercise constant supervision over the Cabinet, which falls as soon as the majority withdraws its support ; moreover, it controls supplies even in ordinary times. On the other hand, the Cabinet can always dissolve Parliament and appeal to the nation, a device that the Protector was not in a position to make use of. His government had the support neither of traditional loyalty nor of the sanction of the majority. It was not through any faults in its plan, however, that the Instrument failed, but because Parliament refused to accept it, insisting, when they came together, that it was their function and not that of Cromwell or the army to construct the constitution. 1 The Mayflower Compact of 1620 and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1639, were constitutions not for sovereign bodies, but for colonies of England. 2 A fixed revenue was provided for the ordinary expenses of the army and navy and the civil administration. 3 This meant Puritanism. 5i8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Cromwell's Aims as Protector. From 16 December, 1653, to 3 September, 1654, when Parliament met, Cromwell was in fact if not in name sovereign of the three kingdoms. In his early life he had been busily and usefully employed in tilling his fields and rearing cattle. In Parliament he was known as a rather uncouth figure, active and determined, but chiefly notable for his religious fervor. When the Civil War broke out, he was forty-three years old, and the struggle was well under way before he came to be recognized as an irresistible military force. He had overcome all who withstood the cause of which he had made himself the champion. Now that he stood trium- phant over his vanquished opponents the King, the Irish, the Scots, and Parliament he had before him the one supreme task : " The task, as he said himself, of healing and settling : of healing the rancour engendered by so many years of strife ; of settling a new order, polit- ical and ecclesiastical, which should rest, not upon military force, but upon the willing acceptance of all good citizens." Directly he as- sumed office he applied himself at once to legislation, and, during the next three months, issued some eighty ordinances covering a wide field. The Protector's Religious Policy. The religious policy which he sought to enforce was one which he adopted but did not originate. It contemplated an established, non-episcopal church, endowed and supported by the State, and comprehending all Protestant sects who believed in Christ, save those who accepted bishops and the Prayer Book. For those who opposed any form of establishment the greatest possible toleration was to be allowed. Each congregation was to own its church buildings and to regulate its own form of worship, and no provision was made for church courts, ecclesiastical assemblies, pre- scribed ceremonies, or doctrinal tests. Great pains, however, were taken to secure proper ministers. By an ordinance of 20 March, 1654, a mixed commission of laymen known as the " Triers " was set up to test the fitness of preachers presented to livings. It was supplemented, 22 August, by a body of " Ejectors," established in each county to expel ministers found to be scandalous, heretical, disaffected, or " insuf- ficient." Cromwell's system satisfied most of the conservatives who had vested interests at stake and the sectaries who desired freedom from persecution. Anglicans were forbidden openly to use the Prayer Book, but their private worship was winked at, except during moments when the Government felt itself in danger. Catholics, though still subject to the old penalties for saying and hearing mass, were no longer forced to attend the parish church, and the penal laws were not rigidly enforced. 1 The Quakers and Baptists throve lustily, were able to survive the Restoration and live to the present day. Moreover, the Jews began to return to England. In spite, however, of its generally jglerant attirnrip, TrnrnweH's was a JPuritan regime. Its austerity, Only one priest was put to death during Cromwell's regime. THE KINGLESS DECADE 519 its exclusion of the Cavaliers from political activity, and the unfair discrimination in financial burdens that soon came to be imposed upon them, kept alive a discontent that was soon to assert itself. Cromwell's Foreign Policy. Cromwell's foreign policy which now began to shape itself had three main objects : the weakening of the Stuart cause on the Continent ; the development of England's and commercial power : and the -formation ot agreat alliance of ^ Protestant countries of Europe under the leadership of England. He succeeded, soloing as he lived, in staving oft a Stuart restoration Also, he did much to carry on the old Elizabethan tradition of English mari- time supremacy which had been so effectively revived under the Commonwealth. In his third, and what he liked to believe was his paramount aim, he was least fortunate. After the Peace of West- phalia, which concluded the Thirty Years' War in 1648, religious inter- ests in Europe gave way more and more to those of political and com- mercial aggrandizement. The northern Protestant states which Cromwell aimed to unite fell to quarreling among themselves, and the two great Catholic Powers, France and Spain, whom he strove to keep apart, made peace in little more than a year after his death. More- over, the Protector himself mingled with his Protestant zeal a con- suming ambition to enhance England's material advantages. While this latter motive was most worthy, it led him into devious courses, in which his actions conflicted with his professions, thus enabling his enemies at home and abroad to charge him with hypocrisy when he was frequently only self-deluded. Peace with the Dutch, April, 1654. The mixed motives in his policy were manifested shortly after he became Protector. Deplor- ing the continuance of the war with the Dutch, he concluded a treaty of peace in April, 1654, but his terms were hard and distinctly to Eng- land's commercial and political advantage. The Dutch agreed to strike their flags to English ships in the narrow seas ; to punish the perpetrators of the Amboyna massacre ; and to accept the Navigation Act. On the other hand, they were to continue to fish for herrings in the North Sea without payment of rent, and they maintained their own views on the right of search. While England desired to exclude the House of Orange from the government of the United Provinces, no stipulation was made in the treaty, though Cromwell induced Holland, the leading province, not to elect William's heir as Stadholder. Each country agreed to make compensation for damages done to the other in the East Indies ; concluded a defensive alliance ; and agreed not to harbor each other's rebels, this involving the exclusion of the Stuart exiles from the United Provinces. Altogether, the war was a heavy blow at England's greatest trade rival, and marked the beginning of the end of the Dutch supremacy at sea. Treaties followed with Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal. The latter, although a Catholic country, was at war with Spain against whom it was struggling to maintain its independence. 520 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Capture of Jamaica, May, 1655. The War with Spain. France and Spain contended with one another for an alliance with the Protector. France, to be sure, was the hereditary enemy of England, while her king was a nephew of Henrietta Maria. On the other hand, Spain had been the foe who inspired the glorious achievements of the Elizabethan seamen, and the Spanish religious and commercial policy was still unbearably exclusive. When England asked for freedom of religion and trade for her merchants, the Spanish ambas- sador declared that it was like asking for his master's two eyes. Far from making any concessions, the Inquisition was rigorously enforced against Englishmen in the Spanish dominions, English settlements in the West Indies were persistently harassed, and English ships were intercepted in the surrounding waters. This accounts for Oliver's declaration to the Council, 20 July, 1654, that : " Providence seemed to lead us " to an attack on the Spanish Indies. However, he made the mistake of thinking that he could war on Spain in the Indies and remain at peace in Europe l ; furthermore, he prepared an attack while remaining on terms of ostensible friendship with the destined enemy. During Christmas, 1654, his expedition started with Ad- miral Penn in command of the fleet, and General Venables in command of the army which accompanied it. They were ordered to strike at the Spanish dominions in the New World, and to seize the treasure ships, with the twofold object of breaking her colonial monopoly and dealing a blow at " anti-Christ." An attack on Hispaniola failed dismally; but, in May, Jamaica, practically defenseless, was captured. In June, Blake, who, the previous October, had been sent to the Mediterranean to protect English trade and to chastise the pirates who infested that sea, re- ceived orders to intercept treasure ships on their -way to Spain as well as vessels containing troops and supplies for the West Indies. Not till the 26 October, 1655, did Oliver declare war. While his grounds were sufficient, his underhanded policy is most blame- worthy. The Alliance with France, 1655 and 1657. Two days before the declaration of war with Spain, he concluded a treaty with France, providing for the promotion of commerce and the exclusion from each country of the rebels of the other. The result was to throw the exile Charles into the arms of Philip IV of Spain. He took up his residence in Brussels ; he received a Spanish pension and a promise of assistance whenever he should invade England. The treaty between France and England was followed by an offensive and defensive alliance, 23 March, 1657. In June of the next year, the French general Tu- renne, assisted by English troops who fought with rare bravery, cap- tured Dunkirk, the best port in Flanders. It was handed over to the Protector. He had stipulated for this cession, partly because 1 His only excuse was the old tradition that there was no peace beyond the line, the line marked by the bull of demarcation of Alexander VI. THE KINGLESS DECADE 521 Dunkirk was one of the keys of the Channel, and partly because it was a lair for pirates who preyed upon English commerce. Results of the Protector's Foreign Policy. In foreign policy Oliver achieved much. He gained for England a high place among European powers, and " was more feared and courted than any otner sovereign of his time " ; he retarded the restoration of Charles II; he_ advanced English commercial and colonial interests_hy striking hqjH__ JaT^e~mmigrK)ly ol %)aln ; and he took his country another long step "towanl that naval^supreniacy wKicTTsKe : Has r enjoy ecT for the lastTwo ^centuries. However, his cherished scheme for a great Protestant alliance failed. He has been charged, too, with short-sightedness in furthering the greatness of France, a growing power, as against Spain, which was on the decline ; yet it must be said that the decay of Spain was not then fully apparent, while it was the slavish policy of Charles II far more than Oliver's alliance which contributed to the subsequent ascendancy of Louis XIV. A more serious indictment of Oliver's policy is that it took money which the country could ill spare ; it diverted the Protector's attention from pressing domestic problems ; and, by mingling material motives with religious professions, he low- ered his ideals and stained his prestige as a godly ruler of the elect. The First Parliament of the Protectorate, September, 1654- January, 1655. Meantime, the first Parliament of the Protectorate had met, 3 September, 1654. Besides a small body of Republicans opposed to a strong executive, a stout contingent of conservatives had been elected who were set against war. While they desired a settled government they were bent on having one settled by themselves. Cromwell was willing that they should alter " circumstantials " in the Instrument ; but he insisted that they should not meddle with " fundamentals." " I say," he declared vehemently, " that the wilful throwing away of this Government, such as it is, so owned by God, so approved by men, were a thing I can sooner be rolled into my grave and buried with infamy than I can give my consent to." By means of a test, to which he required the members to subscribe, he managed to exclude about a hundred of the most uncompromising ; but even those who remained set about to revise the Instrument in such a manner as to obtain Par- liamentary sovereignty, control over the militia, and religious uni- formity rigidly restricting freedom of conscience. Consequently, 22 January, 1655, at the end of five lunar months Oliver appeared before them, and in a bitter speech in which he denounced them for multiplying " dissettlement and divisions " and " reproached them with their readiness to pinch other men's consciences, and their en- deavor to grasp the whole power of the militia," he concluded : " it is not for the profit of these nations, nor fit for the common and public good, for you to continue here any longer. And, therefore, I do de- clare unto you that I do dissolve this Parliament." While they had some ground for opposing a military despotism, the Protector was worthy of their trust, and he realized that, if the unnatural union of 522 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Presbyterians and Republicans who opposed him was allowed to pre- vail, it would open the way for factional fights and inevitable reaction. It was one of the ironies of fate that he who desired above all things peace and healing, and who had contended against despotism both in King and in Parliament, could only preserve at the point of the sword what he had struggled to gain for the nation. Penruddock's Rising and the Rule of the Major-Generals, 1655. The dissension between the Protector and Parliament and evidences of discontent outside the House encouraged the royalists to plan a general rising in March, 1655. The only force to appear in arms was a body of Wiltshire men under John Penruddock. They were speedily suppressed, and Penruddock, with a few of the leaders, were put to death, while a number of others were transported to the West Indies. Nevertheless, the unrest continued to be so great that, in August, the Protector^ divided the country into military districts, setting a major - glmeraJ_aver_eacIiL In addition to keeping order they were com- missioned to enforce the Puritan moral code. They were most effec- tive in both capacities. They put down robberies and disorder, they suppressed horse racing, cockfighting and bear baiting. 1 They re- duced the number of alehouses ; punished tippling and prof aneness ; and they made determined war on vagrants, strolling minstrels, and stage players. 2 This increased rigor served only to alienate further the mass of the people in whom the love of amusement was strong. Moreover, the Cavaliers were oppressed with singular and special burdens. In addition to those who were punished for participation in the recent rising, an income tax of 10 per cent, known as the " deci- mation," was imposed on all who were known to have taken part against Parliament in the Civil War. By this " military and magis- terial inquisition " and by such unwise discrimination, the Protector lost the chance of winning over the classes whom the Rump had failed to conciliate. When, owing to the need for money for carrying on the Spanish war, a new Parliament met, 17 September, 1656, th_e_ whole sp.p.f hin _ . Cromwell made Hereditary Protector, June, 1657. The Council, under its authority of deciding whether new members were men of 1 Partly because they furnished occasion for drunkenness, gaming, and other immoralities, partly because such gatherings offered opportunity for conspiracy. 2 The following indictment which was gravely considered by the Court of Upper Bench is an indication of the minute supervision exercised by the authorities in this period : " Kent Before the justices of the peace it was presented that, at Maidstone, in the county aforesaid, John Bishop, of Maidstone, in the county afore- said, apothecary, with force and arms did wilfully and in a violent and boisterous manner run to and fro, and kick up and down in the common highway and street within the said town and county, called the High Street, a certain ball of leather commonly called a foot ball, unto the great annoyance and incumbrance of the said common highway, to the great disquiet and disturbance, of the good people of this Commonwealth passing and travelling in and through the same, and in con- tempt of the laws, etc. and to the evil example of others and against the public peace." THE KINGLESS DECADE 523 " known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation," excluded more than a hundred possible opponents of the Protector, and about fifty more did not take their seats. Those who remained hoped by supporting Cromwell and enlarging his civil powers to secure a stable government and to break the power of the army. Very wisely the rule of the Major-Generals and the " decimation " of the Cavaliers was discontinued. There were two leading parties in Parliament, one desirmg~to make Cromwell hereditary Protector, the other to make him King. There was much to be said for the restoration of the kingship. For one thing, it was rooted in traditional loyalty, and would, for that reason, command the support 01 many of the con- servatives ; again, it was bound by recognized rules of constitutional limitation, while the office of Protector was more in the nature of a dictatorship. Cromwell professed to regard the kingly title " as a mere feather in the hat " ; but when it was offered him, in February, 1657, in a revised form of the Instrument, known as the ^ petition and Ad vice, " he hesitated. When he refused, early in May, it was apparently only because of the strenuous opposition of the army. Instead, he accepted the office jrfjiereditary Lord Protector. and, 26 June, was solemnly inaugurated with regal pomp and cere- mony. Most of the other recommendations of the Humble Petition were adopted as well. Chief among them was a provision for a second or " other House," members of which should, in the first instance, be nominated by Cromwell. The Constitution thus revised, and with the powers of Parliament considerably enlarged, now for the first time received formal sanction. After legalizing the ordinances of 1654, Parliament adjourned till January, 1658. When it met again, the power of the Protector was found to have been greatly weakened by the admission of the members excluded in the autumn of 1656, and by the promotion of his stanchest supporters to the ' '.other House." In the face of intrigues against his authority and disputes over the relations between the two Houses, he ordered their dissolution, 4 Feb- ruary, 1658. " I think it high time to put an end to your sitting," he declared, " and let God be judge between you and me." It was destined to be his last parliament. Cromwell's Death, 3 September, 1658. The remaining few months of his life were marked by growing unpopularity and disappointment. The .merchants were more and more embittered by the damage to their commerce inflicted by hostile powers, as the^Cavaliers had been bvjhe deprivation of their lands and social prestige! The strain of keeping up a large army and a large navy at the same time was too much for the nation to bear, while the need for money grew more pressing every day. Only Oliver's strong hand could hold in check the steadily mounting discontent. Although but fifty-eight years old and of a naturally robust constitution, the burden proved too great for his health to bear, undermined as it was by fifteen years of titanic labors. The death of his favorite daughter Elizabeth, 6 August, 1658, 524 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND proved to be the final shock from which he never recovered. Shortly after, he was taken with an ague and intermittent fever. On 20 August, George Fox, who had met him entering Hampton Court at the head of his guards, " felt a waft of death go forth before him." It was not long before he realized himself that his days were numbered : "I would be willing," he said, " to live to be further serviceable to God and His people ; but my work is done." He died 3 September, 1658, on the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester. Cromwell's Work. Cromwell's enemies have judged him harshly, and long after his death the view prevailed that, starting as a sincere zealot, the taste for power gradually transformed him into a hypo- critical fanatic . He had been in his grave nearly two centuries when a tempestuous but penetrating champion arose in the person ofThomas Carlyle to demonstrate beyond a doubt that Cromwell was " not a man of lies, but a man of truth." Since then, the patient investiga- tions of impartial historians have been able to picture him as he really was in the light of the problems he had to face. It was his un- swerving trust in God and his absolute acceptance of every victory which he gained in war and in politics at home and abroad, as a mani- festation of Divine Providence that lent color to the hostile view that so long prevailed. In spite of seeming contradictions, he pursued consistent aims to_ strike at despotism under whatever form it was cloaked, to stem the inrusH of anarcKy. and to preserve the herb, tage for whidO^Tfought. He fashioned the army to beat the King, who had been encroaching on the religious and civil liberties of his subjects. He overthrew the Long Parliament, because it refused to grant spiritual freedom to the sects and showed a determination to perpetuate its own power. He welcomed the abrupt termination of the Little Parliament, since it went too far in tearing up the roots of the past. Then he accepted the supreme power under a system which seemed to combine the best features of joint rule by a single person and a parliament. When Parliament proceeded to contest the basis of his power, he found himself forced to adopt methods more arbitrary than those of the King whom he had overthrown. The problem before him was such that neither he nor probably any other man could con- struct a workable system of government. While more effective as a destroyer than as a builder, he achieved many things. He struck a^ blow at tyranny, royal and ecclpg^gtjr? 1 , f rO m which it never re- covered ; he gave the country an actual experience in religious tolera- tion which helped prepare the way for the spiritual freedom which it was left to later hands enduringly to establish. He first tried the experiment of combining England, Scotland, and Ireland in a parlia- mentary union, a plan that was not completely realized for a century and a half. He made the name of England respected abroad, and, adopting the maritime and colonial policy of his great predecessor, Elizabeth, he carried it a stage further along toward the goal which Great Britain has now reached. Under his government, particularly THE KINGLESS DECADE 525 during the regime of the Major-Generals, there was rigid repression and minute interference with private affairs. Some innocent recrea- tion was blighted by the enforced observance of the gloomy Puritan Sabbath. Some of these measures, however, were due to stern political necessity. Others were in the interests of a high, if somewhat dreary, morality, and the policy, mistaken as it was in many respects, intro- duced serious and sober ideals which have done much to uplift the English national character. 1 Cromwell, the Man. Cromwell the man, so simple and human in his bearing, was ajcomplex personality embodying the most diverse traits. He was at once daring and cautious ; he was .hesitant in council and decisive in action. Although a religious enthusiast, he was intensely practical inHis military and state policy. In his habits of life he was the opposite of a " morose and gloomy " ascetic ; he smoked tobacco, he drank wine and small beer. He hunted, hawked, and was a lover of horses. He loved his jest 2 and was enthusiastic for games, playing bowls even after he became Lord Protector. He had an ear for music, and scandalized the stricter sort when his daughter Frances was married in November, 1657, by allowing the wedding party to indulge in " mixed dancing." But this lighter side only appeared at moments in his absorbed and purposeful life. In his last prayer he gave thanks that he had been " a mean instrument to do God's people some good and God some service." If, as a ruler, he came more and more to subordinate " the civil liberty and interest of the nation ... to the more peculiar interest of God," if to that end he was often abrupt and arbitrary, his aims were lofty and disinter- ested. " A larger soul, I think, hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay." Such was the tribute of Maidston, his cofferer, perhaps as well qualified to speak as any man who knew him. Richard Cromwell Lord Protector. His Abdication, 1659. Richard Cromwell, whom his father had named as his successor, was a gentle, worthy man, of pure life, personally popular even with the Cavaliers ; but he was a typical country gentleman and sportsman, without force and without training or ability in affairs of state. More- over, he had no hold on the army. " Queen Dick " and the " Meek Knight " were some of the names which his enemies came to apply to him. At the outset, however, all was well : he bore himself with dignity ; foreign governments recognized him ; and his father's coun- cilors supplied the wisdom and experience which he lacked. Never- theless, his tenure of power really depended on the army. A new 1 On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the Puritans were at least partially responsible for the dissipation that came in with the Restoration, partly from the reaction which it engendered, and partly because their confiscations broke up many of the Cavalier country homes and drove the younger folk into exile in foreign cities, whence they returned with strange vices. 2 Once when he was bitterly attacked by a zealous preacher, he replied by invit- ing him to dinner where a brother preacher said grace for three hours, Cromwell himself having previously dined. 526 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND parliament met 27 January, 1659. While it contained a strong and varied body of anti-Cromwellians, the Republicans were unable to gain the upper hand. In consequence, they turned to the army chiefs, Fleetwood, Lambert, and Desborough, who forced Richard to dissolve Parliament, 22 April, 1659. After some wrangling the old Rump was recalled, 7 May. Though originally there had been no intention of overthrowing the Protectorate, but merely to " piece and mend up that cracked government," the Rump proceeded to pass a resolution for maintaining a Commonwealth. Richard, after a few days of hesitation, resigned. " Tumbledown Dick," as he came to be called, lived in retirement till 1712. The End of the Long Parliament, 26 March, 1660. The Rump was as unwilling as Richard's government had been, to allow the army to control military affairs. As a result, it was dissolved, 13 Octo- ber, 1659, the delay being due to threatened royalist risings during the summer. While the generals were trying to devise some plan of orderly government in which they might have the voice they desired, an unexpected figure arose to dominate the situation. This was George Monck. who commanded the armvjnJScotland. He had begun EnTmilitary career lighting lor King GiarlesT: taken prisoner in 1644 by the enemy, he had successively served Parliament, the Common- wealth, the two Protectors, and the restored Rump, and' had shown unusual ability as a fighter on the sea as well as on the land. 1 A man of sphinx-like reserve, he seemed absorbed in his military duties and indifferent to politics. Now he suddenly stood forth as the " cham- pion of the authority of Parliament " against the designs of the generals. Apparently he cared little whether England was a monarchy or a republic ; but, if we can believe his own professions, he was convinced that she should be governed by law rather than by the sword. On 2 January, 1660, he crossed the Tweed at the head of his army. Lam- bert made a vain effort to oppose him, but there was no enthusiasm for the cause of the army, and, deserted even by his own troops, he was obliged to give way. Monck marched south, carefully evading any public declaration of his intentions. However, he at length yielded so far to the demands of the Presbyterians as to force the Rump, which had been recalled again, 26 December, to readmit the members ex- cluded by Pride's Purge ; but he informed the body thus reconstituted that it must dissolve by the 6 May at the latest, and make way for a free parliament. The power of the Independents who had ruled England for eleven years was broken, though their representatives were allowed to retain their seats. Monck was made commander of the army of the three kingdoms. On 16 March, " with many sad pangs and groans," the Long Parliament dissolved itself after an inter- mittent existence of nearly twenty years. It had done much for England; but had long outlived its usefulness. 1 "I am engaged in conscience and honor," he declared, " to see my country freed from that intolerable slavery of a sword government, and I know England cannot, nay, will not, endure it." THE KINGLESS DECADE 527 The Recall of Charles II and the Declaration of Breda. Before dissolving it had provided for a Convention Parliament l to meet 25 April. Royalists were allowed to vote in the elections, though they were not eligible to sit unless they had given some proof of affection to the parliamentary cause. Nevertheless, the influence of the Cavaliers was second only to that of the Presbyterians in the new body ; for many of the younger members of the party had been under age during the war, others had lived in the parliamentary counties where they had been forced to keep the peace, and others were chosen in flat defiance of the law. About this time Monck opened negotia- tions with rhfl.rW Seeing that the people were weary of frequent revolutions, army rule, and heavy taxes, he may have thought that he would gain personally by recalling the King as a means of anticipat- ing an inevitable reaction. Still, it is possible that he had an unselfish desire to restore peace and a settled government. At any rate, " while the Restoration was the result of a general movement of opinion too strong to be withstood," 2 Monck did more than any other man to bring it about. As a result of the negotiations which opened. Charles, acting under the advice of Hyde, who was with him in exile, issued from Breda a declaration in which he promised : (i) a general amnesty for all offenders, save those exceptea by Parliament ; (2) liberty of con~ ^science, according to such a lawas Parliament might propose ; (3) such "securityifor property acquirecTdurmg the late troubles as Parliament might determine ; (4) full_arrears to the soldiers according to act oT Parliament. After a futile rising, led by Lambert, the army tooJc~ an engagement to accept whatever settlement Parliament might make. " Their whole design," wrote Pepys, the famous diarist, " is broken . . . and every man begins to be merry and full of hope." The Con- vention met, 25 April, " as appointed. rAfter both Houses had agreed in a declaration that, according to the ancient and fundamental laws of the Kingdom, the government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons," Charles was proclaimed in London. ~\ Nature of the Restoration and the Results of the'Turitan Revolu- tion. Charles landed at Dover, 25 May, i66o. 3 JThe_ Restoration, jiad at length come as a reaction from excessive Puritanism and army rule Yet the Revolution had accomplished results which were never 1 So-called because it was an extraordinary form of assembly, not summoned by royal writ. 2 "This government," it was aptly said, " was as natural to them as their food or raiment, and naked Indians dressing themselves in French fashion were no more absurd than Englishmen without a parliament and a king." 3 When the mayor who stepped forward to receive him, put a Bible in his hands, he declared with that hypocrisy with which he had once deceived the Scots, that " it was the thing he loved above all things in the world." There is another story that, when a deputation of London ministers were sent over, shortly before his return, to secure testimonials as to his religious attitude, their leader was told that he must wait because Charles was at his devotions. However, he was designedly left in the room next the royal closet, where he was " ravished to hear the pious ejaculations that fell from the King's lips," among them 528 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to be effaced. It had arrested the growth of absolutism ; for the monarchy that was restored was destined never again to be, for any considerable period, a monarchy completely independent of Parlia- ment. The Established Church was restored ; but it never again became the National Church, embracing every subject as such. A sturdy body of Dissenters had sprung up and multiplied during the recent upheaval, and the century had not run its course before many of them had obtained a recognized legal status outside the bounds of the Establishment. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Montague, Political History, chs. XVI-XX. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, ch. X. Cambridge Modern History, IV, chs. XV, XIX (bibliog- raphy, pp. 898-904). Gardiner, The History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate (4 vols., 1903). C. H. Firth, The Last Years of the Protectorate, 1656-1658 (1909). Lingard, VIII, chs. IV-VIII. Ranke, II, bk. X ; III, bks. XI-XIII. F. A. Inder- wick, The Interregnum (1891). Pollard, Factors in Modern History, chs. IX, X. Constitutional. Gardiner, Documents, introduction, pp. Ivi-lxviii. Hallam, II, ch. X, pt. II. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. V, ch. IV. E. Jenks, The Constitutional Experiments of the Protectorate (1890) . The Diary of the contemporary, John Evelyn (best ed. H. B. Wheatley, 4 vols., 1906), throws vivid lights on the period. For biographies see ch. XXX. Also Gardiner, Cromwell's Place in History (1897). G. L. Beer, Cromwell's Policy in its Economic Aspects (1902) is valuable for this phase of the subject. Seeley, British Policy, II, pt..III. For the Navy, in addition to the works cited in ch. XXIX above, see Cambridge Modern History, IV, ch. XVI (bibliography, pp. 905-908). Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, II, bk. VI, chs. IV, V. R. Dun- lap, Ireland under the Commonwealth (1913); a collection of documents with intro- duction. Cambridge Modern History, IV, chs. XVII, XVIII (bibliography, pp. 909-918). Church. W. H. Hutton, English Church, ch. IX ; Shaw, II, and Stoughton II. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 213-220. Gardiner, Documents, nos. 86-105. the following petition : "Lord, since Thou art pleased to restore me to the throne of my ancestors, grant me a heart constant in the exercise and protection of thy true Protestant religion." CHAPTER XXXII FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE FALL OF CLARENDON (1660-1667) The New King and the Restoration. The King in his declaration issued at Breda promised to settle four important particulars in ac- cordance with the will of Parliament, but the Convention imposed no conditions upon him. Nevertheless, although the monarchy, the hereditary upper class, and the established Episcopacy were restored, there was no thoroughgoing reaction. The Puritan Revolution had produced an upheaval and an awakening which was bound to leave enduring results, and Charles II was shrewd enough to sense the situa- tion. To be sure, he struggled to make himself supreme, and he ended his reign in a very strong position ; but he achieved his end only by timely concessions. He recognized Parliament and the opinion which it represented as a force which might be manipulated but never dominated. Whatever happened, he once remarked, he was determined " never to set on his travels again." During the years that Charles was King, .neither arbitrary taxa- tion norjthe system of extraordinary courts were revived. Moreover, notable gains were made, both judicial and parliamentary. The fining of juries was done away with in 1670, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 made the writ for protecting the subject against prolonged imprisonment before trial more of a reality, and the barbarous de htzretico comburendo ceased in 1677 to disgrace the statute book. Parliament asserted successfully its right not only to grant taxes, but to appropriate them for specific purposes; to audit accounts; and, by frequent and effective impeachments, to hold the royal ministers, in some measure, responsible to itself. In this period, too, modern party organization took rise and the system of Cabinet government, based upon it, showed the first signs of taking shape. So much indeed was done that the famous Blackstone, writing a century later, declared that " the constitution of England had arrived to its full vigor, and the true balance between liberty and prerogative was happily estab- lished by law in the reign of Charles II." Yet, while many good laws were passed, bad government continued, 1 numerous traces of abso- lutism survived, and much that cried for remedy was left untouched for over a century. The judges, whose tenure was still during royal pleasure, continued servile to the Crown and tyrannical to the subject ; 1 Charles James Fox described it as an "era of good laws and bad government." 2M 529 530 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND while ministers charged with maladministration could be removed by impeachment, there was no means of getting rid of those who refused to govern according to the will of the majority in the House of Com- mons ; indeed, the King, by long prorogations, avoided meeting Parlia- ment for extended intervals, and, during the last four years of his reign, never summoned that body at all. The Early Life of Charles II. Charles II was thirty years old on the day that he entered London, 29 May, 1660. He had received little systematic instruction from books ; but his life had been a stir- ring one, full of harsh and varied lessons in the great school of expe- rience. As a boy of twelve he had narrowly escaped capture at Edge- hill ; when only fifteen, he had been put in nominal command of the royal army of the West, and early in 1646, by the order of his father, he fled from England. Then followed long years of exile. Often out at the elbows 1 ; the recipient of grudging advances from those who found him a burden ; disappointed, time and again, in his efforts to come to his own, he displayed through all his adversity the single virtue of cheerfulness. Once, and once only, he manifested an un- selfishness that was truly praiseworthy. In order to " save his father's head," he forwarded to Parliament a sheet of paper with his signature attached, offering to observe whatever conditions they might choose to insert. At all other times he appears simply as a " needy and frivolous but agreeable prince," who continually vexed his grave and learned councilor, Hyde, by his unwillingness to work and his loose habits. His brief experience in Scotland under the " sour tyrannies of the Kirk " led him to declare that Presbyterianism " was not a religion for gentlemen," and emphasized by contrast the " gorgeous ceremonies and easy morals " of Roman Catholicism as he found it in France. That became his faith, so far as he can be said to have had any, though he was not received into the fold of the Church until he lay on his deathbed. His Character and Attainments. Charles' early misfortunes and privations did nothing to build up his character; they only made him more greedy of comfort and amusement when the opportunity came. He remained to the end indolent, fickle, untrustworthy, and absolutely devoid of reverence. Although utterly selfish he had an easy good nature and a charm of manner that captivated every one who came in contact with him ; indeed, it was a common saying that " he could send away a person better pleased at receiving nothing than those in the good King his father's time that had requests granted them." However, he was generally as ready in making promises as he was careless in performing them. According to Rochester, one of his boon companions, " he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one " ; nevertheless he was keen and persistent in any matter that he thought worth the trouble, He had an acute, observant mind, an 1 Once, in 1659, he was so reduced that his clothes were threadbare, and he had to dismiss his servants and pawn his plate. THE RESTORATION 531 excellent memory, and a nimble wit. 1 A constant talker, he delighted in telling the adventures of his early days, never forgetting a single detail of any particular story except the fact that he had told it before. He was well read, a patron of the drama, of painting, and architecture, and took considerable interest in shipbuilding. His chief bent, however, was toward the sciences, and he actually performed chemical experiments himself. In person he was over six feet tall, and well formed, of dark, swarthy complexion, with a cynical eye, a great fleshy nose, and thick lips. " Odd's fish I am an ugly fellow," he said of himself forty years after his birth. It was only his magnificent physique and his devotion to athletic exercises that enabled him to keep his health, in view of the excesses in which he indulged. He rose early ; he was such a rapid and tireless walker that the courtiers who had to accompany him found it a sore burden ; he was a splendid tennis player and dancer, and a lover of dogs and horses. His Policy. He was quite without scruple in pursuing his ends and sharp at profiting by the mistakes of his opponents. Without ideals, lazy, and usually indifferent, he was as incapable of harboring resentment against an enemy as he was of cherishing gratitude toward a friend, and he would callously sacrifice a minister who had served him well so soon as he had ceased to be useful. Although he hated the details of business and was too sensible to believe in the Divine Right of Kings, he aimed to keep as free from parliamentary control as possible ; to that end, he set up a standing army, he sought to re- introduce Roman Catholicism, to secure toleration for dissenters, and, furthermore, allied himself with France. He bribed, flattered, and managed, but, fully alive to his royal limitations, he yielded when popular opposition proved too strong. Thus, before the close of his reign, he gave up all his projects except the French alliance to which he cl-ung tenaciously ; with a political cunning rare in history, he shifted to the Anglican side, and by playing the Anglicans and the French against one another, he managed to spend his last years free from parliamentary restraint. The Earl of Newcastle, who had been put in charge of his education in his early boyhood, instructed him to " take heede of too much booke " ; to " beware of too much devotion " ; " to be courteous to women " ; not to be " an anchorette, or a capuchin " or " a Diogenes in your tubb " ; and " to be a brave, noble, and just king." Charles faithfully followed all these injunctions except the last. Such was the man whom the Londoners welcomed with wild shouts of joy, with pealing of bells, with booming of cannon, whose way they strewed with flowers, who had come back to his own without one drop of blood being shed to resist him. 1 When at Breda a number of persons who had done nothing but shout for him, sought an audience in order to obtain favors, he called for wine, drank their healths with great formality, and dismissed them with the remark that " he was now even with, them, having, as he thought, done as much for them as they had done for him." 532 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Supremacy of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. The first period of Charles' reign was marked by the ascendancy of Edward Hyde, created Earl of Clarendon in 1661, who had accompanied his young master into exile and had served as his chief councilor, first as Secretary of State and then as Lord Chancellor. He had many admir- able qualities: he was seriouSj Industrious, and Jionest ; he was true to his convictions and fixed in his principles from the time he joined the King in 1642 until his death during his second exile, more than thirty years later. He was a devoted champion of the Church of England and an opponent of royal absolutism, unrestrained by constitutional checks. He had a great knowledge of men and parties, he was versed in letters__a,nH a j"Hgp of ajt. On the other hand, he was quite m~ capableof adapting himself to changed conditions and met the usual fate of men who try to steer a middle course. He alienated the King by opposing his policy of toleration and by frowning on his pleasures, while he alienated Parliament by opposing what he regarded as their meddling in the details of administration. The New Privy Council. The Privy Council formed under his leadership, June, 1660, was constituted both of Cavaliers and Puritans who had worked to bring about the Restoration. Out of thirty members, twelve had formerly taken sides against the Crown. The arrangement was a compromise between Hyde and Monck, who was richly rewarded for his recent services ; he was created Duke of Al- bemarle, made Commander-in-Chief of the army, as well as receiving large grants of money and lands. The most notable man of the Puri- tan party was Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, later Earl of Shaftesbury, a former royalist, who had changed sides in 1644, had been prominent under the Commonwealth, and who had taken a leading part in the Restoration. James, Duke of York, the King's brother, was Lord Admiral, although much of the naval administration was in the hands of Edward Montague, Earl of Sandwich, an old Cromwellian. Within the Council the executive power was vested in a small committee, nominally for foreign affairs, called the " Cabinet " or the " Cabal." l There were not only party differences, but differences between mem- bers of the same party. Thus courtiers, particularly women, were able to prevail by intrigue, and graver gave way steadily to lighter counsels. The Convention Parliament, 25 April-2Q December, 1660. After the recall of the King, the Convention set about to settle the govern- ment. Strong in the Commons, the Cavaliers dominated the Lords, for, although those peers who had fought for Charles I, or who had been created by him since 1642 were at first excluded, they all took their seats before June, (pn the nth, by an act " for removing all questions and disputes," the authority of the Convention was formally 1 " Cabinet" is an early use of the modern word. The " Cabal" is not to be con- fused with the later a'-icl more famous one. THE RESTORATION 533 recognized. 1 ) Acting henceforth as a legal body, it proceeded to take up the terms of the Declaration of Breda. The first to be settled con- cerned the fate of those who had taken part in the late troubles. The King had promised a pardon for all save those excepted by Parliament. The Commons wanted to make very few exceptions ; but the Lords were inclined to be less lenient. Through the efforts of Charles and Hyde a moderate compromise was adopted. Ten of the regicides were executed forthwith, and, in April, 1662, three others captured in Hol- land followed them to the grave. Also, in 1662, General Lambert and Sir Harry Vane, though they had no part in the late King's execution, were brought to trial. Lambert got off with life imprisonment, but Vane was put to death, in spite of the fact that Charles had promised to spare his life. Some twenty-five more of the regicides were given life sentences. On the \vhole, the arrangement was comparatively merciful, yet the order of the Convention, by which the bodies of Crom- well, Ireton, and Bradshaw were dug up, dragged to Tyburn on sledges, hanged in the sight of the people till sunset, and then buried at the gallows' foot, smacks of barbarism. Bills dealing with the Crown, Church, and royalist lands seized during the war failed to pass. Those confiscated and sold by the State were recovered on the ground that an illegal government could give no valid title ; but private contracts were declared legal, so that many royalists who had sold their estates to pay fines or to help the King's cause got no redress. The Cavaliers grumbled that there was indemnity for the King's enemies and oblivion for his friends. 2 The Disbandment of the New Model and the Settlement of Revenue. The arrears due the army and fleet were paid in full, and the troops, about 35,000, were dismissed, except three regiments, including Monck's the present Coldstream Guards. On various pretexts Charles increased this force until, in 1662, it numbered 5000 men, the nucleus of England's standing army. Another important work of the Convention was to settle the revenue. On the basis of a report of a committee appointed " to consider settling such a revenue on His Majesty as may maintain the splendor and grandeur of his kingly office and preserve the Crown from want and from being undervalued by his neighbors," an annual revenue of 1,200,000 was granted. It was estimated that this would be sufficient for ordinary expenses, but since no more than three quarters of the amount reached the royal coffers in any one year, it was found necessary, in 1662, to increase the excise and to impose a hearth tax. The Court of Wards, and all feudal dues and services, except the honorary one of grand serjeanty, 3 1 Yet, to make assurance doubly sure, all its chief measures were confirmed by the next parliament which was regularly summoned by royal writ in an act which became law 8 July, 1661. 2 This had reference to the late act dealing with the regicides which was called "An Act of Indemnity and Oblivion." 3 Which involved attending the King's person at court or in war. 534 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND were abolished ; all military tenures were swept away or turned into free and common socage l ; and purveyance and preemption ceased to be legal. For some time past, these feudal survivals had been more vexatious to the subject than profitable to the Crown. In return, the King was granted an hereditary excise of 100,000 a year on beer and other alcoholic beverages. All this was merely confirming measures of the Long Parliament and its successors. Also the Navigation Act of 1651 was reenacted. Those acts and ordinances of the various parliaments passed since 1642, which the Convention did not choose to confirm, were declared invalid. The Convention makes no Provision for Religious Toleration. The settlement of religion caused the greatest difficulty. Church affairs were in a most disordered and confused state. Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer had never been legally abolished, al- though the Long Parliament had sought, by a series of ordinances, to set up a Presbyterian scheme ; but Cromwell and the Independents had superseded both by his congregational system. Within the Epis- copalian and Presbyterian folds there were a number of moderates who desired a compromise involving a curtailment of the powers of the bishops and modifications in the service. The Puritans, however, had been so oppressive in their treatment of the Cavaliers, so ruthless in their dismantlement of beautiful old churches hallowed by centuries of pious association, and so unbending in their general attitude that the extremists among the Opposite party, naturally narrow and intoler- ant enough, were determined to allow them no concessions. Charles was entirely without religious convictions, though he hated the Pres- byterians and was inclined toward Roman Catholicism. In the Declaration he had promised a " liberty to tender consciences," and that " no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the Kingdom; and that we shall be ready to consent to such an act of Parliament, as upon mature deliberation shall be offered us, for the full granting of such indulgence." With the cooperation of Parliament he was ready, even anxious, to carry out this promise ; because under the guise of a general toleration to the sects, it would be possible to reintroduce Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, events showed that he was not ready to push this policy to the extent of risking his throne. Except for a bill passed before the King's return, to restore the ejected Episcopal clergy, the Convention passed no laws relating to religion. The Royal Declaration, 25 October, 1660. The Savoy Conference. During a recess in the session Charles published a Declaration in which he promised to meet the demands of the moderates in the matter of government and ceremonies of the Church, renewed his assurances made in the Declaration of Breda, and agreed to appoint a conference consisting of clergymen of both parties to revise the 1 Free, non-military tenures. THE RESTORATION 535 liturgy. Brought before Parliament in the form of a bill, these pro- posals were rejected because of the Presbyterian aversion to the King's design of granting toleration to Roman Catholics. They lost their chance of setting up at this time a broad comprehensive Establishment, since they never again had a majority in Parliament. The Anglicans were equally opposed to the royal policy in this regard ; but the Pres- byterians, by outbidding them, might have combined with the King, secured an ecclesiastical settlement in which they might have had a considerable voice, and have marked an epoch in the history of re- ligious liberty. The promised conference held at the Savoy, a royal chapel, in the spring and early summer of 1661, after much learned and subtle argumentation, accomplished nothing; for the bishops were prepared to make only minor concessions. In the end, the commis- sioners reported that " the Church's welfare, unity, and peace, and his Majesty's satisfaction were ends on which they were all agreed, but as to the means, they could not come to an harmony." Meantime, 6 January, 1661, a rising of the Fifth Monarchy men under Thomas Venner, a cooper, who was a chronic plotter, and " a fellow of desperate and bloody spirit," gave Charles a pretext for increasing the standing army and damaged the cause of the sectaries. Many, including Quakers and Anabaptists, were thrown into prison. In the forth- coming parliamentary elections the reactionaries were in the majority, and Anglicanism not only became once more dominant but increased the rigor of its persecution. The new regime differed from the Laudian, however, in the fact that it was directed by Parliament instead of by the Crown. The Restoration in Scotland. The Restoration in Scotland was brought about by a parliament which repealed all acts passed since 1639, reestablished the Episcopal Church, and renounced the Covenant, which was burned by the common hangman. The King's commis- sioner, Middleton, and his companions, who were almost perpetually drunk, carried things with a high hand. Argyle, the covenanting leader, was brought to trial for " compliance " with the late usurping Government and for various treasonable acts. The Scots had chafed at the army of occupation and the dominance of the Independents, but they were soon to learn that the little finger of the new Govern- ment was thicker than the loins of the old. By the new Navigation Act, passed in 1660, they lost the equality of the trading privileges which they had recently enjoyed, and by a subsequent measure, many of their commodities were excluded from England or burdened with heavy duties. All this, together with active persecution of the Covenanters, soon stirred up the old hostility between the two countries. The Restoration in Ireland. The Restoration in Ireland was equally fruitful in oppression and discontent. The King was under obligation to the Irish Catholics, he sympathized with their aims, and he " pitied the miserable condition of the Irish nation." But the Cromwellian settlers were in possession of the broad lands, and, 536 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND backed by English anti-Catholic sentiment, were too strong to be displaced. All that Charles could do was to restore a few estates to the greater nobles x and to procure a small amount of land for the lesser men. To make matters worse, heavy restrictions were imposed on Irish commerce. In 1663 their ships were excluded from the colonial trade, and three years later the importation of Irish cattle into England was strictly forbidden. The Opening of the Cavalier Parliament, 8 May, 1661. Charles II was crowned 23 April, 1661, with great splendor, and, 8 May, a new parliament met. It is called the Cavalier Parliament, because of the preponderance of that element ; sometimes the Pensionary Parliament, because of the extensive bribery of its members during the political struggles in which it became involved. It was " chosen by a furious people in spite of the Puritans, whose severity had distasted them," and was " more zealous for royalty than the King, more zealous for the Episcopacy than the Bishops." The majority were young men, which the King declared " was no great fault ; for he could keep them till they got beards." As a matter of fact, the Cavalier Parliament lasted till 1679, having a longer continuous existence than any par- liament in English history. After the first outburst of loyalty was over, friction with the Crown began to develop. Parliament, having restored the King without the aid of foreign intervention, was deter- mined to rule z ; many of the members of the King's Council resented the King's leaning toward Roman Catholicism and toleration for the sects and the exercise of the dispensing power which it involved ; they were disquieted by his attempts to increase the standing army and by his alliance with France, and looked askance at the royal prof- ligacy and the splendor of the Court, not so much on moral grounds, as on account of the expenditures which they necessitated. 3 More- over, the country squires were discontented by falling rents, while the recent land settlement had satisfied neither the Puritan speculators nor the Cavaliers who had been forced to sell out. This Parliament imposed cruel restrictions on the Dissenters and sought to confine the political power to the Anglican aristocracy ; but it accomplished much besides. It successfully asserted parliamentary control, especially in finance, and though the extremists overreached themselves toward the end of the reign and left Charles triumphant, they established or 1 It was an added grievance to the Irish that many of these broad acres went to the Duke of York and other favored courtiers. 2 "This Government hath a monarchical appearance," wrote De Cominges, the French ambassador, in 1664, "because there is a king ; but at bottom it is very far from being a monarchy. The members of Parliament are not only allowed to speak their minds freely, but also to do a number of surprising extraordinary things, and even to call the highest people to the bar." 8 Since the Commons kept a tight hold on the purse strings, Charles, in seeking money to supply his wants, shrewdly avoided the irregular expedients to which his father had resorted, and obtained it generally in the form of subsidies from Louis XIV, though at times he threatened war with that monarch as a means of squeezing grants from his otherwise unwilling Parliament. THE RESTORATION 537 strengthened precedents that were to be permanent parts of the Con- stitution in time to come. Finally, it was within its bosom that the two great modern English parties were developed. The Corporation Act, 1661. Parliament at first showed its hot and masterful temper by passing a series of measures strengthening the power of the restored monarchy. Then with the aid of the bishops, now restored to their seats in the House of Lords, it proceeded to frame an ecclesiastical policy which, in most respects, ran directly counter to the intentions of Charles and which resulted in transferring the control of Church affairs from the King to Parliament and the bishops. This was accomplished mainly by a group of four acts popularly known as the " Clarendon Code " l though the Chancellor was by no means responsible for all of them which excluded Dissenters from public office, from any share in the Establishment, and imposed other grave disabilities upon them. The Corporation Act, December, 1661, pro- vided that no man could hold office in a corporate town unless he took the sacrament according to the Church of England, renounced the Covenant, and declared that it was unlawful, under any circumstances, to bear arms against the King. The New Act of Uniformity, 1662. After the failure of the Savoy Conference, Convocation took up the revision of the Prayer Book and produced a new edition even more distasteful to the Puritans than its predecessors. 2 Parliament accepted it, and, 19 May, 1662, passed an Act of Uniformity providing : that on and after St. Bartholomew's Day 3 the revised Book should be read in all the churches ; and that all ministers who refused, or who had not received their holy orders by Episcopal ordination, were to be deprived of their benefices. School- masters also were required to conform to the Book, and both classes were further required to declare the illegality of taking up arms against the King. On the day appointed, nearly 2000 clergymen resigned their livings rather than sacrifice their convictions. Many of the most able men of the kingdom, in order to maintain themselves and their wives and children, were forced to toil as laborers or to depend upon charity. The Act marks an epoch in English religious history. For nearly a century the Nonconformists had sought to secure alterations in the government, doctrine, and ceremony of the Church and to remain within the fold ; henceforth the majority sought to secure freedom of conscience outside. Separation rather than comprehension became their aim. Years of persecution, however, were to follow before they even partially effected their purpose. On 22 August, 1663, a proclama- 1 They were : the Corporation Act, 1661 ; the Act of Uniformity, 1662 ; the Conventicle Act, 1664; and the Five Mile Act, 1665. 2 The temper of those who produced it is shown in the declaration that they could not expect "in such variety of apprehensions, humours and interests as are in the world to please all, nor can expect that men of factions, peevish and perverse spirits should be satisfied with anything that can be done in this kind by any other than themselves." 3 St. Bartholomew's Day was 24 August. 538 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tion was issued directing every one to attend church under penalty of fine, and preachers whose words were unwelcome to the authorities were silenced. Every possible effort was made not only to exclude from power, but absolutely to suppress all who were not of the charmed circle. 1 For Protestant as well as " Popish " Dissenters the only hope lay in the King. 2 Accordingly men of both extremes made an effort to secure from him exemption from the operations of the Act of Uni- formity. As a result, Charles, 26 December, 1662, issued a Declara- tion expressing his intention of inducing Parliament to aid him in softening the rigor of the Act, and to concur with him in passing a measure to enable him to exercise, " with a more universal satisfac- tion," the power of dispensing, which he regarded as his inherent right. He laid the matter before the Houses, 18 February, 1663, in a speech in which he declared that he was " in nature an enemy to all severity for religion and conscience." But Clarendon, backed by his supporters in the Council, stoutly opposed him, and the Commons protested so vigorously against " establishing schism by law " that he was obliged to give in. The Conventicle Act, 1664, and the Five Mile Act, 1665. Having defeated the royal attempt to introduce toleration by means of the dispensing power, Parliament proceeded with its ecclesiastical leg- islation. By the " Act against Seditious Conventicles," 1664, it was forbidden for five or more persons, exclusive of members of a family, to hold meetings for religious worship where the established forms were not used. The penalty (for those who took part in these " seed plots and nurseries of seditious opinions ") was imprisonment for the first and second offenses and transportation for the third. Persons who returned to the country were liable to be put to death. The Quakers seem to have been the chief sufferers. Pepys, who saw several dragged through the streets, noted in his diary: "they go like lambs without any resistance. I would to God they would con- form, or be more wise and not be catched." In 1665 followed the equally cruel Five Mile Act, which provided that no Nonconformist minister was, for the future, to teach in any schools, or to come within any city or corporate town unless he had taken an oath that it was unlawful to bear arms against the King, and had pledged himself that 1 The dominant royalists strove in numerous ways to glorify their cause and to cast a stigma upon those who had opposed it. Already, 25 January, 1661, a proc- lamation had ordered 30 January, the day of the execution of Charles I, to be kept as a day of fasting and humiliation to show "the abhorrence of the nation at the act of those wretched miscreants" who had brought it about. A form of prayer was devised in which Charles was characterized as a saint and martyr. This " can- onization" was further manifested and perpetuated by dedicating churches to his name. Convocation revised and established the form of prayer and added a solemn thanksgiving for the anniversary of the Restoration, 2Q May. 2 Their prospects were hampered from the fact that the Presbyterians were still unwilling to share the privileges which they desired with Roman Catholics or even the Protestant extremists. "As to the sectaries," declared Baxter, their most famous preacher, "we distinguish the tolerable parties from the intolerable." THE RESTORATION 539 he would not " at any time endeavor the alteration of government in Church and State." This measure was peculiarly malevolent, because, during the Great Plague which visited London in this year, many of the regular clergy fled, leaving the dissenting ministers to care for the sick and dying. However, since the chief strength of Puritanism was in the towns, it was felt that it would be unusually dangerous to leave them a free hand at this time. Charles assented, as usual ; for to resist would have disturbed his ease and endangered his position. Moreover, by his complaisance he was able to secure a much-needed grant of money. The Significance of the Clarendon Code. These penal laws, mercilessly though somewhat intermittently enforced by vigilant jus- tices of the peace and paid informers, sowed bitter seeds of hatred between the Dissenters and the governing authorities. Presbyterian- ism lost the preeminence it enjoyed during the early months of the Restoration, and, even outside the Established Church, ceased to play the leading role among the Protestant sects. 1 Naturally democratic, the excluded bodies now became more so, partly out of increased resentment toward the aristocratic privileged classes, partly because those of their number who were desirous of political influence hastened to conform, leaving only the extremists in the ranks. Dissent became more and more confined to the lower and middle classes. Exclusion, however, and certainly active persecution, could not last indefinitely ; for one reason because it depended upon a majority in the Commons which might be overthrown ; for another, because the class on which trade, commerce, and productive enterprise depended could not be permanently held down and oppressed. Later it was to combine with the " half-hearted Anglicans " to form a powerful political party. Furthermore, the acute differences which developed between Anglicans and Dissenters made for the growth of free thought, since each side needed allies and hence were not too insistent on orthodoxy. Charles' Foreign Policy. The Portuguese Marriage, 1662. In his foreign relations, as in his ecclesiastical aims, Charles developed a policy quite at variance with Parliament and with Clarendon, who " labored nothing more than that his Majesty might enter into firm peace with all his neighbors, as the most necessary for reducing his own dominion into that temper of subjection and obedience as they ought to be in." At the beginning of his reign the King, whose hands were still free, owing to the fact that he had been restored independently of any foreign power, was ready to attach himself to the highest bidder. At first he turned to the thrifty Dutch, who seemed to offer the best prospects for a loan ; but the passage of the Navigation Act destroyed any chance of help from that quarter. Next, he looked about for a bride. After a French and Spanish princess had both been considered, 1 "Indeed, except to a few divines, that word (Presbyterianism) had never in England meant more than an artificial organization of Puritanism, with a view to capturing the Established Church." 540 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND he at length negotiated a treaty with Alfonso VI of Portugal for a marriage with his sister Catharine of Braganza. By this alliance and the accompanying dowry England obtained Tangier, 1 Bombay, 2,000,000 crusados 2 in money, together with commercial privileges and freedom of conscience for English merchants. The bride, ac- cording to Pepys, " was nothing charming to look at, yet she hath a good, modest, innocent look." She was a kindly, simple soul, but bigoted in religion, dowdy in dress, and without feminine graces. Altogether, she was totally unfitted to win Charles from his evil courses. He was deeply disappointed when he saw her ; but with his customary cheerfulness, he declared that : "it was too late to find fault and that he must make the best of a bad matter." Her failure to bear him a male heir brought about a bitter struggle toward the close of his reign, yet, in spite of his neglect, he loyally resisted the strong pressure which was brought upon him to divorce her. Charles draws close to France. The Portuguese marriage was welcomed by France as a counterpoise against Spain. Louis XIV, by the Peace of the Pyrenees, 1659, had promised to give no aid to Portugal, w r ho was struggling to maintain her independence against his Catholic rival ; but England, by the treaty just concluded, agreed to furnish ships and money in case of need, and thus effected his pur- pose of holding Spain in check, without any effort on his part. In one way and another the bonds between the French and English kings were tightened. On 31 March, 1661, Henrietta, Charles' favor- ite sister, married Philip of Orleans, the brother of Louis XIV, and, 27 October, 1662, Dunkirk was sold to France. There were many reasons in favor of the sale. England could not well spare the men and money to maintain the town, it was not a strategic point, and the harbor was far from good. Nevertheless, the English regarded the proceeding as a national disgrace, and later visited their wrath on Clarendon, who, although the original suggestion did not come from him, conducted the subsequent negotiations. While Charles' chief motive in form- ing a close alliance with France was to secure subsidies, other reasons were not without weight : most important of all, he was desirous of extending English trade, and counted on French aid in breaking the colonial monopoly which Spain still retained, and in humbling the Dutch, the greatest sea power of the time. This policy of uniting with England's ancient enemy, to be sure, had originated with Crom- well ; but he would never have tolerated Louis' Catholic aggressions, to which for some years Charles lent his favor ; moreover, he would have dominated the alliance instead of playing the part of a subordinate pensionary. The Second Dutch War, 1665-1667. The commercial greatness of England which Charles sought to foster was bound to arouse the 1 It was abandoned to the Moors in 1684. 2 About 200,000, though in purchasing power it would now be worth about three times that amount. THE RESTORATION 541 hostility of the Dutch. In spite of the Peace of 1654, reenforced by a treaty of 1662, there were many outstanding points of friction. The English court hated the Republican faction which had obtained con- trol in the United " Provinces ; furthermore, the trading companies of the two countries were constantly fighting; the Dutch refused compensation for certain English ships which they had seized, nor would they restore Pularoon, one of the East India spice islands awarded to England in 1654. Two acts precipitated the crisis. The first was the capture of several Dutch ships by Robert Holmes, who had been sent in October, 1663, by the Duke of York, a patron of the recently chartered Royal African Company, to protect the Company's interests on the African coast. The second was Colonel Nicolls' seizure, in May, 1664, of New Netherland which Charles had granted to his brother, the Duke (more than a year previously). The Dutch replied with one reprisal after another until war was finally declared, 14 March, 1665. If the professions of the King x maybe believed, he was pushed into hostilities by public opinion and the eagerness of his brother. However, these professions may have been for the bene- fit of Louis XIV who was bound, by a treaty of 1662, to protect the Dutch against actual aggression. Certainly, beyond his commercial ambitions, there were abundant reasons why Charles should desire war : he hated the Republican faction who were in control, he wanted to establish his nephew as Stadholder, he saw a chance of uniting his people in a popular undertaking and of obtaining liberal grants. The Sad State of the English Navy. It is possible that the King, while desiring to fight at a fitting opportunity, may have desired delay owing to the ill-prepared state of the navy. While the system of administration was not as bad as has sometimes been represented, many of the officials were idle and corrupt, there was an appalling lack of money, and the credit of the Government was at a low ebb. Owing to poor food and uncertain pay, sailors were reluctant to enlist ; those who volunteered were of a very inferior sort, and it was neces- sary to resort freely to impressment. As a result, the crews were most unruly and so discontented that many who were taken prisoners by the Dutch, entered the service of their captors. Much was subsequently done by Charles and James to improve the state of the navy ; for they were both keenly interested, and had an efficient and devoted servant in Samuel Pepys ; but it did not come in time for the second Dutch war. The Opening Events of the War, 1665. The primary object of each combatant was to protect its own shipping and to inflict all possible damage on the shipping of the enemy, for neither side had a sufficient army to effect anything by land. The first serious encounter occurred, 3 June, 1665, when the Dutch and the English fleets engaged off Lowestoft. 2 The Duke of York gained a decisive victory for the 1 As late as September, 1664, he declared, "I find myself almost the only man in the Kingdom who doth not desire war." 2 This is sometimes called the. Battle of Solebay. 542 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND English ; Obdam, the Dutch admiral, was blown up in his ship and his fleet was forced to take to flight; but, owing to an unauthorized order, the English discontinued the pursuit during the night, enabling their enemy to regain their own shores in safety. Though the English had proved their superiority in fighting, the events of the remainder of the year counterbalanced their signal success. Shortage of men and supplies and the Plague, which raged in London during the sum- mer, all helped to account for this. In August, the English failed to capture the Dutch East India fleet which had taken refuge in the neutral Norwegian port of Bergen ; and de Ruyter, who had come from the Mediterranean, convoyed it safely home. Charles, in the mean- time, had allied himself with the warlike Bishop of Munster who invaded the Dutch frontier in September. This step, however, caused Louis XIV to intervene, January, 1667. Not only was he bound by his treaty obligations, but since the death of Philip IV of Spain the previous autumn offered him an opportunity to seize coveted lands on the Netherland border, he was anxious to keep both sides occupied and evenly balanced. The Fighting in 1666. Louis' intervention led to an English re- verse in the campaign of 1666, for the possibility of a French attack frightened the authorities into dividing their fleet. Monck, though he fought bravely and skillfully, was roughly handled by a superior force under de Ruyter in the Four Days' Battle, 1-4 June, fought between North Foreland and Dunkirk. Rupert, who joined him before the close of the fighting, arrived too late to be of material assistance. However, the Dutch victory was by no means decisive. Moreover, Monck and Rupert, in their turn, defeated de Ruyter off North Fore- land 25-27 July, after which they chased the Dutch home, ravaged their coast, destroyed towns, and captured much shipping. Lack of provisions, which kept the English from remaining continuously at sea, and storms prevented further naval engagements. Moreover, the Bishop of Munster, having made peace in April, the land opera- tions ceased as well. By autumn both sides were ready for peace: the Dutch because they wanted a free hand to resist the encroach- ments of Louis XIV, the English because they could no longer stand the expense, particularly since the Plague in London had been followed by a disastrous fire. The Peace of Breda, 21 July, 1667. With peace in sight, Charles was unwilling to spend money on strengthening and refitting the fleet, and so threw away such advantages as had been gained. Only small forces were sent out " to distract the enemy and to disturb their trade," and nothing was done for local defense ; " the enemy can come and cut our throats when he likes," wrote one country gentleman whose words proved prophetic. Profiting by this inaction, de Ruyter en- tered the mouth of the Thames, passed up the Medway, and took, burned, and scuttled sixteen vessels, inflicting a loss that was great and a shame that was immeasurable. The night of his country's THE RESTORATION 543 deepest humiliation it is said that Charles II was busy chasing a moth in Lady Castlemaine's chamber. Fortunately the Dutch did not feel strong enough to remain, so they withdrew to the mouth of the Thames, where they occupied themselves for a time in intercepting commerce. Before they could do any more damage the local forces were called out and the coast and ports put in a state of defense. Peace was con- cluded at Breda, 21 July, 1667. Fearing the designs of Louis XIV, the Dutch agreed to comparatively favorable terms : they again recog- nized the " right of the flag," and left New Netherland in the hands of the English ; on the other hand, they retained Pularoon and Surinam and secured a slight modification of the Navigation Act in their favor. They had yielded more than they realized ; for New Netherland, re- garded at the time as inferior in value to Pularoon, included what came to be the provinces of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. The English seamen had outfought the Dutch ; but faults of admin- istration and disasters for which they were not to blame had counter- balanced their superiority. The Plague and the Fire, 1665-1666. England emerged from the struggle in an extremely crippled condition. The Plague in the summer and autumn of 1665 carried off 70,000 from London alone, and, during the following spring, spread through the southern and eastern counties. It was the first visitation for over thirty years and proved to be the last in English history. The great London fire which followed raged for five days, 2-7 September, 1666, during which in- terval it is estimated that 13,200 houses were burned and at least two thirds of the population were unroofed. The Fire was probably not the cause of the final disappearance of the Plague, as has been so frequently said, since it swept mainly through the business quarter and the residential districts of the well-to-do classes, sparing the slums on the outer edge of the city. However, in rebuilding the City the streets were made broader and straighter, and the houses with their overhanging upper stories, which cut off the air and sunshine, dis- appeared. A newer London arose, less picturesque, but more health- ful and spacious than the old. Growing Discontent. The three disasters the Plague, the Fire, and Dutch in the Medway were regarded as signs of Divine wrath at the corruption and inefficiency of the Government. Among the credulous lower and middle classes the Fire was attributed to the machinations of the " Papists " and the French, who were thought to have caused it by throwing " fireballs " into the City. It was expected that a general massacre would follow ; Catholics and Frenchmen were mobbed in the streets, and the way was laid for that great outburst of popular frenzy known as the " Popish Plot " which came ten years later. All together, the situation, as it is pictured by contemporaries, was gloomy enough. " There is a lazy Prince, no council, no money, no reputation at home and abroad," and " it is strange how everybody do now reflect upon Oliver and commend him, what brave things he 544 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND did, and made all the neighbor princes fear him, while here is a Prince, come with all the love and prayers and good liking of his people . . . hath lost all so soon that it is a miracle what way a man can devise to lose so much in so little time." Meantime, Charles was consoling himself with waistcoats which had arrived from Paris, and in the dis- covery of a new actress, " pretty, witty Nell." The Attack on Clarendon, 1667. The first victim of the vague but intense and increasing discontent was Clarendon. Charles, anx- ious to be rid of him, was glad to make him the scapegoat. He had only retained him thus long because he continued to be indispensable, notably in standing out against the claims of the Commons to control the purse by appropriation of supply and audit of accounts, and in raising troops and exacting money from the counties to pay for them without parliamentary sanction. Men of all classes looked with envy to the lofty height to which the Chancellor had risen and longed to see him overthrown, while many, indeed, nourished actual grievances against him. He was charged with presumption in marrying his daughter to James, the King's brother, September, 1660, and it was firmly believed that in order to secure the succession to his own de- scendants he had joined Charles to a princess incapable of bearing children. He was blamed for the sale of Dunkirk and for the disasters of the late war, which, as a matter of fact, he had opposed. The coun- try gentry hated him for opposing the Irish Cattle Act, and the Dis- senters were enfuriated against him as the reputed author of the cruel " Code " directed against them. His austere ideals were a constant reproach to Charles and his band of dissolute and frivolous courtiers. His old-fashioned and pompous bearing offered them endless oppor- tunity for raillery, and Buckingham, one of the King's boon companions, used to imitate his solemn strut with a fire shovel and a pair of bellows to represent the mace and the Great Seal. While honest and indus- trious, the Lord Chancellor was fond of luxury and display, and was arrogant and impatient of opposition. The chief difficulty, however, was his attempt to hold an untenable ground between the Crown and Parliament. By taking the side of the King in the raising and control of supply, and the side of the Houses in the regulation of religion, he " incurred the hostility of both." While Charles was anxious to be rid of him on less worthy grounds, it is only fair to say that he had come to realize it was futile to attempt to retain a minister to whom Parliament was so unalterably opposed. Clarendon warned him in his last interview that in yielding to their will he was but teaching them to know their strength : " that it was yet in his power to govern them, but if they found it was in them to govern him, nobody knew what the end would be." Charles, however, thinking that he was making an ap- parent, not a real, concession, 1 preferred to manage rather than to fight. 1 In this he went against the last injunction of his father: "Never to give way to the punishment of any for their faithful service to the Crown upon whatsoever pretense or for whatsoever cause." THE RESTORATION 545 His Impeachment and Flight. In August, 1667, Clarendon was dismissed from his office of Chancellor. Charles, feeling that he was freed of an obstacle to his freedom, celebrated the event by going to see Jacob Hall, a famous rope dancer. In November, the Commons presented articles of impeachment against the fallen Minister, charg- ing him, among other things, with corruption, with intent to introduce arbitrary government, and with treachery during the late war. While these extreme charges were unjust, there were many serious counts against the Chancellor, besides the fact that he was out of harmony with the attempt of Parliament to supervise the administration. In the summer of 1667 he had advised the King to delay calling Parlia- ment, and, in the meantime, to raise supplies on his own authority ; he had arbitrarily imprisoned the opponents of the Government ; and he has been charged with first teaching Charles to seek money from France. On the King's advice he fled to the Continent. Par- liament ordered him to come back, and when he was unable to return within the time which they had intentionally made too short, they sentenced him to banishment for life. He died at Rome in 1674. Parliamentary Gains in the Control of Finances. The financial situation continued to be very disturbing. The moneys granted proved insufficient to meet expenses. Cries were raised of corruption in high places, and the King was accused of diverting huge sums for his private pleasures. While he was extravagant enough, the root of the trouble lay deeper : supplies were voted so tardily and collected so grudgingly that the Government was obliged to anticipate by bor- rowing, and the prevailing high rate of interest cut into revenues that at best were hardly adequate even . for legitimate expenses. Nig- gardly as the Commons were, they were wise in keeping a tight hold on the purse strings and made notable gains during the Clarendon regime. By an agreement made in 1664 between Archbishop Sheldon and the Lord Chancellor the clergy discontinued their custom of vot- ing supplies in Convocation. Henceforth, they were taxed like lay- men, and Convocation ceased to have the political importance it had formerly enjoyed. In a grant made in 1665 a clause was inserted that the moneys voted should be used only for the purposes of the war. While suggested by a wily royal adviser, Sir George Downing, 1 to prevent the goldsmiths from claiming any portion of it for debts due to them, it marks another important step toward the practice of ap- propriation of supplies. Two years later, in the spring of 1667, after a sharp and prolonged struggle, the King made the important conces- sion of appointing a committee of Parliament to audit accounts. In 1 66 1, when the Lords attempted to pass a bill to pave the streets of Westminster, the Commons successfully asserted the principle that all bills involving the expenditure of' money must originate and take 1 Downing Street, where the official residence of the Prime Minister is now situ- ated, gets the name from the fact that it was constructed on lands which Charles granted to Downing. 2N 54 6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND their final form in the Lower House. The struggle was renewed in 1671 and again in 1677. Finally, by a resolution of 3 July, 1678, the Commons declared that all bills of supply were their sole gift, that they should originate in their House and that such bills " ought not to be changed or altered by the House of Lords." From that date the Lords have never made a serious attempt to originate or amend a money bill. In spite, however, of these evidences of the growing strength of the Commons, Charles, directly his old mentor was disposed of, proceeded to collect about him a body of ministers of his own choice and to develop a policy quite at variance with Par- liament's, a policy which he struggled for some years to maintain. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Richard Lodge, The Political History of England, 1660-1702 (1910), chs. I-IV. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, ch. XI ; Lingard, IX, chs. I-IV, Ranke, III, bk. XW, bk. XV, chs. I-III. Cambridge Modern History (1908), V. chs. V, VIII, pt. 2 (bibliography, pp. 786-798, 815-818). Macaulay, History of Eng- land (ed. 1865), I, ch. II; a brief survey of the reign of Charles II. Constitutional. A. Amos, The English Constitution in the Reign of Charles II (1857). Hallam, II, ch. XI. Taswell-Langmead, ch. XV. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. VI, ch. I. W. C. Abbott, "Long Parliament of Charles II," English Historical Review (January-April, 1906). Contemporary. Samuel Pepys, Diary (most complete ed. H. B. Wheatley, 9 vols., 1893-1899). Evelyn, Diary. G. Burnet, The History of My Own Time (ed. O. Airy, the reign of Charles II, 2 vols., 1897-1900) ; in spite of some partisanship and inaccuracies, an indispensable authority. Biography. O. Airy, Charles II (1901) ; an admirable biography and a good survey of the reign. A. Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds (1913). Lady Burghclere, GeorgeVilliers, Second Duke of "Buckingham (1903). W. D. Christie, Life of the First Earl of Shaftesbury (2 vols., 1871) ; a scholarly vindication. H. D. Traill, Shaftesbury (1888) ; a brief sketch. T. H. Lister, Life of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon (3 vols., 1838) ; has not been superseded by the recent Life by Sir Henry Craik( 2 vols., 1911). A. C. Ewald, Life and Times of Algernon Sidney (2 vols., 1873) . Helen C. Foxcroft, Life and Letters of George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax (2 vols., 1898). Foxcroft and Clarke, Life of Gilbert Burnet (1907). A. Fea, King Monmouth (1902). H. B. Irving, Life of Lord Je/reys (1898) ; an apology. Roger North, The Lives of the Norths (ed. A. Jessopp, 3 vols., 1890). Special. G. B. Hertz, English Public Opinion after the Restoration (1902). C. B. R. Kent, The Early History of the Tories (1908). Seeley, British Policy, II, pt. IV. A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783 (isth ed., 1898), chs. I, II ; an epoch-making work. Church. Hutton, English Church, chs. X, XL Wakeman, chs. XVI, XVII. Stoughton, Religion in England, chs. Ill, IV. Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, II, bk. VI, ch. VI. For further reading on Scotland and Ireland see Lodge, pp. 487-491, Cambridge Modern His- tory, V, pp. 825-837. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 221-226. C. G. Robert- son, Select Statutes Cases, and Documents (1904), pt. I, nos. I-IX ; pt. II, no. I. CHAPTER XXXIII FROM THE FALL OF CLARENDON TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES II (1667-1685) Charles seeks to make himself Absolute, 1667. Charles took advantage of the fall of Clarendon to carry out a design which he had been cherishing for years to establish himself as an absolute mon- arch. To that end, he applied himself with renewed energy to the four means by which he sought to accomplish his purpose: to build- ing up the standing army; attaching the Dissenters by offering the toleration which Parliament refused to grant ; restoring Roman Cathol- icism ; and securing a closer alliance with the French King, to whom he looked for supplies and, in case of need, for troops. The obstacles, however, proved so formidable that he had to follow a very crooked course, and, before many years had passed, to alter his plans pro- foundly. While his subjects willingly voted the necessary forces for another war with their commercial rivals, the Dutch, their ardor soon cooled when they found that they were chiefly pawns in the game of the French King, who was seeking to dominate Europe. Moreover, the Dissenters refused to accept any religious concessions that in- volved the Romanists, nor were the Pope and the bulk of the English Catholics inclined to take any steps that might contribute to the ag- grandizement of Louis XIV, whom they feared and hated on political grounds. In sensing the situation at the proper moment, and in the means which he adopted to meet it, the King, who appeared to most of his subjects as a good-natured and witty trifler, proved himself to be one of the most cunning politicians of the century. The " Cabal," 1667-1673. In the meantime, until the turning point of his policy in 1673, he governed with a body of intimate coun- cilors known as the " Cabal." It formed an inner circle of the Privy Council, and its members, who were consulted by the King singly or collectively or in groups of two or three, were responsible to him and not to Parliament. While such groups, even under that name, had been known in English history long before the body in question came into existence, some have derived the word from the initial letters of the names of its leading members Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. 1 Thomas Clifford, created Baron Clifford 1 In reality it is derived from a Hebrew word, cabala, which meant a "secret," hence it came to be applied to a party or faction engaged in a secret design, and, later, to a group of secret councilors. Charles' body, however, is the most famous of them all. 547 548 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and Lord High Treasurer in 1672, had begun life as a gentleman of small fortune and had made his way by ambition, ability, and zeal for Catholicism and the royal cause. Free from corruption himself, he was largely responsible for the bribery of the members of Parliament which first became common in this period. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1661 to 1672, when he was created Lord Chancellor and Earl of Shaftesbury, was a born agitator and demagogue, a forerunner of the modern party leader. The contem- porary, Dryden, attacked him in lines of biting satire which have be- come classic. " For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace, A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay." Yet, with all his ambition and his turnings against men and parties, he was ever consistent in the pursuit of his two ideals civil liberty and toleration for all Protestants. 1 He was himself a free thinker. 2 George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1628-1687), though he espoused the cause of the Dissenters for a time, was not only a man of no religious opinions, but a libertine to boot ; indeed, he was, per- haps, the most disreputable of all the dissolute set who surrounded the King. He was a man of engaging manners, not without accom- plishments, and excelled in a not very high order of wit, especially in mimicry ; he dabbled in chemistry, wrote verses and stage plays, and spent much money in buildings and gardens; but he was vain, unsteady, and ever striving for powers in the state which he was in- capable of using. He appears as Zimri in Dryden's immortal satire : " Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long." Henry Bennett (1618-1685), Earl of Arlington, who was a Secretary of State, 1662-1674, was thought to be a Roman Catholic. While he was certainly a promoter of that faith and a center of the opposition against Clarendon, he was probably a man of no intense convictions, aiming solely to advance himself. John Maitland (1616-1682), Earl and, later, Duke of Lauderdale, was an old Covenanter, who was made Secretary of State for Scottish affairs in 1660. In that office he labored for twenty years to make the Crown absolute in his native country. Coarse and grotesque in manners, he was a man of tre- 1 He was accustomed to say that : " Popery and slavery go ever, like two sisters, hand in hand." 2 Once, when asked by a lady what his religion was, he replied : "The religion of all wise men." When she persisted further, and asked what that was, he an- swered : "Wise men never tell," LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 549 mendous learning, of great abilities and courage, and quite devoid of scruple. While Charles used all these men in the development of far- reaching plans which, if they had been carried to completion, would have destroyed Protestantism and popular liberty in England, the " Cabal," as such, never enjoyed his full confidence, to say nothing of dominating him as Clarendon had done. 1 The Triple Alliance, 1668. In foreign affairs the King's first step after the Treaty of Breda was one of seeming hostility to Louis XIV, who had already begun against Spain the " War of Devolution," so-called because he maintained that the Spanish Netherlands de- scended by right of devolution to his queen, daughter of Philip IV by his first wife, instead of to Charles II, 2 who was born of a second mar- riage. The English were angered at the French King for taking the Dutch side in the late war, and apprehensive of his growing power as well. So Sir William Temple, Envoy to the Low Countries, put a partial check on his designs by joining England, Holland, and Sweden in a Triple Alliance, signed 23 January, 1667, by which they agreed to defend one another in case of attack and to bring about a peace be- tween France and Spain. In consequence, Louis XIV signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 29 May, 1668, which bound him to with- draw his armies from the Spanish Netherlands and from that part of Burgundy known as Franche Comte, which he had also overrun. In return, however, Spain was forced to cede to him certain towns and fortresses along the northeast frontier. Charles, however, who had all the while been negotiating with both France and Spain, soon came to terms with the former. Nevertheless, the short-lived Triple Alli- ance was not without significance. It strengthened Charles by show- ing to Louis that his friendship was indispensable, and effectually alienated the French from the Dutch. Charles' Roman Catholic Intrigues. The Secret Treaty of Dover, 1670. In Charles' mind the French alliance was closely bound up with the introduction of Roman Catholicism. In January, 1669, a meeting was held at St. James' Palace, the residence of the Duke of York, where, in the presence of his brother 3 and a few of his most trusted confidants, he stated his desire of embracing the old faith and of setting it up again in England. " Besides the spiritual advantage he should gain from doing so," as he told the French ambassador a few months later, " he considered that it was the only way of reestablishing the monarchy." In pursuance of this design, the famous Treaty of Dover was concluded with France, 22 May, 1670, in the presence of 1 Less than eighteen months after the dismissal of the Lord Chancellor, Charles wrote to his sister Henrietta: "Whatsoever opinion my ministers had been of, I would and do always follow my own judgment, and, if they take any other meas- ures than that, they will see themselves mistaken in the end." 2 King of Spain, 1665-1700. 3 He had recently learned of his brother's conversion to Rome, though it was not publicly announced for some years yet. 550 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Clifford, Arlington, and Arundel. 1 Its terms long remained a secret ; indeed, in framing them, three of the Cabal Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were not consulted. The terms were, in substance : that Charles, in return for an annual grant during the period of hos- tilities, agreed to join Louis in making war on the Dutch, and to assist him in securing the inheritance which he claimed in the Spanish Neth- erlands. Furthermore, and this was the secret part, the English King, in return for a sum of money, was, at a fitting time, to declare himself a Roman Catholic, and, in case Charles' subjects resisted, Louis was to send troops to aid him. Though Charles was inclined to declare his conversion forthwith, the French ambassador persuaded him that such a step would strengthen the hands of the Dutch as champions of Protestantism, whereas, if the English were kept in ignorance of their sovereign's change of faith, they would continue to regard them merely as trade rivals. So, of the two objects contemplated in the treaty, that of the destruction of the Dutch was thrust into the fore- ground. Since the negotiations leading up to the secret treaty were known to all the Ministers, Charles commissioned Buckingham to negotiate a sham treaty, concluded in February, 1671, which was prac- tically the same as that of the previous spring except for the provision concerning religion. Meantime, Charles, by nursing Parliament in the delusion that the Triple Alliance still held, secured large sums for the purpose of rendering it effective. Had he stood loyally by the Dutch, the designs of Louis XIV might have been checked and later costly and devastating wars might have been avoided. The Stop of the Exchequer, 1672. In order to prevent any pos- sible discussion of his recently concluded alliance with France against the Dutch, the King held no meeting of Parliament from April, 1671, to February, 1673. Since, however, the grants which he had received from that body and the subsidies from Louis proved insufficient to meet his expenses, he resorted to a new device suggested by Clifford. 2 It was known as the " Stop of the Exchequer." For years it had been the custom of the Government to borrow from London goldsmiths on the security of taxes voted but not collected. The goldsmiths, who were the forerunners of the modern bankers, paid their depositors 6 per cent and charged 8 per cent for their loans. Suddenly, in Jan- uary, 1672, they were informed that none of the capital which they had advanced to the State would be repaid for a whole year. Natu- rally this caused a panic among the merchants and tradesmen whose funds were thus tied up. As a matter of fact, not a penny even of interest, was paid until 1674, and then only 6 per cent without ar- rears. Although the liability was at length incorporated in the Na- tional Debt, many years after, it is estimated that the bankers and their depositors lost fully 3,000,000. 1 From the fact that it was managed by Charles' favorite sister, Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, who came to Dover with an imposing train, it is sometimes known as le tralii de Madame. 2 He was made Lord Treasurer a few weeks later. LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 551 The Declaration of Indulgence, 1672-1673. The religious situa- tion was such as to cause " all Protestant hearts to tremble." On 15 March, 1672, the King issued a Declaration of Indulgence, 1 sus- pending " all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical against whatsoever sort of Nonconformists or recusants ... as well for the quieting of our good subjects as for inviting strangers ... to come and live under us, and for a better encouragement for all to a cheerful following of their trades and callings." Although the Declaration only granted to Catholics liberty of private worship, while all Prot- estant sects were to be allowed to worship in public, men suspected it was issued mainly in the Catholic interest. Nor did it allay the suspicions, particularly of the Presbyterians, when the jails were opened and hundreds of Quakers and other Dissenters were released, although a large body of the Nonconformists sent the King a depu- tation to express their gratitude. When Parliament met, in Febru- ary, 1673, the opposition was intense, and Charles, for once in his life, tried to bear it down by a show of bluster. The Commons, how- ever, refusing to give way, 2 carried a resolution : " That penal stat- utes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by act of Parliament," and respectfully petitioned that the laws be once more put in force. In the face of such opposition and in return for a grant of money which he sorely needed, the King announced, 8 March, that he would cancel the Declaration. The Test Act and the Break-up of the Cabal, 1673. To clinch their victory, Parliament passed the famous Test Act providing that all holders of civil and military office must receive the sacrament ac- cording to the Church of England and take an oath declaring their disbelief in transubstantiation. That test excluded Roman Catholics and conscientious Dissenters for over a century and a half. 3 The immediate result of the Test Act was the break-up of the Cabal Min- istry. The Duke of York gave up his office of Lord High Admiral, and Clifford was forced to resign the Lord Treasurership. Shaftesbury, the lifelong friend of religious liberty, who had been one of the in- stigators of the Declaration, but who, on gaining an inkling of the real purport of the Treaty of Dover and the King's Catholic designs, had reversed his policy and had lent his support to the Test Act, was dis- missed from the office of Lord Chancellor recently conferred upon him. " It is only laying down my gun and buckling on my sword," he de- clared, and became the most active leader and organizer of the op- position party forming against the Court. Lauderdale, who had stuck closely to Scotch affairs, together with Buckingham and Arlington ' In February, 1668, he had made an effort, which proved futile, to carry through another scheme for the comprehension of Presbyterians and the toleration of the sectaries. J It was asserted in debate that the Declaration repealed more than forty acts of Parliament. 3 Many Nonconformists did not scruple to qualify by taking the sacrament, and from 1727 they were protected from violating the law by an annual indemnity. 552 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND were all bitterly attacked in Parliament, and the two latter, at least, soon ceased to play any considerable part in the royal councils. 1 The anti-Catholic party had renewed cause for apprehension when James, whose first wife, Anne Hyde, had died the previous year, married in the autumn of 1673, Mary of Modena, a graceful child of fifteen, who had been destined for a nun and who " screamed two days and nights " at the prospect of changing her estate. The nuptials were brought about in the teeth of parliamentary address, praying that the Duke should not wed any person but of the Protestant re- ligion. The Commons replied by refusing supplies, on account of " the danger of Popery and popish counsels and counselors." The Third Dutch War, 1672-1674. Another reason for the parliamentary reluctance to grant money was the growing opposition to the Dutch War which had resulted from the Treaty of Dover, and which was now drawing to a close. At the outset, the war had been popular ; for the English, as yet unaware of Charles' Catholic designs, welcomed the chance of French aid to crush their commercial rivals and avenge the invasion of the Medway. While the two countries were still at peace and while De Witt, the Grand Pensionary, was making every effort to avert a conflict, Charles ordered an attack on a Dutch fleet from Smyrna as it passed up the Channel. This inexcus- able act of bad faith, which deservedly failed, led to a declaration of war four days later, 17 March, 1672. The situation seemed very serious for the Dutch. In the previous war the English victories at sea had been barren of results, because of their inability to follow them up by land attacks. Now with the armies of Louis operating on the frontier, they had every prospect of crushing their opponents. Neither side, however, was well prepared, and the first battle off Southwold Bay, 2 28 May, 1672, was indecisive. To be sure, the Duke and the Earl of Sandwich forced de Ruyter to retreat; but he managed to escape in a fog, leaving the English so crippled that they had to sail home to refit. Sandwich was blown up in his ship. An attempt, made by the allies later in the season, to land on the Dutch coast was frustrated by the Dutch Admiral, with the help of his superior knowl- edge of the foggy, sandy shores. The Close of the War. The next year Prince Rupert succeeded the Duke of York who had to give up his command in consequence of the Test Act. Several engagements proved as indecisive as that off Solebay. In the hottest of them, fought off the Texel, n August, Rupert might have prevailed but for the failure of the French and some of his own captains to understand his signals. He complained bit- terly that " it was the greatest and plainest opportunity ever lost at sea." The feeling between the French and English in the allied fleets became intense : it was said openly that the French " must either excuse their cowardice by their treachery or their treachery by 1 Buckingham was dismissed in 1674. 2 Or Solebay. LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 553 their cowardice." Increasing numbers of Englishmen, who had al- ready begun to fear the designs of Louis XIV more than the commercial rivalry of the Dutch, became convinced that their sailors were being used to fight the battles of the French, and it was the common opinion in London that " unless this alliance with France be broken the nation will be ruined." About the same time a revolution in Holland re- stored Charles' nephew to the stadholderate of his ancestors, and De Witt and his brother were murdered in the streets. Although the young Stadholder, contrary to expectation, threatened to die on the last dike rather than yield to the enemies of his country, both sides were really ready to come to terms. So a treaty was signed at Lon- don, 9 February, i674/ by which the Dutch again acknowledged the honor of the flag and restored New York, which they had captured in the previous July. While they had fought bravely in an apparently irresistible combination, the showing of the English had been in- glorious ; they had been unable to gain a decisive victory, or to land a single army on the Dutch coast. Something was due to the lack of cooperation on the part of the allies ; the rest may be explained by corrupt and ineffective administration, by the shortage of men, money and supplies and the reversal of English public opinion. The Turning Point in the Policy of Charles. Danby made Lord Treasurer. With the passage of the Test Act and the close of the Second Dutch War, Charles quietly dropped his design of making England Catholic. Sir Thomas Osborne (1631-1712), a Yorkshire baronet of small estate, succeeded Clifford as Lord Treasurer in 1763 and was created Earl of Danby the following year. A devoted sup- porter of the royal prerogative, he was opposed to Catholicism and French ascendancy. He showed great financial ability, though he was unscrupulous in filling his own pockets and in attaching supporters by bribery and patronage. Indeed, his control of Parliament by financial corruption was carried to such an extent that he has been accused frequently of introducing the practice; but Clarendon lamented its use in his own day, while Clifford also, on occasion, sought to gain the support of influential men in this way. Danby only or- ganized the system and extended it to the rank and file. His policy was to strengthen the Crown by allying with the High Church party and crushing out Dissent. Charles readily went to the lengths of deserting the Catholics for the High Anglicans, and of consenting to the persecution of the Nonconformists ; but he clung to his project of a standing army till 1678, and, except for brief intervals, he con- tinued in the pay of France till his death, though after the peace with the Dutch he never gave Louis any active support, receiving his sub- sidies in return for neutrality. The First Years of the Danby Regime. The domestic situation during the next few years was a dreary one. The new Lord Treasurer 1 Known as the Peace of Westminster. 554 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND managed to reduce expenditures below revenue ; but he had to bribe right and left to carry out his policies, and even stooped to gain the favor of the new royal favorite Louise de Keroualle, 1 Duchess of Portsmouth, who drove a thriving trade in the sale of offices. In the midst of intrigue and license which ran riot at court, the King went comfortably on pursuing his pleasures, conversing, when the mood seized him, with learned men, toying with learned subjects, and re- fusing to " vex and disquiet " himself any more than possible " with that foolish, idle, impertinent thing called business." Having ceased to press his Roman Catholic designs, the hopes of that party came to center more and more round his brother, the Duke of York. It was the aim of Danby, supported by his royal master, to unite the Court, the Cavaliers, and the Church in a solid phalanx, not only against the Catholics, but against the Nonconformists. To that end, he aimed to exclude from office and public life all who would not make a dec- laration that it was unlawful to take up arms against the King " on any pretext whatsoever " and swear never to attempt " any altera- tion in the government or religion established by law." This famous non-resisting test, in the form of a " Bill to prevent Dangers which may arise from Persons disaffected to the Government," was introduced in April, 1675, and, in spite of heated and stubborn opposition, might have become law but for a dispute which arose between the Lords and Commons. 2 This was fostered so deftly by Shaftesbury that the King was obliged to prorogue Parliament. The Beginning of the Modern Party System. It was during the fight against Danby and the Court policy in the session of 1675 that the Country Party, which had been taking shape for some years, was definitely organized under Shaftesbury in the Lords and by William Sacheverell in the Commons. Built on the principles of parliamentary supremacy and toleration, it soon came to be known as the Whig party, a name which it bore until well into the nineteenth century. It survives to-day in the present Liberal party. While Danby was the first to organize a Government machine, his opponents put on a permanent footing one of the two great modern political parties. The center of activity of the Country party was the Green Ribbon Club, founded in 1675, with its headquarters in the King's Head Tavern at the foot of Chancery Lane. A very busy organization it was, too, for the next few years, -spurred by the feverish energy of its president Shaftes- bury. Antigovernment men of all sorts gathered at its meetings, and there petitions were drawn up, and thence speakers, agents, and pam- phlets were sent to spread their views, throughout the city and country. The Marriage of William of Orange and Princess Mary, 1677. The question of the succession was gradually getting to be acute. 1 Popularly known as "Madam Carwell." She had first attracted the King's attention when she came from France in the train of his sister Henrietta of Orleans. 2 This case, Shirley vs. Fagg, is important from the fact that it established the right of the House of Lords to hear appeals from Chancery. LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 555 In 1676 James became a professed Roman Catholic. Early in the following year, Danby introduced a bill into the House of Lords to secure the Protestant religion in the event of a Catholic successor. Though it passed the Upper House, the bill was stoutly resisted in the Commons, and ultimately defeated because of its implication that one of the Roman Catholic faith might become ruler of England. This marks the beginning of the famous struggle to exclude the Duke of York from the throne, which came to a head two or three years later. When Parliament, elated by its victory, sought to induce the King to break loose from his French connection and to submit to them all projected foreign alliances, he replied by an adjournment, 1 and, in a conversation with the Dutch ambassador, threw his kerchief in the air, declaring " I care just that for Parliament." Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that he was in the pay of France, he agreed, upon zealous pressure from Danby, that Mary, 2 the eldest daughter of James and his first wife Anne Hyde, should marry William of Orange. The marriage, which had already been discussed in 1674, was celebrated, 4 November, 1677. Charles' motives were : to force more money from Louis by coquetting with his enemy ; to strengthen himself with his Anglican supporters; and to obtain supplies of money and men from them by a threatened demonstration against the power which they hated. At a public banquet, Danby gave the toast : " Confusion to all that are not for a war with France," and, 10 January, 1678, a treaty was signed at the Hague between England and Holland to force Louis XIV to make peace. 3 A Tortuous Foreign Policy. The Peace of Nymwegen, 1678. The course of English foreign policy was most tortuous, and the re- lations between Charles and his Parliament were most complicated. At times the King, in order to strengthen his army and to secure sup- plies from the Commons, was threatening war with France; yet, all the while, he was treating with his old paymaster, now breathing de- fiance, then promising to dissolve his Parliament, always with the view to making the best financial terms possible. While Parliament voted him considerable sums for the war, there was generally a strong op- position against him. Many were fearful as to the use to which he might put the men and money which he sought, others wanted to get rid of Danby, and not a few had been corrupted by French gold. The aim of Louis XIV in subsidizing the Opposition 4 was to strengthen the party opposed to Danby, and, while the session lasted, to keep Charles so embroiled that he could not carry out his threat of inter- 1 In recent years he had employed adjournments and prorogations as his chief weapon. 2 She had been brought up a Protestant, though her mother died in the Church of Rome. 3 He had continued the war of conquest after England and Holland had come to terms by the Peace of Westminster in 1674. 4 It was estimated at one time that more than two thirds of the members were in the pay either of Charles or of Louis. 556 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND vening in behalf of the Dutch. When, in spite of his bribes and in- trigues, the English King finally prepared to send a force to assist William of Orange, he was obliged to put an end to the war. Terms of peace with Holland were signed at Nymwegen, 10 August, 1678. l They were much more favorable, however, to Louis than those made at Aix-la-Chapelle, ten years before, for he now secured Franche Comte and several additional strongholds on the northeast frontier. While Charles gained nothing by the actual terms of the peace, the events which led up to it had greatly strengthened his position. He had in- creased his standing army, and he had drawn large sums of money both from Parliament and Louis, by playing one against the other. Such was the situation when startling disclosures of Titus Gates, an unscru- pulous informer and liar, threw England into a violent panic. The anti-Catholic frenzy aroused by the so-called " Popish Plot " 2 gave the Country party a momentary ascendancy which they failed to maintain because of their unbridled violence. Titus Gates and His Story. Titus Gates was the son of a Baptist and former chaplain of one of Cromwell's regiments. Deserting his father's faith, he had first taken orders in the Church of England, and then in 1677 joined the Church of Rome. His motives were base: either to obtain profitable employment as an agent in Catholic in- trigues, or to sell their secrets to the English Protestant party. Al- ready in the course of a checkered career he had been found guilty of false witness and of offenses even more loathsome. This malicious and mendacious creature, while not the first or the last of the flesh flies who fattened on the political and religious disorders of the period, was the most infamous. His appearance was as grotesque and dis- gusting as his designs ; heavy and squat in build, bull-necked and bow-legged, he had small sunken eyes, a long chin, a purple face, and a rasping voice. During brief residences at the Jesuit colleges of Valladolid and St. Omers, from each of which he was successively expelled in 1677 an d 1678, he learned from scraps of conversation that Charles II was thought to stand in the way of the Romanist conver- sion of England for which he had once striven so zealously; that Roman Catholic hopes were now centered on his royal brother ; that Coleman, secretary first to the Duke and later to the Duchess of York, was busy corresponding with the French Jesuit, Pere la Chaise, and that a Jesuit congregation had been held in London, April, 1678. Disappointed of a career in the Church of Rome, he went to London, and, with one Dr. Tonge, a fanatical anti-Catholic pamphleteer, worked up his story from such materials as he had gathered. It was, in substance, that there was a hellish plot to fire the City, to rouse rebellion in Ireland, to invade England with a French 1 Peace with Spain followed 17 September, 1678, and with the Emperor, 6 Febru- ary, 1679. 2 It has been more fitly called the "Popish terror . . . the last and impudentest attempt upon the credulity of mankind." LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 557 and Irish army, to massacre the Protestants, and to murder the King. 1 The Murder of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, 1678. These dis- closures were read before Charles and the Council, and a copy of the charges was put into the hands of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, a justice of the peace, who, though a Protestant, was intimately acquainted with Coleman and other prominent Roman Catholics. In spite of the fact that Oates was twice caught in falsehood and contradiction during his examination before the Council, an investigation was set on foot which resulted in the discovering of Coleman's correspondence with Pere la Chaise. This was the only evidence that could be found to support the story of Oates. In view, however, of the intrigues with France, partly known and partly suspected, the people were ready to believe anything; therefore, when, 17 October, 1678, the dead body of Godfrey was found in a ditch, their fears mounted to a panic. The mystery of Godfrey's death has never'been solved. Some maintain that he committed suicide ; others, that Oates and his gang murdered him to lend color to their assertions ; others, again, insist that he was made away with by the Jesuits because he knew dangerous secrets. If that be the case, they were guilty of a stupendous blunder ; for it served to precipitate the gathering superstition and terror which culminated in the sacrifice of the lives of so many innocent Catholics. ; ? Causes Promoting Belief in the Plot. Oates, though he told a lying story, had some ground to work upon ; in other words, there was, to some extent, a real as well as a sham plot. Charles, by the Treaty of Dover, had entered into a definite engagement for the Catholicizing of England. When the turn of events caused him to abandon these designs, and particularly after he had given his sanction to the mar- riage of William of Orange and had allied himself with the Dutch, Catholics, at home and abroad, far from giving up hope, began to look to his brother to accomplish the work which he had deserted. While they worked earnestly at their plan of converting the country and securing the succession of James, there is no proof that they ever plotted to murder the reigning King. As a matter of fact, the English Jesuits did hold their provincial synod of April, 1678, in the apart- ments of the Duke in St. James' Palace. This, had it been known, was a more damning circumstance than Oates' deposition that they had met in the White Horse Tavern. But it was his further assertion that they " had taken counsel to murder the King," which furnished the party leaders with what they wanted. Those on both sides sought to make use of the " Plot " for their own ends. Danby thought by fostering the excitement he could divert the steadily increasing attacks 1 This last was to be amply provided for : Charles was to be poisoned by the Queen's physician, he was to be shot by silver bullets as he walked in St. James Park, and he was to be set upon by four hired ruffians and stabbed with a conse- crated knife a foot long. 558 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND against himself and his administration. 1 But he soon found that instead of " sharing the popularity of nursing it " he was like a man trying to hold a " wolf by the ears ; he could neither hold it nor let it go, and for certain it bit him at last." But his opponent Shaftesbury was the most active of all in foment- ing the excitement. " Let the Treasurer cry never so loud," he de- clared, " against Popery, and think to put himself at the head of the Plot ... I will cry a note louder." Gates gave him the weapons he sought, to fight the succession of James and the Catholic line. His zeal was amazing in procuring informers and in hounding them by threats or bribery or whatever means proved most effective. Danby and Shaftesbury were unscrupulous partisans ; but Lord Russell, perhaps the noblest man of the time, firm in the belief " that Popery is, and was, breaking upon us like a flood," joined in the cry ; and such a broad-minded, philosophic statesman as Halifax declared that " the Plot must be handled as if it were true." Charles' Share in the Responsibility. Charles must bear a heavy share of the responsibility for the whole matter. By his manifest favor to Roman Catholics in the early part of the reign, and by his intrigues with France, he had aroused the popular apprehension to the point of believing any tale however ridiculous ; moreover, he had placed himself in a position such that he could not make light of the whole affair without laying himself open to suspicion. So, though he did not believe a word of the Plot, and even declared to his intimates that he regarded the chief informers as liars and rogues, he remained passive, letting events take their course. He allowed innocent men to go to their death on the testimony of rascals, and even allowed Gates, the archvillain of them all, to lodge in splendor at Whitehall and to receive a large weekly pension from the privy purse. Yet this was the man who could tell one of his courtiers that " he would never do a base or wicked thing, and that he looked on a falsehood and cruelty as the greatest crimes in the sight of God." He showed himself to be an adroit politician, but a very base or a very weak man. It was the natural outcome of his extravagant, selfish life and his tortuous courses that, when a crisis came, he was too lazy and too cowardly and too far compromised to stand up at once for what he knew to be right. It was not till he realized clearly that Shaftesbury and his party were aiming, with the aid of Gates and his kind, to force him to divorce his queen, 2 to exclude his brother from the throne, 3 and to recognize as his successor his illegitimate son, James, Duke of Mon- 1 Some authorities, however, deny this and insist that he refused openly to credit the Plot from the first. 1 "She was a weak woman and had some disagreeable humors," he declared to a confidant, "but was not capable of a wicked thing, and, considering his own faultiness to her in some things, he thought it a horrid thing to abandon her." * He told Danby privately that he would be " content to pare the nails of a Popish successor, but he would not suffer his own brother to be taken away from him, nor the right line of succession interrupted." LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 559 mouth, that he roused himself, dashed their plans, and fought them with amazing ability and determination during the rest of his reign. Yet, before that happened, he had allowed his subjects to pass through a stage of madness which was an abiding disgrace to him and them. Parliament imposes New Tests upon Roman Catholics, 1678. Parliament met 21 October, 1678, and continued in session until 30 December. Its first step was to hurry through a resolution that " there has been, and still is, a damnable and hellish plot contrived and carried on by Popish recusants, for the assassinating and murder- ing of the King, and for subverting the Government, and rooting out and destroying the Protestant religion." None dared dissent for fear of being thought implicated. Fear rose to panic. Elaborate precautions were taken against fire, men went about armed, and the " Protestant flail " was invented, a handy little club for striking suddenly a threatened assailant. The City and the royal palace were guarded with troops and cannon. The prisons were filled with sus- pects, and, while their trials were proceeding, measures were framed to exclude Roman Catholics from the Government, to drive James from the royal presence, and to bar him from the succession. A new test, passed 28 October, 1678, obliged members of both Houses to take the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and subscribe to a decla- ration that worship according to the Church of Rome was idolatrous. 1 Although the Duke of York was excepted from the parliamentary test, it was moved that he be no longer allowed to sit in the King's Council. A proposal excluding him from the succession was not em- bodied in a bill until the next Parliament. The most commendable achievement of the Country party in this session was in forcing Charles to disband the standing army which they protested was raised " for an imaginary war." 2 The Victims of the Plot. For months the trials of those accused of participation in the Plot went on. Coleman was the first to die. He was guilty of the charge of treason in trying to " subvert the Protes- tant religion as it is by law established ... by the aid and assistance of foreign powers," though he was probably innocent of the accusa- tion that he had conspired to assassinate the King. Urged to make disclosures, he replied that " he knew there was enough already to take away his life, and he did not know enough to save it." Upwards of twenty more met the same fate ; most of them innocent of any crime except that of being Roman Catholics and attempting to propagate their faith. The judges were brutal and biased, the witnesses told what they knew to be lies ; but, it must be said, the procedure was no more unfair than it had been for a century and more. 1 In the course of the debate in the House of Peers a noble lord was roundly cheered for declaring that he " would not have so much as a Popish man or woman to remain amongst us ; not so much as a Popish dog . . . not so much as a Popish cat mew or purr about the King." 2 "These redcoats," they declared, "may fight against Magna Carta." 560 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND In constant fear of danger from without, of treason and rebellion from within, with no adequate police or military force, the Government saw no safety except in swift, ruthless convictions. Thus the law courts were concerned, not so much in saving the innocent, as in acting as " citadels against treason," in making examples of those who seemed guilty. One particular injustice under which the Catholics labored, as has been pointed out by the most brilliant writer on this period, was that neither people, judges, or juries attached any belief to the testimony of their witnesses, since many of them were Jesuits, and since it was commonly supposed that Jesuits were taught to lie in the interest of the Church. While the Popish Terror was at its height, the courts as well as the places of execution were threatened by howling mobs, so that the judges could acquit no one without the greatest risk to their own safety. The turn of the tide came in July, 1679, with the acquittal of George Wakeman, the Queen's physician, whose case was bound up with that of his royal mistress. Chief Justice Scroggs a coarse, dissipated person like too many of his contemporaries on the bench acted a courageous part in setting him free. He was bitterly attacked and reviled, and, even though he acted on a hint from the Court, he staked not only his career but his life on the decision. ^More trials there were ; but they grew fewer and fewer, 1 though two victims of high rank remained yet to be sacrificed to the popular fury. In December, 1680, Lord Stafford, an aged peer of the notable family of Howard, was sent to the block, and in the ensuing summer he was followed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, the last of the accused to suffer. The Fall of Danby, 1678-1679. Meantime, Danby had fallen, and the Cavalier Parliament was no more. The Lord Treasurer was overthrown by the combined hostility of the Shaftesbury party and the French King. The agent was a disappointed office seeker, Ralph Montague, ambassador at Paris, to whom Danby had refused the position of Secretary of State. Moved by revenge and by a bribe from Louis XIV, he published instructions which he had received from Danby, in March, 1678, to offer the dissolution of Parliament in return for a French loan. Parliament demanded the dismissal of the Lord Treasurer forthwith. It was urged in vain that, disapproving of the proposal, he acted solely in accordance with the royal orders. Charles tried to save him by proroguing and thus dissolving Parliament. The new Parliament, which met, 6 March, 1679, resumed the attack. Meantime, Danby, who had been rewarded with the title of Marquis, had been dismissed and was in hiding. When a bill of attainder was passed against him, he appeared to defend himself. He was ultimately committed to the Tower, where he remained for nearly five years. Danby's case is of great political and constitutional significance. It marks another step in the process of calling ministers to account, and 1 For a long time, however, priests were tried and convicted under a law of Elizabeth which made it treason for them to remain in the land. it put an end to the Parliament which had grown steadily more corrupt during the eighteen years of its life, a Parliament in which he had organized his political machine. Moreover, during the proceedings against him several important points were raised. It was maintained, for instance, that a dissolution did not put an end to an impeachment, 1 and that a royal pardon was no bar to an impeachment. 2 The " Habeas Corpus Act," 1679. This Parliament which disposed of Danby, secured notable gains to the subject in connection with the writ of habeas corpus. Charles I had evaded the spirit, if not the letter, of the great concession which he had made in the Peti- tion of Right, and, though the act abolishing Star Chamber contained a provision that persons might not be imprisoned by the King's com- mand or that of the Privy Council, repeated instances of arbitrary imprisonment occurred after the Restoration, especially under Clar- endon's regime. One bill after another was introduced; but it was not till 1679 that an act 3 was passed, mainly through the efforts of Shaftesbury, to make the execution of the writ more effectual. Hitherto, the jailer had not been bound to make an immediate return, and he might avoid giving up a prisoner by shifting him from prison to prison. Moreover, it was not clear whether any but the court of the King's Bench could issue the writ, or whether a single judge could do so during the long vacation. The act of 1679 provided that any prisoner held on a criminal charge must, on the issuance of the writ, be brought before the judge within an interval of twenty days to de- cide whether he should be released on bail or held for trial ; and that a man accused of treason or felony must be tried at the next gaol delivery or released on bail, unless witnesses for the Crown could not be procured ; and if untried at the gaol delivery following, he should be discharged. Henceforth, the writ might be obtained from any court, while during the long vacation a single judge might issue it. Furthermore, except in special cases persons could not be imprisoned beyond the seas, and the writ was to run in the counties palatine and other privileged jurisdictions. Evasions were punished by heavy fines. Even yet the remedies were still inadequate. A judge might require bail too excessive for the prisoner to obtain, jailers might make a false return, and the provisions applied to criminal cases only. The first was remedied by the Bill of Rights, the two latter by an act of i8i6. 4 1 This, however, was not finally established till the celebrated Warren Hastings' Case in 1791. 2 This assertion was soon confirmed by the Act of Settlement, 13 Wm., Ill c. 2. 3 Popularly known as the "Habeas Corpus Act," it was really entitled: "An act for the better securing the Liberty of the Subject, and for prevention of Im- prisonment beyond the Seas." 4 It is said that the act of 1679 only passed the House of Lords by an accident, since a very fat lord was counted, in jest, as ten ; two, according to another account. At any rate, more votes were cast than the records show to have been present on that day. 562 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The First Exclusion Bill, 1679. The Whigs and Tories. Charles ratified the act in order to placate the Opposition which was bent on excluding the Duke of York from the succession. A bill for that purpose passed the Commons, and the King only prevented it from going to the Lords by proroguing Parliament, 27 May, 1679. That body did not meet again till the autumn of 1680. During the interval the struggle waged furiously. In order to prevent Charles from forming another inner circle of the ministers, as he had done in the case of the Cabal, Sir William Temple got him to remodel the Council on a plan which he had devised. Instead of fifty there were to be thirty members, half ex-officio, half selected from the popular party. Charles accepted the scheme merely to gain time and took care that it should fail. He rarely consulted the new body. With cool irony he made Shaftesbury president, dismissed him in October, 1679, and gradually froze out his supporters. When in January, 1680, Russell and others asked permission to withdraw, he answered : " With all my heart." Halifax, Essex, and Sunderland the latter came into disagreeable prominence later stayed on, and managed affairs under" the title of the " Triumvirate." Charles played a waiting game, hoping by repeated prorogations to keep Parliament in check or to drive the Opposition to violence. Petitions poured in from all parts of the country, begging him to call Parliament. These were answered by counter-petitions from his supporters, declaring their abhorrence of such petitions. The names " petitioners " and " abhorrers " came to be applied to the two great parties, who, however, soon received their more enduring names of " Whigs and Tories." x Second Exclusion Bill, 1680. The Oxford Parliament, 1681. Truly these months were a " crazy time everywhere." The Duke of Monmouth, one of the King's illegitimate sons, a " weak, bad, and beautiful young man . . . popular, good-natured, and charming as his reputed father," had gained some popularity by suppressing a Presbyterian rising in Scotland, and Shaftesbury, disappointed of forcing Charles into a divorce and a Protestant marriage, aimed to set him in the place of the Duke of York as heir to the throne. In the early winter of 1680 he aroused hot discussion by circulating stories about a certain " Black Box," said to contain papers proving the marriage of Charles to Monmouth's mother, Lucy Walters. When Parliament met in October, a second exclusion bill was introduced. Passing the Commons, it was defeated in the Lords chiefly by the eloquence of Halifax, who favored Charles' plan of a Catholic suc- cession with limitations and expedients which the Opposition regarded as a " little gilding to cover a poisonous pill." They insisted that 1 Whig is thought to be a shortened form of "Whiggamore," a name applied to the Scotch covenanting party, from "Whiggam," the cry by which they encour- aged their horses, though some derive it from a word meaning "sour whey." "Tory" originally meant an Irish outlaw. It was first applied by Gates to those who disbelieved in the plot and passed from them to the opponents of the Exclusion. LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 563 the King supported his brother because " it is good to have a suc- cessor they like worse than himself." The Houses were prorogued, and finally dissolved in January, 1681. The King's last Parliament met 21 March, 1681, at Oxford ; for he dared not allow it to assemble in London. The Whigs, greatly in the majority, and backed by bands of armed followers, were determined to force through their exclusion measure, to restrict the royal right of proroguing and dissolving Parliament, and to set up a Protestant Association to govern the country under Monmouth. Charles, in order to secure his supporters against attack, had the road to Oxford lined with armed men and made other preparations for defense. Moreover, he secured another large grant from Louis XIV, and when the Opposition again refused to accept a bill of limitations, he put an end to the session after eight days, the members dispersing with " dreadful faces and loud sighs." It was " as if a gust of wind had suddenly scattered the leaves from the trees." His waiting policy had been crowned with success, the Whigs had overreached themselves by their own violence, and never again while Charles lived were they to recover their lost ascendancy. Their leaders kept up the struggle, but their following was a body of desperate agitators, an " exploded, scanty, and forsaken " remnant, not a popular political party. Flight and Death of Shaftesbury. The Royal Attack on the Munic- ipal Corporations. Loyal addresses came pouring in from all sides, couched in the most abject and fulsome language. The Tory doc- trines of non-resistance and absolute devotion to absolutism became all the more fashionable by way of reaction against the Whig notions which had dominated the last three parliaments. Charles was now ready to assume the aggressive. The first blow was aimed against Shaftesbury, who was charged with plotting against the King and with attempting to set up a republic. Although the grand jury refused to bring in a true bill against him, 1 the fiery popular leader, after a year of furious agitation and busy intrigues, fled to Holland in Decem- ber, 1682, where he died the following January. The Middlesex jury who had thus defied the royal will was appointed by the London sheriffs, who, in their turn, were chosen by the City, where the Whig element remained strong. Accordingly, Charles, in order to revenge himself, and at the same time to gain control of the government of London, had a writ of quo warranto brought in the King's Bench call- ing on the City to show why, by what warrant, it should not forfeit its charter, on the ground that it had abused its privileges by imposing certain tolls on goods brought into the City markets and by demand- ing a parliament, December, 1679, in an inflammatory petition which had been circulated through the country. In June, 1683, the judges rendered a decision that the charter should be forfeited. However, it was proposed that the charter might be retained on certain condi- 1 They brought in a verdict of "ignoramus." 564 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tions, the most important being that the election of the chief officials should be submitted for royal approval. When the City refused to submit to this arrangement, Charles proceeded to appoint men of his own choice. He next extended the attack against other munici- palities. His object was not only to increase his supporters in influen- tial centers, but, since many corporations chose borough members in Parliament, to strengthen his party in the House of Commons in the event of another session. Some resisted, some surrendered their charters when suit was brought against them. 1 It was said that when Judge Jeffreys, who became so notorious in the next reign, went on the northern circuit, " he made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him." Altogether, nearly seventy charters were for- feited or remodeled i The Ryehouse Plot and the Executions of Russell and Sidney. Meantime, the Duke of York had resumed office in violation of the Test Act, and the persecution of Dissenters had been resumed. With the City in the hands of the Tories the Whigs determined to try a final stroke. A council of six from the Green Ribbon Club, with Shaftesbury as president, and including Monmouth, Russell, Algernon Sidney, and Essex, met and discussed plans for forcing the King to call a Parliament and even for stirring up an armed rising. It was the failure of these schemes which led to the flight of Shaftesbury. An- other plot, however, was devised by certain old Cromwellians to murder the King and his brother as they returned to London from Newmarket, in April, 1683. This attempt, known as the Ryehouse plot, from the abode of one of the conspirators, whence the attack was to be made, miscarried, because the royal brothers came down a week before they were expected. The discovery of this plot brought the other less criminal one to light. Russell and Sidney were tried with the customary scant regard for justice and were executed. Essex died in prison by his own hand. Monmouth was forgiven but sent into exile. The Triumph and Death of Charles, 1685. Charles was now triumphant. The country was prosperous, trade was flourishing, and the price of land was high ; the furious partisanship of the Whigs, the dread of another revolution, and the King's adroitness in giving up his Catholic designs and in playing his adversaries 2 until they had risen to the bait had left him supreme. Yet he had won at a tremen- dous sacrifice. For the sake of French gold he had acquiesced tamely in Louis XIV's plans of ascendancy which caused untold misery to generations to come. But his motto was, " If I can be well so long 1 The charges were usually flimsy : at Oxford the election of a town clerk with- out the royal approval ; at York, the refusal to allow a mountebank, recommended by the King, to erect a stage. 2 He had put the extremists in the wrong by offering a series of concessions which he knew they would refuse, but which satisfied the bulk of the moderates ex- clusion of the Catholics from Parliament and public office ; limitations on the power of a Catholic successor. He had also ratified the Habeas Corpus Act. LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II 565 as I live, I care little what happens afterwards." However, he did not live to enjoy long the repose which he had so basely gained. He was stricken with apoplexy, 2 February, 1685, and only survived four days. Witty to the end, he apologized to those about him for being " such an unconscionable time in dying." In his last hours he was received into the Church of Rome by Father Huddleston, a priest who had saved his life during the flight after the battle of Worcester. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Lodge, Political History, chs. V-X. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, chs. XI, XII. Cambridge Modern History, V, chs. V, IX. Ranke, III, bk. XV, chs. V-XII, IV, bk. XVI. Lingard, IX, chs. IV-VI, X, ch. I. Mac- aulay, History of England, I, ch. II. Constitutional. Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law (3 vols., 1883), I, pp. 325 ff., for judicial procedure in the seventeenth century. Hallam, II, chs. XII, XIII. Biography. Lord John Russell, Life of William Lord Russell (4th ed., 1853). Anonymous, Adventures of James II (1904) ; very sympathetic as regards James. Special. John Pollock, The Popish Plot (1903); the authority on the subject ; pt. IV deals with the procedure in the treason trials. Mahan, Sea Power, ch. III. Contemporary. J. S. Clarke, The Life of King James the Second, "collected out of memoirs writ of his own hand" (1816). For further works relating to this chapter see ch. XXXII above. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 228-232. Robertson, Select Statutes and Cases, pt. I, nos. X, XI; pt. II, nos. II- VII. CHAPTER XXXIV JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" (1685-1688) Strength of the Monarchy at the Accession of James, in 1685. Charles, though lazy, dissipated, and unprincipled, was tactful and wary, and left his brother in a position of unusual strength. The Whig opposition was crushed and discouraged ; the municipal corpo- rations were under royal control ; France stood in need of the friend- ship of the English King, while the Dutch, the Protestant princes of Germany, Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy, all of whom dreaded French ascendancy, courted his alliance. Moreover, James, during the first few months of his reign, steadily strengthened his position ; he obtained an ample grant from Parliament, and in order to face a rebellion which was easily suppressed, he secured a large standing army. Had he been content with the religious situation as Charles had left it, he might have ruled long and successfully, but his rash ambition to reestablish the Church of Rome alienated even the most devoted of his supporters, the Tory High Churchmen, drove them into the ranks of the opposition, and led to his overthrow. Personal Traits of the New King. James was nearly fifty-two years old. 1 Like his brother's, his youth had been one of adventure. As a boy of fifteen he had escaped to the Continent. He had served in four campaigns under Turenne, the greatest general of the age, and later had fought in the Spanish army under Turenne's famous rival Conde. Then, and afterwards, as a commander in the Dutch wars, he had shown himself to be brave and not without ability. As Lord High Admiral he had proved to be an efficient administrator. The instructions which he drew up for the government of the navy were not superseded until the last century, while the scandals which flour- ished in his time cannot be laid at his door. He was industrious, fond of details, and, for a man who lived at court in those days, com- paratively free from vices of drunkenness and gambling. But here his virtues ended. His personal life was little purer than that of Charles. He was dull and obstinate. " Charles could see things if he would, James would see things if he could." 2 He was ready to sacrifice everything for the advancement of his Church, and was a stout opponent of concessions, believing that those which his father had made had cost him his head. He was devoid of foresight and imagination, and, toward the end of the reign, became exceedingly 1 He was born 14 October, 1633. 2 Buckingham is the reputed author of this shrewd distinction. 566 JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 567 timorous. His reputation for truthfulness was doubtless overrated, owing to his harsh obstinacy ; certainly, he began his reign with a lie. Much of the cruelty charged to him may have been due to the agents whom he trusted ; but a chief duty of rulers should be to choose worthy servants and upright counselors. James' failure to do this was a main cause of his downfall. It was equally unfortunate that he sus- pected and repulsed good men who differed with him. The First Measures of the Reign. Though James, at his acces- sion, 6 February, 1685, was received without great joy, 1 there were no signs of disorder, and, until the autumn following, he was generally supported by the moderates, while the Tories manifested the most ardent devotion. To be sure, he celebrated mass at St. James with open doors, " that all the world might see " ; yet it was commonly believed that he would confine his Catholicism to his own household. Indeed, he had declared to the Council : "I will make it my endeavor to preserve the Government in Church and State as it is by law es- tablished," and a loyal preacher assured the people that : " We now have the word of a King and of a King who was never worse than his word." To judge by his latter acts, if he did not deliberately break his promise, he must have regarded the old pre-Reformation Church, not the Elizabethan, as the legal Establishment. He made Rochester, his brother-in-law, Lord Treasurer and head of the Admin- istration. Halifax, who, although he had defeated the Exclusion Bill, was an enemy to despotism and Roman Catholicism, was " kicked upstairs " from the office of Lord Privy Seal to the more dignified but less important post of Lord President of the Council. The vacant place was given to Rochester's brother, the Earl of Clarendon. The unscrupulous and insinuating Sunderland retained his position as Secretary of State and became a favorite adviser. Many Catholics and Quakers 2 were released from prison ; but the penal laws were rigidly enforced against the bulk of the Dissenters. Gates, already under sentence of perjury, received a flogging from which it is a marvel that he survived. In addition, he was sentenced to prison for life and to be pilloried five times a year. 3 Parliament meets and grants James a Fixed Revenue. Parlia- ment met, 19 May, 1685, the Commons, owing to the royal control of the corporations, being composed largely of the supporters of the King. James, who had been collecting the customs granted to his brother for life, 4 was anxious to secure a fixed income. The revenues 1 It was regarded by many as an evil omen that the crown tottered and nearly fell from his head at his coronation on St. George's Day. 2 They were persona grata with the sovereign because non-resistance was one of the chief tenets of their religion. 3 After the revolution of 1688 he was released and given a small pension. * It has been urged that had he not done so, merchants, during the interval, would have brought in quantities of goods, to the detriment of those who had paid duty. But that fact does not excuse him from using the money after he had col- lected it. 568 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of the late King were readily granted to James for life, together with 'certain additional duties, which, added together, gave him about 1,900,000 a year, a sum which, considering that he was a thifty monarch, abundantly sufficed for his ordinary needs. His other main project to remove the tests excluding Catholics from office met with quite a different reception. Indeed, Parliament, far from acceding, insisted that the anti-Catholic laws be enforced. Suddenly news came that Monmouth had landed on the south coast. Pausing only to pass an act of attainder against him and to set a price on his head, the Houses adjourned, 2 July, 1685. The Exiles. The Landing of Argyle in Scotland. Failure and Execution. Following the final triumph of Charles, crowds of bitter-tempered exiles had fled to the Low Countries. Their hopes centered in Monmouth, who, until his father's death, had been con- tent to shine as a social leader at the Hague. Next to him in impor- tance was Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, son of the famous cove- nanting Marquis who had been executed after the Restoration. Under sentence of death himself, the young Argyle had escaped to Holland. He was regarded as a valuable ally, because he was the chief of the great clan Campbell. Egged on by the busy plotters, who had little in common except hatred of James and a desire to return to their native land, Monmouth and Argyle were induced to attempt simul- taneous invasions of England and Scotland. Argyle, who started in May, 1685, finally reached the land of his own people on the west coast ; but, owing to dissensions, desertions, inadequate supplies, and lack of enthusiasm for the cause, he failed miserably. His forces were scattered, he himself was captured and taken to Edinburgh, where, 30 June, 1685, he was beheaded, meeting his fate with lofty resignation. Monmouth's Rising and its Failure, 1685. Meantime, u June, Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast. There at the market cross a Declaration was read which charged James with all manner of horrid and unlikely crimes such as burning London, strangling Godfrey, and poisoning his late brother and stated that the young Duke had come to deliver the land from " Popery " and tyranny, and to submit his claims to a free and lawful Parliament. 1 The peasants from the country round about pressed eagerly to join him ; but the gentry held aloof. At Taunton, Monmouth, contrary to his promise, proclaimed himself king. He soon had to reckon with a royal army, composed partly of regular troops and partly of local militia. They camped, 5 July, at Sedgemoor, in the midst of Somerset marshes, three miles from the point where, after much marching and countermarching, Monmouth had established his head- quarters. In an attempt to surprise the King's army by a night at- tack his forces were repulsed and scattered. They fought valiantly ; 1 This document was the work of one Ferguson, an unprincipled rascal, who was at once a plotter and a Government spy. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 569 but raw levies mounted on cart horses, and many of them armed only with farm tools and scythes tied on poles, were no match for the trained soldiery, who, in addition, were protected by a ditch which drained the marsh. The battle of Sedgemoor was the last important battle fought on English soil. Monmouth, who fled when he found the battle was going against him, was discovered two days later, hiding in a ditch, disguised as a shepherd. Although he pled abjectly for his life, it proved of no avail. He was beheaded x 15 July, 1685. Monmouth's popularity among the peasants of Somerset and Dorset amounted to veneration. Refusing to believe that he was dead, they cherished for years the hope that he would reappear to lead them. " Kirke's Lambs " and Jeffrey's " Bloody Assize," 1685. The vengeance of James was swift and terrible. First, Colonel Percy Kirke with his regiment of " Lambs " 2 butchered scores without trial, enriching himself, however, by sparing those from whom he could extort money. 3 The neighborhood of the insurrection was, if a contemporary account can be believed, " crowded with gibbets and ghastly carcasses. The trees were laden almost as thick with quar- ters as leaves, the houses and steeples were covered as close with heads as at other times with crows and ravens." Those held in jail met the same fate under form of law. In the infamous " Bloody Assize, " held by Jeffreys in the autumn, more than 300 were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and 800 more were transported. 4 For generations there were spots in the countryside that the natives would not pass after nightfall, from the gruesome memories preserved of bodies swinging in chains and of heads and quarters fixed on poles. During the trials Jeffreys, who afterwards boasted that he had hanged more traitors than any of his predecessors since the Conquest, roared, swore, and joked at the trembling victims in a way that made his name a terror for years to come. All that can be said for him is that he was only a degree worse than the typical judge of the century, and that, owing to a painful malady, he drank so heavily that he was scarcely ever sober. Although not a man of great learning, he was exceptionally keen as a trial judge, and, by his usefulness to the Court party, had risen to be Chief Justice before the close of the late reign. The prisoners transported to the plantations were sold as bondsmen, but many were so reduced by the hardships of the voyage that they had to be fattened before any master would take them. These sales, the confiscations, and the money wrung from those who were spared, fur- nished large profits for the judges, informers, and the courtiers who had 1 His executioner was John Ketch; hence the name "Jack Ketch," still applied to the hangman. 2 So-called from a device on their banner representing the Lamb of God. 3 Of late the view has been gaining ground that the charges against Kirke may have been exaggerated. 4 The execution of Elizabeth Gaunt, which took place in London, is notable as the last case of a woman being executed for a political offense. 570 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND influence enough to get a share. The maids of honor of the Queen, and even the Queen herself, have been accused of receiving a portion of the plunder. Some have tried to excuse James from responsibility for the acts of his brutal judges ; but to those who appealed for mercy he showed himself harder than the marble chimney piece in his audi- ence chamber ; and he not only rewarded Jeffreys with the Lord Chancellorship on his return from the west, but honored him with his fullest confidence throughout the reign. The Turning Point in the Reign. Foreign Relations, In spite of the hatred smoldering in the west, the power of James seemed un- assailable. He had crushed and overawed those who dared to rise against him. The Church and the bulk of his subjects were still loyal, he had an adequate regular revenue, and a strong standing army. Nevertheless,' the autumn of 1685 marked a decisive turn in the tide of his affairs. The situation abroad and the execution of Monmouth, followed by a long succession of follies, led to his downfall within the space of three years. The intrigues of Charles and the disclosures of the Popish Plot had, in the popular mind, bound the cause of the Stuarts with that of Louis XIV. Louis, as it happened, although a Roman Catholic, was not, at this time, a devoted subject of the Pope, nor were the Jesuits who advised him. They were pursuing a policy known as " Gallicanism," of which the essential feature was the freedom of the Church of France from papal control in all matters of government. Consequently, the Pope was at one with Spain and the Empire in opposing French ascendancy, which, of course, was also the aim of the Protestant princes of Europe. Had James thrown his lot on their side he might have preserved his throne. While he gave Louis no active assistance, he received subsidies from him, and was popularly supposed, at home and abroad, to be a partner in his designs. By putting Monmouth out of the way he removed a great cause of dissension between his opponents, some of whom supported the late Duke as the successor to the English throne. Now all parties united for William of Orange. So when James began to make it clear that he was bent on reintroducing Catholicism into England, the ground was prepared for an irresistible combination European and English against him. Such being the situation, it was most unfortunate for the prospects of James that Louis, in October, 1685, revoked the Edict of Nantes which, in theory at least, had protected his Huguenot subjects for over a century. Many of them took refuge in England, and the tales they told revived the terror which had somewhat subsided after the discrediting of Gates and his gang. What Louis had done in France James might do in England. James breaks with his Parliament, November, 1865. It was at this unfortunate juncture that James began to show his hand. 1 He 1 Probably with a view of allaying suspicion he at first received the refugees kindly, but, by his subsequent acts, he soon neutralized whatever effect this may have produced. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 571 had three measures which he was determined to put through : to main- tain intact the standing army, which had been increased from 6000 to 20,000 in consequence of Monmouth's rising ; to obtain the repeal of the Test Act, for the purpose of retaining a number of Catholics who already held office in the army and to make it possible to put others in military and civil positions ; and, finally, to repeal the Habeas Corpus Act which prevented him from dealing summarily with those who were disposed to resist his authority. Parliament, which met 9 November, 1685, stoutly opposed these projects. This so angered the King that he prorogued the Houses before they had passed a money bill to pay for the expenses incurred in suppressing the recent insurrection. He also dismissed from office many who had voted against his measures. Parliament never met again during the reign. James' New Counselors. The chief power soon fell into the hands of Sunderland, according to Princess Anne, " the subtillest, workingest villain ... on the face of the earth." While, perhaps, not so black as he is usually painted, he was inordinately ambitious, never hesitating to change his politics or his religion whenever he thought he saw a chance to advance his interests. Though he did not profess himself a Roman Catholic till the summer of 1688, he attached himself, not long after James broke with Parliament, to a small group of extremists whose policy was decidedly French and Jesuit. Among them were Father Petre and Richard Talbot ; the latter, com- monly known as " lying Dick Talbot," was a crafty intriguer who masqueraded as a jovial roisterer. To these men and a few others who used to meet every Friday night at Sunderland's house, some of the King's most ill-advised measures were due. Their designs were a source of grave apprehension to the moderate Roman Catholics, es- pecially to the nuncio and the vicar apostolic whom the Pope had sent over to restrain the zeal of James, and to counteract the intrigues of France. The Case of Sir Edward Hales, June, 1686. James awakened concern by one rash act after another. Since Parliament had refused to sanction the repeal of the Test Act, he determined to render it void by filling offices in spite of its restrictions. However, in order to give his procedure a show of legality in the eyes of his subjects, he decided to extort from the judges a decision in his favor. Four, together with the Solicitor-General, who refused to do his bidding were replaced by others more pliant. To bring the case before the courts, the coach- man of Sir Edward Hales was employed to begin suit against his master for holding a commission in the army contrary to the Test Act. Eleven of the twelve judges decided that, notwithstanding the provisions of the act, he was entitled by a royal authorization to hold office. Thus fortified, James, in July, admitted four Roman Catho- lics to the Privy Council. More startling still, he proceeded to invade the two strongholds of Anglicanism, the Church and the Universities. He issued dispensations enabling Roman Catholics to hold eccle- 572 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND siastical benefices. Obadiah Walker, a concealed Romanist, was allowed to retain the mastership of University College, whereupon he appointed Jesuit chaplains and set up a press for printing controversial pamphlets. A professed Romanist was made Dean of Christ Church, while Samuel Parker, a Roman Catholic at heart, was appointed Bishop of Oxford. The archbishopric of York was kept vacant. It was thought that James intended it for Father Petre ; but was pre- vented by the Pope from granting him the office. The Court of Ecclesiastical Commission, July, 1686. It was necessary, if the King was to control the Church, to have a means of punishing those who refused to obey him. To that end, he revived what was, in substance, the Court of High Commission, 1 which had been abolished by the Long Parliament and which had not been restored at the Restoration. James called his body the Ecclesiastical Commission, and insisted that it differed from the tribunal suppressed by Parliament, in that its jurisdiction was confined to the clergy. It consisted of seven commissioners chosen from the leading officials in Church and State. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, managed to excuse himself from serving, on the plea of ill health and pressure of other business ; but he ceased to be summoned to the Privy Council in consequence. The first work of the Commission was to deprive Henry Compton, Bishop of London, of the administration of his see, because he had refused to suspend the Dean of Norwich, who had preached against a royal proclamation aimed to silence controversial sermons denouncing " Popery." : Popular Excitement and Opposition. By virtue of a wholesale issue of dispensations, Roman Catholic chapels were set up all over the country, and a church and school for Jesuits was set up at the Savoy. In November, 1686, the new Royal Chapel was opened at Whitehall " with all the musique of the Italian." Evelyn, the diarist, who describes the " Cringes " at the altar and " the world of mysterious ceremony," declares, and he was a stanch royalist : "I could not have believed I should ever have seen such things in the King of England's palace, after it had pleased God to enlighten this nation." Monks and friars in their religious garb appeared again in the streets of London, and so alarmed and enraged the peo'ple that riots were of frequent occurrence. When a mob attacked a chapel of the minister of the Elector Palatine and set up the crucifix on the parish pump, crying, " No wooden gods," the trained bands summoned to quell the disturbance murmured, " We cannot in conscience fight for Popery." In order to overawe the unquiet, 13,000 men of the standing army were quartered on Houns- low Heath ; but the camp became a great resort for Londoners who flocked there on Sundays, and the soldiers came to share more and more in the sentiments of the citizens. From the pulpits throughout 1 Curiously enough he did this by virtue of his position as Supreme Governor of the Church which he was striving to weaken. 2 Compton, however, was allowed to retain his palace and his revenues. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 573 the land, sermons were preached against " Popery," while floods of pamphlets defending the Protestant faith issued from the press. " The discontent," wrote Barillon, the French ambassador, " is great and general : but the fear of incurring still worse evils restrains all who have anything to lose." In spite of the growing opposition and of the reproaches even of the Pope and the moderate Roman Catholics, the King went on stubbornly and the situation grew more and more tense. 1 The Situation in Scotland under Charles II. In Scotland, too, there was grave discontent. The Restoration had been welcomed because of Cromwell's military rule and because of aversion to the domination of Presbyterians. But the result had been disappoint- ment. The Scots had changed governors ; but arbitrary government continued in a form more cruel and oppressive than ever before, and became corrupt as well. The Presbyterians were kept down rigidly, and the Episcopalians were mere creatures of the Government. Trade and commerce, too, suffered because of the Dutch wars and the abo- lition of the free trade existing under the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. Furthermore, the nobles were disappointed ; for they gained nothing as a class ; it was only the select few who were favored. Practically all power was vested in the Privy Council and the bishops, who were pledged to carry out the royal will. Parliament merely registered their acts. By an act passed in 1663, popularly known as the " Bishops' Drag-net," heavy fines were imposed on all who did not attend the parish church. Those who remained obdurate, and they were mainly centered in the southwestern counties, suffered cruelly at the hands of the King's dragoons, who were quartered in their houses and who ruthlessly searched out and broke up their " field conventicles," as the meetings were called, which they held in lonely and remote places to evade the arm of the law. An attempt which some of the more desperate made in 1666 to march on Edinburgh was frustrated ; they were driven into the Pentland Hills, and the rising only resulted in harsher measures of repression. After a bloody car- nival of execution and torture for which the Primate of Scotland, Archbishop Sharp, rather than King Charles, must bear the blame, Lauderdale did try milder measures; but when, in consequence, conventicles began to multiply again, he reverted to a policy of system- atic coercion. A most ruthless step was taken in 1678, when the so- called " Highland Host," a body of 6000 Highlanders and 3000 Low- land militia, was quartered in the southwest in a vain attempt to crush out disaffection. The Rising of the Covenanters, 1679. A crisis came in the year 1679 with the murder of Sharp, whom the Presbyterians detested as 1 On one occasion the King gave the Duke of Norfolk the sword of State to carry before him to his chapel. When he stopped at the door, James said : " Your father would have gone farther." Whereupon Norfolk replied, "Your Majesty's father would not have gone so far." 574 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND a treacherous deserter from their cause, and as a bloodthirsty perse- cutor. Then followed another revolt in which the royalist commander, John Graham, of Claverhouse, was routed at Drumclog, i June. The insurgents failed to take Glasgow, and, 22 June, were defeated at Bothwell Bridge by the Duke of Monmouth, who had been sent from London to take the command against them. Although Monmouth was for a mild treatment of the vanquished, the Government showed the same revengeful spirit that it had manifested after the Pentland Rising. A notable consequence of the rebellion of 1679, was the removal of Lauderdale from the control of Scotch affairs. In Decem- ber, 1679, the Duke of York was sent to Scotland to govern the coun- try. 1 During the period of his regime he began a policy which he continued as King and which alienated the great mass of Scotsmen from his cause. At first, however, he had to devote his main energies to suppressing the Cameronians, a body of irreconcilable and fanatical Presbyterians who, in 1680, broke away from the mass of their brethren because some of them had taken advantage of a religious indulgence, or compromise, which Monmouth had obtained for them after his return to England. As the agent of James in the warfare against the Cameronians, Graham earned the name of " Bloody Clavers." 2 Scotland in the Reign of James II. The accession of James was marked by even greater severity against the Covenanters than had been employed under Charles II, and was known as " the black year " and " the killing time." Not content with renewing the law which made the taking of the Covenant treason, the first parliament of the reign slavishly passed an act providing that all persons, preachers or hearers, proved to have been present at a conventicle, were to be pun- ished with death and confiscation. At the time of Argyle's ill-starred invasion the majority stood by the Crown ; but when various members of the Privy Council declared themselves Roman Catholics, when religious tests were disregarded and preachers were forbidden to speak against " Popery," the popular discontent rose to a high pitch, and manifested itself in riots so serious that the troops had to be called out. When the Estates met again, 29 April, 1686, James sent a royal letter recommending the repeal of the penal laws against his " innocent subjects, those of the Roman Catholic religion." When they returned a hesitant answer, he closed the session. Then he proceeded to carry out his policy by means of the Privy Council ; he did away with the tests, he allowed Roman Catholics to worship in public, and removed from office those who opposed his will. This roused such a storm that he forthwith issued letters of indulgence allowing to Presbyterians the same privileges which he had accorded to Roman Catholics. In- stead, however, of increasing the number of his supporters and allay- 1 He was soon recalled, but, in July, 1681, appeared again for a brief sojourn, as Royal Commissioner. 2 Modern authorities are inclined to think that he does not deserve all the op- probrium that has been heaped upon him. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 575 ing dissatisfaction, as he had hoped, the measure was fatal for James' power in Scotland: for it led to the return of many Presbyterian preachers of the extremer sort who organized an opposition which lost him the throne of Scotland. James' Irish Policy. In Ireland, where there was a Roman Catholic majority, the aims of the King were more far-reaching. He designed to make the old faith dominant and to employ the Irish as an instrument in his efforts to bring about the conversion of the two neighboring kingdoms. And he had good ground on which to work. To be sure, in spite of the restrictions on the wool trade and the Cattle Act of 1667, the country had prospered since the Restoration; for the restrictions had not been enforced, while the linen industry had flourished. But the trade shackles were galling; the Episcopal Church had power and revenues in inverse proportion to its size; and the bulk of the land, as well as the political power, lay in the hands of the English and Scotch colonists. The native Irish yearned to recover the possessions of which they had been deprived, and the Catholic extremists were eager for ascendancy. The " real director of Irish affairs " was Richard Talbot, created Earl of Tyrconnel and Commander-in-Chief, who, in 1687, replaced Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant. James' Efforts to win over the Dissenters. The " Closetings," 1686-1687. Clarendon's fall was preceded by that of his brother Rochester, who, for some time, had been a mere figurehead in the Council. The pretext for getting rid of him was his refusal to adopt Roman Catholicism. The office of Lord Treasurer was intrusted to a commission. Once James began to put out of office his own relatives, stanch supporters of the monarchy experienced, and formerly trusted counselors simply because they scrupled to abet him in his Catholicizing policy, it was clear that he would stop at nothing to gain his ends. Some conversions followed, but the adherents were few, and, on the whole, men of little reputation. 1 Finding that he could hope to do little with the men of the Church of England, James turned to the Dissenters, to whom he offered the benefits which he was striving to secure for Roman Catholics. In the winter of 1686- 1687, he laid his plans to assemble another session of Parliament which was to be controlled by men bound to support his policy of repealing the tests and the penal laws. To this end, he called various persons into his presence whom he tried to win over by promises, threats, and bribes. But these " closetings " served only to show him how few there were upon whom he could depend. The judges who were com- missioned on the circuits to secure supporters, were equally unsuc- cessful. The First Declaration of Indulgence, 4 April, 1687. Despairing of achieving his purpose in a parliamentary way, James determined 1 A notable exception was John Dryden, " the greatest living master of the Eng- lish language." 576 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to proceed on his own authority. So, 4 April, 1687, he published a Declaration of Indulgence granting to all his subjects the free exercise of their religion, suspending the execution of all penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, and removing all oaths and tests for the holding of mili- tary and civil offices. This went far beyond Charles' Declaration of 1672, which had only ventured to suspend the penal laws and to allow the Roman Catholics liberty of private worship. The High Church Tories, struck with amazement and terror, thereupon began to make overtures to their old enemies, the Dissenters. All they could offer, however, was remote and uncertain, while the relief tendered by James was immediate. On the other hand, his proffered relief was not only unsanctioned by Parliament but coupled with concessions to the Roman Catholics. The result was a split in the Nonconformist ranks. A minority accepted gratefully. 1 The majority, including such men as Baxter and Bunyan, stoutly refused. An attempt was made to secure the approval of William of Orange; but while he welcomed the repeal of the penal laws, he objected flatly to the removal of the tests : " You ask me to countenance an attack on my own religion," he declared ; " I cannot with a safe conscience do it, and I will not, no, not for the crown of England, nor for the Empire of the world." Dykevelt's Mission to England, 1687. It was about this time thaf many began seriously to look to William as their champion against James and Roman Catholicism. Hitherto, he had held aloof from English politics, but now, while not yet ready to strike, 'he undertook to prepare the way for a possible intervention by sending an envoy, Dykevelt, under the cover of a special mission, to the Eng- lish Government, to sound the opposition leaders. William was thirty- six years old. Small in stature, of a frail and sickly constitution, cold, and rough in manner, except to a few chosen intimates, nevertheless his piercing eye, his prominent eagle-like nose, and his thin, compressed lips marked him as an extraordinary man, fitted for his high destiny. Excluded as a mere child from the inheritance of his father, his country had chosen him, during the fateful year 1672, to be Commander- in-Chief and Stadholder. As a statesman and diplomatist he showed a fortitude and a perseverance rarely equaled in history. As a general he lost more battles than he won; but he gained results which few other men would have drawn from victories. His sole aim was to check the growth of France in order to preserve the liberties of the Dutch. His main reason for desiring the crown of England was that he might secure the resources of that country to aid him in his great work. Dykevelt, during his brief stay, strove busily to ingratiate himself with all classes. He assured High Churchmen of his master's friendship for Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer ; he held out to Nonconformists the prospect of toleration and comprehension ; 1 The King's chief agent in attaching them to his cause was William Penn, a sincere, if somewhat ill-advised advocate of toleration. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 577 and to Roman Catholics the repeal of the penal laws. He entered into conference with the great leaders of both parties, and, on his return to Holland, took with him letters from a number of the most prominent public personages. About the same time, William's Grand Pensionary, Fagel, published an adroit letter which greatly strengthened him with his allies on the Continent, Catholic and Protestant alike. The former were impressed by his willingness to repeal the penal laws, the latter by his determina- tion to stand by the tests. James, on the other hand, was continually making enemies for himself, abroad as well as at home. He quarreled with the Dutch over the recall of English regiments in the Dutch service, and over the publication in Holland of English books and pamphlets attacking his policy. He had the papal nuncio publicly consecrated as Archbishop in St. Paul's, and deprived the Duke of Somerset of all his offices for refusing to follow in his train. Somerset had been advised that he could not do so without breaking the law. "I will make you fear me as well as the law," declared James. "Do you not know that I am above the law? " " Your Majesty may be above the law, but I am not," replied the Duke, " and while I obey the law I fear nothing." The Royal Attack on the Universities. James took one of the rashest steps in his headlong course when he ventured to attack the Universities who were traditionally as hostile to Roman Catholicism as they were devoted to monarchy. He began at Cambridge when the Vice-Chancellor and the Senate protested against a royal order to confer the degree of master of arts upon a Benedictine monk. The Vice-Chancellor was deprived of his office by the Ecclesiastical Com- mission, and the deputies who accompanied him, among them Isaac Newton, were dismissed by Jeffreys with the injunction : " Go you? way and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you." But the bitterest struggle was waged at Oxford when James insisted upon putting in a candidate of his own as President of Magdalen College. When the Fellows, to whom the right of election belonged, refused to admit the legality of the proceeding, they were ejected, September, 1687, and declared incapable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice, while Magdalen was for a brief period turned into a Roman Catholic seminary. Oxford was thrown into a state of defiant excitement, and subscriptions were raised all over the country for the victims of the royal wrath. James' Attempt to pack a Parliament, 1687-1688. Realizing that the existing Parliament was unalterably opposed to his policy, James had finally dissolved it in July, I687- 1 Nevertheless, since he desired to secure parliamentary sanction of his abrogation of the tests and the penal laws, he made preparations to pack a body pledged to do his will. His first step was to appoint a board of regulators who, . . 1 It had never met since the autumn session of 1685. 2P 578 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND with the aid of local subcommittees, should remodel or regulate the municipal corporations which Charles II had filled with High Church Tories. Also, the lords lieutenants were directed to summon the deputy lieutenants and justices of their respective counties in order to question them as to how they would act in the event of a general election, and to furnish lists of Catholic and Protestant Dissenters who might re- place those who proved to be unpliant. Nearly half of the lords lieutenants, including the representatives of the most ancient peerages, refusing to carry out the royal orders, 1 were dismissed. Their places were filled by Roman Catholics or supple courtiers. The result of the inquiry proved most discouraging to the King; for the great majority would give no further assurance than that, if elected, they would act according to their conscientious convictions, and that they would vote only for candidates whose views agreed with their own. When the list of sheriffs for the year was published, it was found to be filled with royalist supporters, though the Roman Catholic country gentry, who had little sympathy with James' Roman Catholic court- iers, refused to serve. Moreover, many of the new town councilors proved untractable, and some municipalities were regulated three times in a single month; in a few instances the charters recently granted were taken away altogether, and the right of voting was vested in a small group bound by oath to support the King. In places where he could prevail in no other way, the King even quartered troops. Promises of support, with the alternative of dismissal, were also exacted from officials in all the public departments. One poor customs house officer declared that he obeyed for fourteen reasons, a wife and thirteen young children. The Second Declaration of Indulgence and the Protest of the Seven Bishops, April-May, 1688. On 27 April, 1688, James issued a second Declaration in which he repeated the provisions of that of the pre- vious year. Also he stated that he had dismissed those who had refused to assist him in making them into law, that he would proceed in the same way with others who declined to obey him, and that he purposed to call a parliament in November. This was followed by an Order in Council, published 7 May, ordering the clergy to read the Declara- tion on two successive Sundays, and directing the bishops to distribute copies throughout their diocese. By way of reply, Archbishop San- croft, whose hands were greatly strengthened by the support of a large body of the Nonconformists, called a meeting at Lambeth Palace on the evening of 18 May, where he drew up a petition, in which it was declared, with great professions of loyalty, that the Declaration was illegal and that the petitioners could not be parties to its public reading during divine service. It was signed by the Archbishop and six of the assembled bishops, after which the six bishops crossed the 1 The reply of the Earl of Oxford was typical: "I will stand by your Majesty against all enemies," said he, "but this is a matter of conscience and I cannot comply." JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 579 Thames and delivered it to the King at Whitehall. James was fu- rious. " This is a standard of rebellion," he cried, and, as was his cus- tom when deeply moved, he repeated the same phrase over and over again, while the bishops protested that they were no rebels. That night the petition was printed, and circulated rapidly through- out the city and country. How it happened no one knows ; for the audience with the King was private. The excitement grew in inten- sity all through Saturday, and, when Sunday came, the Declaration was read in only four of the hundred churches in and about London. 1 By the following Sunday a few more clergymen had been whipped into line ; but in most cases the congregation got up and left to avoid hearing the hated Declaration. The Birth of the Prince, 10 June, 1688. Although Sunderland recommended moderation, the King, on the advice of Jeffreys, ordered the bishops to be tried for libel. On 8 June, 1688, they were examined before the Privy Council and, refusing to give surety to appear in Court, they were committed to the Tower. As they passed down the Thames, crowds in boats thronged the river, and others ran along the banks, crying : " God bless your Lordships." Even the soldiers who led the prisoners into the Tower asked their blessing, while those off duty drank their healths. A deputation of Nonconformists came to visit them to assure them of their support. On Sunday, 10 June, while they were still awaiting their trial, a son was born to King James. This contributed more than any other single event to precip- itate the crisis soon to follow ; for, hitherto, many had consoled them- selves with the thought that, since James was nearing sixty, he must within a few years make way for his daughter Mary, who was a Protes- tant. Now the prospect of an endless Roman Catholic succession suddenly loomed up. A story was at once started that no child had been born to the Queen, that the little Prince, now proclaimed as such, had been secretly introduced into the Queen's chamber and passed off as the royal heir. While the tale was generally believed and while none but Roman Catholics and professed courtiers were present at the birth, there is little doubt that the charge of trickery was absolutely baseless. However that may be, the popular leaders now made up their minds, when a fitting moment came, to send for William of Orange. The Trial of the Seven Bishops, June, 1689. When the day fixed for the trial of the Seven Bishops arrived, the excitement had spread everywhere from Scotland to Cornwall. 2 They were charged with 1 Samuel Wesley, father of the celebrated founder of Methodism, took for his text : "Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods; nor wor- ship the golden image which thou hast set up." 2 Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, one of the Seven, came from a well-known Corn- ish family, and inspired a ballad which has been famous ever since : "And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die? Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why." Deep below the earth it is said the grimy Cornish mines roared : "Then twenty thousand under ground will know the reason why." 58o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND " having written or published in the County of Middlesex, a false, malicious, and seditious libel." Their counsel at first rested their defense on the technical ground that the petition had not been pub- lished in Middlesex. Fortunately for the cause of liberty, they were frustrated in this by the unexpected testimony of Sunderland. There- upon, led by John Somers, a rising young lawyer who became the most eminent statesman and jurist of the succeeding reign, they shifted their line of argument, and proceeded to prove that the paper in ques- tion was not false, malicious, or a libel, but a respectful petition set- ting forth facts known to be true and delivered privately into the hands of the King with no intention of stirring up strife. The jury remained closeted from nightfall until six o'clock the next morning. Arnold, a brewer to the palace, was the last to hold out. 1 He was only brought over finally by the determination of Thomas Austin, a wealthy landed gentleman : " Look at me," he said, " I am the largest and strongest of the twelve, and before I find such a petition a libel I will stay here till I am no larger than a tobacco pipe." As the jury left the court after their verdict of acquittal had been announced, the people surged around them, crying: " God bless you! " " You have saved us all to-day." The city and the country, as the news spread, rang with shouts of joy. Even the soldiers in Hounslow Heath cheered lustily. James, when he heard the sounds, asked the meaning of it all. " Nothing," he was told, " the soldiers are glad the bishops are acquitted." " Do you call that nothing? " he an- swered, " So much the worse for them." The Opposition had won a great victory on the broad constitutional grounds that James' exer- cise of the dispensing power was illegal and that his subjects had the right of petition against it. The Invitation to William, 30 June, 1688. All distinctions of politics and religions were, for the time being, merged in a general combination against the King. The prosecution of the bishops and the birth of the Prince, following upon the Declaration of Indulgence, altered profoundly the attitude of the High Church Tories toward the lawfulness of resistance. During their supremacy they had argued that the laws of God as well as the laws of man demanded unquestion- ing obedience to the civil authority. Now that they had had a taste of persecution many were ready to contend : " that extreme oppres- sion might justify resistance . . . and the oppression which the nation suffered was extreme." Others, who shuddered at the notion of active resistance, were ready to go as far as passive resistance, asserting that, in view of his late acts, they were not bound to obey the King. Such was the state of the public mind when, 30 June, 1688, the day of the acquittal of the Seven Bishops, Admiral Herbert, disguised as a common sailor, crossed the Channel bearing a letter inviting William 1 He was in a sad dilemma. "Whatever I do," he complained, "I am sure to be half ruined. If I say ' Not guilty,' I shall brew no more for the King, and if I say 'Guilty,' I shall brew no more for anybody else." JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 581 of Orange to come to England. It was signed by seven of the great leaders of the two parties, 1 the Whigs and Tories, and was the result of negotiations with William, and canvassing at home, which Edward Russell and others had been conducting for weeks. The letter assured William that nineteen twentieths of the people of England would rally to his support, and that the army of James was full of disaffection. William, however, realized that the undertaking bristled with diffi- culties. If he landed without an army, he was very likely to meet the fate of Monmouth. On the other hand, English patriotism might resent an invasion of foreign troops. Furthermore, there was great difficulty in raising an adequate force in his own land ; it required not only the consent of every province but of every municipality, and many of the latter, headed by Amsterdam, were bitterly opposed to him. Finally, if he crossed the Channel as the champion of Protes- tantism, there was a chance that his Catholic allies might turn against him. It was only William's courage and resource, aided by favoring circumstances and the stupidity of his enemies, that overcame all these obstacles. To the princes of northern Germany he emphasized his Protestantism ; to Austria and Spain, the dangers of French as- cendancy and the harm which James was doing to Catholicism by his rashness. All the while, he was quietly preparing his army and his fleet. At the same time, Louis managed to force the pious and thrifty burghers over to William's side by an ill-judged persecution of Dutch Protestants, and by a decree excluding Dutch herring from his realm. Also, by untimely displays of arrogance, he embroiled himself still further with the Pope. James, on his part, who was beginning to dis- trust the loyalty of his army, committed a blunder more serious than any in his long career of folly by ordering over recruits from Ireland. His English subjects, who regarded the Irish as barbarians and recalled the horrible tales of 1641, were thrown into such a panic that they were ready to receive even an invading army with open arms. Lilli- bullero, a popular song satirizing Tyrconnel and the Irish, was taken up everywhere, and the author, Thomas Wharton, later boasted that he had sung a king out of three kingdoms. William's Declaration and James' Belated Concessions. William prevented Louis from rendering James any effectual aid by sending, a force under Count Schomberg 2 to occupy the southeastern frontier. With the French army thus employed, he was free to devote his atten- tion to England. In order to prepare the way for his coming, he caused a Declaration to be published in which he rehearsed James' violation of the fundamental laws, his favor to Roman Catholics, and his oppression of Protestants. Disclaiming any thought of conquest, 1 The Earls of Devonshire, Shrewsbury and Danby, Lord Lumley, Bishop Comp- ton, Edward Russell, and Henry Sidney. 2 Schomberg, who had the reputation of being " the greatest living master of the art of war," although a German and a Protestant, had been a marshal in the French army until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 582 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND he declared that he was going to submit the issues at stake to a full and free parliament. James, awaking at last to the gravity of the crisis, made a belated effort to conciliate the Tories who had once been so devoted to him. In the last weeks of September, 1688, he reversed one after another of his late unpopular acts. First, he promised to protect the Church of England, to maintain the Act of Uniformity, and that he would not insist upon the admission of Roman Catholics to the House of Commons. Next, he declared that he would replace all the lords lieutenants and .magistrates whom he had dismissed. He reversed the suspension of Compton, abolished the Ecclesiastical Com- mission, restored the forfeited charters and agreed to undo what he had done at Magdalen. It was felt, however, that these belated con- cessions were only drawn from him by the impending danger, while, even yet, he refused to give up his dispensing power or to remove his Catholic supporters from military and civil office. 1 William's Landing at Torbay, 5 November, 1688. William, after delays and difficulties caused by contrary west winds and storm, at length succeeded in landing, 5 November, at Torbay, on the coast of Devonshire. The " Popish " weather which caused his supporters to chafe and curse, had been succeeded by a Protestant east wind which held the fleet of James for some time in the mouth of the Thames, while it blew William swiftly along the Channel to his destination. From Torbay he marched to Exeter, which he selected for his first headquarters. Although the magistrates tried to close the gates against him, crowds flocked to welcome him as a deliverer. His army of Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss veterans struck the simple west country folk with awe ; but the restraint in which they were held won their confidence. At first, so few men of rank came in that William talked of returning to Holland. But, as a means of deceiving James, he had originally directed his course toward the Yorkshire coast, and his landing in the south had been unexpected. When the mistake was dis- covered he had no cause of complaint. James joins his Army at Salisbury, but returns hastily to London. London was in a ferment of excitement. James hastened to Salisbury, whither he had sent his army to face the invaders. Just as he was about to start, however, he was waited on by a deputation of peers, spiritual and temporal, who petitioned him to call a parliament to treat with William. The proposal threw him into a rage, and he de- clared that he would call no parliament while the Prince remained in the country. When he reached Salisbury, he found the situation most alarming ; for, encouraged by the defection of men in higher station, the western counties had risen, and the gentry who had joined William at Exeter had bound themselves together in a formal organization, to secure their liberties and religion. The north, too, was up in arms. William, however, was anxious to avoid fighting, for fear of arousing 1 Yet very wisely he did get rid of Sunderland, who, in spite of his brazen as- surances, was suspected of treasonable correspondence with the invaders. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 583 English national sentiment. James, on his part, was keen for bring- ing on an engagement at once ; but he was suddenly taken with a hemorrhage of the nose which kept him inactive for three days. When he recovered, he was so disheartened by rumors of treason among his officers that he decided to retreat. The flight of John Churchill, his most efficient general, was a crushing blow. Churchill was an ambitious climber ; but, if his own word can be relied upon, he was guided, in the present instance, solely by his attachment to Protestantism. His wife, though thoroughly devoted to him, was a selfish intriguer who had the Princess Anne under absolute control. Anne's husband, Prince George, fled also. " What ! Est-il possible, 1 gone, too? After all a good trooper would have been a greater loss " was James' comment when the news was brought to him ; but, though personally George was a nonentity, his position lent great sig- nificance to his act. Retreat and constant desertions demoralized the army. Fearing for his capital, James hastened back to London, where he found that Anne herself had fled from Whitehall by night, escorted by a guard led by Bishop Compton arrayed in a buff coat and jack boots and armed with a sword. " God help me, " cried the unhappy King ; " my own children have forsaken me." The Flight of James, n December, 1688. In his extremity, James called a council of the peers, and, acting on their advice, issued writs for a parliament to meet 13 January, 1689. Also, he appointed a commission, consisting of Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin to treat with William in the meanwhile, and issued a proclamation grant- ing full pardon to all who were in arms against him. This was merely to gain time. Already, he had made up his mind to escape ; for the eastern counties had now risen, and there were scarcely any left about him upon whom he could depend. While the commissioners were arranging terms with William, James hastily made preparations for flight. His first care was to send the Queen and the little Prince safely out of the country ; after this, he annulled the writs for the promised parliament, destroying those which had not yet been sent out. On the morning of n December, 1688, he rose at three o'clock, and was rowed a short distance down the Thames in a wherry, dropping the Great Seal in the river as he proceeded. At Sheerness he boarded a hoy, which he had engaged to transport him to France. His Capture and Second Flight. The news of his flight aroused a storm of excitement. The Lords held a meeting under the presi- dency of Archbishop Sancroft, sent an urgent message to William to hasten his march to London, and arranged to assume the provisional government pending his arrival. That night lawlessness broke loose. Roman Catholic chapels were sacked and burned, private houses were attacked, and even the residences of foreign ambassadors were not spared. Jeffreys, who had sought to escape, was discovered in an ale- 1 This was his stock expression when he heard an important piece of news, and the name became fixed to him. 584 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND house in Wapping. Though disguised as a collier he was recognized by a scrivener who had never forgotten his terrible eyes. Protected by a strong guard from the howling mob, he was taken to the Tower, where he died a few months later, petitioning in vain for a pardon and acknowledging that his crimes were " as numerous as his enemies." Suddenly, in the midst of the confusion, the rumor spread that James had been caught and was being brought back to London. The captain of the hoy, in attempting to procure more ballast, lost a tide. Before he could get under way, his craft was boarded by a band of fishermen in search of plunder and escaping Jesuits. The King was taken ashore, where he was recognized and held as a prisoner. The news embarrassed both parties equally. The Tories had hoped to justify their acceptance of William from the fact that James had deserted the throne, while the Whigs, though they repudiated him without scruple, realized that his return would greatly complicate the situation. William, who received the tidings at Windsor, was grievously dis- appointed ; but he quickly made up his mind that, without making it too evident, a second chance to escape must be pressed upon James. So he was removed from Whitehall, whither he had been taken, to Rochester. There the house in which he lodged was left unguarded in the rear so that he was able to slip out through the garden to the banks of the Medway. Thence he was rowed down the river in a skiff until he found a fishing smack which conveyed him to France. Louis XIV received both James and his Queen with great ceremony and hospitality, lodged them at St. Germain, and provided them with an ample revenue. It is even said that he registered a vow that he would not sheath his sword until the exiled King had been restored. William's Arrival in London, 18 December, 1689. William, on his arrival in London, was waited on by numerous deputations. 1 Though some extremists pressed him to declare himself King, forthwith, William remained true to the promise in his Declaration to settle the govern- ment in a parliamentary way. As a preliminary step he summoned the Lords spiritual and temporal, the members of the Commons who had sat in the House of Commons in the reign of Charles II, 2 and a deputa- tion of the London magistrates. This body advised William to assume the provisional government and to call a convention to effect a perma- nent arrangement. The Six Plans for Regulating the Succession. At least six plans were offered for settling the future form of government. A few reactionaries wanted to restore James without conditions, while a few radicals proposed to set up a commonwealth under William as presi- 1 Among those who came was Sergeant Maynard, ninety years old. "You must have survived all the lawyers of your standing," said the Prince. "Yes, sir," was the reply, "and but for your Highness, I should have survived the laws too. " 2 The members from the first and only parliament of James were excluded be- cause the remodeling of the corporations had interfered with the free choice of the electors. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 585 dent. 1 Three of the more moderate plans emanated from the Tory ranks. One suggested the restoration of James with conditions. It was difficult, however, to frame limitations more binding than those to be found in the Coronation Oath and the laws which he had already broken ; indeed, it was evident from the manifestoes which he had sent forth since his exile that he was fixed in the policy which he had pursued as King. The second of these plans, put forth by Sancroft, contemplated vesting the administration in a regent chosen by the Estates of the Realm, on the assumption that James was as incapable of governing as if he were a child or one bereft of reason. But, since neither of these assumptions was true, there was no more legal warrant for a regency than for a deposition. Moreover, if the heirs of James continued in the Roman Catholic faith, this two-headed government might last till the end of time, with constant danger of uprisings to restore the nominal monarch to actual power. The third plan was Danby's. It assumed that James had abdicated, that the birth of the Prince was so shrouded in mystery as to invalidate his claim, and that the throne fell to Mary as the next legal heir. As such, she might make William her first minister, or even, with the consent of Parlia- ment, raise him to the position of royal consort. Though this scheme also rested upon false assumptions, the chief obstacle in the way was that William refused to come to power solely by right of his wife. The plan finally adopted was that of the Whigs. Its chief advocate was Halifax, who, trimmer as he was, assumed the leadership of the opposi- tion when he found that James, after putting him on the commission to treat with the Prince, had left him in the lurch. 2 He argued that the Government was a contract between the King and his subjects, and that a sovereign who broke this contract by abuse of his power could be deposed. Furthermore, even if the Prince were the true heir, he would, in all likelihood, be unfit to govern, while, in any event, it would be advisable to break the line of succession in order to destroy the exaggerated king worship which had prevailed since the Restoration. The Convention and the Settlement of the Succession. The Convention, which met 22 January, 1689, framed, after some discus- sion, a resolution declaring : " that King James, having endeavored to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom by breaking the original contract between King and People, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and hav- ing withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom, had abdicated the Govern- ment and that the Throne had thereby become vacant." The King had violated the laws, and he had been misled by bad advisers, but it was his flight rather than his arbitrary policy which had brought about the vacancy. However, this clumsy and illogical resolution was 1 The advocates of these two extreme views did not, it is estimated, comprise more than a twentieth of the population. 2 There seems to be no truth in the story that he wrote a letter to James, urging him to flee. $86 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND adroitly designed to suit all parties : the reference to the original con- tract was framed for the Whigs, the reflection on the Jesuits for the ex- treme Protestants, and the assertion regarding the abdication, for those Tories who held that subjects had no right to depose their sovereign. In the Lords it was debated long and hotly, the other plans were dis- cussed, and a conference was even held between the Houses. The matter was only finally settled by the firmness of William. Conse- quently, the resolution was adopted, and it was decided that William and Mary should be joint sovereigns with the administration in the hands of William. The Declaration of Rights. It was necessary, next, to determine the conditions upon which the crown should be conferred. The result was the Declaration of Rights, which, like its two great predecessors, 1 deals not with vague general principles, but with tangible facts, with actual grievances of the last two reigns, which were to be safe- guarded against for the future. After enumerating the recent attacks made by James on the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of the kingdom, it declared : that the pretended power of suspending laws and of dispensing, as it has been exercised of late, the court of Ecclesiastical Commission and other courts of a like nature, and levy- ing money without consent of Parliament were all illegal ; that it was the right of subjects to petition the King, and that all prosecutions for such petitioning were illegal ; that maintaining a standing army, except by consent of Parliament, was illegal ; that election of members to Parliament ought to be free ; that freedom of speech, debate, or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached in any court or place outside the two Houses ; that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punish- ments inflicted ; that jurors in cases of high treason ought to be free- holders ; and that, for amending and preserving the laws, parliaments should be held frequently. 2 The Declaration concluded by settling the crown upon William and Mary, and upon the heirs of Mary, Anne, and William, respectively. William and Mary proclaimed, 13 February, 1689. Mary arrived from Holland 12 February, 1689. She was so " laughing and jolly," she took such childish delight in the furnishings of Whitehall, that many thought she showed a heartless disregard of her father's misfortunes ; but she " was fain to force herself to more mirth than became her at that time " by the express wish of William, lest people might suspect that she was disappointed because Parliament had put the government into his hands. The new sovereigns were proclaimed 13 February, in the presence of shouting crowds. The Peculiar Character of the Revolution of 1688. Thus ended the " Glorious Revolution." Although, so far as possible, every an- 1 The other two being Magna Carta (1215) and the Petition of Right (1628). 2 A review of the reign of Charles II, and more especially that of James II, will serve to show how these principles and practices had been violated. JAMES II AND THE "GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" 587 cient form had been complied with, it was, from the strictly legal standpoint, a real revolution. The Convention which settled the crown on William and Mary was not properly a parliament, for it had been summoned by no royal authority. To be sure, the new sover- eigns later declared it a legal body ; but since they were its creatures, their assertion could not make it such. Nevertheless, defective as were its proceedings when viewed in a purely legal light, the Revolu- tion can be justified, both from the issues at stake and the moderation with which the movement was conducted. Macaulay, in his classic work on this period, has pointed out that it was a " preserving " not a " destroying " revolution, in which all parties joined Whig and Tory, Churchmen and Dissenters to preserve the fruits of the Reforma- tion and the Puritan Revolution, to maintain Protestantism, the su- premacy of Parliament, and the freedom of the subject. The funda- mental laws were not changed but defined and secured ; the old line of kings, however, was set aside, and thus a final blow was struck at the theory of Divine Right upon which James I had laid such stress and which had been the ruin of his son and grandson. Never since the expulsion of James II has there been a revolution in England. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Lodge, Political History, chs. XI-XIII. Trevelyan, England tinder the Stuarts, ch. XIII. Cambridge Modern History, V, chs. IX, X. Lingard, X, chs. II-IV. Ranke, IV, bks. XVII-XVIII. Macaulay, History of England, II, chs. IV-X; in spite of its obvious faults, it remains the classic treatment of the sub- ject. Sir James Mackintosh, Review of the Causes of the Revolution of 1688 (1834) contains a large collection of documents in the appendix. Constitutional. Hallam, III, ch. XIV. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. VI, ch. II. Biography. Viscount Wolseley, Life of M arlborough (vols. I, II, 1894) ; an apology for Marlborough, left uncompleted at 1702. Scotland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, II, bk. VI, ch. VII. Lodge, ch. XIV; (Ireland) ch. XV. Church. Hutton, English Church, ch. XII. For further references see chs. XXXII, XXXIII above. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 233-234. Robertson, Select Statutes, pt. II, nos. VIII, IX. CHAPTER XXXV PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND Characteristics of Seventeenth-century England. The period from 1603 to 1788 is crowded with incident and notable achievements. It opened with a struggle of Parliament against the, attempt of the first Stuart to maintain and strengthen the Tudor absolutism in Church and State, a struggle which culminated in civil war resulting in the defeat and execution of a king, the temporary overthrow of monarchy and episcopacy, and the establishment of a republic. The experi- ment proved premature, and was followed by the restoration both of the Stuarts and the Established Church. Nevertheless, the Puritan Revolution had not been in vain ; henceforth, in spite of occasional reassertions of absolutism, Parliament became the supreme power in the State, while Dissent not only survived and flourished, but ob- tained, before the close of the century, a substantial if imperfect legal recognition. The party system began to take shape, and distinct gains were made in law reform. A standing army was established, while the navy grew and obtained a really effective organization. Long strides were taken in the direction of commercial and colonial ascendancy. Manufactures became more varied and wealth increased, together with new comforts and luxuries. Coal was introduced in London in place of charcoal ; tea and coffee appeared and became the beverages of the city folk and the well-to-do country families ; travel and communication were fostered by coaches and packet boats, and amusements multiplied. The newspaper came into being, and the spread of printing, together with the growth of the party system, re- sulted in myriads of caricatures and satires. There was a striking development in political and economic thinking, as well as in religious and philosophical speculations. Literature, while not reaching the heights of the wonderful Elizabethan Age, was interesting and varied, enriched by contributions of note, and manifesting new and striking tendencies. Mathematical, physical, and physiological sciences showed a marked advance. In architecture there was a transition from "Ital- ianate Elizabethan " and " Jacobean Gothic " to a " majestic classi- cism." Such are some of the features of this complex and throbbing age. Regulation of Trade and Manufactures under James I and Charles I. While the monopolies and privileged companies, fostered by James I and Charles I, have been severely attacked, there is little doubt that PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 589 both these monarchs aimed to regulate the economic life of the nation in the interests of the whole, to maintain high standards of production and to keep the subject employed as well. In order to best control the situation, they endeavored to confine trades and industries to special companies, and appointed officials to supervise the manufacture of various wares. Such national regulation, however, was not only diffi- cult to enforce effectively and impartially, but it went against the modern spirit of emancipation from the restrictive policy of the medi- eval gilds. Moreover, the Stuarts mingled with their zeal for the public welfare a tendency toward favoritism and a proneness to utilize their grants as sources of revenue. Thus the system tended to abuse of privilege, to the curbing of healthy competition, and to the dis- couragement of those outside the pale. Men of ability and enterprise were excluded from trade, especially with foreign markets, or joined the ranks of the interlopers. Industrial Situation under the Two First Stuarts. Nevertheless, the period was one of material progress rather than decline. Foreign refugees flocked to the country, the population increased, old indus- tries developed and new ones were introduced. Exports and imports which totaled 4,628,586 in 1613, had reached 4,939,751 in 1622, though, under a freer system than that of company control, there might have been a far better showing. While it is estimated that the volume of money doubled under James I, and while interest fell from ten to eight per cent, the decline in prices which followed in the first decade of the reign of Charles I, indicates that the increase was swallowed up by the demands of the growing trade arid population. While the prof- its of the producing classes suffered, the wage-earning consumer must have benefited somewhat. The silk manufacture began to flourish, though to nothing like the extent noticeable after the influx of French Huguenots which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. l The cutlers of Sheffield had been incorporated in 1624, but what is now a city of half a million and the chief center of the cutlery industry of the world, was then the possession of a manorial lord who leased the furnaces to the manufacturers. The total population scarcely exceeded two thousand, a third of whom were dependent on charity. There was a great opposition to the smelting of iron ore because of the enormous quantities of charcoal required, which ex- hausted the forests and threatened the supply of timber for ship- building. Dud Dudley (1599-1684) devised a successful process in which pit coal was substituted. Although he obtained patents in 1619 and 1639, the jealousy of rivals frustrated his efforts, and little was done toward applying the method of smelting till the following century. Coal, which was beginning to be employed extensively for fuel in Lon- 1 Between 1670 and 1690, in consequence of Louis XIV's persecutions, no less than 80,000 persons crossed the Channel. In 1689 as many as 40,000 families lived by the silk industry, which, during the half century following the Restoration, in- creased twentyfold. 5Qo A HISTORY OF ENGLAND don, was brought by boat from Newcastle and hence was known as sea coal. The wool trade was practically stationary until after the Restoration. In order to encourage the home consumption, an act was passed for burying in wool : nevertheless, there was complaint that many persisted "in adorning their deceased friend's corpse with fine linen, lace, etc., though so contrary to our own true national in- terest." In spite of the opposition of the wool manufacturers, calicoes, chintzes, and muslins were imported from India, while, in 1676, Flem- ish immigrants introduced the art of calico printing into England. The Period of the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and the Protector- ate. The Civil War, and the disorders that followed, naturally in- terrupted trade, both foreign and domestic. Yet the harm was less serious than might be expected. Owing to decline in prices and ad- vance in wages, the laborers were even better off though they enjoyed less holidays than in the old days before the Puritan ascendancy. The return of the Jews under Cromwell gave considerable impulse to trade, and the protests of London merchants against them were based, apparently, rather upon commercial jealousy than religious intolerance. Though most of those who came to England had origi- nally fled from the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal, they had, in the majority of instances, spent an interval in Italy or Holland, where they had mastered the most recent methods of banking and credit. The chief agent in negotiating their readmission was Manasseh Ben Israel, a Jew who had settled in Amsterdam. In an interview with Crom- well and the Council, he explained the advantages which his people would bring to England by their financial knowledge, while, in addi- tion, he offered on their behalf to lend considerable moneys at five per cent. Although the judges decided that the law did not permit them to live in England, Cromwell admitted them on his own authority. Charles II, who refused to reverse the Protector's policy, allowed them to open a synagogue in London. Trade during the Restoration. Systematic supervision of trade and industry on the part of the sovereign, which ceased with the per- sonal government of Charles I, was not revived at the Restoration. Commercial regulation passed, to a large extent, from the Crown and Crown officials to Parliament. Some new companies were founded ; but, in general, encouragement took the form of tariffs and bounties rather than special privileges to " particular groups " of subjects. The cessation of rigid supervision led to some falling off in the quality of goods ; but that was counterbalanced, somewhat, by competition and the use of trade-marks. On the other hand, there was a general increase in trade, especially the carrying trade. The merchant marine doubled in thirty years. The Navigation Acts were only partly responsible; for the act of 1651 was not vigorously enforced, the measure of 1660, which renewed and extended it, was evaded by the Dutch until they were driven from New York in 1664, and they were not outstripped by the English until they had been exhausted by PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 591 the wars of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Many other factors account for the great colonial and commercial expansion of the post-Restoration period. In addition to the changed attitude toward the privileged companies, Cromwell's idea of a great Protes- tant Alliance was abandoned. Charles' Portuguese marriage brought to the country Tangier and Bombay, together with increased facilities for trade with the Azores, Madeira, and the other Portuguese posses- sions. Tangier was soon abandoned ; but Bombay proved a valuable asset to the East India Company. Spain granted to England the privileges of the Netherlands and other most favored nations. Also, treaties were made to protect the Levant trade from Turkish pirates, and though they were humbling to national pride, they proved effec- tive. In accordance with a practice established under Charles I and employed by Cromwell, a permanent committee of the Privy Council was organized, which, reenforced by representatives from the great companies to furnish expert advice, constituted a Council for Trade. American planting was vigorously pushed. In a word : " the basis for the English conquest of India, and the Anglo-Saxon predomi- nance in America " were laid in this period. Colonial Expansion. The Elizabethan Age was one of discovery and exploration ; the Stuart period marked the beginning of coloniza- tion. Although the Dutch still overshadowed the English in the East, notable steps in advance were taken. In the reign of James I the Persian trade was first " enterprised " by English merchants from India. Thomas Roe, who went in 1615 as first ambassador to the Great Mogul for the purpose of negotiating a commercial treaty, helped to lay the foundations of the British Indian Empire, while, before the close of the century, the East India Company was securely established at Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, and the Royal Africa Company had flourishing possessions on the Gold Coast and at other points on the continent of Africa. In America, several of the West India Islands were acquired, and all but one of the thirteen American colonies * were established. While Spain and Portugal were mainly concerned with the search for precious metals, and while the French devoted themselves to founding trading posts and missionary stations, the English, if not free from the delusions of their time, were the first to establish the policy of home building in the New World. Agriculture under the First Two Stuarts. Under the Stuarts the agricultural progress, so marked during the reign of Elizabeth, prom- ised to continue. The process of enclosure, though provocative of suffering and discontent among the small holders, had stimulated enterprise. Then the rise in prices, due to the increase of precious metals and the growing demand for food, had intervened to check the turning of arable land into sheep pasture. With the prospect of in- creasing profits from corn and meat, renewed energy was devoted to 1 Georgia in 1733. 59 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND improving conditions of cultivation and reclaiming waste lands. The efforts of landlords, tenant farmers, and yeoman freeholders were quickened and guided by resourceful writers on agriculture who sug- gested more scientific care of cattle and poultry as well as improved methods of treating the soil. Much was learned from the Italians about irrigation and the utilization of water meadows. Rotation of crops by the planting of turnips and clover was urged as a substitute for fallow l ; potatoes and carrots began to be cultivated ; and in- creasing attention was paid to orchards and gardens. It was in this period that the work of draining the fens in the eastern counties was first seriously undertaken. It was a vast area of nearly 700,000 acres, consisting of marshes and pools, with here and there an island : "af- fording little benefit to the realm other than fish or fowl, with an over- much harbor to a rude and almost barbarous sort of rude and lazy people." Ever since Roman times occasional attempts at reclamation had been made, especially by the monks who made their homes on the islands dotting the watery and boggy expanse. Of the projects now undertaken the most extensive, and the one carried furthest toward completion, was that of the Earl of Bedford and thirteen " gentlemen adventurers," who in 1630 agreed to drain the Cambridge district in return for a grant of 95,000 acres. Work was interrupted during the Civil War, but resumed during the Commonwealth. Similar under- takings met with various setbacks. Some of the work w r as badly done by " mountebank engineers, idle practitioners, and slothful, im- patient slubberers," though the greatest difficulty came from the " riotous letts and disturbances " of the natives who received no com- pensation for their rights of turf cutting, fowling, fishing, hunting, and pasture, and it was not till after the lapse of a century and more that the results of their destruction was repaired. The Period of the Civil Wars and the Restoration. The agri- cultural progress of the first forty years of the century was greatly checked by the war. This was due not so much to the absorption of the population in fighting as to the fear that the hostile armies at any time might swoop down and destroy the fruit of a season's toil, or demand, for King or Parliament, the crops gathered by painful labor. The period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate was marked by new progress, to which Cromwell contributed by his enlightened support. Under Charles II, however, another period of stagnation set in: Many facts beside the blighting effects of the war explain why the early promise of the century was not fulfilled. For one thing, most of the writers who urged wise and necessary improvements proved to be failures in practice, so that their example did not inspire 1 Apparently first introduced in the reign of James I, by Sir Richard Weston, who had served as ambassador to the Palatinate ; turnips had the additional ad- vantage that they could be used to feed cattle over the winter. Formerly most of the cattle had been killed and salted. But turnips and clover did not come into general use until the eighteenth century. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 593 confidence. Then, the system of common tillage and open fields, which still survived in large parts of the country l till the close of the eighteenth century, was an obstacle to individual enterprise. More- over, the cavalier estates had been heavily embarrassed by the seques- trations and exactions from which they had suffered during the Civil War, while those of the other party who had acquired their lands were uncertain of their tenure after the Restoration. Landlords were un- progressive, grasping, and niggardly in advancing capital; tenants were discouraged from making improvements when the only prospect was increased rent or eviction in the interest of the landlord or of some one who would offer a higher bid. Roads were bad and canals as yet non-existent, so that new ideas spread slowly, and the producer was as yet limited to local markets. The great development in agriculture was not to come for almost a century. Roads and Travel. Traveling was not only difficult, but danger- ous. On dark moonless nights the traveler stood in grave danger of losing his way in the unenclosed heaths and fens that, in many parts of the country, lay on either side of the road. If he managed to keep a straight path, he was, in wet seasons, constantly liable to mire his horse or his coach, and sometimes his progress was altogether cut off by floods. The coach from London to Oxford a distance of fifty- four miles took two days of thirteen hours each. Great was the amazement of the good people of the time when, in 1669, a " Flying Coach " was started which made the journey between 6 A.M. and 7 P.M. of the same day. In spite of storms of opposition at the great risk involved in going at such a reckless speed, " flying coaches," which averaged fifty miles a day in summer and thirty in winter, were started, before the close of the reign of Charles II, from most of the chief towns south of York and east of Exeter. Many still traveled by post horses rented at various inns along the road. The coaches were great lumbering affairs, drawn by four or six horses. There were stage wagons for merchandise, though, on the by-roads and on the main highways in the north and west goods were transported on the backs of pack horses. The parishes were responsible for keeping the roads in repair, and supplemented the rate with personal labor exacted from the peasantry. Owing to the inadequacy of this system, the first Turnpike Act was passed in the third year after the accession of Charles II. Work was begun on the road from London to York ; but no further legislation on the subject was undertaken for thirty-two years, and the roads continued in the same old state. Highwaymen. To add to the woes of the traveler, there were the highwaymen who infested the roads in every direction, especially those which led to London. Men made their wills before undertaking a journey and started out with pistols in their holsters, blunderbusses in their coaches, and often guarded by armed attendants. In 1669 1 The enclosures had been practically confined to eight counties, while, in four- teen, open or intermixed fields were still the rule. 2Q 594 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND i it is recorded that the Tuscan Grand Duke Cosmo left Dorchester, " convoyed by a great many horse soldiers belonging to the country." Some of the outlaws of the period were almost as famous as the legen- dary Robin Hood. Inns and Ale Houses. Happily English inns were famous for their plenty, comfort, and good cheer. The larger ones were equipped with monstrous supplies of beef and mutton, hogsheads of ale, cellars of wine, and well-stocked stables. Besides, there were many of the humbler sort : " with the cleanly swept brick floor, with the ancient ballads stuck on the walls, with the linen fragrant with the scent of lavender, with the open fire and the snowy curtains, and every mate- rial detail savoring of comfort and repose. ..." Since the passing of the stagecoach and the advent of the railroad, the country inns have become largely a thing of the past. There were also in rural villages simple alehouses, whither the natives, from the squire to the humblest toiler, came to talk and to doze. Social Classes. The gradations of classes in rural England were the nobility ; country gentry, who possessed broad acres ; the yeomen or small freeholders ; the tenant farmers, and the agricultural laborers. In addition, there were the country parsons who occupied a somewhat anomalous position. While class distinctions were deeply rooted and most folk died in the station in which they were born, there was a degree of close friendly association. High and low often mingled in the village school and the grammar schools of the market towns. In cases where the sons of nobility and gentry were educated at home by tutors, boys of lesser rank were admitted, not infrequently, as com- panions or pages, to share their studies. After this preliminary train- ing the noble and the wealthy, and even a favored few of the lesser sort, might proceed to the great endowed schools such as Eton, Win- chester, and Westminster. Many of the elder sons, after painfully struggling with the elements of learning, settled down at once upon their estates with a stock of knowledge not much in excess of the humble clodhopper. Others were sent with a tutor to make a grand tour of the Continent. Others, again, before traveling abroad, went for a time to Oxford or Cambridge. At the Universities there were marked distinctions of rank ; for the teaching and clerical professions were recruited largely from the middle class, from the sons of farmers and tradesmen. Many had to earn their own way, as servitors or " sizers," making the beds, sweeping the chambers, and performing other menial duties for the affluent gentlemen commoners. Not a few of the younger sons of the gentry found a career in the law or medical pro- fessions, although some took holy orders. The former went to London to reside for a specified number of terms at the Inns of Court, or to en- roll in the College of Physicians and walk the hospitals. Others sought service in the continental wars or engaged in commerce, either in the city or in the neighboring provincial town. These latter formed a link between the landed and the trading classes. Frequently, they PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 595 married rich tradesmen's daughters, while, on the other hand, mer- chants who had become wealthy bought estates and set up as country gentlemen. The Nobility and Country Gentry. At the accession of the Stuarts many of the older nobility, especially of the soberer sort, began to travel abroad or to retire to their estates, leaving the pleasure seekers and the climbers to seek their diversion or to push their fortunes at court. And their country homes were pleasant places fine palaces and manor houses their huge walls paneled with somber, splendidly carved woods and adorned with trophies of the chase, with coats of arms, and family portraits. In the adjoining grounds were gardens and magnificent parks of trees. Hunting was the chief sport, indeed, the engrossing occupation of most of the rural nobility and gentry. Deer hunting was confined to the upper classes and to poachers. Others had to confine themselves to less noble game such as otters, badgers, hares, and foxes. Fowling with the hawk or net was still a fashion- able pursuit. After a hard morning's run, an afternoon dinner fol- lowed, either at home or in a neighboring alehouse, a repast which the men of the company rarely finished in a sober condition. The nobility there were about 160 temporal lords at the Restoration lived with the greatest profusion. The Duke of Beaufort, for in- stance, had, at Badminton near Bristol, huge retinues of servants on a vast estate that was almost self-sufficing. The rural gentry though there were exceptions like Hampden and Hutchinson were rude in their manner of life, prejudiced and often illiterate. Few left home save at the most infrequent intervals, and such fragments of book learning as they had acquired were soon forgotten amid the business and pleasures of their rural seclusion management of land and cattle, dickering at market, riding and hunting, and huge dinners. Without newspapers and periodicals, and with few opportunities for dis- cussion with men of affairs and information, they were naturally the reverse of open-minded or rational in their opinions. Nevertheless, ignorant and uncouth as they often were, they had a pride of family, which, if it made them overbearing and impatient of contradiction, impelled them to cherish high standards of honor. It was from this class that the officers of the army, the navy, and the militia were re- cruited, as well as the justices of the peace, and their experience and responsibility were bound to develop self-reliance and executive capacity. The Yeomen and the Farmers. Next "below the landed gentry were the yeomen and the tenant farmers. The former were freeholders who tilled their lands with the help of a few servants and laborers. It is estimated that, with their families, they comprised about a seventh of the total population. They were a sturdy class, many of them Dis- senters, who, with the city tradesmen, had helped to recruit the parlia- mentary armies during the Civil War and were among the stoutest opponents of the Court after the Restoration. As a body, they went 5Q6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND far to counterbalance the Toryism of the squirearchy and the country parson. Toward the close of the period, however, they were already on the road to extinction ; for the large landowners had already begun the practice of buying them out, a process which was carried well- nigh to completion in the next century. Moreover, their lands were eagerly sought by well-to-do city merchants anxious to found estates. The farmers who hired their lands, with holdings averaging from 40 to 50 acres, formed a body almost as numerous as the freeholders. Competition was keen, rents were high, and they were destined to go the way of the freeholders, to give way to tenants of large holdings and capitalist cultivators. The Clergy. There were, in the Restoration period, about 10,000 clergymen of the Church of England, four fifths of whom received an income of not more than 50 each. While there was a great difference between the bishops and town clergy, on the one hand, and the do- mestic chaplains and country parsons, on the other, the poverty and menial status of the latter probably has been exaggerated by the satirists, the novelists, and by the historian Macaulay, who drew a famous picture of them. Many there were, no doubt, with large families in poor parishes, who had to eke out their scanty stipend by working small farms ; who, with few or no books, denied the advantages of travel, and deprived of uplifting associations, were in a state not far above the peasants of their flocks. There were, too, chaplains who were household drudges, for whom the cook or the lady's maid was thought a fitting match. On the other hand, there were many younger sons of gentlemen, or even nobles, who sought a career in the Church ; not a few of the seventeenth-century poets were rural clergymen, and a long list of works on divinity will testify to the erudition of many others. Moreover, during the interval from the Restoration to the death of Anne the clergy as a whole exercised great political influence. The Agricultural Laborers. Out of an estimated population of about 5,000,000 toward the close of the century, the rural portion totaled approximately 3,500,000. Of these, over 700,000 were laborers and small cotters, who, together with their families, made up about half the inhabitants of England. They lived on intimate terms with the small farmers and yeomen who employed them, and, if un- married, they ate at the farmers' tables, sharing in all except puddings and special delicacies. Yet their state was a miserable one. Wages were low, though they were supplemented to some extent by surviving ights on the common lands, by the domestic system of spinning and weaving, and the employment of the women in the fields at harvest ! ide. There were times when work was slack in particular localities, and the laws of settlement kept the poor from wandering beyond the boundaries of their parish; while, in the towns, the strict laws of ap- prenticeship and the monopolies of trading companies and surviving gilds were almost insuperable obstacles to the enterprising youth who had nothing to aid him but his talents and his ambitions, It was in- PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 597 finitely harder to rise from the ranks of laborer to that of trader or merchant, than for the latter to attain the grade of gentry. The poor had no fresh meat during the greater part of the year, no wheaten bread, and as yet no tea or coffee. Their houses were still mere hovels with walls of mud and roofs of thatch, with rarely more than a single chimney, and no glazed windows. Sanitary conditions were still worse. The plague did not cease its visitations till 1665, infant mortality was appalling, and medicine was only emerging into a science. The humbler folk slept crowded together in stuffy rooms; the advantages of bathing and fresh air were not yet understood, and both the atmosphere and the water were contaminated by sewage and refuse. Prevalence of Superstition. Many superstitions were rife, some of them cruel and terrifying. Even at the close of the century the bulk of the people still believed in witches malicious, spiteful old women who had sold their chances of future salvation and had leagued themselves with the devil, creatures who blighted the crops and maimed the cattle of their neighbors and held nightly revels in cellars and larders. They were supposed to ride on broomsticks, and to be at- tended by familiar spirits in the form of toads and cats. While, in Elizabeth's time, the laws against witchcraft were the mildest in Eu- rope, a new and ferocious act followed the advent of James I, and, be- fore 1680, 70,000 poor creatures had been executed. Thanks to the good sense and humanity of Cromwell, the persecution was abated during the Commonwealth and was not resumed after the Restoration with anything like the old rigor, though so learned a judge as Matthew Hale continued to nourish the delusion. If witches were the victims of popular superstition and hatred, though they were often sought for their charms to ward off diseases and, in the case of lovers, to win the affections of some coy village damsel alchemists, astrologers, and fortune tellers many of them thieves and sharpers throve upon the prevailing credulity. Counterbalancing Charms of the Age. On the other hand, many current beliefs illumined the pervading monotony with touches of poetry. Men told of the lubber fiend, or Lob-lie-by-the-fire, who came down the chimney after the household was asleep, swept the floors, and did all manner of work, if placated by a bowl of cream by the fire- side. It caused pleasant shudders to think that ghosts haunted the church yards, that goblins peopled the fields after nightfall, and that fairies sported in the dark recesses of the forests. Moreover, there was much that was picturesque and charming about the life of the period. Except for London, there were no crowded cities, and the teeming factories with their ceaseless din and smoke were as yet far in the future. People, even in the provincial towns, were surrounded by orchards and gardens ; they were within sight of field, wood, and stream. All this, together with the picturesque and graceful architec- ture the rambling manor houses, the quaint homes of the lesser folk, 598 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and the spacious inns, lent a variety and beauty to life which was reflected in the songs and verses of the period. Before and after the gloomy interval of the Puritan regime, ancient games, festivals, and pastimes flourished. At Christmas the Yule log was burned, and all classes indulged in brave feasting. There were pretty ceremonies on St. Valentine's Day, and on May Day, when, in the early dawn, the youths and maidens went to the woods and fields and wove garlands to hang on doors and windows. There was cockfighting and bull baiting, wrestling, and football played with inflated bladders of swine, and there were masks and pageants. The North Country. The balance of wealth and population was still in the south. The northern counties were scantily inhabited, poor and wild. Peel towers l continued to be used as refuges, and manor houses were built of stone and fortified. Judges on circuit were usually accompanied by a strong bodyguard. Parishes kept bloodhounds to protect property, and local taxes were levied to main- tain bands of armed men. The Towns. Except for London, which had a population of not far from half a million, there were, so late as the Restoration, only four towns with more than ten thousand inhabitants Bristol, Nor- wich, Exeter, and York. Small as they were, the provincial towns were far more important social centers than they are to-day. The great county families resorted to them instead of to London for pleas- ure as well as for business. While the assizes, the quarter sessions, and the markets occupied the early part of the day, the evenings were made gay with balls and all sorts of social activities. Owing to the restrictive policy of the gilds and the apprentice laws, excluding the unskilled labor from the rural districts, the population of the towns was a picked one. The gild system, however much may be urged against it, inadequate as it was to meet the growing needs of the country, was not wholly without advantages. It kept up the stand- ard of production, and not only furnished skilled workmen but pro- vided a means of education when schools were few and costly. Where the apprentice had a churlish, avaricious master his lot was sad indeed, what with long hours, hard words, and beatings ; but under happier circumstances, he had the blessings of a sympathetic home training. After his seven years of service he began work as a journeyman. Often he prospered sufficiently to set up in business for himself, or he might marry his master's daughter and take over the very craft or trade to which he had been bound. But, outside the old centers, the gilds were giving way more and more to the domestic system, especially in the cloth industry ; more and more, in the villages and through the countryside, spinners and weavers were working in their own cottages. Moreover, some towns, like Norwich and Hull, were wise enough to slacken their restrictions, and, by admitting the sons 1 Square fortified towers with overhanging battlements under which the cattle were placed. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 599 of gentry and yeomen, forged ahead of York and other places which clung to their traditional policy. Also, by welcoming Huguenots and here London was in the vanguard they gained an advantage which France threw away. While most of the municipal charters of the Tudor and Stuart period placed the government in the hands of a narrow, self-perpetuating oligarchy, there were many cities and boroughs where the householders retained a voice in the elections and other public business. Even where the franchise was on a narrow basis, the municipalities were citadels of local autonomy rarely in- terfered with except for a few years in the reigns of Charles II and James II and the training which the merchants and traders got in local self-government was an important factor in the constitutional development of the country. London. London at the close of the seventeenth century was, with the possible exception of Amsterdam, without a commercial rival in the world, as well as the center of the social, political, and in- tellectual life of England. Its aspect was very different from to-day when the population within the metropolitan district l numbers seven millions, and the great army of those who have business in the City go every night to the suburbs and the adjoining country. In those days even the wealthy merchants occupied houses surrounded by walled gardens, which have long since given place to crowded streets, banks, shops, and warehouses. Artificers and tradesmen lived with their families and apprentices over or behind their shops. The London of the Restoration had few or no suburbs and most of the now fashionable West End consisted of fields and orchards with here and there a great nobleman's estate. Outside the city walls were the " liberties," a region of slums where the poor, the wretched, and the criminal were. herded together in miserable hovels in dirty alleys. The city streets were narrow and crooked ; the overhanging upper stories of the buildings on either side presented a quaint ap- pearance, but cut off fresh air and sunlight. The rebuilding which followed the Great Fire of 1666 led to improved sanitary conditions at the sacrifice of medieval picturesqueness. This, however, was preserved in a few old-time ceremonies, in the pageantry of the livery companies, and the other occasions of state, when the Lord Mayor appeared in his black velvet hood, his gold chain, and jewels. Then, too, a touch of varied charm was added by the signs which designated different houses numbers would have been of very little help, since few coachmen, chairmen, or porters could read. The pavements were wretched, and the gutters, clogged with decayed vegetables and animal refuse, became raging torrents during rainy weather and flooded the streets with watery filth. This was splashed upon the pedestrian by passing coaches and carts, so that " taking the wall " was a much-sought privilege which caused many a fight. The street 1 The City proper has only 19,657 inhabitants. 600 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND vendors kept up a constant din, crying their wares, and the air was choked with the smoke of sea coal which arose from the fires of brewers, dyers, soap boilers, and lime burners. Mixed with fog it often en- veloped the City in almost impenetrable gloom. At such times as well as at night it was dangerous to be abroad, what with the slippery, foul, and uneven pavements, the countless thieves and cutthroats, and bands of roistering young men of fashion known as hectors, scourers, and Mohocks who took delight in attacking and mauling peaceful citizens. Although dueling, which came in at the beginning of the century, was a custom much to be deplored, it had the merit of superseding, to some degree, the custom of seeking revenge against an enemy through hired assassins and bullies. But murders and robberies were all too frequent under the shroud oj: darkness. Until the reign of Charles II the only lights came from links, lanterns, and torches, borne by pedestrians or their attendants. Finally, an enter- prising person obtained an exclusive patent for lighting the City, placing a light at every tenth door between the hours of six and twelve ; but only on moonless nights and during the season from Michaelmas to Lady Day. There was no metropolitan police force until well into the nineteenth century. The decrepit constables, who served by day, and the night watch, largely composed of superannuated and feeble men, afforded little protection. Prosecutions often failed because witnesses dared not appear for, fear of the vengeance of the criminal classes who ran riot through the City. The apprentices were a par- ticularly turbulent element. In their pretended zeal for liberty, frequently a mere cloak for lawlessness, they were often on the ram- page, cudgeling those who came in their way, and even pulling down buildings, so that sometimes even the soldiery had to be called out to suppress them. They led in the prejudice of the London rabble against foreigners, particularly Frenchmen, who were jeered at, pur- sued by cries of "French dog" and " Mounzer," and pelted with stones and filth. Whitefriars, Paul's Walk, Westminster, and Whitehall. Noisy, disorderly, and dirty as were the other quarters of the City, there was one district on the western edge, near the Temple, that was particu- larly unsavory and horrid. It was known as Whitefriars, from the site of a Carmelite monastery, founded in the thirteenth century. A sanctuary for criminals in the pre-Reformation period, it still retained the privilege of protecting debtors from arrest. It was the haunt of abandoned wretches of all sorts, gamblers, forgers, cheats, murderers, and highwaymen. Officers sent to make arrests were, at the cry of " Rescue! " driven away by furious mobs, so that it often required a troop of soldiers to execute a warrant. Between the hours of eleven and twelve in the forenoon and three and five in the afternoon " Paul's Walk," the central aisle in the Cathedral, was still the haunt of busi- ness and pleasure. Vendors of wares, lawyers seeking clients, and beaux exhibiting their fine raiment wandered up and down, filling the PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 601 sacred place with the buzz of profane conversation. Westminster Hall, the ancient palace begun by William Rufus and the scene of famous State trials, was given over to hucksters on one side and law- yers on the other. The court at Whitehall was a center of politics, gayety, and dissipation. Those who had suits to press, or who sought offices, together with the gay libertines who were boon companions of the " Merry Monarch," thronged at his levees. The galleries of the palace were filled with curious crowds watching him " at his meals or as he and his courtiers and mistresses gambled or danced in the evening." They listened eagerly, too, for scraps of news about affairs, foreign and domestic, and greedily devoured such crumbs of gossip and scandal as they were able to get hold of. Coffeehouses. What was learned at the royal palace was spread rapidly, through the coffeehouses which filled the places of the news- papers and public meetings of later times. Originating in the sample room of a Turkish merchant about 1656, the coffeehouses multiplied so rapidly that there were three thousand in the City and suburbs before the close of the century. Becoming centers for political dis- cussion, they soon aroused the suspicion of the Government. As early as 1666, Clarendon suggested that they be placed under espionage, and, in 1675, Charles II ordered them to be closed; but the popular opposition was so intense that the order was revoked within two weeks, on the promise of the landlords to do their best to stop seditious talk and the circulation of libelous books and pamphlets. There were coffeehouses for all classes, professions, and shades of opinion, for fops and courtiers, for medical practitioners and lawyers, for .Puritans, Quakers, Romanists, and even for Jews. At " Wills," the chief resort for men of letters, Dryden was the presiding genius with the warmest seat by the chimney corner in winter and a bench on the balcony in summer. There were various political clubs as well, the " Rota " or " Coffee Club," a Puritan organization frequented by Milton ; the Old Royalist Club, or " Sealed Knot " ; and also. Rump and Calves' Head Clubs, founded by Cavaliers and Puritans respectively. The Post. Although newspapers, or, rather, newsbooks or pam- phlets, began to appear about the middle of the century, news was chiefly circulated by coffeehouses and newsletters l until after the expiration of the licensing act in 1695. Postal arrangements were still very primitive and inadequate. A system set up by Charles I was overthrown by the Civil War ; but was resumed during the Com- monwealth. After the Restoration the proceeds of the post office were granted to the Duke of York. The mail bags were carried on the backs of horses who traveled by day and night at an average rate of five miles an hour. Ordinarily, the mails went and came on alter- nate days ; but in the remote districts letters were not received or dispatched more than once a week. Rates were very high, averaging 1 Written by city hacks to the country magnates and to the inns of provincial towns and villages. 602 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND twopence for a single letter for eighty miles and increasing with the weight and distance. When the Court was traveling from place to place, arrangements were made for a daily service with London. In the reign of Charles II, one William Dockwray established in London a penny post with a delivery six or eight times a day in the City and four times in the suburbs. While he was able to withstand the out- cries of the porters, he was obliged to yield to the Duke of York, who, complaining that the enterprise encroached upon his monopoly, took over the profits. Dress, Food, and Recreations. In dress, as in many other things, there was, after the Restoration, a decided revolt against the sim- plicity of the Puritan regime. Periwigs appeared for men, and women of fashion began to paint their faces and to adorn them with black patches ; they also adopted the practice of wearing vizards, or masques, on occasion, and, with their features thus concealed, grew more bold in their conduct. There was an inordinate rage for gambling, and all sorts of new card games came in after the return of Charles II. Among the pleasure resorts, Vauxhall Gardens, with a great hall for prome- nading and dancing and arbors for dining, was the most popular, if not the most respectable. Although the fare was simpler than now- adays, there was such an excess of eating and drinking, and medicine had made so little progress that the fashionable found it good, at certain periods, to take the waters and live on restricted diet. Tun- bridge Wells and Bath were the most famous health resorts. The former was still a small village, and the latter had none of the elabo- rate social codes or fine buildings and elegant appointments for which it was celebrated in the eighteenth century. All of that followed the advent of Beau Nash in 1705. The ordinary London citizen con- tented himself with Epsom, where for the past hundred years and more the Derby races have been held. There were many fields near the capital where the lesser folk, particularly the apprentices, went for walks on evenings and holidays. In contrast to the upper classes, the working people kept very early hours, beginning the day at six or seven, dining at one, and going to bed at sunset. Anglican Theology. The drama, the choicest of the choice pro- ducts of Elizabethan literature, began to decline at the end of the reign of James I, and, notwithstanding the appearance of poetry of enduring note, the remainder of the century was preeminently an age of prose. The exuberance of the Renascence had spent its force, the growing Puritan spirit developed acute religious controversies, and pressing political problems claimed the energies of active minds. The Bible, in the magnificent King James version, became the dominat- ing influence among the graver people, high and low alike. It fos- tered independence of thought and stimulated the imagination even of the common man and prompted him to noble forms of expression, while it furnished a literary model of singular dignity and beauty for the man of letters, and provided an arsenal of weapons for the con- PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 603 troversialist. Both in political and theological discussions there are hosts of names, some furious partisans only to be remembered in con- nection with the questions of the day, others whose productions have survived as literary classics. Among the latter were many Anglican divines. The Latitudinarians. The mean between Laudian extremists and Puritan fanatics was represented by the " Latitudinarians, "who clung to the " sweet reasonableness " of Hooker, who aimed to em- phasize the essentials of faith and to minimize minor differences of dogma and Church polity. While recognizing the claims of Divine revelation, they sought to harmonize them with the conclusions of a natural theology, of reason and experience, and they laid stress on righteousness of conduct rather than correctness of opinion. Taking its rise in Holland, Latitudinarianism was promulgated chiefly by a small group of broad-minded thinkers who, on the eve of the Civil War, gathered round " that martyr of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper," Lord Falkland, at Great Tew. It was there that William Chillingworth (1602-1644) wrote his chief work, The Religion of Protestants (1638), a defense of Anglicanism on rational grounds. Another of the Latitudinarians was the " ever memorable John Hales of Eton," who would often say that " he would leave the Church of England to-morrow, if it obliged him to believe that; any other Chris- tian should be damned, and that nobody would conclude another to be damned who did not wish him so." In 1646, appeared The Liberty of Prophesying, by Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), " intended to secure religious freedom against spiritual tyranny." Taylor, who owed his early advancement to Laud and who was a pronounced royalist, is chiefly remembered for his Holy Living (1650) and Holy Dying (1651), rare among devotional works for its profound human appeal and the splendor of its style. " Quaint old Tom Fuller " (1608-1661), be- loved in his own day and by generations of readers in aftertimes for his sprightly wit and playful fancy, was among those who sought to steer a moderate course. His peculiar charm is best manifested in his Worthies of England (1662). The Latitudinarian tradition was continued by the " Cambridge Platonists," a small body of scholars at the University who, opposing the " sourness and severity " of the extreme Puritans on the one hand, and materialism on the other, advocated a sort of Christian Platonism. They were mystics whose philosophic temper was held in check by spiritual humbleness. In the troubled days of the Interregnum and in the first years after the Restoration, the teaching and influence of the Cambridge Platonists was almost the one oasis in the educational aridity which prevailed at the Universities, where the students had to depend rather upon themselves than their tutors. 1 The principles of 1 The pursuit of learning, however, as distinguished from teaching, was far from dead, particularly at Cambridge, since that university furnished many dis- tinguished members to the Royal Society which began to flourish early in the reign of Charles II. 604 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the early Latitudinarians and the Cambridge Platonists were pre- served and developed by a long line of post- Restoration divines, among them Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and the historian Burnet. Though most of these men were statesmen rather than Christian philosophers, they strove manfully to maintain liberty of thought, to conciliate the Non- conformists, and to open wider the doors of the Establishment. As a body, the Latitudinarians enriched English theology with much good literature, they stood for peace in an age of bitter controversy, and for a toleration that was strange alike to the Laudians and their oppo- nents. 1 Moreover, they furnished examples, of holy living only equaled by the best among the Puritans. Philosophy. Among the speculative thinkers of the period, the two greatest names are Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704). Hobbes, during his long and busy life, produced va- rious works on ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. His chief contribution was the Leviathan (published 1657), in which he likens the State to the fabulous sea monster in the book of Job, and then to a mortal god who exercises absolute control over the subject. This power, in his opinion, rested upon an original social compact 2 between the people to obey the sovereign in return for peace and protection against war and anarchy the natural state of mankind. In addi- tion, he insisted upon the complete subordination of the Church to the State. His doctrines were such as to expose him to furious attacks from the extremists of both the opposing camps. The parliamen- tarians were alienated by his absolutism, while the royalists, with their notions of the Divine Right of kings, would not accept his explanation of the origin of government. Moreover, he was denounced as an atheist who conformed to the Church of England merely because it was established by the State. However, his political theories have had far-reaching consequences. They were taken up by Rousseau and the French Encyclopedists who furnished the intellectual prepara- tion for the French Revolution, while, furthermore, they profoundly influenced the English Utilitarians who contributed so much to popu- lar progress during the nineteenth century. The mouthpiece of the Tory absolutists was Sir Robert Filmer, whose Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings Asserted, was first published in 1680, twenty- seven years after the author's death. While agreeing naturally with Hobbes as to the supreme authority of the State, he sought its origin in the power of the patriarchs, beginning with Adam, from whom the Divine Right of kings is derived by hereditary descent. Another famous political theorist of the period was James Harrington (1611- 1677), who published his Commonwealth of Oceana in 1656. It was a 1 Richard Baxter (1615-1691), author of the Saints' Everlasting Rest, who ended his career as a Presbyterian, was one of the most notable and, certainly, the most prolific of the writers among the Nonconformist clergy. 2 An ancient doctrine, long dormant, which had been recently revised by Hooker, Grotius, and others. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 605 plan of a new republican constitution for England, based on the model of Venice and suggested by the writings of Machiavelli. But the only political thinker of the century to compare with Hobbes was Locke. He was a man of astonishing versatility. He was a tutor at Oxford. As secretary to the Council for the Plantations he drafted a constitu- tion for the Carolinas ; he had a share in the restoration of coinage in 1696 ; he practiced medicine ; and, according to John Stuart Mill, he was the " unquestioned founder of the analytic philosophy of the mind." His writings include four letters on Toleration; two Treatises on Civil Government; an Essay concerning Human Understanding; Thoughts on Education; and a work on the Reasonableness of Chris- tianity. His political treatises are at once a reply to Filmer and a defense of the Revolution of 1688. Accepting the views of Hobbes as to the origin and end of government, he went beyond him in insist- ing upon the supremacy of the legislature as the voice of the people ; the responsibility of the prince to the subject ; and the right of resist- ance when the governors of the State failed to observe their trust. Economic Theory. While the seventeenth century marked a considerable output of economic writing, most of the works were written for practical purposes and paid little attention to principles. Political economy as yet had no independent name; it was regarded merely as a branch of statecraft and business. The writers on the subject were, as a rule, merchants or politicians concerned with in- creasing the power, the treasure, the fisheries, and shipping of the country. Chief among them was a group which was principally en- gaged in defending the privileges of the East India Company. Thomas Mun (1571-1641), one of the directors, although a pronounced mer- cantilist, defended the company's export of bullion for the purchase of goods from the Orient. In his Discourse of Trade (1621) he argued that a goodly proportion of such goods were sold on the Continent at a profit; thus, in the long run, bringing to England a margin of treasure. Furthermore, he contended that, since oriental products would be im- ported anyway, it was cheaper for the Company to bring them by sea, which was cheaper than the alternative overland route. He de- veloped his arguments in England's Treasure by Foreign Trade, prob- ably written in 1632, though not published till 1644. Sir Josiah Child (1630-1699), who managed the affairs of the Company in the time of Charles II and James II, advanced many steps beyond his predecessors in economic thinking. He recognized that gold and silver were only commodities themselves though used as a measure of other commodi- ties, and while he defended monopoly on the ground that it made for national power if not for national wealth, he realized the commercial advantages of free trade. Though he succeeded in grasping some of the fundamental principles of political economy, he was primarily a shrewd, experienced business man who treated the subject as an art rather than a science. His New Discourse of Trade appeared in 1665. His slightly older contemporary, Sir William Petty (1623-1687), really 606 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND contributed more toward exposing the fallacies of mercantilism. He wrote on money and taxes, and was a pioneer in advocating the use of statistics in economic studies. But perhaps the most advanced thinker among seventeenth-century economists was Nicholas Barbon (1640-1689), who anticipated Adam Smith the creator of modern political economy and the first great apostle of free trade in such fundamental terms as his definition of the true nature of wealth. He further prepared the way for his great successor by developing the argument that restriction of imports meant restriction of exports as well. Scientific Progress. The early part of the seventeenth century was marked by two notable scientific achievements the inven- tion of logarithms by John Napier (1550-1617) and discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey (1578-1657). These advances, however, were in striking contrast to the survival of popular superstitions, such as the belief in witchcraft shared by many eminent men, while scientific learning continued long in disrepute. Sir Walter Raleigh " was notoriously slandered to have enriched a school of atheism because he gave countenance to chemistry, to practical arts, and to curious mechanical operations, and designed to form the best of them into a college." The study of mathematics was not only much neglected but abhorred as a diabolical pursuit, so that when Sir Henry Savile, in 1619, instituted a professorship of geometry and astronomy at Oxford, many of the gentry refused to send their sons to the Uni- versity lest they might be " smutted by the black art." But the dawn was beginning to break. Bacon did much for the advancement of experimental science, though more by what he suggested than by any achievements of his own. Then the work of Galileo and Kepler on the Continent in time produced its effect in England. A new scientific era was heralded by the establishment of the Royal Society for the promotion of " Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning." Starting as the " Invisible College" in 1645, it was incorporated under its present name in 1662. A distinctive feature of the Restoration was a new rationalism, a new scientific temper. Charles II and the ver- satile Buckingham toyed with chemistry. The National Observatory was built at Greenwich, and signs of advance were manifested in various fields. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), one of the founders of the Royal Society and " the father of modern chemistry," established the relation between volume and pressure of gases known as Boyle's Law. Encouraging work was also done in botany and zoology, though none of these subjects got beyond the most rudimentary stages. The great scientific genius of the age, however, and one of the greatest of any age, was Sir Isaac Newton (1641-1724), who made no less than three contributions to human knowledge the discovery of the law of gravitation, the theory of fluxions or differential calculus, and the compound nature of white light. The former discovery, his supreme achievement, was made in 1666, and announced in his Principia in PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 607 1687. Altogether, much was being done to wring secrets from " na- ture's close reserve." Prose Literature. In pure literature the age is remarkable for a few rare products of scholarly leisure, as delightful in form as they are learned in content. Among them is the Anatomy of Melancholy of Robert Burton (1577-1640), a monument of erudition, abounding in fantastic reflections on men and things, and, strangely enough, considering the subject, permeated with whimsical humor. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1673), a physician of Norwich, famed for his garden and his collection of books and natural specimens, was a many- sided scholar who ranged over wider fields even than Burton. In his Religio Medici, his Enquiries into Vulgar Errors, his Urn Burial, and his Garden of Cyrus he displays not only vast knowledge and richness of imagination, but a pomp and magnificence of diction rarely equaled in literature. Izaak Walton (1593-1683), an unpretentious London ironmonger, had a love of nature, a genius for friendship, and a sweet simplicity and a cheery humor which is reflected in his Com- plete Angler and in his lives of Hooker, Donne, Herbert, and Wotton. John Bunyan (1628-1688), a humble, self-educated tinsmith, while a prisoner in Bedford jail, wrote his immortal Pilgrim's Progress (1678), which stands with the Divine Comedy and the Faerie Queene among the world's great allegories. With a unique gift for direct, vivid narration and realistic character portrayal, as well as an inspired under- standing of the spiritual needs and hopes and fears of the people among whom he lived, he embodied them in enduring form in a work which is at once a sublime religious tract and a forerunner of the modern novel. Non-dramatic Poetry. While as a whole not so distinctive as the prose, the poetry of the period is noteworthy both in volume and character, and altogether too varied in type to be comprehended within any single generalization. John Donne (1573-1631) was the first and greatest of the " Fantastic School," a long line who survived even beyond the Restoration. Another was George Herbert (1593- J 633), who gave up glittering worldly prospects to settle down as a simple country parson. They essayed the formidable task of em- ploying the poetic medium for interpreting profound metaphysical and religious problems. Moreover, by their " conceits " or far-fetched images and analogies, they heightened the obscurity of their themes, and tended to become extravagant and bizarre. Nevertheless, we owe to them passages of rare beauty, flashing light on spiritual aspira- tion and experience. While none of them were Puritans, the Puritan influence goes far to explain their earnestness and intensity. A stage in the transition from the fantastic to the prosaic poets of the eigh- teenth century was marked by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). He turned to party politics during the Interregnum, and, after the Restora- tion, was chiefly active as a satirist and pamphleteer. Then there was a group of Cavalier poets Richard Lovelace and John Suckling 6o8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND who flourished at the court of Henrietta Maria ; they were notorious for their irregular lives and produced mostly amatory verse. Also, there were pastoral poets, who continued the Spenserian tradition. Best of them all was Robert Herrick (1591-1679), who wrote exquisite verses breathing the sweet air of the countryside and reflecting the pleasures of the rustic folk among whom he lived for many years as a parson. In view of the prose and lyric poetry which appeared about the middle of the century, it cannot be said that either Puritanism or the Civil Wars stifled literary production. 1 John Milton. The finest flower of Puritan culture was John Milton, in whom the influences of the Renascence and the Reforma- tion were strangely mingled; for he combined finished classical scholarship with a profound and reverent knowledge of the Bible. As an undergraduate at Cambridge he began to write Latin verses, and, in 1629, the year in which he took his degree, appeared his splendid Ode to the Nativity. This was followed, in 1632, by L' Allegro and 77 Penseroso, which contrast in exquisite lines the joyous mood of morning with that of the sadness of evening. The next year came his masque, Comus, a hauntingly beautiful double allegory of the peren- nial struggle of virtue against vice and of the pending conflict of the two parties in the State. His next notable publication was Lycidas, an elegy on the death of a college friend. Here in the form of a pastoral, reminiscent of Spenser and teeming with pictures of nature and with mythical lore, he fiercely attacked the corruptions of the existing es- tablishment. As the Civil War approached, he became increasingly serious, and, turning from poetry to prose, argued for religious and political freedom in language of harsh or impassioned eloquence. His Areopagitica (1644) is a noble plea for the liberty of the press, and his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano is regarded as the finest defense of the Commonwealth ever penned. While his prose writing is marred by want of method, by bitter partisanship, and occasionally by over- elaboration, his glowing enthusiasm for liberty, guided by Divine order, and the loftiness and magnificence of his best passages, give his work a value far beyond any practical importance it may have had. In 1649 he became Latin secretary to the Council of State, retaining the post till the accession of Charles II, though he had, in the meantime, lost his eyesight. A fugitive for a short time after the Restoration, he was arrested, but soon released with a fine. From his youth up he had contemplated the dedication of his poetic talents to the production of a great work illustrating the Divine plan of the universe. Now, living in retirement, embittered by the failure of the cause he had 1 Samuel Butler (1612-1680), during the years from 1663 to 1668, published his Hudibras, in which, detailing the adventures of a Puritan knight and his squire, after the manner of Don Quixote, he bitterly ridicules the intolerance and hypocrisy which he seems to regard as typical of the party. Although packed with learned allusions and enlivened by brilliant phrases, his work is prevailingly coarse and superficial more of a caricature than a satire. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 609 espoused, by unhappy domestic experiences, by poverty, and blindness he completed, between 1663 and 1667, his sublimest literary achieve- ment, Paradise Lost. The vastness of the design and the marvelous harmony of the blank verse give it a place among the highest produc- tions of the world's literature. Yet it is one of the works which all too many are content to admire from afar rather than to read, and Mil- ton received for it just 10. Paradise Lost, which deals with the temp- tation and fall of man, was followed in 1671 by Paradise Regained, which tells of man's redemption through Jesus Christ. From its perfection of technique it is essentially a " poet's poem " ; and was pronounced perfect by Wordsworth and Coleridge; but, owing to its austere restraint, it has never made such a general appeal as its predecessor. Samson Agonistes, which appeared at the same time, is a tragedy of the old Greek type, though it relates the Scriptural story of Samson fighting against the Philistines. In it Milton mirrored his own heroic but futile strivings against the opposing forces of his day. John Dryden, 1631-1700. The representative man of letters of the Restoration period was John Dryden, poet laureate and historiog- rapher, 1670-1689, who reflects in his writing his varying political and religious views. Beginning as a Commonwealth man, he bewailed Cromwell's death in. Heroic Stanzas in 1658 ; then he welcomed the Restorationin Astr&a Redux, 1660, and a Panegyric, 1661. Heattacked the " Papists " in the Spanish Friar, 1681, and defended Anglicanism in Religio Laid, 1682 ; but, converted to the Roman Catholic faith the year after the accession of James II, he denounced the Church he had discarded and eulogized the one he had adopted in the Hind and the Panther. The best that can be said of him is that, after the Revolu- tion of 1688, he made no attempt to gain the favor of the new Govern- ment by repudiating Roman Catholicism. His highest achievements were in satirical verse, a domain in which he has no peers among Eng- lish writers. His keen and dexterous thrusts at his opponents have " damned them to everlasting fame." The best known of his politi- cal satires are Absalom and Achitophel, 1681 ; the Medal, 1682 ; and MacFlecknoe. The two former are directed mainly against Shaftes- bury, while in the latter he lashed Thomas Shadwell his successor as Poet Laureate as one who " never deviates into sense." Two magnificent odes to St. Cecilia, 1687 and 1697, the latter known as Alexander's Feast, reflect Dryden's gentler and nobler mood. His Fables, consisting of paraphrases from Chaucer, from Ovid, and other classics, together with some original pieces, also take a high rank in English verse. He was, in addition, a busy and productive playwright, beginning with the Wild Gallant in 1663 and ending his dramatic ca- reer with Love Triumphant, a tragi-comedy, in 1694. His aim was to cater to the court and the town, who, influenced by the French taste acquired by the Cavaliers in exile, craved novelty, and scorned the great products of the Elizabethan and Jacobean age. This " refined 2R 6io A HISTORY OF ENGLAND age," wrote the diarist Evelyn, was " disgusted " with the " old plays," but it was a refinement of fashion, not of literary or ethical standards. The Drama. While there was growing taste for masques during the reigns of James I and Charles I, the first thirty years of the century witnessed a constant succession of excellent plays, well acted and enthusiastically received by the public. However, the decline began to set in during the decade preceding the ordinance of September, 1642, closing the theaters. This was due, in some degree, to the aggressive hostility of the Puritans, 1 who turned the soberer folk against the playhouses and forced the dramatic authors to appeal more and more to the classes, both among the fashionable and the rabble, who were bound by no scruples of taste or morals. James Shirley (1596-1666) was in his tragedies the last of the Elizabethans, while in his comedy Hyde Park (licensed 1632, printed 1637) he was the forerunner of the Restoration. In this age of extravagant revolt against the recent Puritan regime, the Elizabethan spirit, which the reign of the saints had helped to kill, was not revived in the Restoration drama. As in so many other fields, a new era of experiment began. Tragedies in heroic couplets and prose comedies of wit and manners both form and content markedly influenced by French models took the place of the older tragedies and romantic comedies in blank verse. The pioneer of the new drama was Sir George Etheredge (i635?-i69i), who adapted Moliere's style to English conditions, and in his Comical Revenge (1664) gave the public a tragi-comedy in the rhymed heroic couplets. In the Man of Mode, 1676, his third and last play, he furnished the model for the later prose type. The French models were frequently immoral enough ; but transformed into English dress, or rather undress, they were all too often insufferably coarse and cynical. For this Charles II and his courtiers were largely responsible, by mak- ing sensuality and cynicism the mark of a fine gentleman. The come- dies, disagreeable as most of them are, have great historical value as reflections of contemporary life, especially of the upper classes in London, and because the prologues and epilogues were used, partic- ularly by Dryden, for airing political animosities. The foulest of the Restoration playwrights was William Wycherley (1640-1715). Queen Mary, setting her face against the prevailing tendency, did somewhat toward purifying the drama, and Jeremy Collier, the most learned of the Non-jurors, registered a vigorous protest in his Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage, 1698. Dryden admitted the justice of the rebuke, but improvement was slow in coming. Sir John Vanbrugh (1666-1726) is almost as bad as Wycherley, while William Congreve (1670-1729) and George Farquhar (1678-1707), though somewhat better, embody, to a large extent, 1 It has been well said that the Puritan did harm to the stage by fixing the stamp of frivolity upon it ; but contributed to poetry by lending it the force of spiritual imagination. PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 611 the unpleasant features of the Restoration drama. Real reform only came with the sentimental comedy initiated by Richard Steele. Literary Criticism. Literary criticism, which first begins to make substantial progress during the years following the Restoration, also owes much to France, especially to the French exile Saint-Evremond (1613-1703). Dryden shone in this as in so many other forms of liter- ary activity. His critical essays, and indeed those of most of his fellow craftsmen, appeared mainly in prefaces to plays. Nowhere is the French influence more marked than in the new prose style. Truly, the Court of Louis XIV and Paris were dicta ting the fashions in writing as well as in dress. The majestic, musical, but overinvolved and elab- orate style of the Elizabethans gave way to a clearer, simpler form of writing, more adapted for scientific exposition, for controversy, and for narrative and description the language of the novel, destined to become the typical literary product of the next two centuries. Art, Architecture, and Music. While pride of ancestry prompted many to employ Dutch and Flemish artists to execute family portraits, and while the Earl of Arundel, the Duke of Buckingham, and Charles I were collectors of no mean repute, there was, nevertheless, no general appreciation of art among seventeenth-century Englishmen. Nor, except in miniatures, were there any native portrait painters of real note. Of the foreign artists in England, the most famous were Rubens (1577-1640) and Vandyke (1599-1641). The former during a brief sojourn, in 1629-1630, painted several portraits and received an order for the decoration of Whitehall. The latter remained in England most of the time from 1632 till his death. He was appointed court painter and executed several fine pictures of Charles I and his family, as well as of prominent men of the time. Cromwell, who was fond both of music and painting, had as official painter Robert Walker, though in addition he gave his patronage to Peter van der Vars (1618-1680), better known as Peter Lely. Charles II inherited none of his father's taste for art, but Lely became his court painter, and is famous for his portraits of the royal favorites. Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), a gifted miniature painter, once described as " Vandyke in little," executed likenesses of the prominent men, both of the Commonwealth and the Restoration. In architecture the century was dominated by Inigo Jones (1573- 1652) and Christopher Wren (1632-1723). This fact marks a signifi- cant departure from the traditions of the Middle Ages, when the style and not the man was the distinguishing factor. Jones was profoundly influenced by the Italian Palladio, notable for his composite adaptation of the ancient Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian forms. Almost no new churches were built during the first half of the century ; but Jones did much in the way of restoring ecclesiastical edifices and public build- ings. Wren, his famous successor, was active as an architect from 1663 to 1718. The fire of London gave him an opportunity to rebuild St. Paul's as well as about fifty parish churches. Marlborough House 612 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and the royal hospital at Greenwich are among the other works of his long and busy life. Unfortunately, his two principal buildings do not show him at his best ; for St. Paul's was not completed according to his original designs, while Greenwich hospital was decidedly marred by the dramatist Vanbrugh, who succeeded him as architect. Van- brugh, who sacrificed proportion and grace in attempts at grandeur, and who achieved " gloomy solidity," is chiefly known as the designer of Blenheim, the country seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. With the striking exception of Cromwell, the Puritans were notori- ously hostile to music. Charles II, in contra'st to his indifference to other forms of art, was an enthusiastic patron of music. Henry Pur- cell (1658-1695), recognized as England's greatest musical genius, came to the front in his reign. As an organist in the Royal Chapel he composed an ode for the King's birthday. His famous grand opera Dido and ^Eneas (1675) was the first ever written to an English poem. His anthems and church music are well known ; but his greatest work was the Te Deum and Jubilate composed for St. Cecilia's Day, 1694. Final Summary of the Period. Thus, aside from epoch-making political events, the century was a notable one. It witnessed the later plays of Shakespeare as well as those of Ben Jonson and hosts of other dramatists, the writings of Milton, and of innumerable poets be- sides; compositions in stately prose of men of letters and divines; treatises on political philosophy, trade, and economics; and, what was big in future results, the foundation stones of empire were laid in America and in India. FOR ADDITIONAL READING General conditions. Traill, Social England, IV, chs. XIII-XV. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, chs. I, II; an admirable picture of the life of the upper and lower classes in the early Stuart period. Macaulay, I, ch. Ill ; a famous description of conditions in the Restoration period. W. E. Sydney, Social Life in England, 1660-1669 (1892). Social and industrial. Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, "Modern Times," pt. II, sees. 183-208. Unwin, Social and Industrial Organization. Pro- thero, English Farming, chs. V, VI. Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, chs. V, VI. W. A. Hewins, English Trade and Finance, chiejly in the Seventeenth Century (1892) . Eliza- beth Godfrey, Home Life under the Stuarts (1903) and Social Life under the Stuarts (1904). A. H. Hamilton, Quarter Sessions from Elizabeth to Anne (1878) relates chiefly to Devonshire. Lady Verney, Memoirs of the Verney Family (4 vols., 1892-1899). H. B. Wheatley, Samuel Pepys and the World he lived In (1880). Rose M. Bradley, The English Housewife in the XVII and XVIII Centuries (1913). Literary and intellectual. Moody and Lovett, chs. VII-IX (reading guide, pp. 392-396). Taine, English Literature, bk. II, chs., V, VI; bk. Ill, ch. I. Cambridge History of Literature, VII, VIII (bibliographies at end of vols.). Lodge, Political History, ch. XX; Jusserand, ch. III. Cambridge Modern History, IV, ch. XXVI; V, chs. Ill, VI, XXIII (bibliographies, IV, pp. 948-0; V, pp. 775-779, 799-808, 903-910). E. Dowden, Puritan and Anglican (1900). Masson, Milton; the stand- ard work. There are short Lives of Milton by Mark Pattison (1879, 1906) and Sir Walter Raleigh (1900). See also Macaulay's essay on Milton. Saintsbury, Dryden (1881, 1902). PURITAN AND CAVALIER ENGLAND 613 Religion and Church. Hutton, English Church, chs. XVI-XIX. J. Hunt, Religious Thought in England (3 vols., 1870). J. H. Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660- 1714 (1885). Babington, Mr. Macattlay's Character of the Clergy (1849). Cam- bridge Modern History, chs. XI, XXIV (bibliography, pp. 838-839, 911-917). Contemporary. Pepys, Diary. Evelyn, Diary. R. Baxter, Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of his Life and Times (ed. M. Sylvester, 1696). George Fox, Journal (1694, ed. W. Armistead, 2 vols., 1852) ; a great spiritual autobiography. Political philosophy. Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings (1680, ed. 1903, introd. by Henry Morley). Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (1651, ed. A. R. Waller, 1904). John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government (1690, ed. 1903, introd. by Henry Morley). CHAPTER XXXVI THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW DYNASTY AND THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR. WILLIAM AND MARY 1689-1694 The Three Leading Characteristics of the " Eighteenth Century." The period between the Revolution of 1688-1689 an d the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 1 does not on the surface present any striking features of organic growth. The course, both of domestic and foreign affairs, appears to be perplexed, meaningless, and unfruitful : the former little more than a constant scramble for office, power, and profit between the various factions, usually of the dominant party 2 ; the latter occupied chiefly in a series of wars, complex and bewildering in their causes and their results. In each case, however, an impor- tant issue was being worked out. The political struggle at home produced the existing system of Cabinet and party government, while the wars abroad made Great Britain the world power she is to-day. Moreover, the period was marked by a veritable industrial revolu- tion. A brief preliminary examination of the origin and growth of two of these features of eighteenth-century development the origin and growth of the Cabinet and party system and the expansion of England will serve to make clearer the history of the period. The Cabinet and Party System. The English Cabinet and party system is especially notable from the fact that its machinery is the most perfect which has yet been devised for speedily and peacefully voicing the will of the people 3 and because it is the system which has been adopted, with more or less variation, by the chief European governments in recent times. It is essentially a government by an executive committee of Parliament 4 whose members represent and 1 Because of certain prevailing characteristics, all of this period is sometimes referred to as the "Eighteenth Century." 2 It was only occasionally that the two great parties were evenly balanced ; for during the earlier part of the period the Tories were generally out of favor be- cause of their devotion to the exiled Stuarts ; while later the Whigs fell under an eclipse because they were identified with the cause, first of the American, then of the French revolutionists. 3 That is the test which distinguishes an absolutism from a constitutional gov- ernment. Under the former, the people have no means of expressing their will in a regular normal way, and must resort to revolution when they can no longer bear with their rulers. * The Cabinet is also spoken of as a committee of the Privy Council; but while every Cabinet minister must be a member of the Privy Council, that is a mere formality, since he is always made such if selected for a Cabinet office. The Cabinet is an inner circle of the Ministry ; many ministers chosen to be heads of departments are not admitted to the Cabinet. 614 THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 615 are responsible to the majority of the House of Commons, which, in its turn, represents the qualified voters of Great Britain. 1 Just as soon as the majority withdraws its support the Ministry either resigns, or dissolves Parliament, and submits to the verdict of a general election. Contrary to the earlier practice, the sovereign no longer arbitrarily appoints and dismisses his ministers, and, ordinarily, he does nothing without the advice of the body which has superseded him as the actual head of the State. 2 The Cabinet is united under a head known as the Prime Minister, and its members are both jointly and severally responsible to their party. Except in rare cases, if one goes, they all go. The Cabinet system is essentially a post-Revolutionary product ; for, it has been well said, while the Puritan Revolution determined that Parliament should be supreme, it was the subsequent course of events which determined how the sovereignty should be exercised. The Responsibility of Ministers before the Restoration. Never- theless, from the time when the barons rose against John, attempts were made to force particular measures on the Crown and to control its choice of ministers. Several efforts, particularly of the latter sort, were made under Henry III, which were repeated under Edward III, who made a notable but temporary concession in 1341. A significant innovation came in 1376, when the Good Parliament first made use of impeachments to call royal servants and favorites to account. For a time, during the " constitutional experiment in government " under the Lancastrians, Parliament was supreme over the Council, appointing its members and supervising its acts. As yet, however, there were no recognized parties ; but merely factions led by the great nobles. Under the Yorkists and Tudors the Council again became an instrument of royal despotism, and it was not till the accession of the Stuarts that Parliament once more made any attempt to call the King's ministers to account. It is only necessary, in this connection, to recall the impeachments of Buckingham and Strafford. Ministerial Responsibility after the Restoration. Great strides in this direction were taken after the Restoration. Clarendon, though Charles II was ready to throw him over, was really forced out of office by a parliamentary attack, while Danby had to be dismissed, in spite of the King's efforts to save him. Even yet, however, Parliament had not recovered its voice in appointments and had no means of removal except by impeachments on serious charges. Meantime, the practice had become common of governing with the advice of a small group of men selected usually from the larger Privy Council. Charles II had more than one such Cabinet or Cabal, and so had James. The Rise of Modern Parties. While these advisers were still responsible to the King, the parties were already in making who were later to assume that control. Under the name Whigs and Tories they 1 The name of the country since the parliamentary union with Scotland in 1707. 2 Since 1707 there has been no case of a royal veto of a bill that has passed Parlia- ment. 616 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND began to assume permanent and tangible form during the Exclusion Struggle, although their beginnings may be traced back to the Cavalier and Country parties. The Roundheads, of course, had been broken up by the Restoration, nor did they form a party in the modern sense ; since they had no recognized voice in the regular and normal control of the Administration, which is the present function of the party in power. It remained for William, some years after his accession, to take the decisive step that resulted in a form of government controlled and administered by a body of men representing a particular policy. Progress of Cabinet and Party Government under William III. William's first Cabinet was composed of men of diverse opinions, for he aimed to balance parties. While the Tories, in general, favored James II, there were reasons, as will be seen later, why he hesitated to put himself altogether in the hands of the Whigs. Early in his reign, however, two ministers in succession, Halifax, in 1689, and Shrewsbury, in 1690, resigned in consequence of opposition in the Com- mons and when they were in no danger of impeachment. An innova- tion came when William, acting on advice given him by Sunderland, in 1693, began to choose his ministers exclusively from the Whig party which was then in a majority in the Lower House gradually got rid of his Tory ministers, and depended for a few years mainly on a body of Whig ministers. William, however, remained the real head of the Government ; he was his own Foreign Minister, acting often independently, sometimes in opposition to his ministers, and frequently consulting outside advisers. Nor was there as yet any ministerial solidarity ; for Parliament held individuals, not the whole body, re- sponsible for a particular policy. Moreover, William had no notion of introducing a new principle into the Government; his aim was simply to secure a greater efficiency in administration and more united support for his wars. By 1699 his leading Whig ministers had fallen out of favor with the House of Commons and, one by one, they were forced to resign. But the principle that was in the end to prevail that the duties and responsibilities of government belonged not to the Privy Council as a whole, but to a small body chosen and retained largely because of their ability to command a majority in the Lower House had been advised and tried. Anne, who succeeded in 1702, though a weak sovereign, was anxious for personal rule, and succeeded in re- tarding somewhat the progress of the new system. A Whig ministry was forced upon her in the middle of her reign ; but, taking advantage of a popular reaction, she dismissed it, in 1711, while it still commanded a majority in the Lower House. The Completion of the System under the Hanoverians. It was under the first two sovereigns of the House of Hanover, George I and George II, that the Cabinet system took practically its modern form. Not only was the lost ground regained, but the Prime Minister took the place of the Sovereign as head of the Cabinet ; gradually he became less dependent on the King and rather the leader of the THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 617 majority party in power in the House of Commons, dependent on their support more than on royal favor ; l while the Cabinet members came to act " as a unit under him," and came at least more and fre- quently to be responsible jointly as well as individually for their acts. Many reasons explain this striking development. For one thing, the new monarchs threw no obstacle in the way. George I, ignorant of the language and customs of the country, and taking little interest in English affairs, soon ceased to attend Cabinet meetings, and George II followed his example. Moreover, their title was parlia- mentary rather than hereditary, and they had been called in by the Whigs, whose policy was to diminish as far as possible the royal pre- rogative. 2 Another important factor was the ascendancy, of Sir Robert Walpole, who, during the years of his supremacy, 1721-1742, dominated his colleagues, though often with much difficulty. 3 Further- more, under him the Commons grew steadily in power, partly because of the increasing importance of financial questions in which they had a decisive voice through their control of the purse, and partly through the passage of the Septennial Act of 1716 which increased their independ- ence by lengthening the possible duration of Parliament to seven years. The Perfection of the System by the Extension of the Electorate. George III attempted for a time to restore personal, in place of minis- terial rule ; but the new system had become too firmly established to be permanently shaken ; consequently, he had to give in before he had half finished his reign. The crowning step was taken in the nine- teenth century, when, by a series of reform bills, the House of Commons was made truly representative of the people. Cabinet and party government as it exists to-day, while it is not the result of any prin- ciples embodied in the Revolution of 1688, was made possible by events which developed in consequence of that movement. The Wars of the Eighteenth Century and their Significance. Passing to the external history of the period, the most evident feature is the constant succession of wars. During the interval of one hundred and twenty-seven years which elapsed between the Revolution of 1688 and the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 there were seven, occupying sixty-four years, or more than half the period. 4 1 George I did dismiss his leading minister, Townshehd, in 1716-1717 ; but that was because he opposed him in a matter of foreign policy, a subject in which the King was vitally interested. 2 The Tories, too, were for a long time enemies of the prerogative because the Hanoverians occupied the throne. 3 It has been recently shown that Walpole was more dependent on royal sup- port than has been commonly supposed. 4 They were : 1. "King William's War," 1689-1697. 2. The War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-1713. 3. The War of the Austrian Succession, 1739-1748. 4. The Seven Years' War, 1756-1763. 5. The War of the American Revolution, 1775-1783. 6 and 7. Two wars with France, 1793-1802 and 1803-1815. 6i8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND They not only convulsed all Europe, but extended over a wide area of the globe as well. While, at first sight, they seem to have no unity of cause or result, a single issue, so far as Great Britain is concerned, really connected them all. Five began and ended with France, and, though the third began with Spain and the fifth with the American Colonies, France became involved in both before the close. The chief result of this persistent duel was that England at the cost of thousands of lives and a public debt of-^ 840,000,000 gained an unrivaled commercial ascendancy and vast colonial possessions, chiefly at the expense of France. In King William's War, which was directed mainly against the ascendancy in Europe of Louis XIV, these issues were not yet evident ; but the crippling of French resources had an important bearing on the subsequent struggles. In the war of the Spanish Succession many causes were operative, but commercial questions played a leading role ; for the English entered the conflict largely from fear of the colonial monopoly which might result in case the House of Bourbon should acquire the Spanish inheritance, and secured, by the Peace of Utrecht, trade concessions and territories in the New World. In the three wars from 1739 to I783, 1 although many other questions were involved, a most significant factor was a prolonged struggle between England and France for the control of America and India. Great Britain lost the thirteen colonies, but she secured from France the territory now known as the Dominion of Canada and gained the upper hand in India. Even in the Napo- leonic wars colonial issues were by no means overlooked. Napoleon, who recovered Louisiana, the territory west of the Mississippi which Spain had held since 1763, designed to make it the basis of a western empire, a plan from which he was only diverted by an insurrection in Haiti. He also led an expedition to Egypt to strike at the British power in India, but was frustrated by the genius of Nelson. In this " gigantic rivalry between England and France " it will be necessary to search for the causes which led England to prevail. The Rise of the Atlantic Seaboard States and the Decline of Portu- gal, Spain, and the Dutch. Up to the middle of the fifteenth century, the Mediterranean remained the center of commerce, and the chief seats of business and wealth were the Italian cities. But the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, which blocked the overland trade routes from the East, led men to search for new routes by sea to India and China. With their discovery, and the discovery of a new con- tinent as well, the Atlantic took the place of the Mediterranean as a highway of commerce. Italy, harassed at the same time by invasions of rival sovereigns contending for dominion and by the depredations of the rising Turkish sea power, rapidly declined. Gradually, the five Atlantic seaboard states Portugal, Spain, the Dutch, France, and 1 So far as Great Britain and France were concerned they were really "varying phases of one war"; for throughout the period their forces were fighting pretty constantly in America and India. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 619 England came to the front. The first three, one after another, fell back in the race, in spite of promising starts, leaving France and England to fight for the ultimate supremacy. Reasons why Great Britain prevailed over France. France had great resources, broad territories, and industrial aptitude, yet she failed to prevail. Certain local causes were operative in America, her object was to trade and to advance the Roman Catholic faith rather than to send colonists who would found homes, and her pos- sessions were inferior both from the standpoint of climate and strategy to those of the English, but the chief reason for her failure was that her energies were divided between the New World and the Old. At the very time that she was contending for colonial supremacy she was obliged to fight constantly in Europe to maintain her ascendancy, frequently to defend her own borders. Great Britain entered com- paratively late in the race for maritime supremacy. At the close of the Middle Ages, and even after Portugal and Spain had penetrated into unknown seas and mastered broad territories in the New World, she remained chiefly an agricultural country. She first became a recognized sea power in the time of Elizabeth, and it was not till the following century that she acquired any considerable colonial pos- sessions. By her buccaneering expeditions and her repulse of the Armada she was a powerful factor in breaking down the supremacy of Spain. Under the first two Stuarts, English colonies were established in Virginia, New England, and Maryland. Under the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, with the navy developed to an effectiveness hitherto unequaled, war was begun with Holland, and another blow struck at the monopoly of Spain. The progress continued after the Restoration. Charles II obtained Bombay by his marriage, New York and Delaware were captured in the second Dutch War, and the Carolinas and Pennsylvania were founded. After the Restoration Great Britain united for a time with her former commercial rival, Hol- land, in a common effort to check France and Catholicism. Holland, however, who never recovered from the effect of her earlier wars with her present ally, was further exhausted by the strain of the great ef- forts against the French and ceased to be formidable. While Great Britain's only remaining antagonist was seriously handicapped, the British were protected from European attack by intervening waters ; they were not obliged to send armies abroad unless they chose, and, as a matter of fact, confined themselves largely to subsidizing allies in the continental struggles, thus leaving their energies free to develop their navy, and to extend their colonial possessions. The Significance of the Reign of William and Mary. The reign of William is significant from the fact that, as " that champion of Protestantism and the liberties of Europe against French Ascendancy," he plunged England into a whirlpool of European war and diplomacy which led to such momentous results. The internal progress of the period is also noteworthy. Fundamental constitutional questions 620 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND were defined and settled : the order of succession was regulated in the Bill of Rights, and in the Act of Settlement which supplemented it ; a Toleration Act was passed ; the National Debt was founded ; the Bank of England was established ; the censorship of the press came to an end ; procedure in treason trials was reformed ; and Cabinet and party government began to take modern shape. The Reaction against William, 1689. In spite of the joy mani- fested at his accession, a reaction against William soon set in. It was due partly to the King's own character and policy, partly to the nature of the situation. He was cold and unsympathetic, he loved Dutchmen and Dutch ways, he distrusted Englishmen and chafed at his necessary residence in England as a joyless exile. Patient and coura- geous in great matters, he was irritable and impatient of opposition in little things, while his manners left much to be desired. 1 Then his policy was a disappointment to the Whigs who had led the movement to place him on the throne ; for he was no friend of popular liberty and had ousted James primarily to break up the royal alliance with France and to secure English resources for his great work. Further- more, he had to face a most difficult situation; for, impelled by a common fear of James, the most diverse elements had combined momentarily to support him. Truly, Englishmen and Dutchmen, Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Nonconformists made strange bedfellows. The English and the Dutch were old trade rivals who had been three times at war within half a century. The Whigs were for a limited monarchy and toleration, and had old scores to settle with the party who had oppressed them during the reign of Charles II and the early years of James II. The Tories, who stood for Divine hereditary right and an exclusive Establishment, directly the excite- ment was over, came to be ashamed of the part they had taken in expelling the Lord's anointed. The extremists began to excuse James' misdeeds, while many, even of the moderates, revived the ar- gument that it was possible to restore him with guarantees. Many of the Whigs, too, were dissatisfied ; some because they felt themselves insufficiently rewarded, others because their advice in ordering public affairs was neither sought nor heeded. Although the really disaffected were in a minority, they were so vociferous and busy that they might have caused serious trouble but for the fact that Louis XIV, by under- taking to restore James by force, and with the aid of the dreaded Irish in the bargain, forced the moderates of both parties to cling to William. The Convention turned into a Parliament. The Mutiny Act, 1689. - William, in selecting his first ministry, sought to balance parties. Halifax, whom he made Lord Privy Seal, was, from his moderate and conciliatory temper, a great aid to him while he remained in office. The Tory Earl of Nottingham and the Whig Earl of Shrewsbury, 1 Once when a dish of green peas, the first of the season, was brought in, he ate them all without offering any to Anne, who was a guest at his table. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 621 the latter a man of rare personal charm but unstable character, were made Secretaries of State. In view of the critical situation abroad William took charge of foreign affairs himself. Directly after the Convention had settled the crown on William and Mary, the new sovereigns had returned the compliment by declaring it to be a Parlia- ment. One of the most pressing questions which confronted it was the settlement of the revenue ; but, after voting temporary supplies, the matter was laid over until the following year. 1 The mutiny of an English regiment at Ipswich led to the passage, in this session, of a measure which was bound, in any case, to have come before long ; for, according to the existing law, there was no adequate means of dealing with such crises. The Mutiny Act, which began by declaring courts martial and military discipline illegal, conferred upon William authority to provide for the exercise of such extraordinary jurisdiction for six months. 2 Later the act was regularly renewed, but never for longer than a year. It is now called the Army Act. The Toleration Act, 1689. Also in this eventful year the Protestant Dissenters, for the first time, obtained legal recognition and tolera- tion. William, now the official head of the Church of England, but a Calvinist by training and a Latitudinarian by conviction, was a prime mover ; but Nottingham, who feared for the stability of the Church if the promises which her leaders had made in adversity were disre- garded, was an able second. Moreover, rationalistic views were com- ing to prevail more and more, views which were voiced by the cele- brated philosopher John Locke in his Letters on Toleration, in which he took the ground that the State had no right to interfere with the way men might choose to worship. William and his supporters had three objects at heart : freedom of worship ; comprehension, or the opening the doors of the Establishment to let in all moderate Protes- tant sects ; and the admission of all Protestants to civil office. Of these only the first was attained at this time ; the second was hope- lessly defeated ; while the third was not legally recognized for nearly a century and a half. The Act of 1689, while it did not repeal the existing penal laws, suspended their operation against those who absented themselves from the services of the Established Church and attended other places of worship, provided they took the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and subscribed to a declaration against transubstantiation. Dissenting ministers, however, had to subscribe to thirty-five of the Thirty-nine Articles and to a greater part of two more. But Quakers, who scrupled to take oaths, were allowed to hold their assemblies undisturbed on condition of signing the declara- tion against transubstantiation, making a confession of Christian 1 The Hearth Tax, however, which was a great hardship to the poor, was abol- ished forthwith. 2 It is a striking commentary upon the habits of the time that the court martials were to be held between 6 A.M. and i P.M., because there was little chance that offi- cers would be sober after dinner. 622 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND belief, and promising fidelity to the Government. " Papists " and those who did not believe in the Trinity l were expressly excluded from the benefits of the Act. Although the toleration thus granted was far from complete, "it removed a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice." The Non-jurors. The Failure of Comprehension. Since the Tories would not vote for the admission of Nonconformists to office, William insisted that all the beneficed clergy should take a new oath of allegiance, a requirement which he would otherwise have consented to waive. Out of a total of about 10,000, some 400, including the Primate and six bishops, refused. The " Non-jurors," as they were called, continued in schism till 1805, when the last of their bishops died. A comprehension bill was discussed in Parliament, but relegated to Convocation. Though favored by the liberal bishops in the Upper House, it was finally given up, largely because of the opposition of the country parsons of the Tory party who were in control of the Lower House. It should be said, however, that the leading Non- conformist ministers, particularly in the cities, viewed the scheme with distrust, because they received large voluntary offerings, together with a consideration that they could not hope for within the Estab- lishment. The Bill of Rights, 1689. After a recess of two months, the old Convention met for its second session, 19 October, 1689. The chief work of the session was to turn the Declaration into a Bill. A few new provisions were introduced. One provided that any sovereign professing the " Popish " religion should be incapable of reigning in England, and in case he married a " Papist " his subjects were to be absolved from their allegiance ; but no attempt was made to define the term, nor was any machinery devised for carrying the provision into effect. Furthermore, the dispensing power which, according to the Declaration, was illegal only " as it hath been exercised of late," was now done away with altogether. 2 The Whigs were most active and vindictive all through the session, but when they went so far as to block an Indemnity Bill by attaching to it a bill of pains and penal- ties 3 against a number of Tories, William dissolved Parliament in disgust. The Moderate Tories come to Power. The Settlement of the Revenue. The Moderate Tories now obtained control. Danby, created Marquis of Carmarthen at the coronation, became the head of the Ministry, and, under his practical guidance, a systematic policy of corruption in electing and managing parliaments was resumed. William accepted it as a disagreeable necessity. ' ' Nobody hates bribery 1 I.e. Jews and Socinians, the latter being forerunners of the Unitarians. 2 At least, that was the result ; for it was provided that exceptions might be enumerated during the session, and none were made into law. * Such a bill differs from an attainder merely from the fact that its penalties do not extend to capital punishment. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 623 more than I do," he complained, " but I have to do with a set of men who must be managed in that vile way or not at all. I must strain a point or the country is lost." In his opening speech to the new Parliament which met 20 March, 1690, he urged a speedy settlement of the revenue and the passage of an act of indemnity. " Let us not be engaged in debates," he said, " while our enemies are in the field." After some discussion, the Commons voted that William should have, in addition to the hereditary Crown revenue, amounting to 400,000 a year, the income from the excise, which yielded some 300,000 annually. This sum, about 700,000 in the aggregate, which came to be known as the Civil List, 1 was to be devoted to the maintenance of the royal household, the payment of civil officials, and, in general, to the non-military expenses of the State. The income from the cus- toms, variously estimated between 400,000 and 600,000, was granted only for four years. Although the outbreak of the war neces- sitated the grant of extraordinary supplies, Parliament adhered to the principle that a fixed amount only should be allowed to the King for the ordinary needs of the State. Moreover, in the future all grants were appropriated annually and for specified purposes. Thus the principle of appropriation of supply, foreshadowed in the reign of James I and Charles II, 2 became a regular practice. The Act of Grace. William, who desired a free hand for the great war in which he had embarked, had hoped to obtain a revenue for life at least as large as that granted his predecessor. He was so bitterly disappointed that he talked of withdrawing to Holland. " The gentlemen of England," he complained, " trusted King James, and they will not trust me by whom their religion and their laws have been preserved." He was assured that it was not a question of per- sonal confidence but of principle ; that many evils had arisen from in- discriminate grants to bad kings, and that by acquiescing in the limitations imposed upon him, he might be a deliverer to future generations. He yielded only grudgingly. Finding it hopeless to obtain an Act of Indemnity, but impressed with the folly of alienating the Tories by ill-timed harshness, he secured the passage of an Act of Grace, 3 20 May, 1690, from which, for the sake of placating the opposition, he excepted about forty persons. Then he prorogued Parliament, for the situation in Ireland claimed his personal atten- tion. James appears in Ireland, March, 1690. The attempts of James, through Tyrconnel, to make Ireland a Roman Catholic stronghold, 1 Later, Parliament took over the payment of all public expenses, leaving to the sovereign merely the maintenance of the royal household. The income which he has for this purpose is still, curiously enough, known as the Civil List. 2 In conjunction with the Mutiny Act it insured, for the future, annual session* of Parliament. 3 It differs from an act of indemnity from the fact that it originates with the sovereign and cannot be amended by Parliament, which must pass or reject it as a whole. 624 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the transfer of the administration, civil, judicial, and military, into the hands of members of that faith, the remodeling of the municipal corporations, the insults, the attacks, and rumors of worse to come, 1 had thrown the Protestants into a panic. Many fled to England, others prepared to defend themselves. Tyrconnel, while he dallied with the terms offered by William, hastened to gather his forces, seized cattle and supplies, and sent for James. Leinster, Munster, and Connaught he speedily reduced. In Ulster, which contained the- bulk of the Protestant element, numbers fled for refuge to London- derry and Enniskillen, leaving their lands and goods at the mercy of their exultant and infuriated enemies. William, scantily provided with troops and supplies, occupied with the settlement of English affairs, with a Jacobite rising in Scotland, and with the launching of his great European coalition, at first did nothing, and was loudly blamed for his inaction. James arrived in Dublin, 24 March, 1689. Louis XIV refused him an army, partly because he distrusted his abilities, partly because he needed his troops at home. Nevertheless, he gave him a fleet, together with arms, money, and officers to drill the Irish. The Irish Parliament. There were two factions in the Irish Coun- cil. One aimed primarily to recover Ireland for the Irish, to make the Catholic religion supreme, and was bitterly opposed to any English rule, even under the restored James. The other regarded Ireland merely as an instrument with which to make James again King, as a basis of operations, and hence were opposed to any measure calculated to alienate English supporters. The Irish faction proved the stronger. It absolutely dominated Parliament, which met 7 May, and which was made up of men devoid of experience in public affairs and burning to avenge the wrongs of their religion and their race. James succeeded in passing a Toleration Act ; but he was obliged to consent to a series of measures calculated to alienate utterly his English supporters. The authority of the English Parliament was repudiated. The tithes of the Roman Catholics were transferred to their own clergy and the Act of Settlement was repealed. All lands forfeited in consequence of the Rebellion of 1641 were restored. To provide for this, the estates of absentees who had adhered to William of Orange were confiscated, and a famous act of attainder was passed, comprising over 2000 names. The property of those included on the list was appropriated forthwith, and though the owners were ordered to appear for trial before a certain date to prove their innocence, it was at the risk of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, in the event of almost certain conviction. To relieve the deplorable financial condition, an issue of base money was author- ized. Buttons, kettles, indeed, all sorts of brassware, were pressed 1 The alarm spread that there was to be a general massacre of all Protestants, o December, 1688; although Tyrconnel denied it with the most solemn assevera- tions and dashed his hat and wig into the fire to prove his sincerity, it was generally believed. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 625 into service ; a tariff of prices was fixed, and those who refused to part with their goods on such terms were brutally treated. After a ten weeks' session Parliament, having passed more than thirty-five drastic measures, was prorogued in July. The Siege and Relief of Londonderry. Newton Butler, 1689. Meantime, 19 April, 1689, the siege of Londonderry had begun. Threatened with starvation, and exposed to constant attacks against the weak walls of the city, the dauntless garrison held out with grim determination. At length, 28 July, Colonel Kirke, who had been sent out in May with a relieving force, obeyed the positive orders of Schomberg and broke the boom in the river Foyle by which the besiegers had guarded the approach from the sea. After a siege of one hundred and five days, during which the garrison was reduced from 7000 to 4000, to say nothing of the fugitives slaughtered and starved outside the walls, the troops of James withdrew, i August. The joyous news of the relief of Londonderry was immediately fol- lowed by the tidings that the men of Enniskillen had saved themselves by repulsing an attacking force at Newton Butler, 2 August. Schom- berg arrived in Ireland the same month ; but his army, consisting largely of raw recruits, was in no condition to fight. What with heavy autumn rains and bad food, supplied by greedy and dishonest Eng- lish contractors, a pestilence broke out. He was obliged to go into winter quarters, while the mass of Englishmen, who did not understand the situation, howled at his inaction and at the sufferings to which his troops were exposed. Admiral Herbert, recently created Earl of Torrington, was supposed to guard the Channel. Although of un- questioned courage, his love of ease and luxury won for him the name " Lord Tarry-in-Town." He kept no discipline, he was the prey of contractors, and proved so inactive that English merchant fleets had to make use of Dutch privateers for protection. Such was the situation when William started for Ireland in June, 1690. The Battle of Beachy Head, 29 June, 1690. Scarcely had he gone when Tourville appeared in the Channel with a French fleet from Brest. Torrington, whose combined English and Dutch fleet was so unprepared that he dared not fight, retreated up the English coast, until he received positive orders from the Queen to engage. On 29 June, 1690, he was defeated at Beachy Head, after which he con- tinued to retreat and took refuge in the Thames. The Dutch were furious because he had put their ships where they had to bear the brunt of the fighting. At a court martial, subsequently held, it developed that their own recklessness was to blame, and Torrington was ac- quitted, though he never received another command. Truly it was an anxious time for Englishmen. The Channel was left undefended, the country was swarming with Jacobites, while, to cap all, news ar- rived that the French had won a victory in the Netherlands at Fleurus. Queen Mary, in the depths of despair, wrote : "I believe never was any person left in greater straits of all kinds." Fortunately, however, 2S 626 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the sudden fear that Louis XIV might send over an invading army from Dunkirk was enough to unite practically the whole country in defense of the Crown. Many who wanted to see James restored had no desire to see it done at the cost of a great national humiliation. The prospect was still dark enough when William sent back word of a notable victory. The Battle of the Boyne, i July, 1690. On 30 June he had come face to face with the enemy drawn up behind the river Boyne. " I am glad to see you, gentlemen," he is reported to have said ; " if you escape me now, the fault will be mine." In the famous battle of the Boyne, which took place the next day, the English forced their way across the river, and scattered their foes in the utmost confusion, in spite of the stubborn resistance of the Irish cavalry. Unfortunately, the veteran Schomberg was among the slain. James, who had lost the bravery of his youthful days, watched the fighting from a safe distance, and hurried away as soon as he foresaw the result. In a speech at Dublin Castle he declared that he would never command an Irish army again. From Dublin he hastened to the coast, sailed for Brest, and posted off to urge Louis to invade England while William was absent. The French King, though polite and non-committal, would do nothing further just then. Tourville, who had cruised along the coast unopposed after the battle of Beachy Head, met with a hot reception directly he sought to land. The men of Devonshire and the neighboring counties made speedy preparation for defense, the militia were everywhere mustered, and it was not long before all England " was up in arms on foot and on horseback . . . and rang with shouts of ' God bless King William and Mary.' " The chief result of Tourville's hostile demonstrations was to undo the work of English Jacobites. The Siege and Treaty of Limerick, 1691. After the battle of the Boyne the bulk of the Irish army took refuge in Limerick. William, after failing to take the town by assault, 27 August, 1690, was soon forced to raise the siege, owing to heavy rains and lack of powder. He himself returned to England ; but the garrison finally capitulated to his army, 3 October, 1691. Two treaties were framed. By a military treaty it was provided that all officers who desired should be trans- ported to France. In a civil treaty the Roman Catholics of Ireland received a promise that they " should enjoy such privileges in the exer- cise of their religion as were consistent with the law, or as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II." The bulk of the soldiery elected to go to France ; many afterwards deserted ; but numbers won high distinction in the ensuing wars. Those who remained in Ireland were so cowed that the country was free from formidable insurrection for over a century. The Violation of the Treaty. Oppressive Restrictions and Penal Laws. Unhappily, England did not temper her victory with mercy or wisdom ; but allowed intolerance, greed, and oppression to prevail. A new statute was passed by Parliament at Westminster, not only THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 627 excluding Roman Catholics from office, but enacting for the first time that they could not sit in the Irish Parliament. That body, con- sisting henceforth of the representatives of the Protestant minority, passed laws, in 1695, providing that no " Popish " teacher should be allowed in schools or private houses, forbidding " Papists " to carry arms or to own a horse worth more than 5. In 1697, in distinct viola- tion of the Treaty of Limerick, all Roman Catholic prelates were banished from the kingdom ; and Roman Catholics and Protestants were forbidden to marry. These were the forerunners of a penal code which was carried to completion in the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges. They were not only cruelly oppressive but degrading, since every inducement was offered to informers and to those who would desert the faith of their fathers ; for example, in the inheritance of property the nearest Roman Catholic heirs were passed over in favor of the more remote, provided they were Protestants. All that can be said is that the more ferocious were seldom enforced. Added to the religious restrictions, binding shackles were imposed on Irish industry and commerce. The Irish were excluded from the English colonial trade, and, by an Act of 1699, the export of their wool and woolen goods was practically prohibited. About 20,000 Ulstermen migrated to America, and Ireland was left largely to the native peas- ants, tenants of absentee landlords, and mostly under the influence of priests. The tyranny and avarice of the Protestant minority slowly but surely bore bitter fruit. The Revolution in Scotland. The Revolution in Scotland was not accomplished without excitement, disorder, and even a brief period of war. A Convention Parliament met in Edinburgh, 24 March, 1689. Since the castle was held by the Duke of Gordon in the interest of James, the Whigs, to protect themselves during the session, brought up a body of western Covenanters, whom they concealed in cellars about the city, while William sent a fleet and three regiments from England. In the Convention it was declared that James by his mis- deeds had forfeited the government, and William and Mary were named as his successors. Following the English precedent, a Claim of Right was promulgated which declared the existing law, and enumer- ated a list of grievances to be redressed by new laws. The Claim of Right having been accepted by William and Mary at Whitehall, they took the coronation oath, n May, 1689, and became King and Queen of Scotland. The forces of opposition, however, were various and vehement. One discontented faction, known as the Club, con- sisted of original supporters of the new dynasty who had been dis- appointed in the distribution of offices. The Club was joined by all who were opposed to a strong monarchy or to any monarchy at all. Then there were the Covenanters, who were unwilling to recognize an uncovenanted King a Calvinist who had proved false to his faith by conforming to the Church of England, But the only serious armed revolt came from the Highlanders. 628 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Rising of the Highland Clans under Dundee. This pic- turesque and beautiful region was then, to the mass of Englishmen, and even of the Lowland Scots, an unknown country, described by the few who had dared to penetrate its rugged mountains and bleak moor- lands as a grim, unlovely waste, inhabited by savage tribes, utterly ignorant of the ways of civilization and regardless of life and the laws of property. " It is a part of the creation left undressed," wrote a traveler in 1694; " rubbish thrown aside when the magnificent fabric of the world was created, as void of form as the natives are indigent of morals and good manners." Their southern neighbors, who knew the Highlanders as cattle stealers and murderous enemies, were as little acquainted with their virtues their courage, their hospitality, their dignity, and their devotion to clan and family as they were with tho' beauties of their scenery. Thither Dundee sought recruits, after he had fled from the Whig-dominated Parliament at Edinburgh. The clans pressed to join him, as they had joined Montrose half a century before, not so much out of attachment for the Stuart cause as from hatred of the Campbells, whose chief, the Marquis of Argyle, had taken the side of William. Another motive, of course, was the pros- pect of fighting and plunder. They mustered in May, 1689, at Lochaber, near the home of the venerable Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, " the Ulysses of the Highlands." Dundee's difficulties were enormous. Each clan was a unit in itself. Many nourished long- standing feuds and jealousies ; the chiefs were so proud and sensitive that it was next to impossible to weld the discordant elements into an army. " I would rather," he declared in his despair, " carry a musket in a respectable regiment than be a captain of such a gang of thieves." However, he succeeded in eluding for weeks Hugh Mackay, the com- mander sent against him. Killiekrankie, 27 July, 1689. The Collapse of the Highland Rising. At length, the two armies met in the pass of Killiekrankie. Mackay was driven from the pass and retreated over the mountains to Stirling ; but the victory of the Highlanders was more than offset by the death of Dundee, who was shot during the triumphant charge. Mackay soon rallied his men, 1 but the Highlanders had lost the only leader who could hold them together. Before the end of August the whole force had dispersed to their homes. It was not long either before the Club had ceased to exist. Some became Jacobites, others were bought up by the Government. In spite of the opposition of the Episcopalians and the extreme Covenanters, Presbyterianism was again reestablished in 1690. William was embittered by having to contend with so many elements of opposition. " I wish Scotland were a thousand miles off," he once declared, " and then I should be 1 Mackay's defeat led him to make a contribution to the art of war by inventing the modern bayonet fixed outside of, instead of fitting into the gun barrel. He attributed the loss of the battle largely to the fact that his men after they fired could not attach their bayonets quickly enough to meet the charging Highlanders. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 629 rid of it." Unhappily his triumph was marred by a brutal crime, due to his carelessness or indifference, to the vindictiveness of the Camp- bells, and the desire of the Master 1 of Stair the King's chief adviser to root out the most unyielding of the clans. The Massacre of Glencoe, 1692. A proclamation was issued from Edinburgh offering pardon to every rebel who, before 31 December, 1691, should swear to live peaceably under William and Mary. The chief of the Macdonalds of Glencoe 2 waited stubbornly until the very last day, when he presented himself before the governor of Fort Wil j liam. This official, who was not empowered to take the oath, sent him with a letter to the sheriff of Argyleshire. The sheriff, after some hesitation, accepted the submission and forwarded the certificate to Edinburgh, 6 January. This the Master of Stair suppressed, after which he secured William's signature to an order authorizing the ex- termination of the clan. On i February, a company of soldiers under Captain Campbell was dispatched to Glencoe, where they stayed for nearly two weeks enjoying the rude but plentiful hospitality of the clan. Suddenly, in the early morning of the i3th, they rose up and began to massacre their hosts. But they made the mistake of shooting instead of stabbing their victims, while the troops detailed to block the exits of the Glen failed to arrive in time, so that a majority escaped. Many of them, however, perished of exposure ; their homes were set on fire, and their cattle driven off. Stair's only regret was that so many got away. His enemies, however, and the opponents of the Government raised such an outcry that William, though he regarded the deed as a wholesome example visited on a gang of thieves and out- laws, was forced to consent to a commission of inquiry. Stair was retired and remained in private life till the next reign. The Alliance against France, 1689. Meantime, William, in the autumn of 1689, had completed an alliance against France on which he had been laboriously working for years. It included the Empire, Spain, England, and the Dutch. Parliament, which might otherwise have been reluctant to engage in a continental war, was won over because of Louis XIV's interference in Ireland. After his authority had been established in the neighboring kingdoms, William was free to turn his attention abroad. He departed, 18 January, 1691, to meet the allies in a congress at the Hague. Though his combination seemed an overwhelming one it had almost no cohesion. Each of the Powers, determined on giving as little and getting as much as possible, counted on leaving the Dutch and English to bear the brunt of the fighting and the expense. They quarreled with one another about points of pre- cedence, they were separated by trade rivalries and religious differences, while, Louis, fighting on inside lines, was master of the resources of his kingdom, and, ably assisted by Louvois, the greatest war minister, 1 The title of the eldest son of a viscount in Scotland. 2 Meaning literally Glen of Weeping. It was a dreary, inaccessible spot on the western coast. 630 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Luxembourg, the greatest general, and Vauban, the greatest engineer of the age, could direct, singly and unopposed, the operations of his armies. William had not only to manage his allies and to keep up their enthusiasm, but to face one Jacobite plot after another. Even those in whom he had placed the greatest trust, Russell, Godolphin, and Marlborough, 1 all entered into treasonable negotiations with the enemy. Russell was Admiral of the Fleet and Treasurer of the Navy, but he was not satisfied with the grants and revenues he had received. Godolphin, first Commissioner of the Treasury, a cautious man who feared for the stability of the new Government, was merely laying his plans to be on the safe side in case of change. Maryborough's schemes were more far-reaching. The Campaign of 1691. The Dismissal of Marlborough. In the campaign of 1691, Louis struck the first blow by sending a force w r hich captured Mons, one of the strongest fortresses in the Spanish Nether- lands. William, hampered as he was, arrived too late to relieve it. During the summer he was unable to accomplish anything against Luxembourg, though his army the first which had been led abroad by an English king since Henry VIII took Boulogne gained valu- able experience. It was a serious loss that throughout the war he was deprived of the aid of Marlborough, destined to prove himself in the next reign the most remarkable of England's generals. Marlborough had intrigued with the Jacobites to get rid of William. His plan was to involve Parliament in a quarrel with the King over the removal of his foreign favorites, to get an army to support parliamentary liberties, and then use it to proclaim, not James, but Anne. The Jacobites, becoming suspicious, disclosed his designs, which led William to dismiss him, 10 January, 1692. The Naval Victory of La Hogue, 1692. Early in 1692, James, counting on the discontent of Russell, who commanded the Channel fleet, prepared an invasion of England. Having assembled a fleet and mustered an army of French and Irish at La Hogue, whence they were to be transported to the English coasts, he issued a stupid and ill-timed Declaration, in which he not only expressed no regret for the past and gave no promises for the future, but breathed dire vengeance against all who should oppose his return, and even published a list of those whom he had marked out for punishment, Indeed, it was so damning that the Government had it licensed and freely distributed. Some of the Non-jurors even went so far as to pronounce it false and to issue a forged paper promising a free pardon, with only a few exceptions. Few were deceived, however, and the Declaration, together with the prospect of attack from the French and Irish, roused the intensest patriotism. Russell, who, after all, was a stanch Whig and zealous for the fame of the English navy, declared : " Do not think that I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea. Understand this, that 1 John Churchill had been created Earl of Marlborough at the coronation. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 631 if I meet them, I fight them, aye, though his Majesty himself should be on board." Vigorous preparations for defense were made, the few dangerous Jacobites were locked up, and Mary gained the waverers in the fleet by a touching appeal. So when Tourville again appeared in the Channel, he was met by a combined force of the English and the Dutch, who drove his ships back to the Norman coast and burned the bulk of them in the harbor of La Hogue before the very face of James and his army. The battle of La Hogue, 19-24 May, 1692, marked a decisive step in the supremacy of the English sea power over the French ; for Louis was too much occupied with his land wars to repair the destruction of his fleet. William's Loss of Namur and Defeat at Steenkerke, 1692. William, however, was unable to prevent the French from capturing Namur, June 1692. This town, situated at the confluence of the Meuse and the Sambre, was commanded by a citadel which had never before been taken. On 3 August he was defeated and driven back at the Battle of Steenkerke, in an attempt to surprise Luxembourg, who was guarding the road from Namur to Brussels with a force of 80,000 men. These reverses, together with the repulse of an attack on the French coast at St. Malo, combined to counterbalance the triumph of La Hogue. When the King returned to England in October, after narrowly escaping an attempt on his life hatched in the French war office, the situation was altogether discouraging. English merchant- men were suffering from the pillaging of the enemy's privateers ; an earthquake in Jamaica had destroyed Port Royal; the harvest had failed, owing to heavy rains ; and the insecurity and discontent were aggravated by a startling increase of crime. Housebreakers and footpads were so bold and active that William had to detail cavalry to guard the roads to the capital, and take the sternest measures to put down disorder. Having, with the greatest difficulty, secured supplies for the coming campaign from a parliament torn by faction, he started back for the Netherlands, 24 March, 1693. William's Defeat at Neerwinden, 19 July, 1693. In the early spring, the court at Versailles, tired of supporting James in his uncom- promising attitude, forced him to issue a new Declaration framed to conciliate the English. But it came too late. Moreover, most people distrusted its sincerity, as well they might; for James' secretary accompanied the copy sent to the Pope with the assurance that : " After all, the object of this Declaration is only to get us back to Eng- land. We shall fight the battle of the Catholics with much greater advantage at Whitehall than at St. Germain." This year Louis took the field in person, hoping by moving quickly to capture either Liege or Brussels. When the appearance of William made a battle necessary, he hastened back to Versailles ; for he was always careful of his own safety. The allied army took a strongly intrenched position, where Luxembourg attacked it, 19 July. The battle of Neerwinden or Landen, as it is sometimes called from a neighboring village the 632 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND bloodiest battle of the century and one of the most terrible ever fought in the Netherlands, resulted in another defeat for William. 1 But Luxembourg, though he drove him from the field, did not follow him up, either because his forces were too crippled or because he lacked energy. William, with the wonderful power of recovery for which he was famous, rallied his forces at Brussels, and ended the year's cam- paign in a position fully as strong as when it began. Moreover, the French resources were nearly exhausted. Bread was cheap in Paris, to be sure, but the rural districts were starving. The Failure of the Expedition to Brest. English Successes in the Mediterranean, 1694. The French plan of war for 1694 was to con- centrate its energies against Spain in the Mediterranean. The Eng- lish planned to send out two naval expeditions, one against Brest, the other to the Mediterranean. The destination of the first was be- trayed by Marlborough, who can by no means be exonerated on the ground that Godolphin had disclosed the secret before him. He apparently had a double motive : to secure himself in case William's enemies triurflphed, and to discredit his ablest rival, Talmash, who was in command. The expedition, delayed also by contrary winds, failed in its object and accomplished nothing beyond devastating a few unde- fended points along the French coast. Russell, however, who went to the Mediterranean, was able to save Barcelona from an attack of a combined French army and fleet and to force Tourville to take refuge under the guns of Toulon, after which he went to Cadiz to refit for the winter. His success, by checking Louis XIV's Spanish designs, exercised an effective influence on the subsequent course of the war. The Death of Queen Mary, 28 December, 1694. On 28 Decem- ber, 1694, Queen Mary died of smallpox at the early age of thirty- two. Her birth had " pleased nobody," since a male heir to the Eng- lish throne was wanted. By her marriage, however, with William of Orange she became a great factor in frustrating the designs of James II and checking the growing ascendancy of Louis XIV. At first the union was not a happy one. William, twelve years her senior, was an old young man, who, confronted with tremendous problems, neglected her sadly. But she bore it with cheerful resignation, and, learning to appreciate his mission and his great qualities, came to love him so exclusively that when he started on his expedition to England, she declared " that if she lost him, she should not care for an angel." For him she sacrificed her father and the affections of her sister. Her amiable qualities and her absolute devotion gradually won William's heart, especially when she readily renounced her hereditary rights that he might be the more a king. She endeared herself to the Dutch, and her popularity with the English went far to soften the animosity 1 Macaulay, in one of his striking passages, points how this battle, led on the one side by a "hunch-backed dwarf," on the other by an "asthmatic skeleton," illustrates the remarkable change in the art of warfare since the Middle Ages. Yet William is said to have performed prodigies of valor in person. THE OPENING OF THE GREAT WAR 633 against her sour consort and his Dutch favorites. While she had no desire to mingle in public affairs, she was ever ready to do all she could to take William's place during his frequent absences. She was very charitable, and she did much to raise the standard of religion and morals at court. The King's grief at her loss was terrible. As a memorial to her he caused the splendid palace which had been begun by Charles II at Greenwich to be turned into a hospital for aged and disabled seamen, a plan which she had suggested after the battle of La Hogue. But the Jacobites exulted over the news of her death, one Non-juring divine preaching on the text : " Go : see now this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter." James, who hoped that now he would have a better chance of overthrowing William, forbade any one at his court to wear mourning. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Lodge, Political History, chs. XVI. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, ch. XIV. Cambridge Modern History, V, ch. X. Macaulay, History of England, III, IV, chs. XVII-XX. Ranke, IV, bk. XIX, V; bk. XX. Constitutional. Maitland, English Constitutional History, period IV , pp. 281-293. Hallam, III, ch. XV. Taswell-Langmead, ch. XVI. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. VI, ch. III. Mary T. Blauvelt, The Development of Cabinet Government (1902) ; a good brief sketch. For scholarly treatments of the origin and growth of the Cabinet, see H. W. V. Temperly and Sir William Anson, English Historical Review, XXVII, 682 ff. and XXIX, 56-78, and E. R. Turner, American Historical Review, XVIII, 751-768, XIX, 27-43. A. S. Turberville, The House of Lords in the Reign of William III (1913). Army and Navy. Fortescue. Clowes. Mahan, Sea Power, ch. IV. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, I. Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, III, bk. VII, chs. I, II. Macaulay, III, chs. XII, XIII. For a full bibliography, see Cambridge Modern History, V, pp. 825-837. Special. Seeley, British Policy, II, pt. V, and The Expansion of England (1895) ; a luminous treatment. Contemporary. Burnet, History of His Own Times (ed. 1833), chs. Ill, IV. Church. Hutton, English Church, ch. XIII. Stoughton, Religion in England, III, IV. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 235-240. Robertson Select Statutes, pt. I, nos. XII-XVII. CHAPTER XXXVII THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. WILLIAM ALONE (1694-1702) The Assassination Plot, 1695-1696. The death of Mary, though it broke one of the strongest links between William and the English people and revived the hopes of the Jacobites, helped the King to this extent, that it paved the way for a reconciliation with Marlborough. The Earl now realized that the best way to secure the succession of Anne was to support the reigning sovereign, who was a childless widower not likely to live very long. Meanwhile, the supporters of James planned another attempt to restore him, this time by means of an assassination plot, later coupled with a scheme for raising an insur- rection assisted by an invasion from France. The attempt on William's life was delayed by his departure for the Netherlands in May, 1695. During the campaign of that year he recovered Namur ; for Luxem- bourg, who had died a few hours after Mary, was succeeded in the command of the French army by Villeroy, a royal favorite of inferior military ability. The Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James, who came to England, in January, 1696, to prepare the way for the projected invasion, failed to induce the Jacobites to rise, while, in February, 1696, a design to intercept and kill the King as he was returning to Kensing- ton House after a hunting party at Richmond, was betrayed. The kingdom was hastily put in a state of defense, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, provision was made to continue Parliament for six months in the event of the King's death, and an association was formed to protect the royal person. The Attainder of Fenwick, 1697. Most of the conspirators were arrested, though, owing to the King's wise forbearance, only eight were executed. Among them was Sir John Fenwick, who was captured in June as he was trying to escape to France. Though he had once publicly insulted the late Queen and was implicated in the projected insurrection, he seems to have had nothing to do with the attempt to murder his sovereign. As a means of saving himself he made a con- fession, in which, on hearsay, he accused Russell, Marlborough, Godolphin, and Shrewsbury of Jacobite intrigues. William, to whom all that was disclosed was an old story, at once sent the confession to Shrewsbury with the magnanimous comment that Fenwick had only accused the King's friends without saying anything of the plans 634 COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 635 of the Jacobites. Fenwick was brought to trial, but, after his friends succeeded in getting one of the two witnesses against him to flee the country, 1 a bill of attainder was framed against him. He was ex- ecuted 28 January, i6g7. 2 The Restoration of the Coinage, 1696. Meantime, the great war was drawing to a close. In the -campaign of 1696 the movements of both armies were hampered by lack of money. France was reduced to a state of downright misery, while England was suffering from a temporary financial stringency, due largely to a restoration of the currency. In spite of severe penalties, old clipped and mutilated coins circulated freely, while new ones with milled edges were hoarded or melted down and sold as bullion. The evil was bound to continue so long as those under weight were accepted at their face value. The matter was finally taken up by four remarkable men, John Locke, Lord Somers, Charles Montague, and Sir Isaac Newton, recognized respectively as the greatest political philosopher, the greatest lawyer and statesman, the greatest financier, and the greatest natural philos- opher of the age. Locke outlined the scheme, Somers framed the bill, Montague secured its passage, and Newton, as master of the mint, carried it into effect. The Recoinage Act, passed in January, 1696, provided that the old damaged coins should cease to be legal tender by 4 May. The Government agreed to replace at their face value old coins that were turned in ; but, though the new issue was made with unprecedented rapidity, it did not come fast enough at first to supply the place of the money drawn from circulation. It was not till March, 1697, that the crisis was past. However, the establishment of a sound, stable currency was well worth the temporary hardship. The Peace of Ryswick, 1697. When William met the Houses in October, 1696, he was able to inform them that overtures for peace had already been made by Louis XIV ; but he pointed out that an adequate force was necessary if England was to hold her own in the negotiations. Parliament .responded loyally by voting supplies for 40,000 seamen and an army of 87,000. On 9 May, 1697, a congress of the allies assembled at Ryswick, but it occupied so much time in cere- monious display and trifling points of precedence that William decided to open negotiations with Louis on his own account. Accordingly, in the month of June, he sent his trusted agent, the Earl of Portland, to confer with Marshal Boufflers, one of the most efficient of the French generals, whom Louis had selected as his representative. Before the end of July they had settled all the terms in which England and France were concerned, while the Congress was still wrangling over tedious formalities. " It is odd," declared Harlay, the French plenipotentiary at Ryswick, " that while the ambassadors are making war, the gen- 1 Nominally, though the law was often strained, two witnesses were required to convict a man of treason. 2 Curiously enough, it was Fenwick who had moved the attainder of Monmouth in 1685. He was the last man in England to be executed under a bill of attainder. 636 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND erals should be making peace." So, 30 September, 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick was signed by England, France, the United Provinces, and Spain, the latter power having been whipped into line by the cap- ture of Barcelona in the Old World and Carthagena in the New. Ac- cording to the terms of the peace, William was acknowledged as King of England and Anne his successor, and Louis promised not to aid in plots against him. All conquests made during the war were restored, though Louis was allowed to retain certain places which he had " re- united " : since the peace of Nymwegen, and the chief fortresses in the Netherlands were garrisoned with Dutch troops as a barrier against France. The Emperor thus isolated made peace with France, 30 October. Significance of the Peace of Ryswick. While Louis regarded the peace simply " as a breathing time " until he could make ready to resume his conquests, the mass of Englishmen hailed it with joy as the completion of the Revolution of 1688. In spite of crushing defeats, of threatened dangers in Ireland and Scotland, of Jacobite intrigue and party strife, Louis had been checked for the first time in his victorious career, and had been forced to acknowledge William in place of James. Internal Progress in England since the Outbreak of the War. During the years that war raged on the Continent, a series of measures were passed in England of far-reaching importance in financial, eco- nomic, political, and legal developments. The New East India Company, 1698-1708. The East India Com- pany, now nearly a century old, had become a great monopoly. Shortly after the Revolution, however, the independent traders began a determined agitation for a share in the lucrative business which it controlled. Though the old Company, by the efforts of its able leader, Sir Josiah Child, and by a lavish use of bribery, was able to obtain a renewal of its charter, its opponents gained a victory in the end. By an act which received the royal assent 5 July, 1698, a new General Society was authorized which was to contribute 2,000,000 to the State. Members consisted of subscribers to the fund, who received exclusive trading rights in the East Indies in proportion to the amount subscribed. It was provided in the Act that members might, under royal charter, form joint stock companies within the Society, or the whole Society might form itself into a single joint stock company. During the course of the struggle the House of Commons passed a notable resolution, declaring that no power except Parliament alone could grant exclusive trading privileges to English subjects, either individuals or companies. Finally, in 1708, the old East India Com- pany and the General Society were consolidated under the name of the " United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies." It survived for over a century and a half, though toward the end with steadily diminishing powers. 1 I.e. appropriated on the ground that they had once belonged to France. COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 637 A New Financial Era. The 2,000,000 subscribed by the General Society in 1698 was only one indication of a new financial era which had opened in England. Since the accession of William a series of measures had been inaugurated of momentous importance both abroad and at home. Louis, during the late war, had declared that the Power with the last gold piece would win, and it was due largely to the effec- tive financial organization begun in this period that England won her successes in the great European conflicts of the eighteenth century. Moreover, it resulted in the ascendancy of the Whigs and the perma- nence of the Revolution Settlement. The moneyed classes the merchants and traders belonged mainly to the Whig party, which grew in strength and influence as the State turned to it more and more for loans. Then, naturally, men who had invested their funds under the existing Government would struggle to uphold it ; since the return of James meant repudiation of the debts which it had contracted. The Beginnings of the National Debt. The new policy was chiefly the work of a remarkable politician and financier, Charles Montague (1665-1715), created Baron and later Earl of Halifax. At the very beginning of King William's War it became evident that, in spite of new and increased taxes, the annual revenue was insufficient to cover expenses. The experience of the goldsmiths, in consequence of the Stop of the Exchequer, made the prospects of obtaining further loans in the ordinary way very discouraging. However, there was a surplus of capital in the country and. few opportunities of placing it safely and profitably. Many were reduced to hoarding their savings in strong boxes or burying them in the ground. In consequence, stockjobbers and fraudulent companies, with all sorts of speculative schemes, began to multiply alarmingly. There was, for instance, a Royal Academies Company for the education of young gentlemen in every branch of learning, and a Diving Company to recover lost treasure from the sea. Following the example of Italy, France, and the Netherlands, which had long had permanent debts, Montague determined to secure for the use of the Government some of the surplus capital which was lying idle or being wasted in futile speculation. To that end he framed a measure, which became law in January, 1693, for borrowing 1,000,000. The subscribers were to receive life annuities of 10 per cent till 1700 and 7 per cent after that date. As the annuitants died off, their yearly portions were to be divided among the survivors until only seven were left. Henceforth the payments, guaranteed by special taxes, were to go to the State. Such was the beginning of the National Debt. 1 The Foundation of the Bank of England, 1694. Neither the loan of 1693 nor various new devices which were adopted 2 proved adequate 1 It amounted to 50,000,000 at the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, to 240,000,000 at the close of the American Revolution in 1783, and in 1815 to 840,000,000. 2 One was a state lottery loan of which the details were arranged by a profes- sional gambler. 638 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to meet the constantly swelling expenses of the war, whereupon Monta- gue adopted another expedient the founding of the Bank of England. Already, in the reign of Charles II, men had begun to intrust their money to the goldsmiths who had special facilities for the safe keep- ing of the precious metals which they employed in their business. The depositors received notes which they circulated in their transac- tions, while the goldsmiths frequently let out at interest the funds intrusted to their care. In this way the banking business in England began. Before the close of Charles' reign the question of a national bank commenced to be discussed. At Genoa there had been such an institution for almost three centuries, and there was a Bank of Amster- dam nearly a hundred years old. Various plans were suggested to the English Government, some wise and some foolish. The one adopted by Montague in 1694 had been outlined in a pamphlet three years previously by William Paterson, a brilliant but erratic Scotchman destined soon to attain unenviable notoriety. The new project provided that the Government should borrow 1,200,000 at 8 per cent and that the subscribers should be incorporated as the " Governor and Company of the Bank of England." The corporation was authorized to engage in private banking ; it could borrow at 4 per cent and lend upon security ; it could deal in bullion and bills of exchange, but was prohibited from dealing in merchandise in any form. It could issue notes, though they were not legal tender, nor was the institution in any sense a monopoly. The Bank, during its early years, had to struggle against formida- ble obstacles. It was fiercely attacked, chiefly by the Tories and the disappointed authors of rival schemes. The most absurd and con- tradictory arguments were advanced to discredit it. Some denounced it as a republican institution, apparently on the ground that no bank had ever existed in a monarchy, while others prophesied that it would be an agent of despotism. Any possible danger of the latter sort was met by a provision that it could not loan any money to the Crown except by act of Parliament. Some of its noisiest opponents had a scheme for creating a bank which should lend money and circulate notes on the security of land, and, on the promise to lend the Govern- ment 2,500,000 at 7 per cent, they got a bill through Parliament authorizing the establishment of such an institution. Fortunately the land bank project collapsed, because its chief advocates were land- owners who wanted to borrow, while men who had money to lend were so distrustful that only a few thousand pounds were subscribed. A more serious danger came from certain goldsmiths who bought up notes and presented them for payment during the money stringency caused by the recoinage act. The directors met the attempted run by refusing to cash such notes, though they endeavored to care for those who honestly needed money. The Bank advanced the funds required to pay the expenses of the recoinage and also the sum which the land bank had promised to loan. In consequence it was granted new priv- COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 639 ileges in 1697 : it was made a monopoly until 1710, and was allowed to issue notes payable on demand. The Triennial Act, 1694. An attempt at parliamentary reform resulted in a new Triennial Act in 1694. The act of 1641 had been concerned primarily to secure frequent parliaments, but the practice of passing the Mutiny Act and of appropriating supplies annually had, since the accession of William and Mary, rendered a precaution of this sort no longer necessary. A crying evil, however, was the corruption and bribery which had come to flourish so rankly, particularly since the early days of the Pensionary Parliament. If members were only called to account by their constituents at long and infrequent intervals, they were bound to barter their votes all the more readily. 1 The Tories preferred a measure excluding all placemen from the Commons, but that did not reach those who took bribes of money, and, further- more, the Place Bill which they introduced in 1692 went too far in excluding the great ministers of State as well as minor officials. If that practice had been permanently incorporated into the Constitution, the present system of Cabinet government would have been impossible. A bureaucracy would have grown up, or the sovereign would have chosen his advisers solely from the House of Lords, and the Lower House would never have secured that direct control over the ministers which it now enjoys. By the Triennial Act of 1694, the Whigs carried their plan, first introduced in 1692, which was to limit the duration of Parliament to three years. The Act regulating Trials for Treason, 1696. While the Habeas Corpus Act had made it difficult to hold accused persons in prison without cause and while juries were no longer answerable for verdicts contrary to the wishes of the Government, 2 the case of a prisoner brought before the courts was grievous. He was not shown a copy of his indictment before the trial, and so did not know of what he was accused until he appeared at the bar. He had no power to compel the attendance of witnesses, nor to force such as came to testify under oath, and he was denied the benefit of counsel. After the Tories had got a taste of what the Whigs and Nonconformists had long suffered, they began to join in seeking a remedy. In the session of 1690-1691 a bill for regulating trials in cases of high treason was introduced into the House of Commons, where it passed by a large and enthusiastic major- ity. Then a sudden obstacle arose. Peers accused of treason and felony were tried by their own House under the presidency of a High Steward appointed by the sovereign. When Parliament was in session the whole Upper House acted as judges, at other times the High 1 One Titus, who had been in public life since the days of the Commonwealth, put the matter with as much truth as quaintness when he declared in a speech, that: "Parliament resembled the manna which God bestowed upon the chosen people. They were excellent while they were fresh : but, if kept too long, they became noisome, and foul worms were engendered by the corruption of that which had been sweeter than honey." 2 Decided in Bushel's case, 1670. 640 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Steward arbitrarily selected twelve peers from his court. To remedy this obvious injustice, the Lords, when the treason bill reached them, introduced an amendment providing that in all cases, whether Parlia- ment was in session or not, peers should be tried by the whole House. The extreme Whigs objected to this amendment and held out for some years, with the result that the act did not finally pass till 1696. Its main provisions were : that no person could be convicted of a treason committed more than three years before the indictment was found ; that every person accused of high treason should be allowed the bene- fit of counsel ; that he should be furnished with a copy of the indict- ment at least five days before the trial, and a list from which the jury was to be taken; that his witnesses should be sworn ; that they should be cited by the same process as those summoned against him ; and that there must be for conviction two witnesses to the same overt act or to two related acts of the same treason. 1 The End of the Censorship of the Press, 1695. Meantime, a long step had been taken toward the emancipation of the press. For a great while the Government had sought to muzzle the expression of public opinion by a strict censorship over all printed matter. Nothing could be published without a license and the official censor exercised a wide and oppressive discretion. Milton, in the Areopagitica, made a noble but futile plea against such a state of things. At length, in 1693, when the licensing act came up for renewal, a curious quarrel, in which the official licenser became involved and which had no bearing on the merits of the question, led to the first debate in Parliament on the liberty of the press, with the consequence that the act was renewed only for two years and then allowed to expire. This final renunciation of the censorship of the press was based, not on any broad grounds of principle, but was due to petty abuses connected with the administra- tion of the act. The new era of the modern newspaper now began. Hitherto, since the Restoration, the only authorized newspaper had been the London Gazette? which contained nothing but such official news as the Secretary of State was pleased to allow to be published. Now appeared the English Courant, followed by others in quick suc- cession. With the removal of the censorship the temper of the pamphlets and papers improved perceptibly ; for, up to this time, only the violent and reckless had dared to defy the law. Even yet the press was far from being absolutely free. The law of libel was strictly enforced, and from the time of Anne until the nineteenth cen- tury heavy stamp duties operated to keep down the number of cheap newspapers. 1 Anthony Ashley Cooper, grandson of the famous Shaftesbury, is said to have furthered the final passage of the act by breaking down in his speech and then com- paring his case to that of a poor prisoner brought suddenly before his accusers. Prisoners in ordinary criminal cases had to wait till the nineteenth century before their lot was appreciably bettered. 2 Started in 1665 as the Oxford Gazelle. COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 641 William turns toward the Whigs, 1693. The press came to be the chief organ for informing and expressing public opinion an essential factor in party government. It was in this period that ministers were, for the first time, chosen because they represented the party dominant in the House of Commons. As early as 1690, Shrewsbury had advised William to govern exclusively through Whig ministers, for the reason that the Tories were chiefly Jacobites. William, however, disliked to bind himself absolutely to the Whigs. While the Tories, as a party, were inclined to the exiled James, they were supporters of prerogative and their leaders were experienced in administration. The Whigs, on the other hand, had been so long out of office that few of their number were well versed in public affairs, and they were opposed to giving the King a free hand either at home or abroad. But, gradually, William's own political sagacity and the arguments of Sunderland, who had wormed himself into his confidence, had convinced him that the success of his contest against Louis could best be secured by con- fining himself to ministers who commanded the support of the Whig party, which controlled the Commons, was financing the war, and of which the commercial prosperity, property, and religious and political security depended upon its favorable issue. Its leaders at that time 'consisted of a group of four men of remarkable ability and influence, known as the " Junto." The " Junto " and the First Party Cabinet, 1694-1697. Edward Russell, later Earl of Orford, in spite of his treasonable intrigues l and his wayward temper, was distinguished as a member of one of the lead- ing English families and for notable services to his country and the new dynasty. John Somers was a sagacious, many-sided man ; not only was he one of the most eminent jurists and statesmen of his time, 2 but he was famous as a connoisseur of art and a patron of scholars. Mon- tague was already recognized for his financial ability and skill in debate. Thomas Wharton, author of Lillibullero, was the most picturesque member of the group, unrivaled in the tricks of electioneering and as a party organizer. Known as " Honest Tom " by his adoring fol- lowers, and endowed with rare personal charm and courage, he was, nevertheless, dissipated, shameless, and an unprincipled liar. The Tories, disunited and disorganized, had no effective leaders to pit against this combination ; for their ablest men had lost their influence. Yet William, who disliked Russell and Wharton and valued the services of Carmarthen, Nottingham, and Godolphin, only slowly and of neces- sity got rid of his Tory advisers. In 1693, in consequence of disputes between Russell and Nottingham over the management of the fleet, he reluctantly dismissed the latter. In 1695, Carmarthen, now Duke of Leeds, was forced to retire, owing to charges of bribery in connec- tion with the renewal of the charter of the Old East India Company. 1 They were not known to the rank and file of his party. 2 Recently, however, some historians have come to think that, owing to the in- fluence of Macaulay, the attainments and integrity of Somers have been overrated. 2T 6 4 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND In 1697 Goldolphin resigned as a result of the disclosures of Fenwick. Thus, at the time when the nation was celebrating the conclusion of the Peace of Ryswick, the Cabinet was entirely Whig, though William con- tinued to consult such unofficial advisers as Sunderland and his Dutch favorite the Earl of Portland. The Reduction of the Standing Army, 1697-1698. No sooner was the war over than Parliament came into violent conflict with the King by insisting on a reduction of the standing army. The step was due partly to economy, for the public debt had increased to 17,000,000, and partly to the prevalent view that a standing army was not only contrary to the Constitution but dangerous to liberty. People remem- bered the power that Cromwell had been able to wield with the New Model at his back and the strife which his generals had caused after his death ; they remembered how James had tried to overawe London with his force on Hounslow Heath ; and they recalled with shudders the excesses of Kirke's Lambs and Dundee's bloody suppression of the Covenanters. In a hot pamphlet war which preceded the debates in Parliament, Somers contributed his famous "Balancing Letter, " in which he contended that the militia were by no means sufficient for the defense of England, and argued ably for an adequate standing force dependent on parliamentary support and control. In spite of all, the army was reduced from 87,000 to 10,000, though a liberal grant was made for the maintenance of the navy. An attempt on the part of the extreme Tories to strike a blow at William's favorites by annulling all grants of Crown lands made since the Revolution was cleverly frustrated by the Ministry, who coupled with the measure bills to include the grants made by Charles II and James I. The King, who was firmly convinced that such a wholesale reduction of the army was the surest way to precipitate a new war, and who had frankly stated his views in a speech to the Houses, was provoked to the unconstitu- tional step of leaving sealed orders, when he went to Holland at the close of the session, that 16,000 men should be kept on foot. As a result, a bill was forced on him in the autumn of 1698 reducing the army from 10,000 to 7000. It was further provided that it should consist of Englishmen alone, thus necessitating the exclusion of the Dutch guards. The King was so disgusted that he again talked of quitting the country. 1 The Irish Forfeitures, 1699-1700. In another quarrel between the Crown and the Commons, neither side appears to great advantage. It had been decided to devote a large share of the property of James' adherents in Ireland to the public service. Although the sovereign had a legal right to dispose of such forfeitures at will, William had agreed, in answer to an address from Parliament, 20 January, 1690, to make no grants until the matter had been acted upon in the next session. Nothing was done, apparently owing to the obstruction of 1 The story is probably not true that William stamped furiously about the room, declaring : "If I had a son, by God, the guards should not leave me." COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 643 Government agents, whereupon the King proceeded to make lavish grants to his favorites. Finally, in 1699, the Commons appointed a committee to investigate the question and to frame a plan of resump- tion. In order to prevent the Lords from amending the measure, it was " tacked " to the Land Tax Bill ; for it was the rule that the Upper House must pass or reject a money bill in the form in which they received it. In the next year a Resumption Bill, based on the major- ity report of the committee, was passed, again by tacking. Unfor- tunately, the act included in its " resumptions " Irish lands which had never been forfeited. This was especially unjust to those who had stood by William, as well as to some who had been induced to accept the new dynasty on the distinct understanding that they should retain their estates. While the lavishness, the favoritism, and sharp practice of the King cannot be defended, the temper and methods of the Com- mons are scarcely less blameworthy. The Break-up of the Whig Ministry, 1699. The defeat of the King in his attempt to prevent the reduction of the army and the resumption of the Irish forfeitures are only the chief indications of the failure of his Ministry to control Parliament after the general election of 1698. The Tories did not get an actual majority until the Parlia- ment of 1701 ; but, reenforced by the malcontent Whigs, they were able to obstruct the Junto at every turn. There was blame on both sides ; for while the Commons were meddlesome and overbearing, Montague, who had once been such an effective parliamentary mana- ger, spoiled by his success, had grown haughty and uncompromising. Orford retired from the position of First Lord of the Admiralty in May, 1699 ; Montague resigned the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the First Lordship of the Treasury in the autumn, while Somers was deprived of the Great Seal in the following year. In the later, more developed stage of the party system they would have retired in a body directly a hostile majority was formed against them, or have appealed to the country in a general election. However, the fact that William dismissed Somers in consequence of a parliamentary attack marked another stage in the progress of party government. The Act of Settlement, 1701. One measure of great significance stands out in the midst of the strife and confusion of these years the Act of Settlement, which formed a necessary supplement to the Bill of Rights. It was occasioned by the death, in July, 1701, of the Duke of Gloucester, Anne's last surviving child. In providing for the succession the Bill of Rights went no farther than the descendants of Anne. The new Act, excluding all other claimants, provided that, in the event of the death of Anne without heirs, the crown should pass to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her descendants. She was the granddaughter of James I and the nearest Protestant representative of the English royal house. 1 Various limitations were also embodied 1 She was a daughter of Elizabeth and Palsgrave Frederick, and had married the Elector of Hanover. Two branches of the House of Stuart were nearer in the 644 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in the Act, some to take effect only when the new line came to the throne. Eight of the provisions are specially important, (i) Who- ever shall come to the throne of England shall join in communion with the Church of England. (2) In case such sovereigns shall not be natives of England they shall not engage the nation in war in defense of territories not belonging to the crown of England except by consent of Parliament. (3) Such a sovereign shall not go out of the realm without parliamentary consent. (4) No foreigner shall be a member of Parliament, hold any office, or have any grant of land from the Crown. (5) All matters relating to the well governing of the kingdom properly belong to the whole Privy Council, shall be considered there, and all resolutions taken shall be signed by all members that advise and consent. (6) No person having an office or place of profit under the king, or who receives a pension from him, shall sit in the House of Commons. (7) Judges shall hold office during good behavior (quam- diu se bene gesserini) and shall only be removed upon an address of both Houses. (8) No pardon may be pleaded in bar of an impeach- ment. While the first four of these provisions were designed as safeguards in the event of a foreign sovereign coming to the throne, the last four dealt with distinctly domestic problems. The attempt to revive and extend the powers of the old Privy Council was aimed at the royal practice of consulting unofficial advisers and at the practice of transact- ing State business in Cabinet meetings where no formal records were kept. But ministers were not inclined to accept the increased respon- sibility of attaching their names to the measures which they supported, and sovereigns did not care to be bound to the whole Privy Council, so the measure was repealed in the reign of Anne. The provision relating to officeholders not sitting in Parliament was simply the old Place Bill, to which all the former objections could be urged. It was modified by an Act of 1705, which remains in force today. That Act provided that holders of offices created after that date should be in- eligible to sit in the House of Commons, 1 while a member of the Lower House appointed to an office which existed earlier must resign his seat and submit himself for reelection. The seventh provision merely remedied the evil of appointing judges during the royal pleasure, a power which the first two Stuarts had so grossly abused. The last was a legal confirmation of the attitude taken by Parliament in the impeachment of Danby in 1678. The War of the Spanish Succession. The Claimants to the Spanish Throne. Meantime, England had been drifting into another great line of descent, but were both excluded because of their Roman Catholic faith. The elder line, descended from James II, became extinct with the death of his grandson Henry, Cardinal of York, in 1807. The younger was descended from the sister of James II who married the Duke of Orleans. It is at present represented by Mary, wife of the King of Bavaria. 1 This, however, does not prevent Parliament in an act creating a new office from providing that the incumbent may sit in the House of Commons. COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 645 continental war occasioned by a scramble for the Spanish inheritance. Spain had been nominally ruled since 1665 by Charles II, who had ascended the throne as a boy of four. In spite of its vast European and colonial possessions, the country was in a state of misery and decay, bankrupt, and priest-ridden. Under Philip IV, Portugal had recovered her sovereignty, and the Northern Provinces of the Nether- lands had secured the recognition of their independence. Charles II, feeble in mind and body, had been forced to yield Tranche Comte, and many border territories in the Spanish Netherlands to France. Now Louis XIV and the Emperor Leopold I were impatiently waiting the death of the shadow King to seize the residue of the monarchy, the one for the House of Bourbon, the other for the House of Hapsburg. Both had a claim on the inheritance, while still a third claim was advanced in behalf of Joseph Ferdinand, the infant son of the elector of Bavaria. 1 Since, in the interest of the European balance of power, neither England nor Holland would consent to a union of Spain either with France or the Empire, Louis urged the Bourbon claim in behalf of his second grandson, Philip, while Leopold put in his for his second son, Charles. The First and Second Partition Treaties, 1698 and 1700. The pride of the Spanish demanded that the monarchy should be handed on intact, while a partition between the claimants seemed the only possible solution of the vexed question. The French King played a double game. While his ambassador, Harcourt, was laboring at the Spanish court to secure the whole of the Spanish inheritance, Louis 2 and William negotiated the First Partition Treaty, 3 signed October, i PHILIP III I Louis XIII m. Anna Maria PHILIP IV Maria Anne m. Ferdinand III Louis XIV m. Maria Theresa CHARLES II Margaret m. Leopold I m. Eleanor of New- burg, 3d wife Louis Louis Philip Max Emanuel of Bavaria m. Maria Antonia Joseph Ferdinand Joseph Both Louis XIII and Louis XIV had married elder daughters of Philip III and Philip IV, respectively ; but both Infantas had renounced on. their marriage any claim to inherit the throne of Spain. Louis XIV, however, denied the validity of these renunciations. Philip IV by will had left the crown, in the event of the death of Charles without issue, to the heirs of Margaret. Their daughter Maria Antonia, however, had renounced her claim in favor of any son that her father might have from a subsequent marriage ; but this step was not recognized as legal by the Spanish. 2 He feared that, in case Harcourt failed, William might come to terms with the Emperor. 3 John Arbuthnot wrote a witty satire entitled The History of John Bull, in which he represented England and Holland as a clothier and a linen draper undertaking to settle the estate of a bedridden old gentleman. The name, now applied to the typical Englishman, may be traced to this work. 646 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND 1698, whereby the Electoral Prince of Bavaria was to have Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and the colonies, while the remainder of the Spanish possessions should be divided between the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs. The Emperor, who was to receive only the Duchy of Milan by the arrangement, was indignant enough when the news leaked out; but the Spanish were furious. "They will rather," wrote the English ambassador, " deliver themselves up to the French or the devil, so they may all go together, than be dismembered." In consequence, Charles II, 14 November, 1698, proceeded to confirm the will of Philip IV, leaving the whole dominion to Joseph Ferdinand. This arrangement, however, was upset by the sudden death of the Electoral Prince, 5 February, 1699, of smallpox, it was said, though many believed he was poisoned. Thereupon, a second Partition Treaty was framed between England and France which was finally signed in February, 1700. It provided that Spain, the Netherlands, and the Colonies should go to the Archduke Charles, while the French dauphin was to have Naples, Sicily, and Guipuzcoa. In addition, France was to receive Lorraine, while the Duke of that country was to be indemnified with Milan. The Emperor, who wanted the whole Spanish inheritance for his House, hung off. King Charles, when the news was communicated to him, " flew into an extraordinary passion, and the Queen, in her rage, smashed to pieces everything in the room." French diplomacy, supported by the Church, now worked so effectively upon him and his advisers that he signed a final will, 3 October, 1700, less than a month before his death, leaving all his dominions to Philip of Anjou on condition that they should never be united to France. Louis forthwith threw over the Second Partition Treaty. The Impeachment of William's Whig Ministers, 1701. War was now inevitable ; but it seemed at first doubtful whether William could carry England with him ; for the Tories, whose policy was peace with France, were in a majority in the new Parliament which opened in February, 1701. One of their first acts was to impeach Portland, Orford, Halifax, and Somers for negotiating the Partition Treaties. 1 As a matter of fact, William had employed only Portland, without even consulting the others, to whom he presented only the barest outline of the treaties for signature after all the terms had been settled. This was the most high-handed action of William's whole reign ; but, considering that the parliamentary action had reduced his standing army to almost nothing, he had made even better terms than they had a right to expect. They overreached themselves by their parti- san zeal, and antagonized the Lords by their overbearing demands, so that all the proceedings had to be dropped. 1 In the case of Halifax and Somers other charges were complicated with those relating to their supposed share in the Partition Treaties. Halifax was accused of misuse of public funds, and Somers with contributing to the expedition of the fa- mous Captain Kidd. COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 647 The Tories forced to join the War Party. However, the realiza- tion that Spain was to be used as a pawn in Louis' great game of es- tablishing the political and commercial ascendancy of France aroused such a storm of anti-French wrath throughout England that even the Tory House of Commons was forced to join in the cry for war. The Spanish ambassador at Paris first aroused disquiet by declaring: II n'y a plus de Pyrenees. 1 Then Louis showed his hand: in December of 1700 he declared that Philip by mounting the throne of Spain did not renounce his place in the line of succession to the crown of France ; in February, 1701, his troops took possession of the barrier fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands; and what touched the great mercantile class in England even more closely, he issued a proclama- tion that France would be treated as the most favored nation in the Spanish- American trade. A stream of pamphlets appeared one of them by Daniel Defoe, later famous as the author of Robinson Crusoe unfolding vehemently the dangers which threatened the country and her commerce. 2 Public opinion demanded immediate action, and .a famous petition from Kent, 8 May, 1701, voiced the prevailing senti- ment in begging the Commons to " turn its loyal addresses into bills of supply " and to enable the King " powerfully to assist his allies before it is too late." The House, though it showed its resentment of the proceeding and attempted to punish those who introduced the petition, nevertheless voted William a generous sum for aiding his allies to the extent of waging war if necessary. The Grand Alliance, 7 September, 1701. In July, negotiations were opened, with the result that the treaty of the Hague, known as the Grand Alliance, was signed 7 September, 1701. By it the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands and Italy were to be secured for the House of Austria, while England and Holland were to have any con- quests which they might make in the western world. The Emperor had hoped that the Allies would back him in his attempt to secure the whole of the Spanish kingdom for his son Charles ; but, for the present, they refused to go so far. The general purposes of the war were to check the growth of France, to protect the Netherlands by an ade- quate barrier, and to secure English and Dutch trade. With the Emperor political considerations dominated, while the interests of the English were primarily commercial, and, except for the defense of her borders, this was equally true of Holland. The Death of James II, 6 September, 1701. Although William had not heard of it when he signed the treaty of the Grand Alliance, another event had occurred which accentuated the growing hostility to France. James II died 6 September, and Louis, visiting him on his deathbed, promised solemnly to recognize his son as James III, 1 Literally, "There are no more Pyrenees," meaning that henceforth France and Spain were one. 2 England did much legitimate business with the Spanish possessions in the way of carrying on trade and exchange of wares, and still more smuggling. 648 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND King of England. William was so affected by the news that he pulled his hat over his face to conceal his emotions. In a splendid speech, the last he ever made to Parliament, he emphasized eloquently the danger which this recognition involved to the Protestant religion and to the " present and future tranquillity and happiness of the country." The Houses, in reply, begged him to insert a provision in the treaty that no peace would be made without a further guarantee of the Prot- estant succession; they voted an army of 40,000 soldiers, together with an equal force for the fleet, and, early in 1702, passed an Abjura- tion Bill. It attainted the son of James of high treason, made it treasonable to have any dealings with him, and imposed a new oath on certain, classes, acknowledging William as the rightful heir and lawful King and abjuring the Pretender. Death of William, 8 March, 1702. William did not live to open the spring campaign ; the great work which he had begun was taken up and carried to a splendid fulfillment by Marlborough, who had once sought to betray him. All through the winter of 1701 William was steadily failing in health. On 20 February, 1702, as he was riding in Hampton Court Park, his favorite horse, Sorrel, 1 stumbled and threw him to the ground. He never recovered from the shock, and died, 8 March. Although he had come to England as a deliverer, he had never been popular with the mass of his subjects. His faults of temper, his dislike of the country and the people, his weak health and engrossing occupations, which gave him little opportunity to cultivate his subjects, go far to account for this. But the explanation lies even deeper. In order to concentrate his resources for his supreme task that of frustrating the designs of France he labored to maintain a strong executive at a time when the tendency was toward increased parliamentary control. Many of the chief constitutional reforms of the reign, such as the Triennial Act, the Act regulating Treason Trials, and the Act of Settlement, not only did not originate with him, but were only accepted by him as inevitable concessions. The Public Debt and the Bank, though occasioned by his financial necessities, were the work of others. He directed his own foreign policy without consulting his ministers any more than he was abso- lutely obliged to ; he was opposed to the Whigs and to parliamentary inquiry ; and he struggled throughout his reign for a standing army and an independent revenue, commonly regarded as the instruments of despotism. Yet his merits and achievements were great. Men who did not love him respected his courage and his steadfastness. He forced the Act of Grace on the angry and revengeful Whigs, he was largely responsible for the Toleration Act, and he was the first to put into operation the system of party government. Finally, though he did not appreciate what was to come, his expulsion of the Stuarts made possible the great Revolution Settlement which so pro- 1 Curiously enough, a horse which had once been owned by Fenwick. COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION 649 foundly affected the subsequent development of the English Constitu- tion, and his wars with France prepared the way for Great Britain's commercial and colonial supremacy. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Lodge, chs. XVII-XIX. Macaulay, IV, chs. XVII ff. V. Ranke, V., bks. XX, XXI. Special. C. F. Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking (2 ed., O. M. W. Sprague, 1901), ch. XI; an excellent brief account of the Bank of England. A. Andreades, History of the Bank of England (tr. C. Meredith, 1909). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 241-243. Robertson, Select Statutes, pt. I, nos. XVIII-XX. For further references, see ch. XXXVI above. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY. ANNE (1702-1714) The Character of Anne. Anne was thirty-seven years old when she succeeded William, 8 March, 1702. Naturally meek and sluggish and of a limited understanding, she was incapable of dealing inde- pendently with the great problems at home and abroad which confronted her. She had strong prejudices and warm affections, she allowed her friends to influence her, and, like her father, obstinately regarded those who disagreed with her as unworthy of all confidence. Her life was full of unhappiness and illusions. Her mother died when she was six years old, religious differences estranged her from her father, the designs of unscrupulous intriguers alienated her from William and Mary, while necessity forced her to support the party whose political and religious principles were absolutely antagonistic to her own. Nor could she have been more, unfortunate in her closest as- sociates. Prince George of Denmark, whom she married as a girl of eighteen, was a kindly gentleman who either had no capacity or lacked the force to assert it, and who, as the years went on, did little but grow fat and become more and more addicted to his bottle. Sarah Jennings (wife of John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough) , with whom, as a girl, she had contracted the most intimate of friendships, gained a complete ascendancy over her, which lasted well into the new reign. Waiving the formalities of royalty, the favorite, under the name of Mrs. Freeman, addressed her nominal mistress as Mrs. Morley. Sarah was a beautiful and capable, but a designing, avaricious woman. Utterly without scruple, her interests were thoroughly bound up with those of her husband, though she often quarreled with him, as she did with every one who came within range of her shrewish tongue. Yet, while she embittered all Anne's family relationships and fomented party strife, her efforts to advance her family contributed greatly to the triumph which England achieved in the war about to open. Her Relation to Parties and to her People. Anne abhorred fac- tion ; but she was passionately devoted to the Church, 1 and she hated the Whigs, whom she regarded as hostile alike to the Establishment and to the prerogative. This led her to meddle busily in the adminis- tration of the government, to attend cabinet councils and debates in the House of Lords, and to assert herself in appointments of Church 1 She wrote to Mary in 1688 that " she would rather live on alms than change her religion." 650 THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 651 and State officials. Thus she came into sharp conflict with the grow- ing tendency toward party government. Her activity, however, was confined largely to politics. She took little interest in the learning and literature of the period. Nor did she care for art, either in build- ing, painting, or music. All in all, however, she was popular. Never a beauty, she grew very fat in her last years ; but she had a comfort- able, placid appearance ; she was very amiable, until the persecution of Mrs. Freeman made her suspicious and irritable ; her domestic life was beyond criticism ; and the fact that she was a woman always appealed to the mass of her subjects. Then, too, she was generous and charitable. 1 More important still, she represented the cause of Protestantism against the Pretender, while she supported the con- tinental war until the zeal of her subjects was spent, until they began to grumble over the expense and to ask themselves what they were getting in return for all they had done for the allies. The Tories. While Anne's prejudices, worked upon by " court intrigues and faction," played a great part in the history of the reign, the two great parties came to exercise a steadily increasing influence. The Tories, composed largely of the most conservative element in the realm the squirearchy and the country parsons set them- selves obstinately against the changes which followed in the wake of the Revolution. They were opposed bitterly to toleration for Dis- senters as a serious menace to true* religion ; to the National Debt and the Bank, which tended to enhance the power of the moneyed classes over the landed; and to a standing army raised primarily against the monarch who sheltered their true king. The great Whig lords were abominable in their eyes ; since many of them were new men, not a few sprung from trading and dissenting stock, and most of them allied with that class. The Whig bishops and Low Churchmen they classed as free thinkers or Presbyterians. Many who did not love going to church enjoyed pulling down Dissenting meeting houses ; indeed the religion of this sort consisted chiefly in hating their op- ponents, in which class they included Huguenot and Lutheran refugees, who furnished more recruits for their opponents and who seemed to them all the more odious from the fact that they brought new industries into the country. " Trade," they cried, " would be the ruin of the English nation." Although the majority were stanch supporters of the existing sovereign against the Pretender, they were seriously handicapped from the fact that, in principle, they still ad- hered to their anti-Revolutionary doctrines, a fact which caused their loyalty to Anne and the Hanoverian succession to be seriously doubted. 1 One of the lasting monuments of her reign is Queen Anne's Bounty. As a means of augmenting the incomes of the poor clergy she furthered a measure, which passed in the session of 1703-1704, for devoting to this purpose the tenths and the annates which Henry VIII had appropriated for the Crown. At that time amount- ing to only 14,000, it has since been increased by parliamentary grants and private donations until it now amounts to several millions. 652 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Whigs. The Whigs, made up of the great lords, the bulk of bishops and town clergy, the Nonconformists, the army men, trie merchants, the financiers, and the small freeholders, were, in general, although their practice did not always accord with their principles * the party of progress, of popular as distinct from class interests, favoring the growth of commerce and toleration and the limitation of the prerogative. While they carried the war too far and had to yield to their opponents the credit such as it was of the peace, they achieved notable results. They broke up the great combination be- tween France and Spain and all the dangers which it might have in- volved to national independence, Protestantism, and freedom of trade. They secured the Dutch by an adequate barrier and the transference of the Spanish Netherlands, and checked France's expansion in the Mediterranean by lopping off her Italian possessions. For England the Whigs secured important possessions in the New World and a share in western trade as well as Gibraltar, the key of the Mediterra- nean. The union with Scotland and the peaceful accession of the Han- overians, with all that was involved, were also the work of the Whigs. The Resources of France and the Allies at the Opening of the War. On 4 May, 1702, the Allies at London, the Hague, and Vienna all declared war on France, while the Imperial General had already begun fighting in Italy during the previous year. In many respects Louis XIV seemed to have even greater advantages than in the previous struggle. Not only was he fighting on inside lines, but his flanks were guarded by Spain on the south and by the fortresses in the Nether- lands on the north, while his alliance with the Elector of Bavaria thrust a wedge between the Dutch and the Austrians. He had an army of 400,000 men well disciplined and full of confidence. His fleet numbered no men-of-war, of which 60 carried 104 guns apiece. He had a revenue of 100,000,000 livres. On the other hand, the tre- mendous strain due to the expenses of the " Sun King's " magnificent court and his constant wars had begun to tell. His debts were so enormous that he could only borrow money at 1 5 to 20 per cent, and it took half his annual revenue to pay the interest. Of the Allies, Holland had a small army but a strong fleet and extensive public credit, while the Emperor, who could furnish large contingents, had no money to pay them. The burden of the war fell more and more on the English. When it opened, they had a fleet of 174 men-of-war, 24 of them carrying no guns each, besides numerous fireships and gunboats, " yachts " as they were called. Their standing army con- sisted of only 7000 troops in England and 12,000 in Ireland, though adequate forces were soon equipped and sent into the field. The total debt was 17,500,000; but 6,750,000 of this was funded 2 and 1 This was more especially true during their long tenure of power later in the century. 2 That is, put on a permanent footing with the interest guaranteed by special taxes. THE END OF -THE STUART DYNASTY 653 money could be borrowed at 6 per cent. Though the annual revenue was only 2,400,000, this was speedily swelled by extraordinary sup- plies. On the other hand, though the Tories at first supported the war, party strife soon became acute, while the Allies, who had nothing in common but the desire to crush France, were torn by conflicting interests. General Features of the War. There were four main theaters of war : the Dutch border ; the valley of the Danube, which commanded the road to Vienna ; the Po valley, the key to southern France ; and Spain, where Philip V had been set up as King. William had been unable to recover any of the ground gained by Louis during the long years of his aggression, and it seemed impossible to succeed where he had failed. Nevertheless, the Allies drove the French out of Ger- many in 1704, out of Italy in 1706, and out of the Netherlands in the years from 1706 to 1708.* This was due to their two remarkable leaders, Maryborough and Prince Eugene ; 2 to the invaluable lessons which the allied troops had learned from their defeats under William ; and to the diminished French resources, caused by Louis' dazzling but costly conquests. At sea, while there were no noteworthy battles, the English naval supremacy over France was carried a stage further, and a permanent foothold was secured in the Mediterranean. Marlborough and Godolphin. In spite of Marlborough's at- tempted treason, William, recognizing his remarkable military and diplomatic ability, had employed him in the negotiations leading up to the Grand Alliance. Now, owing to the influence of his wife, he was made Captain-General of the English forces, 3 while the Dutch made him Commander-in-Chief of their army as well. 4 He fought nobly for England in court and camp ; but he was so consumed with ambition and so sordid in his love of money that one is bound to be- lieve that with him personal considerations counted more than love of country. Otherwise, unless the loftiest and most misguided of patriots, it is difficult to explain why he later sacrificed his self-respect and the interests of his party to remain in office. But if he was a base, he was a splendid figure ; his beauty, his charm of manner, his tact and patience made him irresistible. And he had many virtues besides ; he was a devoted husband and father, he was sincere in his religious beliefs, and he was humane in war. As a general, in planning campaigns and in conducting battles and sieges, he showed a courage and energy, a boldness tempered with caution, and gained a degree 1 Indeed it was only in Spain that they failed to gain ground. 2 Eugene was of the ducal House of Savoy. He was a son of the Count of Sois- sons and had begun his military career in France. In 1683, at the age of twenty, after Louis XIV refused him a command, he fled the country, took service under Leopold, and became the most brilliant Imperial commander of the century. 3 Prince George had the nominal command as Generalissimo and Lord High Admiral. 4 William left no one to succeed him as Stadholder, and the Grand Pensionary Heinsius succeeded to the control of civil and military affairs. 654 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of success which no English general has ever equaled. In his di- plomacy, brilliant as it was, he made the ultimate mistake of pressing Louis too far, possibly because he wanted to continue the war for his own glory, possibly because 'he honestly felt that there could be no safety for Europe until his opponent was absolutely crushed. Sid- ney Godolphin, who, as Lord Treasurer, provided funds for his cam- paigns, was in many respects a very unedifying person. He was known as " Baconface " from his heavy features ; he had no gifts as an orator and no love for culture, spending his leisure in drinking, card playing, cockfighting, and horse racing. He was timid and cautious, and a timeserver, who did not hesitate even at treasonable intrigue to secure his personal safety. On the other hand, he had a remarkable knowl- edge of trade and finance and was so honest that he died a poor man. Their Relation to Parties. Both Marlborough and Godolphin started as moderate Tories ; but as that party cooled in its warlike zeal and lost control of the Commons, 1 they threw themselves on the support of the Whigs. This brought them into conflict with Anne, while the violence of Mrs. Freeman, who became a furious Whig partisan, only widened the breach. It was a period of transition from ministers who were individually servants of the Crown to the system under which they became a united body, collectively respon- sible to Parliament. Marlborough originally wanted to carry on the government with the aid of the moderate men of both parties ; later, when his Whig supporters were forced out he sought to hold on regardless of that fact. Thus he made the mistake of going too far against the old system without going far enough in the direction of the new. It was only his great victories and the division among his opponents that enabled him to remain in control as long as he did. The Campaign of 1702. Marlborough, who took command in the Netherlands in 1702, was so hampered by the Dutch field deputies that he was unable to bring on a pitched battle during this or the fol- lowing year. It must be said for the Dutch that, primarily concerned with the defense of their own borders, they realized that a single de- feat might expose them to disastrous invasion. Marlborough 's efforts during the years 1702 and 1703 were not wasted, however; for he succeeded in forcing the French back along the roads in the Spanish Netherlands and the Rhine country by which they might strike at the Dutch from the southeast and east. At sea, the English began, in 1702, by sending a combined naval and land force to take Cadiz, an attempt in which they failed, largely owing to dissensions between the admiral, Sir George Rooke, and the Duke of Ormonde, who com- manded the troops. On its way home the expedition partly retrieved itself by an attack on a convoy of French and Spanish warships which were guarding the unloading of the plate fleet in Vigo Bay ; for, though they lost most of the treasure, they inflicted great damage on the enemy. 1 Of the five parliaments elected during the reign three were Tory : 1702-1705, 1710-1713, 1713-1714; and two were Whig: 1705-1708, 1708-1710. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 055 Progress of the War in 1703. As a result, Portugal joined the Grand Alliance in the following year, thus furnishing a basis of opera- tions against Spain. By the Methuen Treaty, concluded between Portugal and England, English woolens were admitted into Portugal, and the duty on Portuguese wines was reduced to one third less than those from France a treaty responsible for much of the gout of succeeding generations of Englishmen. The elections of the summer of 1702 had brought back, with a strong majority, the Tories, who showed their partisan spirit by reflecting on the memory of William in a vote that Marlboro ugh had " signally retrieved the honor and glory of the English nation." In the campaign of 1703, the interest centered in an attempt of the French in conjunction with Bavarians to make a dash on Vienna. It miscarried, owing to the supineness of the Elector, but the danger remained critical ; for the French generals gained decided successes in western Germany, while the Emperor had to face a rising of the Hungarian Protestants led by Prince Rakoczy. Added to this, Leopold was so poor that he had to coin the plate in the churches to pay and equip his troops. During the winter the Elector aroused himself sufficiently to capture Passau on the Danube. The Empire seemed lost to the Allies unless a decisive blow could be struck. Maryborough's Campaign of 1704. In the face of the crisis Marl- borough framed and executed a daring plan which marked the turning point in the war. This was to march down to the Danube and relieve the Imperial capital by defeating the combined French and Bavarian armies. Realizing that the Dutch would never consent to leave their frontier thus exposed and that Louis would forestall him if the secret leaked out, he took no one into his confidence, except the Queen and Godolphin, 1 and gave out to the Grand Pensionary that he was going to operate along the Moselle. Leaving a portion of his forces to guard the Netherlands, he marched rapidly up the Rhine, followed by the incompetent Villeroy, who was completely in the dark as to his move- ments. Crossing the river after he had passed the Moselle, he struck southeast into Wiirtemburg, where, late in June, he held a conference with Prince Eugene whom he left to hold the Rhine against Villeroy, halting uncertainly on the left bank, and joined forces with the Mar- grave of Baden. Thence he proceeded to cross the Danube at Donau- worth, while the Elector, after a vain attempt to dispute his passage, retreated to Augsburg. Marlborough was now between the enemy and Vienna with Bavaria at his mercy. He at once began to ravage and burn, though, as he wrote his wife, it was so contrary to his dis- position that nothing but absolute necessity could bring him to con- sent to it. The Elector, who was joined at Augsburg by a large French contingent under Tallard, refused to save his people by giving up his alliance with Louis XIV. 1 It is possible, however, that he took Prince Eugene into his confidence as early as the winter of 1 703-1 704. 656 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Battle of Blenheim, 13 August, 1704. Marlborough, in danger of being cut off from his communications and his bases of supply, saw that the time had now come to risk a battle. So, leaving the Mar- grave to besiege Ingoldstadt, he quietly recrossed to the northern bank of the Danube, n August, where he effected a junction with Prince Eugene, who had dropped back from the Rhine. Meantime, the Elector and Tallard, thinking that they had only Eugene to deal with, left their strong position and crossed the river in their turn, with the design of destroying the magazines of the Allies at Nordlingen and Nuremburg. On the i2th, Marlborough and Eugene from a village church tower saw the enemy pitching their tents between the villages of Blenheim and Lutzingen. 1 Here in a strong position behind the little river Nebel, which flows into the Danube, the com- bined French and Bavarian forces were attacked, 13 August, by the allied commanders. Tallard, whom Marlborough cooped up between the Nebel and the Danube, was taken prisoner, though the Elector who faced Eugene managed to escape with a considerable portion of his forces. The Allies, at a cost of 12,000 men, destroyed 14,000 of the enemy and took 11,000 prisoners. It was, as Marlborough wrote his wife in the gathering darkness, " a glorious victory." The spell which had so long seemed to render the French arms irresistible had at last been broken. As a more immediate result, the Empire had been saved. Though Marlborough was not in condition to run down and crush the fugitives, Villeroy, who came to their aid, was obliged to recross the Rhine, and, before the close of November, the Elector had agreed to a treaty by which Bavaria was made subject to Imperial authority. Before returning home for the winter, Marlborough made a journey to Berlin, where he secured from the King of Prussia an army of 8000 men for the coming year. The Capture of Gibraltar, 1704. Meantime, nine days before the Battle of Blenheim, an event had happened on the coast of Spain in consequence of which Great Britain controls the entrance to the Mediterranean to-day. Sir George Rooke, returning home after failing both to capture Barcelona and to engage a French fleet which had come round from Brest to join the Toulon squadron, fell in with Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Finding the commanding stronghold of Gibraltar was almost undefended as a matter of fact it had a garri- son of only eighty men they sent a force ashore to whom the gov- ernor surrendered, 4 August, 1704. The Reception of the News in England. The news of Blenheim was, of course, received in England with transports of joy. It was the first great victory on land which the English had won against the French in three hundred years. The days of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agin- court were, it seemed, to be repeated, and Louis XIV, who had so long lorded it over Europe, was to be brought to his knees. Anne, 7 Sep- 1 Hochstadt, after which the French name the battle, lies farther to the west. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 657 tember, went in state to St. Paul's to return solemn thanks to the Almighty. Marlborough was greeted when he arrived in December with fervent demonstrations. The Queen, supported by an address begging that measures might be taken to perpetuate the memory of the conqueror, granted him the manor of Woodstock and other Crown lands and commissioned the architect Vanbrugh to erect a castle, which is still known as Blenheim. 1 The Duke's head, however, was far from being turned. He knew that the Tories were murmuring at the cost of the war and seeking to disparage his triumph. Indeed, Parliament congratulated her Majesty in a single sentence upon his victory and that of Rooke, while his detractors, so the Duchess in- formed him, insisted that, in view of the French King's resources, it amounted to no more than taking a bucket of water from a river. This factional spirit wrung from him bitter complaints. During the session, charges were brought against the Ministers for " mismanage- ment of the navy " and " extravagance in conducting the war." The Allies gain a Foothold in Spain, 1705. In spite of sharp party differences, Parliament made generous grants. It seemed as if France could not stand the financial strain much longer : her commerce was all but destroyed ; her manufactures were languishing for want of markets ; the country apparently could bear no more taxation ; and the bankers would lend no more money. Yet, by heroic exertions and by various shifts, three armies were sent into the field for the cam- paign of 1705, one to Luxembourg on the northeast frontier, one to the Netherlands, and one to guard the Rhine. Marlborough, who, notwithstanding his brilliant success of the previous year, was still held in by the timid field deputies, could do nothing but mark time. In Spain, after war had been waged for some time on the Portuguese frontier with no decisive results, the Allies, late in the year, gained their first signal success in quite another part of the country. A naval expedition was sent out, at Marlborough's suggestion, to aid the Duke of Savoy, who had joined the Grand Alliance in 1703. The land forces were under the command of the Earl of Peterborough, the most eccentric and adventurous character of the age a belated knight-errant, in fact. The Archduke Charles, whom the Allies had named as King when Portugal passed over to their side two years be- fore, and who had landed at Lisbon the year following, was taken on board. Rather against his will, Peterborough was induced to make an attempt on Barcelona and succeeded in capturing the city, 14 Sep- tember, 1705. This was followed by the submission of the whole province of Catalonia and parts of the adjoining Aragon. The Arch- duke was formally proclaimed as King Charles III. Meantime, his feeble and ineffective father, Leopold, had died. Joseph, who suc- ceeded as Emperor, was able and energetic. He at once set about to reform the Imperial administration, and, with the aid of Marlborough, 1 At the end of the campaign of 1702 he had been made a duke and given a pen- sion of 5000 a year for life. 2TJ 658 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND whom he created a Prince of the Empire, 1 planned a vigorous cam- paign for the year 1706. A Whig Parliament, October, 1705, to April, 1708. The summer elections had gone in favor of the Whigs, largely owing to the growing enthusiasm for the war which the Tories were ceasing to support with the ardor that they had shown at the beginning of the reign. The Queen, who obstinately regarded a Whig " as a Republican and an atheist," opposed every one that was introduced into the Ministry; but owing to the domineering Sarah and the war fever, she gave way in each case, until at the end of three years not a single Tory was left. A series of quarrels resulted which in the end left the Queen hopelessly estranged from her old favorite, and she seized the earliest opportunity, though it did not come till 1710, to restore the party whose views of government in Church and State coincided with her own. Meantime, the Whigs were to attain great results and the Tories to meet with serious reverses. The Regency Bill, 1705-1706. Perhaps their worst blunder was a motion that, in order to insure the safety of the Protestant succession, the Electress Sophia should be invited to reside in England. Since Anne was as morbidly sensitive on this subject as Queen Elizabeth had been, they had hoped to put the Whigs in a quandary. If they op- posed the motion, they ran a chance of offending the Hanoverians. If they adopted it, they would certainly distress the Queen, who could not but regard the residence of her successor in the country as a perpetual reminder of death. They skillfully eluded the trap by framing a Re- gency Bill which provided that, on the death of the Queen, the govern- ment should be carried on until the arrival of her lawful successor by a regency composed of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chan- cellor, and other great officers of State, with the addition of certain per- sons named by the next successor and sent in a sealed list not to be opened till the death of the sovereign. The bill received the royal signature in February, 1706. Marlborough's Gains in the Netherlands, 1706. The Queen's speech in opening the first session of her Whig Parliament was notable for the declaration " that nothing short of Philip's resigning the Spanish monarchy would content this country," thus for the first time giving her royal sanction to the candidacy of Charles. A vic- tory was essential to Louis, and the vain and foolish Villeroy started for the Netherlands, bent on obeying his sovereign's injunction to re- turn " covered with glory." Accordingly, he left a strong position whence it might have taken a whole campaign to dislodge him ; where- upon, Marlborough unexpectedly swooped down on him, and engaged him in battle at Ramillies, twenty-nine miles southeast of Brussels, on Whitsunday, 23 May, 1706. Villeroy, though he fought bravely, was outgeneraled and his forces driven from the field hotly pursued 1 He conferred on him the territory of Mindelheim with 1500 subjects and an income of about 1000 a year. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 659 by the Allies. Although he lost only 6000 killed and 4000 wounded, his army was reduced from 60,000 to 40,000 by desertions. Many of the leading towns of Brabant and Flanders, including Brussels, Ghent, and Bruges, surrendered one after another, while Ostend yielded after a short siege. The victors, shortly after the battle, issued a proclama- tion promising to all who submitted to Charles III protection of their religion and property, as well as all the privileges they had enjoyed under the late Charles II. Aside from the danger involved in holding out, the thrifty burghers welcomed the terms ; for the sovereignty of Philip really subjected them to the despotism of Louis XIV, while the Emperor who had stood behind his younger brother Charles III was poor and far away. Marlborough, who had begun the campaign three weeks before in the deepest dejection, could scarcely realize his sudden good fortune. His joy must have been dashed by the attitude of the Dutch, who practically forced him to decline the governorship of the Netherlands which the Austrians offered him as a reward for his achievements. Greedy as he was, what ground him most was to re- linquish the fat salary of 60,000 attached to the office. Louis XIV, who bore the blow of Villeroy's defeat and all that resulted from it with amazing serenity, immediately called Vendome from Italy to restore some spirit to the beaten army. The French driven out of Northern Italy, 1706. Eugene, reen- forced by an army of Germans and provided with English subsidies, was able to profit by the transfer of his efficient opponent to the Netherlands. Effecting a junction with the Duke of Savoy, the two marched on Turin, and, 7 September, defeated the French army which was besieging the city. As a result, Louis XIV soon withdrew his troops from northern Italy. Already, in August, he had approached the Dutch with proposals for peace. He offered them a string of barrier fortresses, agreed to grant Naples and Sicily to Charles, and even held out the prospect of erecting the Spanish Netherlands into an inde- pendent province. But the Dutch would not make peace without the English, and the Whigs who were now in power would listen to no such terms. Events in England during the Early Years of the War. While the war naturally absorbed most of the public energy, a few steps of con- stitutional importance were taken during the early years of Anne. In 1702 the Lords took occasion to denounce the practice of " tacking " as " unparliamentary and tending to the destruction of the constitution of this Government." In the case of Ashby vs. White, or the Aylesbury election case (1702-1704), it was decided that a man unjustly deprived of his right to vote might collect damages. In 1705, when the new Place Bill was passed, a clause was introduced repealing the provision in the Act of Settlement for reviving the powers of the Privy Council. In December, 1706, an important though somewhat premature step in the direction of party government was taken when the Whig, Charles, Earl of Sunderland (son-in-law of Marlborough) and son of the man 660 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND who had played such a part in the two preceding reigns, was forced upon the Queen as Secretary of State for the Southern Department. 1 He was an object of horror to Anne because of his ungovernable temper and his religious and political radicalism : Sarah scolded and stormed, Godolphin threatened to resign, and the Duke had to bring to bear all of his rare powers of persuasion before she would submit. The victory was a costly one ; for the Queen never forgot that Mrs. Freeman had presumed to tell her that the misfortunes of her race had been due to obstinacy and listening to bad advice. The Question of the Union between England and Scotland. The one really " great act of domestic statesmanship " of the reign was the union of England and Scotland, brought to completion in the session of 1706-1707. The personal union, beginning in 1603, had weathered the great Civil War and the Revolution of i688, 2 but, as the century drew to a close, the Scots began to realize more and more acutely the un- satisfactory character of the existing arrangement. To most of them it was a " loose and irregular tie ... wherein we are not considered as subjects, nor allies, nor friends, nor enemies, but all of them only when, how and how long our taskmaster pleases." Two possibilities were open : complete separation or closer union. To the former course, ardently desired by the Presbyterians and the patriots, Eng- land would never consent, particularly in view of Scotland's ancient attachment to France. On the other hand, there was a large and steadily increasing class with whom considerations of trade outweighed those of religious and political independence. They naturally wanted to draw closer to England 3 in order to share in her markets. The Darien Project, 1695-1699. The new commercial spirit manifested itself in a daring attempt to break into the Spanish mo- nopoly in the New World. It was a product of the fruitful brain of William Paterson, who induced the Scotch Parliament to pass an act, June, 1695, founding a " Company of Scotland for Trading to Africa and the Indies." As a means of commanding the trade routes of the eastern and western world the " Darien Company," as it was popularly called, designed to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama, 4 a spot which Paterson had once visited, whether as a pirate or a missionary is uncertain. The capital stock, fixed at 400,000 and issued in 100 shares, was quickly subscribed, and more than half the amount was actually paid in, though the price of a single share represented a fortune to the poor and thrifty Scot of those days. The opposition in London was intense, partly from trade rivalry and partly from the fear of complications with Spain, who possessed the 1 At this time there were two Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, one for Northern, the other for Southern Europe. 2 For a brief interval, also, during the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, Scotch members had sat in the English Parliament. 3 The Scotch Episcopalians, for obvious reasons, allied themselves with this party. 4 Then called Darien. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 661 territory in which Darien was situated. Nevertheless, ^5 July, 1698, the first group of colonists was sent to the Isthmus. The cargo which they took, consisting of felt slippers, periwigs, heavy woolens, and English Bibles, could not have been more useless for trading in a trop- ical country with illiterate natives who wore the scantiest of garments. The climate proved unbearable ; those who survived at length gave up and sailed away. In October, 1699, a miserable remnant reached New York. Meantime, in August, a second expedition, enticed by lying reports of the indefatigable leaders, had started across the seas. Settling on the deserted site, they held on in spite of faction and fever, until April, when they were driven out by the Spanish. Paterson's brilliant Darien scheme had succumbed to a deadly climate and Spanish monopoly ; but it had the result of finally convincing the commercial party in Scotland that nothing could be accomplished without the backing of England, which could only be secured by a closer union. The Union finally brought about, 1706-1707. William, a month before his death, urged that the terms be arranged as speedily as possible, and Anne, who was of the same opinion, appointed commis- sioners in the very first year of her reign. Not only did they fail to come to an agreement, but the Scotch Parliament took the bit in its teeth. In 1703 it passed a series of resolutions, limiting the power of the English Crown ; also an Act of Security, which provided that, in the event of the reigning sovereign's death without issue, the Scotch Estates should choose a Protestant successor from the House of Stuart, but not the same person chosen by the English Parliament, except under conditions that should secure to Scotland complete freedom of government, liberty, and trade. While the Act of Security received the grudging assent of the Queen, since otherwise she would have got no vote of supplies from the Scotch Estates, their defiant attitude led the English Parliament to pass an act, in 1705, declaring that unless the Scots settled the succession by Christmas Day, all Scotsmen would be adjudged aliens and all Scotch exports into England for- bidden. At the same time they empowered the Queen to appoint commissioners to reopen negotiations for the union. Thus threatened, the Scots hastened to choose commissioners on their side. The two bodies met in April, 1706, and before the close of the summer had arranged a treaty. The Scotch Estates, when they met in October, had to face a torrent of popular opposition ; the mob outside hooted and hustled those known to favor the measure, riots broke out both in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and petitions poured in from all over the country. It has been thought that but for the tempestuous, wintry weather armed hordes might have marched down from the north and broken up the session. The Church was won over by an act guaran- teeing the existing Presbyterian Establishment, and, notwithstanding continued resistance, the treaty was ratified, 16 January, 1707. " Trade with most, Hanover with some, ease and security with others, together with a generall aversion at civill discords, intolerable poverty, 662 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and the constant oppression of a bad ministry," as a contemporary had predicted, were the reasons that, doubtless, influenced the majority, though the battle of Ramillies, which seemed to point to the certain downfall of the French, unquestionably influenced the result. The Terms of the Union. The speedy and favorable outcome created general surprise in England, where bets had been freely laid that the treaty would be rejected. In view of the manifestly popular opposition throughout Scotland many insisted that the majority had only been secured by bribery, and agreed with the apt remark that it was " like marrying a woman without her consent." When the articles were taken up in the English Parliament, in February, 1707, the chief opposition came from the High Church Tories who feared for the safety of the Establishment if any considerable number of Presbyterians were admitted to a share in the Government. This objection was met by an act securing the Church of England, and the ratification was pushed forward so rapidly that cries of " Post haste ! Post haste ! " were heard from the majority. The Act of Union provided that the two kingdoms were to be united under the name of Great Britain and represented by one Parliament. The Crown was to pass to the House of Hanover as provided by the Act of Settlement. There was to be complete freedom of trade between the two countries at home and abroad. As an " equivalent " for assuming a share in the National Debt, and for losses incurred from English trading companies, the Scots were paid nearly 400,000, some of which was employed in indemnifying the shareholders of the Darien Company. Scottish laws and legal procedure were to be preserved. Forty-five Scotch members were to sit in the House of Commons, while, for every session, the Scotch peers were to elect sixteen of their number to represent them in the House of Lords. Its Ultimate Results. ' Anne, in giving her consent, 6 March, 1707, expressed the wish that henceforth her subjects of both kingdoms would have " hearts disposed to become one people " ; but it was long before the hope was fulfilled. The mass of Scots, traditionally hos- tile to their richer southern neighbors, clung to the belief that they had been betrayed by a knot of corrupt politicians. The eighteenth century had run more than half its course before the " prosperity of the country convinced them that the Union had been a necessity and a blessing." Each nation, as it proved, needed the other. The combination of resources contributed to further the wonderful com- mercial and industrial developments which were to mark the later years of the eighteenth, and come to fruition in the nineteenth century. The Political and Military Situation, 1707. Notwithstanding the victories in the Netherlands in the summer of 1706, the situation of Maryborough and Godolphin was far from untroubled. Anne viewed them with increasing disfavor; for, in spite of her prayer to THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 663 the Lord Treasurer to keep her " out of the power of the merciless men of both parties," they had surrounded her with leaders of the one she could scarcely endure. Then the Dutch, feeling that France was " reduced to what she ought to be, and that to carry on the war further would only serve to make England greater than is desirable," were sorely tempted by the terms of Louis. Marlborough, backed by the Emperor, finally induced them to reject the French offers ; but the campaign of 1707 was discouraging. Charles XII of Sweden, who was approached with overtures from the French King, proved a new and troublesome factor ; for though Marlborough dissuaded him from his purpose of attacking the Empire, his threatening atti- tude kept the North German princes from sending contingents to the Netherlands. Vendome conducted an able defensive campaign ; the Dutch deputies refused to allow the Duke to force an engagement when he at length brought his army up to the requisite strength, and he had to go into winter quarters with nothing accomplished. Reverses of the Allies, 1707. Elsewhere, the successes of the year were all with the French. The energetic Villars forced a passage across the Rhine, and " overran the lazy and sleepy Empire, and not only maintained and paid a great army in it all the year, but by vast contributions sent money into France to help the King's other affairs." l In Spain an Anglo-Portuguese force under the Earl of Galway had taken Madrid, 26 June, 1706, but although reenforcedby Peterborough, had been forced to evacuate it soon after. Thence they had retired to Valencia for the winter. In the spring, Galway, against the advice of his impetuous colleague, who, however, was soon recalled, started back to recover the city. Seriously weakened from the fact that Charles insisted on withdrawing his forces, he was overwhelmingly defeated, 25 April, at Almanza. He lost three fourths of his troops, all his artillery, and most of his baggage. He escaped into Cata- lonia ; but all of the territory gained during the past two years was recovered by the enemy. The list of the reverses of the Allies was completed by Eugene's unsuccessful invasion of Provence. This was largely the fault of the Emperor Joseph, who detached a force to invade southern Italy, where the capture of Naples by no means made up for the miscarriage in the north. The Attempted Descent on Scotland, 1708. In March, 1708, England was thrown into consternation by the news that a French expedition was being prepared at Dunkirk for a descent on Scotland. The commander, Tourbin, was accompanied by the Pretender, now twenty-seven years old, a youth of engaging manner, not devoid of courage, but lacking in force and enthusiasm. For the first time in English history the sense of public danger was indicated by a sharp fall in stocks. Had the invaders succeeded in effecting a landing, the result might have been serious, in view of the anti-English fury which 1 These are the words of one of Marlborough's colonels. 664 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND prevailed among the Scots. Fortunately the starting was delayed by the Chevalier de St. George as the Pretender called himself catching the measles. Consequently, when Tourbin at length reached the Firth of Forth, the English Admiral Byng was ready with a fleet of such size that he turned and hurried back to France. Anne re- ferred to her half brother for the first time as the " Popish Pre- tender," yet, during a meeting of the Council to consider what steps should be taken against him, she burst into tears, and became so agitated that the discussion had to stop. The Campaign of 1708 in the Netherlands. Oudenarde, n July. Vendome opened the campaign in the Netherlands by recovering Ghent and Bruges, where the citizens, alienated by the domineering behavior of the Dutch, readily admitted him. Marlborough saw that it was necessary to force a battle. By a rapid march of fifty miles in a little over two days he came upon the enemy near Oude- narde, on the road between the newly recovered cities and the frontier. He won a brilliant victory n July, darkness alone saving the enemy from capture. The Duke was now for marching straight into France ; but both the Dutch and Eugene', who had arrived in time to share in the victory, rejected the plan as too daring. Instead, it was finally agreed to besiege Lille, the masterpiece of Vauban, which guarded the frontier and which might serve as an excellent basis of operations against the kingdom of Louis. The siege began 13 August ; the town was taken 22 October and the citadel 9 December. 1 Ghent was re- captured, 2 January, 1709, and the French were forced to evacuate all western Flanders, including Bruges. The Negotiations of 1709 and the First Barrier Treaty. In 1709 Louis was reduced to the point of consenting that the House of Bourbon should resign the Spanish inheritance. When, however, the Allies insisted that, in case of Philip's refusal, he should assist in driving his own grandson out of the country, he withdrew his am- bassador from the Hague, 28 May, and issued an appeal to his people. Exhausted as they were, they responded loyally. While it was natural to demand some guarantee for Louis for carrying out the promised renunciation, he can hardly be blamed for refusing the harsh terms imposed upon him. The fault rested with the Whigs, for the Emperor, stubborn as he was, could not have continued the war alone. They bribed the Dutch to keep on fighting by the Barrier Treaty, signed 29 October, by which nine fortified places on the border were handed over to them, and certain others were promised in case they could capture them. In these towns the Dutch were not only to have the sole right to have garrisons, but to impose taxes even at the ex- pense of English and Austrian merchants. In return they were, in case of need, to send troops to Great Britain to defend the Hanoverian succession. 1 Among the visitors to the allied camp was Augustus of Saxony, with a little twelve-year-old son, later famous as the Marshal de Saxe. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 665 Successes of the Allies in the Netherlands and Reverses in Spain, 1709-1710. Villars, who was put in command of the army of the Netherlands which the French had put into the field only with the most heroic sacrifices, profited by the delay which the peace nego- tiations afforded to strengthen his lines. On 1 1 September, the Allies attacked him in a very strong position at Malplaquet. While Marlborough and Eugene cut the French forces in two and drove them from the field, they retired in good order with a loss far less than that of the victors. In Spain the Allies never recovered the ground lost in 1707. Their only success in the next three years was the capture in September, 1708, of the island of Minorca, which furnished an admirable naval base for the English fleet in the Mediterranean. On 23 September, 1710, the Allies succeeded once more in taking Madrid, but Vendome, who was sent to command in the peninsula, cut off their supplies from Portugal and forced them to hurry back to their base in Catalonia. One division of the retreating army was defeated at Brihuega, 8 December, while another, though it fought a drawn battle at Villa Viciosa, was obliged to retire from the field. Thus the victories of Oudenarde and Malplaquet were neutralized as Ramillies had been by Almanza. In Spain alone, where a decisive victory might have put an end to the war, the Allies were unable to prevail. Growing Reaction against the Whigs and the War. Louis re- opened peace negotiations with the Dutch in the autumn of 1 709 ; but nothing was accomplished till the overthrow of the Whigs nearly a year later. Their party had won again in the autumn elec- tions of 1708; but its power steadily declined. Anne had taken to herself a new favorite in Abigail Hill, a poor relation of the Duchess of Marlborough, who had, some time before, obtained for her a position as a bed-chamber woman. The extent of the Queen's attachment was first evident when, in 1707, she attended the wedding of her humble attendant with one Masham, an equerry of Prince George. The gravity of the situation lay in the fact that Harley, leader of the Tory opposition was also related to Mrs. Masham, and through her kept in constant- communication with his sovereign. Mrs. Freeman, that " monument of unchangeable folly," made matters worse by becoming more and more abusive as her influence waned. In one quarrel she so far forgot the respect due to the Lord's anointed as to tell her Sovereign to hold her tongue. Marlborough tried in vain to soothe the two incensed women, and, in his eagerness to put himself above the danger of party strife, made the mistake of asking that the office of Captain-General be conferred upon him for life. This gave his enemies a chance to compare him with Cromwell and to accuse him of aiming at military dictatorship. Sunderland, too, with his rough manners and extreme views, was another source of weakness to his party. The people were growing more and more restive under the increasing burden of taxation, and the public discontent was fed and 666 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND voiced by the press and by virulent party pamphlets. Some of the most famous names in English literature engaged in the controversy, but the man who produced a fury of reaction which swept the Whigs from power was an obscure parson. Dr. Sacheverell's Sermon, 5 November, 1709. Dr. Henry Sacheverell, who had already achieved some reputation by the fervor of his oratory and by the vigor of his personal attacks on those in high places who favored Dissent and were supposed to be cold toward the Establishment, preached his first notable sermon at the Derby assize in August, 1709, on the text: " Be not a partaker in other men's sins." In the dedication to the printed edition he declared that " the principles and interests of our Church and Constitution were shamefully betrayed." He followed up the attack in another sermon, 5 November, at St. Paul's before the lord mayor and aldermen on the " Perils of Paul among false brethren." He lashed the Administration, railed at toleration, and exhorted his hearers to rise in defense of the Church. Coming as they did in the midst of intense party excitement, these utterances roused a panic of religious bigotry against the Dissenters and the Whigs who protected them. Godol- phin regarded parts of the " circumgiration of coherent words " l as directed against himself, while Maryborough was always madly sensitive at anything that looked in the least like an attack on himself or his policies. Consequently, in December, the Ministry resolved to impeach Sacheverell for high crimes and misdemeanors, a pro- ceeding which, it is estimated, offended five sixths of the nation. Four charges were framed. First, that he had denied the lawfulness of resistance. Secondly, that he had declaimed against the toleration granted to Dissenters. Thirdly, that he had declared that the Church was in danger. Fourthly, that for seditious purposes he had asserted that her Majesty's Administration in civil and ecclesiastical affairs tended to the destruction of the Constitution. His Trial, 1710. His trial, which opened in February, 1710, was attended with the wildest excitement. It was hotly discussed in the coffeehouses, in the streets, indeed, in every sort of assembly. The Doctor was cheered and praised as a martyr and saint, while Anne, whenever she passed by on her way to the sittings in Westminster Hall, was greeted with cries of " God bless your Majesty and the Church ! " " We hope your Majesty is for Dr. Sacheverell ! " The more violent, whose destructiveness far exceeded their piety, attacked the Dissenting meeting houses and created such an uproar that the troops had to be called out to restore order. After three weeks of altercation, the Doctor was found guilty; but was let off with a light sentence. He was suspended from preaching for three years and his sermons were burnt by the common hangman. His con- viction proved to be a costly victory. Books, such as the Pious 1 Harley's phrase. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 667 Life and Sufferings of Dr. Sacheverell from his Birth to his Sentence, with his Prayers and Meditations on the Days of his Trial, poured from the press, together with other manifestations of sympathy, until Godolphin, in a letter to Marlborough, expressed the wish that : " this uneasy trial had never begun, for it had occasioned a very great ferment, and given opportunity to a great many people to be im- pertinent who always had the intention but wanted the opportunity to show it." The Queen dismisses the Whigs and calls in the Tories, 1710. The anti-Whig revulsion, which came to a head in the Sacheverell trial, gave the Queen the chance which she had long been seeking to get rid of the party so hateful to her. Mrs. Freeman had her last personal interview 17 April, 1710, and a stormy one it was. The Duchess only made the breach more complete by sending the Queen, shortly after, a packet containing an enumeration of her services to her Sovereign during twenty-six years, fortified by citations from various divines on the mutual obligations of friends. The strength of the Cabinet was weakened from the fact that every man was working for himself. The chief offender was Marlborough, who made it quite clear that he would cling to office whatever happened, whereas, if he had threatened to resign, he might have kept his colleagues in office some time longer. The break-up began 13 June, 1710, with the removal of Sunderland, and, 8 August, Godolphin was dismissed without ceremony. Though Parliament was still Whig, Anne replaced the fallen Ministers by the Tories Harley and St. John, congratulating herself that she was now released from cap- tivity. Robert Harley was a " dull, puzzle-headed man," who cultivated poets and scholars, who had an extensive knowledge of parliamentary precedent, and to extreme caution united a talent for intrigue; but he had no gifts as a speaker, few statesmanlike qualities. He had been a member of Parliament since 1689 and in the Cabinet from 1704 to 1708, when, owing to his influence with Mrs. Masham, a pretext had been found for forcing him out. St. John, brilliant, erratic, audacious, and dissipated, was, in most respects, the very opposite of his plodding, decorous, and secretive colleague, though neither was ever burdened with scruple. Harley gave evidence of this in October, when he submitted a plan to the Queen for filling all offices with Tories, while at the same time he was privately assur- ing Somers and Halifax that a " Whig game was intended at bottom." As a matter of fact, however, he tried to steer a middle course all through his tenure of power, while St. John was bent on an out-and- out Tory Administration. Yet this ill-assorted couple managed to pull together long enough to bring the war to a close. A Tory Parliament Elected, 1710. In the September elections the Tories, thanks to the Sacheverell frenzy, the royal control of patronage, the heavy war taxes, and the insufficient preparation of the Whigs, recovered a majority which they held for four years. The voting, as 668 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND was usual at the time, was attended with the greatest violence, drunkenness, fighting, hooting, and hustling, making the polls unsafe as well as unpleasant except for the hardiest. The popularity of Harley was greatly enhanced from an attempt on his life, in March, 1711, by a desperate and half-crazed refugee, an attempt that was magnified into a plot to murder the Queen and bring in the Pretender. The influence of the landowning gentry and their animus against the mercantile classes was shown by the Property Qualification Act, 1711, providing that, except in the case of sons of peers and representatives of universities, every county member should have an estate of 6oc a year and every borough or city member one of 300. Although frequently evaded, this measure was not repealed till 1858. Peace Negotiations with France, 1711. Marlborough had taken a few fortresses in 1710, but had not ventured upon any daring move. In 1711, however, with an army greatly inferior to that of Villars, he succeeded by a series of brilliant feints and sieges in piercing his adversary's strong lines, so that by autumn he was in a position to invade France. But this proved to be his last campaign. Harley and St. John, realizing that if Anne should die, the Whigs might come in and prolong the war indefinitely, and realizing also that the only hope of settlement lay in treating with France separately, had already opened negotiations between London and Paris in January, 1711. The preliminaries were finally agreed upon in October. They had been greatly facilitated by a change of heart on the part of Anne : " 'Tis a good work," she declared in an audience which she granted to the French agent, " Pray God you succeed in it. I am sure I long for peace. I hate this dreadful work of blood." Furthermore, the death of the Emperor Joseph, 17 April, 1711, leaving Charles as his heir, greatly strengthened the peace party ; for it was futile to drive Philip from Spain in order to unite the country to the Hapsburg dominions. While there was some reason for the action of the Tory Ministry in keeping the Allies out of the preliminaries, there was a great deal of underhand dealing for which St. John was largely responsible that cannot be justified ; moreover, in view of his many defeats and the state of his resources, the English were oversubservient to the Grand Monarch. The Whig Attempt to obstruct the Peace. The Occasional Con- formity Act, 1711. After Marlborough's return to England in Novem- ber, at the close of the campaign of 1711, his party, in order to obstruct the peace, concluded a strange alliance with the High Church wing of the Tories. Nottingham " Not-in-the-game," as he was called at this time, from the fact that he had not been provided with an office under the new Government was keen to pass an Occasional Con- formity Bill, which had been twice defeated in the House of Lords in 1703 and again in 1704. The Whigs now assisted him to carry the measure, which provided that any holder of an office who had qualified himself by taking the sacrament according to the established form and THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 669 who should afterwards be convicted of attending Dissenting places of worship, should be fined 40 and forfeit his office. Thus the practice of evading the Test and Corporation Acts by the device of " occasional conformity " was effectually checked. The Dissenters were assured that when the Whigs returned to office the Act would be repealed. In the words of a Tory satirist : " Jack had been induced to hang himself on the promise that he would soon be cut down." l In return, Nottingham bent his influence to carry an amendment in the Lords to the royal address on the preliminaries, that " no peace could be safe in which Spain and the West Indies were left to the House of Bourbon." Thus the Whigs sacrificed their principles on religious liberty and a section of the Tories their convictions on the prolonga- tion of the war. It was all in vain, for a similar amendment was re- jected in the Commons. The Removal of Marlborough, 31 December, 1711. Swift en- tered the fray with his famous Conduct of the Allies, in which he argued that the English, who had least to gain, had come to assume practi- cally the whole burden of the war. Prepared under the supervision of St. John and written in the most trenchant, logical style of the greatest living master of English, the work was eagerly read and had a powerful influence on public opinion. As a means of stirring up the waning anti-Romanist and anti-French sentiment, the Whigs planned, on 17 November,? 1711, a great procession with effigies of the Pope and the Pretender, the Devil and various cardinals ; but it was broken up by the energetic action of the Government. In order to prevent any further obstruction, it was proposed to remove Marl- borough from his command. He controlled a strong party among the peers, he was high in the councils of the Allies, and he might, in another campaign, gain a victory that would raise the demands of the opponents of peace. He was charged with appropriating funds from the moneys granted to the bread contractors, and with deducting two and one half per cent from the sums appropriated for soldiers' pay. While he doubtless did do so, it is equally clear that he employed what he took in the secret service. In the interests of peace it was well that he was removed ; but it was hard that he should have suf- fered because of charges that could not be proved. While his dis- missal filled the Whigs with consternation and even some of the Tories with misgivings, 3 the price of stocks rose in the City, owing to the growing conviction that Marlborough was prolonging the war for " his own glory and profit." His dismissal was accompanied by the creation of twelve new peers which gave the Tories control of the Upper House. Wharton, when the news was announced, inquired sneeringly whether they were to vote individually or by their foreman. 1 As a matter of fact it was repealed in 1718. 2 The anniversary of Elizabeth's accession. 3 Even Swift wrote : "How far this step may encourage the French to play tricks with us no man knows," 670 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Opening of the Congress of Utrecht and the End of the War. This same month of January, 1713, a congress of the Allies opened at Utrecht to discuss terms of peace, but weeks were consumed in tedious formalities. The Emperor, who held off, sent Eugene on a special mission to England; but, arriving three days after Marl- borough's dismissal, he was unable to accomplish his purpose of blocking the preliminaries which the French and the Tories had already arranged. Since no suspension of hostilities had been pro- vided for, Eugene took the field in the spring as commander of the Allies, with the aim of turning the French lines and opening the way to Paris. The English contingents were under the Duke of Ormonde, who had orders to engage in no battle or siege without further in- structions. For a time he assisted the Prince by covering his siege operations; but, 16 July, in response to instructions from home, he drew his troops off to Dunkirk, leaving the Austrians and the Dutch to continue the campaign alone. 1 With their lines thus weakened, Villars succeeded in defeating a force of the Dutch at Denain, 24 July, before Eugene could come to their assistance. Following this reverse, he had to yield several strong places and retire beyond the Scheldt. The Tory Ministers who were responsible for what happened had only this justification that nothing else would induce the Emperor to make peace. In Spain a suspension of hostilities was concluded during the summer, though the Austrian forces were not withdrawn from Catalonia for some months. The Peace of Utrecht, 1713. The Peace of Utrecht was signed with France, 12 April, 1713, by Great Britain, the States General, Savoy and Portugal. Eugene marched his forces across the Rhine, but he was too ill supported by his master and the German princes to conduct even a defensive campaign. Fortunately, Louis was too exhausted to follow him up, and a peace between him and the Emperor was arranged at Rastadt, 7 March, 1714, which was formally ratified by the German diet at Baden in October. By the terms concluded between England and France, Louis (i) recognized the order of suc- cession established by the Act of Settlement, and agreed that the son of the late James II should never be allowed in France. (2) He solemnly ratified a renunciation by Philip V, made 5 November, 1712, of his claims to the throne of France. (3) Hfe promised to accept for his French subjects no advantages of trade with Spain not extended to the other powers. (4) He agreed to raze the fortifications of Dun- kirk and fill up the harbor. (5) He ceded to Great Britain considerable portions of territory in the New World, including the Hudson's Bay Settlement, Acadia, 2 and Newfoundland, retaining, however, certain 1 The British Government stopped the subsidies of the Germans and the Danes when they refused to follow Ormonde, 2 In the New World the British had fought with varying success. In 1708 they had been driven out of Newfoundland ; in 1 7 10 an expedition led by Francis Nichol- son had secured the stronghold of Port Royal, which he renamed Annapolis, and THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 671 fishing rights in the neighboring waters and the right to dry fish on the shores of Newfoundland. England and Spain. The treaty between England and Spain was not concluded till July ; for Philip had no representatives at the Con- gress and no power to treat till the powers had acknowledged him as King, (i) Gibraltar and Minorca were ceded to England. (2) By the Asiento 1 she was granted for thirty years the monopoly of import- ing negroes into Spanish America, a monopoly which went to the South Sea Company. 2 (3) British merchants were accorded the right of sending one ship a year to trade in these ports. France and the States General. The Spanish Netherlands were handed over to the Dutch to be ceded to Austria so soon as an " ade- quate barrier " could be agreed upon. In 1713 a new treaty was arranged in place of that of 1709 which had caused great dissatisfac- tion because of the too great concessions made to the Dutch ; but it was not till the conclusion of still a third, in 1715, between the Imperial Government and the States General that the Spanish Netherlands were finally secured by Austria. Separate arrangements were alsa made with Prussia, Portugal, and Savoy, the latter securing Sicily. By the treaty between France and the Empire the former kept the Rhine as a boundary, while the latter obtained, in addition to the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia. Results of the War. The arrangements made at Utrecht lasted for over a quarter of a century, 3 during which interval Great Britain kept practically clear of continental wars. In general, the Allies had gained the objects for which they had taken up arms in 1700-1702. This had been possible as early as 1706, or certainly in 1708 ; but not long after the opening of the conflict they had undertaken the further design of driving Philip from the throne of Spain, and, puffed up by their successes, they had driven Louis to desperation, with the con- sequence that he had continued the fighting until he forced them to accept less than, in the full-tide of their triumph, they had once rejected. Marlborough, who, with his Whig supporters, was largely responsible for pushing the war to an extremity, might, but for adverse conditions at home and abroad, have realized his ambition of crushing France utterly and dictating any terms he pleased. In strategy and in tactics his achievements had been almost unparalleled, but, on the Continent, he had been fatally handicapped by the timidity of the Dutch, the feeble support of the German princes, the selfish conflicting aims of the Allies, and the inopportune death of Joseph ; in England he had had occupied Acadia (Nova Scotia) ; in 1711 an invasion of Canada, with the cap- ture of Quebec as its main objective, failed. 1 A Spanish word meaning "legal compact." 2 An organization founded by Harley in 1711 as a means of funding the floating debt, which then amounted to about 9,500,000. The creditors were incorporated into the South Sea Company and given a monopoly of trading in the Spanish American colonies before there was any assurance that Spain would acquiesce. * Except that Austria in 1720 exchanged Sardinia for Sicily. 672 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND been confounded by Anne's incurable horror of Whig domination, by the violence of his own wife, and the final revulsion of popular feeling against contributing any more men and money to a cause in which the British had nothing further to gain. Nevertheless, chiefly through his efforts, Great Britain had played a remarkable role. She had " held the Grand Alliance together; she financed the other nations ; her fleet had almost a monopoly of the ocean ; her soldiers, for the first time since Agincourt, decided the fate of Europe on famous fields . . . and British ministers had dictated the terms of peace." One seeming advantage had been lost. By a treaty, signed by the French and English on the same day as the Peace of Utrecht, each had agreed to accord the other privileges of the most favored nations ; but owing to the storm raised by the English merchants and manu- facturers, who declared that the country would be reduced to beggary if French products were freely admitted, and who succeeded in con- vincing the Tory squires by what process of reasoning it is difficult to appreciate that rents and land values would be reduced, the ratification was defeated in Parliament, June, 1713. While England has since thriven on free trade, there seems to be little doubt, in the immature state of her industries at that time, that a small measure of protection was desirable. Louis, who in eleven years had lost as many pitched battles, succeeded in retaining the throne of Spain for his grandson and for himself with the exception of a few border towns, practically all that he had acquired during the long years of his aggrandizement ; but Great Britain, besides making substantial territorial and commercial gains, had put a stop to his oppressions and struck a heavy blow at the old regime, which, after a series of 'attacks more and more frequent as the century advanced, was finally swept away by the French Revolution. The Rivalry of Harley and St. John, 1713-1714. The remainder of Anne's reign was chiefly occupied with the question of the succes- sion and with the struggles of the two leaders of the Tory party. The relations between Harley and St. John, which had become strained after the settlement of the terms of peace, finally developed into an open feud. St. John not only chafed at the wary, unenterprising policy of his inscrutable colleague, but he was jealous of him as well. Harley had been made Earl of Oxford and Lord Treasurer in 1711, while St. John, created Viscount Bolingbroke, 2 June, 1712, had to be content with the next lower grade in the peerage. This he attributed to the treachery of his rival, though it was really due to the Queen, who could not overcome her distrust of a man reputed to be a free thinker and a notorious evil liver. As yet, the Whigs were in no posi- tion to profit by this personal rift in the ministry. Godolphin died in 1712, while Marlborough was hopelessly discredited. Threatened with judicial proceedings, baited by abusive pamphlets and even pursued on the street by cries of " Stop thief ! " he finally retired to the Continent, whence he did not return till the close of the year. THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 673 The Whigs, however, had some advantages over their opponents which told in the long run : they were grouped mostly in the populous commercial and manufacturing centers, where they could be easily organized at a crisis, and they were united on the Hanoverian succes- sion. The Tories, on the other hand, were scattered in the country regions and they were divided between the exiled Stuarts and the Hanoverians. The majority were unwilling to accept the Pretender so long as he remained a Roman Catholic, but most of them, remembering their blunder in 1705-1706, were disinclined to disturb the Queen any further on the subject. The shifty Oxford did indeed try to ingratiate himself with the Hanoverian family, but, finding that the Whigs prejudiced them against him, he resumed very non- committal negotiations with the Pretender. The Whigs, who had nothing more to hope from royal favor, took no pains to disguise their attitude. The Schism Act, 1714. The session of 1714 proved a stormy one. The Tory Ministry was bitterly attacked for the recent peace, as well as for not taking more effectual means to secure the Protestant suc- cession. With great difficulty it defeated a motion, declaring that the latter was in danger " under the present Government," and, by a supreme effort, carried an address of thanks to her Majesty " for having by a safe, honorable, and advantageous peace, delivered these nations from a long and consuming . . . war." Bolingbroke, who had at length got a free hand, aimed a crushing blow at the Dissenters by passing the Schism Act, which provided that no person was to keep or even teach a public or private school unless he was a member of the Church of England. This measure, repealed four years later, was an attempt to cut at the very roots of the growth of the Dissenting faiths by making it impossible for them to educate their children. Bolingbroke, who had himself been educated by a Nonconformist minister, was impelled by no religious motive ; his sole aim was to out- bid the cautious Oxford for the favor of Queen Anne. The Dismissal of Oxford, 29 July, 1714. Bolingbroke's Momentary Triumph. He saw that the time had now come to strike if ever he were to secure the supremacy. The Queen was failing in health, and, with a Tory majority, both in Parliament and throughout the kingdom, it was essential to improve the opportunity while she still lived to fill every position, military and civil, with trusted followers, in order to meet the Whig reaction which was bound to come with her death and the accession of the Hanoverians. Oxford had shown himself unequal to the work ; but Bolingbroke yearned to supplant him in any event. He has been accused of plotting to bring in the Pretender, but while his design is far from clear, 1 it is more probable that his aim was to secure control of the State, ally himself with the 1 He himself wrote later to Sir W. Windham : "As to what might happen after- wards on the death of the Queen, to speak truly, no one of us had any settled reso- lution." ax 674 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Jacobites, and, with these weapons in his hands, make such terms with the Hanoverians as would place him at the head of the new Govern- ment. It was a time of great perplexity, when opinion and interests were divided between " attachment to the legitimate line, hatred for Germans, Whigs, and Dissenters, dread of French influence, and detes- tation of Popery." Bolingbroke made a bold stroke for fortune, and it seemed for a moment as if he were going to succeed. On 27 July, Oxford was suddenly dismissed from office. While his overthrow was due largely to the intrigues of his rival, the reasons which Anne gave to the Council have a curious interest : " He neglected all busi- ness, she could seldom understand him, and even when he was in- telligible she could place no dependence on what he said. He never came punctually at times when she appointed. When he did come, he was often tipsy, and behaved toward her with . . . disrespect." The Death of Anne and the Defeat of Bolingbroke's Schemes, i August, 1714. Suddenly, 29 July, the Queen was stricken with her last illness, and Bolingbroke's well-laid plans were thrown into con- fusion. Had the Queen only lived six weeks, he calculated that he could have made himself master of the situation. Already, a strong faction had developed against him and the crisis forced them to act quickly. On the 3oth, a meeting of the Privy Council, opened at Whitehall, adjourned to the royal residence of Kensington. The anti-Bolingbroke combination triumphed, and either proposed or forced Bolingbroke to propose the old Whig, Shrewsbury, as Lord Treasurer. His ascendancy over men was such, when he chose to assert it, that he was known as the " King of Hearts." Subject to fits of faint-heartedness, he had left England early in William's reign and lived for long years in obscurity in Italy. Since his return in 1710 he had been a trusted councilor of the Queen. Fortunately for the cause of peace and the Hanoverians, he now showed a courage and decision foreign to him since the Revolution days. At the bed- side of the dying Queen he received the white staff of office with the royal command to use it for the good of the country. At once he took measures for the defense of the kingdom and the securing of the succession. On the morning of i August, Anne died. The list of the Council of Regency was opened and read, and that afternoon the heralds went about London and Westminster proclaiming George as King of Great Britain. " The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday," wrote Bolingbroke to Swift, " The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this ! and how does fortune banter us." His schemes, whatever they were, had come to naught, and the last of the Stuarts had ceased to reign. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. I. S. Leadam, Political History of England, 1702-1760 (1909), chs. I-XII (annotated list of authorities, pp. 502-516). Trevelyan, England under the THE END OF THE STUART DYNASTY 675 Stuarts, ch. XV. Cambridge Modern History, ch. XV (bibliography, pp. 857-860). Ranke, V, bk. XXII, chs. I, II. J. F. Bright, History of England (1889), III, pp. 875- 928 ; a clear and accurate summary valuable for the remainder of the period. F. W. Wyon, History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne (2 vols., 1876) ; the fullest history of the reign, but dry and somewhat antiquated. Lord Stanhope, The Reign of Queen Anne (1870) ; a careful but less detailed account. W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century (cab. ed., 7 vols., 1907), I, chs. I, II; the most informing general work on the period. Special. W. F. Lord, "Development of Political Parties during the Reign of Queen Anne," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, XIV, 1900. Army and Navy. W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough; good maps in the ed. of 1818. Fortescue, British Army, chs. I, II. Mahan, Sea Power, ch. V. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, ch. II. Biography. Hon. H. Elliot, The Life of Sidney, Earl of Godolphin (1888). T. Macknight's (1863) is still the best life of Bolingbroke; a more recent work is that of W. Sichel (1901) ; C. Collin's (1888) is a stimulating sketch. E. B. Roscoe, Harley, Earl of Oxford (1902). Contemporary. Burnet, Own Times, chs.V, VI. Swift, The Conduct of the Allies (1711); the Four Last Years of Queen Anne. Bolingbroke, Letters on the State of Parties at the Accession of George I. Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, III, bk. VII, ch. III. W. L. Matthie- son, Scotland and the Union l 1695-1747 (1905). D. DeFoe, History of the Union, between England and Scotland (1787); a valuable contemporary account. Lecky, Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (3 vols., 1873-1874), I. The Church. Hutton, English Church, chs. XIV, XV. Stoughton, V. Abbey, and Overton, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century (1896); the authoritative work on the period. Louis XIII, 1609-1643 1 Louis XIV, Philip, 1643-1715 Duke of Orleans, d. 1710 Louis (dauphin), d. 1711 Philip (Regent), d. 1723. Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Philip, King of Spain, d. 1746 Great-great-grand- father of d. 1712 1 Loxns XV, r~ ~~i Ferdinand Charles, 1715-1774 of Spain King of Naples Louis (dauphin), d. 1765 Louis XVI, i774~ I 793 Louis XVIII, CHARLES X, 1815-1824 1824-1830, abdicated. Louis PHILIPPE, 1830-1848 Louis XVII, Grandfather never reigned, d. 1795 of the Count de Chambord, Duke of Duke who died Orleans, d'Aumale without issue, d. 1842 1884 i Count de Paris, d. 1894 Philip, Duke of Orleans CHAPTER XXXIX THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I (1714-1727) The Peaceful Reception of the Hanoverian Dynasty. While the people were " gaping and staring," the crisis passed. Bolingbroke and the other Tory leaders remained inactive, stocks rose, and Par- liament, when it met, voted a reward of 100,000 for the capture of the Pretender. Hurrying to Paris on the news of Anne's death, he found the prospect so discouraging that he returned to Lorraine. The arrival of the new King, 18 September, provoked no opposition and awakened some enthusiasm. Already before crossing the Channel he dismissed Bolingbroke. " The grief of my soul is this," wrote the fallen Minister ; "I see plainly that the Tory party is gone." The new Ministry was wholly Whig, with the exception of Nottingham, who had joined in opposition to the peace in 1711. Charles, Viscount Townshend, was made Secretary of State for the Northern Depart- ment and Chief Minister. Robert Walpole, his brother-in-law, be- came Paymaster General. Marlborough was restored to his position as Commander-in-Chief, but was rarely consulted ; and was soon attacked by a paralytic stroke which left him with impaired powers during the few remaining years of his life. Shrewsbury, although he retained the office of Lord Chamberlain, resigned the Treasurership and relapsed into his former inactivity. The New Bang. George Lewis inherited the crown from his mother, Sophia, who had died in the previous June at the ripe age of eighty-three. He was at this time fifty-four years old and had been Elector of Hanover since 1698. As a youth of twenty he had visited England as a suitor for the Princess Anne, but had been recalled to marry his cousin, Sophia Dorothea. Two children resulted from this union : George who succeeded to the English throne in 1727, and Sophia Doro- thea, who became the mother of Frederick the Great of Prussia. George alienated his wife by coldness and neglect until finally in the night of i July, 1694, she attempted to flee with a Swedish adventurer, Philip von Konigsmarck. The plan was discovered, though George was absent on a journey to Berlin; Konigsmarck was murdered; Sophia was divorced and kept prisoner till her death in 1726. This rigorous treatment was one of the many grounds of hostility between father and son in years to come. The early life of the future King had been an active one: he had fought for the Emperor against the Turks, he had seen service under King William, he had 676 THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 677 joined the Grand Alliance, and for three years commanded the Im- perial forces on the Upper Rhine. While he remained loyal to the cause, he finally withdrew from the command in 1710, disgusted at the lack of support. He had carefully refrained from meddling in English affairs, though after the death of his mother he apparently took a more lively interest in the succession struggle. Personal Traits and Favorites. Even as a young man he was frigid and silent, qualities which clung to him through life. His vivacious granddaughter, WiLhelmina, sister of Frederick the Great, describing a visit to Berlin, speaks of his "Spanish manners," his "'extreme gravity," and says he " hardly spoke a word to anybody." He was heavy and awkward, narrow and obstinate. In Hanover he was extremely popular ; for he loved his country and his people as much as he was capable of loving anything. So he started for his new king- dom " without ceremony and without elation." Two female favorites followed in his train. One, the Countess von Kielmannsegge, created Countess of Darlington, was so fat and unwieldy that she was known as the " Elephant " ; the other, the Countess von Schulenburg, created Duchess of Kendal, was old, tall, and lean, and got the name of the " Maypole," 1 a queer creature who, after George's death, thought that his spirit came to her in the form of a raven perched at her window. Both were rapacious and drove a thriving trade in patronage. In addi- tion, there were George's German councilors, Bothmar and Bernstorff, and his French secretary, Robethon. These, and even his two black servants, Mustapha and Mahomet, combined to fleece the people, thus adding to the unpopularity which the new King's uncouth ways, low, common tastes, his unconcealed preference for his native land, and ignorance of the English language and customs were bound to create. Yet, unheroic and parsimonious as he was, he was much to be preferred to his Stuart rival. He was courageous, just, and prudent, painstaking, frugal in his expenses, and punctual in his payments ; he defended the country from invasion, kept the peace at home and abroad, and formed strong alliances. He has been justly accused of guiding his foreign policy primarily in the Hanoverian interests, but they were usually to England's advantage and never to her detri- ment. Moreover, by his very indifference to English domestic con- cerns, and by letting his Whig ministers run the affairs of the country, 2 he contributed greatly to the growth of Cabinet and party government. The Prospects of the New Reign. Although the new King had been brought in without bloodshed, his prospects were by no means unclouded. The energy of Shrewsbury and the Council had dumb- founded the Jacobites, and the army, and the moneyed classes were strongly Hanoverian ; but George's unqualified support of the Whigs, the exclusion of the Tories from all preferment, together with the bitter attacks directed against them for their actions during the last 1 Carlyle suggested that she might better have been called the "hop-pole." 2 Except at rare intervals when they came in conflict with his foreign policy. 678 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND years of Queen Anne, tended to force even the more moderate into the arms of the Pretender. Scotland was seething with discontent, and Ireland was only held down by crushing laws backed by military force. Abroad, Prussia and Holland were the only Powers upon which the Hanoverians could safely count ; France was still smarting from her recent humiliation, while Spain was her ally. The Emperor felt himself defrauded by the late peace, and was not on good terms with George. Popular Discontent in England. The Riot Act, 1715. No sooner was the -crisis of the succession passed than popular discontent began to manifest itself. Riots broke out at Bristol and other places, " foreign government " was denounced, Dissenters were insulted, their chapels were attacked, and Tory pamphlets poured from the press with such titles as " Stand Fast for the Church," and " No Presbyterian Government." l Nevertheless, the Tory Parliament, which, according to law, came to an end six months after the death of the late Sovereign, was succeeded by one in which the Whigs were in the majority, a majority which they retained for nearly fifty years. The elections were attended with the usual violence. 2 In view of the recent tumults a Riot Act was passed early in 1715, providing that if any twelve persons, assembled for the disturbance of the peace, should refuse to disperse after proclamation read by a magistrate, they might be treated as felons, and those who shot them down would not be answerable for murder. Impeachment of the Tory Leaders, 1715. A select committee was appointed to inquire into the Peace of Utrecht, and Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormonde were impeached. Bolingbroke and Ormonde fled the country, which drew down acts of attainder upon their heads. Oxford remained to face his accusers. Party spirit was intense during the investigation. Walpole, for instance, declared that he wanted words " to express the villany of the late Frenchified Ministry." The only defense Oxford could offer was that he had acted under royal orders. Though he was held prisoner in the Tower for two years, proceedings against him were dropped in 1717. His was the last case in English history of an impeachment on purely political grounds. Ormonde never again set foot in England, though in his exile he was busy for years in the Pretender's cause. Bolingbroke, after the news of his attainder reached him in France, openly espoused the Stuart cause, and became Secretary of State to James and the leading spirit in the'famous movement of 1715 to restore the old line by means of a general rising supported by an invasion from France. 1 The best reply was by Addison, entitled A Tory's Creed, in which he exposed the inconsistencies of the High Church Jacobites. The first article declares ironi- cally : "The Church of England will always be in danger till it has a Popish King for its defender." 2 At Cambridge, for instance, a body of undergraduates mounted on the roof of St. John's College "with a good store of brickbats" to discharge on the heads of the newly elected members as they passed. THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 679 The Rising of 1715. The success of the undertaking depended upon three conditions: England and Scotland should rise together; James should be on the spot; and he should have substantial aid from abroad. None of these conditions were fulfilled, the movement only came to a head in the north of England and in Scotland, and resulted in hopeless failure. The prompt and decisive measures of the Government prevented a rising in the south and west of England which Ormonde had been planning before his flight ; fleets were set to guard the ports, and when he sought to return at the head of a small expedition, he was prevented even from landing. The next blow came with the death of Louis XIV, i September. Again Boling- broke had been frustrated by a death ; for Louis was an ardent cham- pion of the exiled family and was burning to retrieve his recent defeat. He was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV, a sickly child. The Duke of Orleans, who became Regent, was the next heir after Philip V of Spain. Hoping (in the event of the death of the little King) to prevent Philip from repudiating his renunciation of the throne of France, he gave no countenance to the Jacobite leaders. With no prospect of a rising in southern England or of support from France, Bolingbroke sent messages to prevent the Scots from taking up arms but it was too late. The Earl of Mar summons the Clans and occupies Perth. North of the Border the opposition to the existing Government was too bitter and widespread to be satisfied with scheming, grumbling, drinking toasts to the " King over the water," and with occasional riots. The Highlanders still nursed their hatred against the Campbells; the Episcopalians and the Roman Catholics chafed at the Presbyterian regime ; and the majority of Scotsmen were not yet reconciled to the Union. The leader of the rising was the Earl of Mar, known as " Bobbing John," from the readiness with which he shifted from one party to the other. Though he had professed loyalty to George I he was dismissed from office, whereupon he went over to the Jacobites. On 6 September, 1715, he set up the Stuart banner at Braemar, whither, within a few days, thousands flocked to join him. The English authorities acted promptly, suspected persons were arrested, an attempt of the Edinburgh Jacobites to seize the Castle was frustrated, the Duke of Argyle was put in command of the Government forces and occupied Stirling. Mar, marching south, entered Perth, 28 September, but as a general he proved overcautious and ineffective. The Highlanders could only be relied upon for a short, dashing cam- paign, a victory was essential to encourage the disaffected, while every day Argyle's forces swelled in numbers as his own dwindled away. Nevertheless, he remained inactive for weeks. Preston and Sheriff Muir, 13 November, 1715. He did, however, dispatch a force under Brigadier Mackintosh, which, after failing to capture Edinburgh, marched to the Border. There, 22 October, Mackintosh combined with a small force of Lowlanders who had re- 680 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND cently been joined by a body of Jacobite gentlemen from Cumberland and Northumberland under Thomas Forster, a member of Parliament. The English would not march farther north into Scotland, while the Scots were reluctant to enter England. Finally, they moved aimlessly southwest along the Cheviots; five hundred Highlanders deserted, and Forster proceeded southward with the remainder of his little force. He got as far as Preston, where, hemmed in by General Wills from Manchester and General Carpenter from Newcastle, he surrendered 13 November. 1 On the same day, Mar's army, which had at length advanced from Perth, and Argyle's marching up from Stirling, met at Sheriff Muir. Each was victorious against his op- ponent's left wing, but Mar withdrew his forces from the field. Many no doubt shared the feelings of the Highlander who cried : " Oh for an hour of Dundee ! " and the Camerons on their return to their native glen kept the secret from their aged chief. Argyle, content with having stopped the advance of the rebels, returned to Stirling. The Arrival of the Pretender. The Final Collapse. While Mar's forces were rapidly melting away, and, just as he had opened peace negotiations, the Pretender arrived, 22 December, 1715, with a single ship and attended by only eight gentlemen. He had started from Lorraine in October ; but, unable to take ship at St. Malo as he had planned, he was obliged to journey on horseback all the way to Dunkirk. Mar, directly he heard of his landing, hastened to meet him. He was proclaimed as James III of England and James VIII of Scotland. He was received with some enthusiasm as he journeyed to Scone, where his coronation was appointed to take place. There he set up a court, and the Jacobite ladies contributed their jewels to make him a crown. But he was in a desperate position. The Earl of Sutherland, who had taken the Hanoverian side, was closing in on him from the north, while Argyle, reenforced by 6000 Dutch troops, was marching up from the south. Nor was James the one to inspire a forlorn hope in " the little kings " or their clans. " Some said the circumstances he found us in dejected him," wrote a sup- porter; " I am sure the figure he made dejected us." Mar speedily realized that there was nothing for it but to get him out of the coun- try as soon as possible. The Pretender himself has been accused of urging the flight ; if so, it was only because he recognized the inevi- table. At Montrose he and the Earl embarked for France, while the clansmen sullenly dispersed to their homes across the snow. 2 James retired first to Avignon and thence to Rome. While still in France he foolishly dismissed Bolingbroke, the wisest councilor he had, who 1 The ineffectiveness of the defense is explained partly from the fact that For- ster did not leave his bed that morning when a council of war was held, having received "some damage at a convivial entertainment" the night before. * James left money to be distributed among those whose homes had been devas- tated for his sake : "So that I might at least have the satisfaction," he declared, "of having been the destruction of none, at a time when I came to free all." THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 681 expressed a wish " that his arm might rot off if he ever again drew his sword or his pen " in his cause. The treatment of those concerned in the rebellion was as mild as could be expected. Six peers captured at Preston were impeached : two were spared ; two escaped from the Tower, one, Lord Nithesdale, in his wife's clothes ; the other two were executed. The lesser men were tried in the ordinary courts, but of those adjudged guilty only about thirty were put to death. Forster escaped, and few of the Scots were captured. Thus ended the ill- managed and unfortunate rising of 1715. The Septennial Act, 1716. Such little popularity as the Whig Government enjoyed was bound to be diminished by the repressive measures which it was necessary to employ against the Jacobites. Consequently, the Ministry was unwilling to run the risk of a general election at the end of another year. This was the real reason which led, in 1716, to the passage of the Septennial Act, extending the possible duration of Parliament from three to seven years. 1 The difficulty might have been met by a temporary measure; but it was thought wiser to justify the action on permanent grounds. The Act of 1694, designed to remedy an obvious abuse, had proved far from effectual and was open to serious objections besides. It was too great a strain on the country to choose representatives every three years, at a time when elections were long, costly, and usually tumultuous. Then, as Steele argued without overmuch exaggeration, the first year of a parliament was largely occupied in deciding contested elections, in the third the members were mainly engaged in cultivating their con- stituents, so that practically only one year was devoted to business of legislation. Also, a longer term was necessary to protect the members, on the one hand, from the Crown and the peers who controlled many seats ; and, on the other, from too great subservience to electors. It should be borne in mind, however, that there are many good reasons why the people, capricious as they often are, should have frequent opportunities to call their representatives to account. Such was not the view which prevailed among the Whig aristocracy then in control. George's Journey to Hanover, 1716. The European Situation. No sooner was the danger from the rebellion over than George deter- mined to visit his Hanoverian dominion. There were two difficulties in the way. The first was the restraining clause in the Act of Settle- ment. That was easily repealed without an opposing vote ; for the Whigs were anxious to please the King, while the Tories, by making it possible for him to make frequent trips abroad, hoped to increase his unpopularity. 2 The other difficulty which arose from his un- willingness to intrust the government to Prince George during his absence caused more difficulty. Father and son were bitterly at odds, a characteristic of the Hanoverian family which continued through the next three or four generations. The King suggested 1 It remained in force till 1911, when the term was shortened to five years. 2 Altogether he made seven journeys to Hanover and died during the last. 682 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND a commission for the exercise of the royal authority ; but the matter was finally compromised by conferring upon the Prince of Wales the title of Guardian of the Realm and Lieutenant, 1 instead of the more usual one of Regent, at the same time carefully restricting his powers. Thereupon, 9 July, 1716, George started for Hanover, where he was so happy that " he seemed to have forgot the accident that happened to him i August, 1714." The situation, however, which he had to face was very disquieting. Among the European powers he had only two sure friends and many enemies, active or passive. The Triple Alliance, 1716-1717. The desire of the Regent of France to secure English support appeared to offer the best prospect of strength abroad and peace at home. Yet an alliance with France seemed on the face of it such a reversal of traditional Whig policy that Townshend and Stanhope 2 naturally hesitated ; but, after all, the principal aims of that party had been to secure the Revolution settlement, and to prevent the French from securing the control of the Spanish colonies and trade. If both these objects could be secured by a diplomatic arrangement with the Regent, there was no reason for continued hostility to France. The agent selected by the Regent in the negotiations which followed was the Abbe Dubois, afterwards Cardinal and Chief Minister, a man of uncommon abilities, but shame- less and unprincipled, who sought the advancement of his master's interests and his own at the expense of those of his country " a priest without religion and a politician without honor." Before the close of 1716 a treaty was signed by Stanhope and Dubois in which the Dutch were to be included. It provided that the Pretender should be excluded from France and that the renunciation of Philip should be confirmed. Thus the danger in the south was in a fair way to be averted ; but the situation in the north continued threaten- ing. Charles XII of Sweden was roused to hostility from an arrange- ment which George had made with Denmark by which he was enabled to purchase the old German bishoprics of Bremen and Verden. 3 Moreover, Peter the Great of Russia, anxious to secure a foothold in the Empire, had recently poured an army into the Duchy of Mecklen- burg and quartered an army in Denmark. George was anxious to employ the English fleet, which had been sent to the Baltic in July, 1715, to drive him out. Stanhope agreed, but Townshend warmly opposed the project. He also withheld his assent to the Triple Alliance until he was assured of the willingness of the Dutch to join. 4 The Cabinet Crisis of 1716-1717. The remonstrances of George, backed by Denmark and the Emperor, finally induced the Tsar to recall his troops without war ; but the attitude of Townshend con- 1 A title which had not been used since the days of the Black Prince. 2 Townshend's colleague as Secretary. He accompanied George to Hanover. 3 They had been acquired in the Treaty of Westphalia by the Swedes in 1648, but had been conquered by the Danes in 1712. 4 They finally signed in January, 1715. THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 683 tributed to a split in the Whig Ministry. Many other causes were at work to alienate the King from Townshend and his supporters. For one thing, a serious misunderstanding arose as to the payment of a body of German troops which George had engaged to assist in the suppression of the Rising of 1715. Since Walpole, who had ar- ranged the matter with the King, could speak no French or German and George could speak no English, with the consequence that they had been reduced to communicating in Latin, there was ample oppor- tunity for misunderstandings. In addition, the German favorites, whose schemes for fleecing the English Townshend rudely opposed, threw their influence against him, while Sunderland, embittered be- cause he had not obtained a leading place in the Cabinet, was intrigu- ing busily with the King in Hanover. They made the most of the fact that the Chief Secretary was overbearing in manner and inclined to be negligent in business. The crisis came when Townshend applied for more discretionary power for the Prince of Wales, whereupon the King dismissed him from the office of Secretary in December. Stanhope, who managed to secure for him the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, has been accused of bad faith toward his colleague, but, whether or no that be true, the attitude he took is an indication that the idea of Cabinet solidarity had as yet made little progress. The prevailing Whig sentiment was gloomy and resentful. They de- nounced the step as a proof of " the ascendancy of continental politics over English concerns " and the period from 1717 to 1720, during which Stanhope was at the head of affairs, was known as that of the " German Ministry." Walpole in Opposition, 1717. In April, the King finally dismissed Townshend from office altogether. Walpole, though George pressed him to stay, insisted on resigning, thus acting on the principle of Cabinet unity which he later did so much to develop. In spite, how- ever, of his profession " that the tenor of his conduct should show that he never intended to make the King uneasy, nor to embarrass his affairs," he entered on a course of violent opposition which lasted till he again resumed office. He opposed the renewal of the Mutiny Act and he made a strenuous effort to reduce the standing army to 12,000 men. " The parties of Walpole and Stanhope," wrote Pope, " are as violent as Whig and Tory." l In spite of discord, however, the session of 1 7 1 7 was fruitful in wise legislation. Among other measures, Stanhope carried into effect a scheme for the reduction of the National Debt which Walpole himself had devised just before his resignation, which marks the beginning of the English Sinking Fund. In 1718 he 1 In this year, 1717, a bitter struggle between Benjamin Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor, and the High Church party came to a head. He expressed views against the Divine Right of kings and the Divine Institution of Episcopacy which cut at the very foundations of their belief and led them to denounce him in Convocation. The chief result was the suspension of the sittings of that body, which never met again till 1852. 68 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND managed to secure the repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act of 1711 and the Schism Act of 1714. Again, he met with the bitter re- sistance of Walpole, who had once compared the latter measure to a " decree of Julian the Apostate." At the same time, Stanhope tried and failed to do away with the Test and Corporation Acts. The custom of employing the sacrament as "an office key, a picklock to a place, " : was a grave scandal, bound to degrade the most sacred symbol of Christianity, as well as the men of Dissenting faith or of no faith at all, who took it for purely political purposes. Swift once com- mented on the practice with his usual biting sarcasm. " I was early," he writes, " with the Secretary [Bolingbroke], but he was gone to his devotions and to receive the sacrament. Several rakes did the same. It was not from piety, but for employment under the Act of Parlia- ment." Beginning in 1727, the custom arose of passing annual in- demnity acts, protecting from punishment those who accepted office without taking the sacramental test ; but the concession was churlish and unsatisfactory, for it purported to relieve only those who " through ignorance of the law, absence or unavoidable accident," failed to qualify. Some who could allege none of these excuses were chal- lenged, others were too scrupulous to take advantage of such an evasion of the law ; but numbers of Dissenters were admitted to office in this way till the final repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828. The Projects of Elizabeth of Spain and Cardinal Alberoni. Mean- time, Elizabeth, second wife of Philip of Spain, and her Minister and favorite, Cardinal Alberoni, had, by their ambitious projects, plunged into a war with Austria, a war in which England and France took a slight share. There were many outstanding difficulties, for no formal peace had ever been made between the Emperor and the King of Spain. Elizabeth Farnese 2 was determined to secure the duchies of Parma and Tuscany both as a check on imperial dominion in Italy and as a herit- age for her son Don Carlos 3 Alberoni, the son of a poor Italian gardener, was fired with an ambition to drive Austria from his native country and to restore Spain to her former greatness. He was a grotesque creature, but possessed of a soaring imagination, tireless energy, and considerable executive ability. By a series of funda- mental reforms he managed to lift Spain from her sloth, corruption, and superstition, while, at the same time, he sought to dictate the policy of Europe. Before he had time to develop his resources he was forced into war by the fiery Queen. Still, it seemed a good time to strike ; for Austria was involved in war with the Turks, 1716-1718. The Quadruple Alliance, August, 1718. In August, 1717, a Spanish fleet made itself master of Sardinia. Thereupon, England, 1 The phrase occurs in a famous poem of Cowper on the subject. 2 Carlyle called her the "Spanish virago," the "termagant of Spain." 3 The heir to Spain was Ferdinand , son of Philip by his first wife, though Carlos ultimately succeeded him as Charles III. THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 685 which in May, 1716, had made a treaty with Austria by which each Power guaranteed the dominions of the other against attack, felt bound to mediate. Without declaring war on Spain, a fleet was fitted out under Admiral Byng. When Alberoni, who roared that his master was treated like a " king of plaster," or a " German," refused to listen to peace, and prepared a second and much more formidable expedition, the English squadron was dispatched to the Mediterranean. In July, 1 718, peace with the Turks freed a considerable force of Imperial troops for service in Italy. The same month a treaty was concluded by England and France with Austria, 1 which, after it was joined by the Dutch in the following year, was known as the Quadruple Alli- ance. It provided, among other things, that Spain should renounce all claims on Italy, though Parma and Tuscany were to revert to Don Carlos, independent of Spanish control, and Austria was to exchange Sardinia for Sicily. Meantime, the Spanish invaders had landed in force in Sicily and were in a fair way of overcoming the island when, ii August, Byng defeated and nearly destroyed their fleet off Cape Passaro, thus cutting off the invading force from aid and supplies. In December Charles XII, on whom Alberoni had counted to combine with Peter of Russia, and to threaten his enemies from the north, was killed while besieging a Norwegian fortress, and the next year Sweden came to terms with Hanover. Also, a plot actively furthered by the Cardinal for overthrowing the Regent of France was discovered. In consequence, France declared war, 9 January, 1719, a step which England had already taken 17 December. The Fall of Alberoni, December, 1719. Alberoni's hopes were now centered on a Jacobite invasion of Britain which he sent from Spain under the Duke of Ormonde, but the fleet, struck by a violent gale in the Bay of 'Biscay, never reached its destination. Two frigates did succeed in landing a body of Jacobites on the Scotch coast in April, 1719. There they were joined by a few hundred Highlanders, but were speedily tracked down and scattered. The Spanish cause was doomed. Berwick led a French army across the Pyrenees, an English expedition captured Vigo, while the Austrians steadily gained ground in Sicily. As a result, Alberoni was dismissed and banished from Spain, 5 December, 1719. Undoubtedly one of the most extraordi- nary men of the eighteenth century, he fell a victim to his rash ambition and the insuperable obstacles he had to face. In February, 1720, Philip gave his assent to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance, renewed his renunciation of the French Crown, and agreed to evacuate Sardinia and Sicily within six months. Aided by favoring circumstances, Stan- hope's diplomacy had been a brilliant success. He had averted danger from the north, he had foiled the hopes of the Jacobites, he had kept Spain and France apart, had secured powerful allies for England abroad and given her again a leading place in the councils of Europe. Some 1 Signed in London, 20 August, 1718, 686 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND outstanding causes of dispute still remained ; but Europe was free from war for twelve years. The Peerage Bill, 1719. The differences between the two Whig factions continued acute. In 1719 a bill passed the House of Lords which provided that henceforth, exclusive of those conferred on mem- bers of the royal family, only six more peerages could be created. The Scotch were bribed by a provision that their sixteen representa- tive peers were to be replaced by twenty-five named by the Crown who were to be hereditary. There were three main reasons for the Peerage Bill: to prevent a repetition of what had occurred in 1711, the sudden creation of a number of peers for political purposes ; to check the influence of the King's German favorites ; and to prevent the Prince, if ever he became King, from rewarding his supporters at the expense of his opponents. In other words, it was designed by the dominant faction to secure and perpetuate its own power. It was open to two grave objections : it would have made the body of peers a closed caste by stopping that vitalizing stream of recruits mer- chants, warriors, statesmen, and lawyers from which it was con- stantly nourished, and it would have prevented the Ministry from exercising any control over the Upper House. Walpole proved to be its most effective opponent. In a splendid speech in which he de- clared " that the usual path to the temple of honor had been through the temple of virtue, but, by this bill, it is now to be only through the sepulcher of a dead ancestor," he " bore down everything before him." Though the Peerage Bill was defeated in the Commons 269 to 1 7 7, the Ministry had no thought of resigning. It held its customary majority in Parliament and seemed in a very strong position both at home and abroad when the financial crash, known as the South Sea Bubble, came and overthrew it within a few months. The National Debt and the South Sea Company. The National Debt now amounted to over 50,000,000, much of it burdened with 7 to 8 per cent interest, while private loans could be secured for 4 per cent. In view of the peaceful and prosperous condition of the coun- try the Government desired to cut down this rate of interest and to reduce the principal as rapidly as possible. There was this great diffi- culty, however, that a large part of it was irredeemable ; that is, it ran for a long term, some in the form of ninety- nine year annuities, and could neither be paid nor the interest diminished without the consent of the creditors. In 1711, Harley had funded 9,500,000 of the floating debt by the creation of the South Sea Company. In 1 7 1 7, two schemes devised by Walpole were carried into effect by Stanhope. One pro- vided for a loan of 600,000 at 4 per cent, raised by general subscrip- tion. This was to be employed to pay off a portion of the debt bur- dened with a higher rate, but the taxes imposed to meet the old interest were continued, and the difference was to be applied toward reducing the principal. By the second, which proved more popular, the South Sea Company and the Bank were induced to cut down the rate of THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 687 interest on their existing loans and to advance 4,500,000 additional for buying up the redeemable debts of those who refused to accept a lower rate. But there still remained over 30,000,000 which the Government was anxious to group into a single fund, yielding only the market rate and redeemable at will. Since the South Sea Company desired to increase its capital, an arrangement was suggested whereby the holders of the outstanding debt should be paid in shares of the Company. Thus the Government was to have one creditor a joint stock company instead of many. It was to pay the company 5 per cent till 1727, and from that date 4 per cent, until the principal should be finally paid. The plan looked so tempting that other companies clamored for a share. Accordingly, they were given a chance to bid. The Bank of England proved to be the leading competitor, but the South Sea Company won by agreeing to pay a bonus of 7,500,000. Since no money was received from those who took stock in exchange for annuities, funds had to be raised to pay the bonus as well as to satisfy such creditors as refused to accept stock. At first all went well ; most of the annuitants accepted the Company's terms, and over 5,000,000 were subscribed in cash for new shares. But the arrangement resulted in disaster. In the first place, the Company had paid for more than it got ; moreover, it bur- dened itself by the creation of additional blocks of stock which it ac- tually gave away to influential members of the Government and to Court favorites ; while, worse than all, the project fostered a fever of speculation which. was taking possession of the country. Before this speculative bubble burst, it had soared to dizzy heights. By August, 1720, the shares of the Company, which stood at 130 during the previous winter, had risen to 1000. In spite of a royal proclamation against " mischievous and dangerous undertakings . . . presuming " to raise " stocks and shares without legal authority," all sorts of schemes sprang up like Jonah's gourd, and the offices in Change Alley became so crowded that clerks had to transact business in the streets. Some were legitimate projects : for manufactures, paving, water works, and the like ; but most of them were absurd : for fishing up wrecks from off the Irish coast; making salt water fresh; making oil from sun- flower seeds, and for a wheel of perpetual motion ; and, most amazing of all, for " an undertaking in due time to be revealed." Before long it was estimated that 300,000,000 was invested, largely in crazy ventures. The Bursting of the South Sea Bubble. People's eyes were only opened when the South Sea Company, bent on monopolizing all the gain, began to prosecute certain of its bogus rivals. It won the suits, but, at the same time, gave a shock to public confidence which led to its own downfall. Shareholders began eagerly to offer their bonds for sale, and speedily came to realize the difference between paper prom- ises and solid gain. By September the Company's shares fell to 300, when news from France brought the crisis to a head. This was the 688 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND flight of John Law, a Scotch adventurer who had set all Paris wild with his financial schemes, particularly his " Indian Company " for controlling the trade of the Mississippi. The rage of the disillusioned speculators flamed out against those to whose promises they had listened all too readily. " The very name of a South Sea man " grew " abominable." Resentment spread to the court favorites, to the Min- istry, and even to the King himself. George hastened back early in November from Hanover ; but, in spite of his return, stocks fell to 135. The End of the Stanhope Ministry, 1721. Parliament met, 8 December, 1720, when the directors of the Company were ordered to lay a full account of their proceedings before the Houses ; also, bills were passed, obliging them to declare on oath the value of their estates, prohibiting them from leaving the kingdom, and offering rewards to informers. A secret committee of inquiry was appointed in the Commons, while several of the directors were examined in the Lords. The excitement was intense. Stanhope in the midst of a speech was attacked by a rush of blood to the head and died the next day. Town- shend replaced him as Secretary. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, deeply involved in the recent speculations, resigned, and Walpole was appointed to fill the vacancy. The report of the secret committee disclosed a mass of corruption; notably, that 500,000 of fictitious stock had been distributed among certain ministers and favorites. Craggs, one of the accused, who had been the other Secretary of State, died opportunely of smallpox the day the report was read, and his father poisoned himself soon after. Sunderland was tried ; but, though acquitted, he had to give up his office of First Lord of the Treasury, which was assumed by Walpole along with the Chancellor- ship of the Exchequer. The directors suffered heavily; they were disabled from holding office or from sitting in Parliament, and their estates, amounting to 2,000,000, were appropriated for the unfor- tunate investors. Petitions poured in and pamphlets multiplied in which they were denounced as " Monsters of pride and covetousness," " Cannibals of Change Alley," and not a few demanded that they be hanged. Yet the people were, in no small degree, to blame for their eagerness to make money. Before the inquiry was completed, Wal- pole, to whom all eyes were turned, had proposed a scheme for restor- ing the public credit. While he had bought South Sea Stock and had sold out at enormous profit, he had been so fortunate as to be out of office when the Government had made its arrangements with the Com- pany. By his advice, the bonus which the latter had agreed to pay was practically remitted, its liabilities were settled, and what remained of the capital stock, about 33 per cent, was divided among the pro- prietors. The Beginning of Walpole's Ascendancy. His Early Career. Walpole now became Chief Minister, 1 a position which he retained for 1 Townshend confined himself almost solely to foreign affairs. THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 689 over twenty years. The Tory party was handicapped by being more or less identified with the cause of the Roman Catholic Pretender and rebellion ; but the Whig ascendancy would not have been so easily maintained had it not been for the great abilities of their leader as an administrator and as a party and parliamentary manager. Born in 1676, Robert Walpole was one of the nineteen children of a Norfolk squire. As a younger son he was destined for the Church, but the death of his elder brother leaving him heir to the family estates, he entered Parliament in 1701. He was made Secretary at War in 1708 and subsequently Treasurer of the Navy ; but shared in Marlborough's fall in 1711. He was even expelled from the House on charge of breach of trust and corruption, but since he had pocketed nothing for him- self and had merely used his influence in behalf of a friend, he was regarded as a martyr by his party. By virtue of his skill in debate, his industry, patience and calmness of temper he came rapidly to the front, so that at the accession of George he was recognized as the leader of the House of Commons. His Strength and Achievements. He was not a man of ideals, neither was he strikingly brilliant or original, but he was essentially sane and efficient. His services to his country were many and great. He established the Hanoverian succession on a secure foundation; he gave England twenty years of peace and prosperity ; he softened the bitterness of political and ecclesiastical faction, and raised the House of Commons to the leading position in the State. Remaining master of that body, he, at the same time, gained a firm hold on the confidence of two successive kings, an achievement all the more remark- able from the fact that he aimed to keep clear of foreign complications, while both George I and George II were primarily interested in con- tinental affairs, while the latter had a consuming ambition for military glory. Walpole was so economical that George I declared that he " could make gold from nothing." A typical squire it is said that he always opened the letters from his gamekeeper first he worked for the interest of the landed gentry, and as a result, had their strong support ; but he held the commercial classes to him as well, by his knowledge of trade and finance, 1 and his furtherance of their concerns. Careful not to arouse the apprehension of High Churchmen by any radical legislation on the subject of toleration, he, nevertheless, by appointing liberal bishops and by his lax administration of the existing laws relating to religious disabilities, managed to keep from alienating the Dissenters. He was a strict party disciplinarian, who, so far as he was able, would brook no opposition in the Cabinet or in Par- liament, but he showed a deference to public opinion rare up to that time, which marks him as the forerunner of the modern minister. His Faults and Limitations. Yet, while Walpole's merits and services were great, they were counterbalanced by decided faults and 1 He was said to be the "best master of figures" of any man of his time. 2 Y 690 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND limitations, some of which were typical of the age and of his class. He was coarse in his conversation, loose in his private life, and cared nothing for learning or letters. His sole refined taste was his love for paintings, of which he made a famous collection. While he had the welfare of his country at heart and was faithful to his sovereign and never enriched himself at the public expense, he was greedy of power, he was unscrupulous in his party tactics, and utterly lacking in any high sense of honor. In opposition he opposed principles which he had supported from his entrance into public life ; in office he made no effort to secure the passage of measures, however worthy, that might endanger his ascendancy, 1 and he finished his career by offering to give up his cherished policy of peace in order to remain at the head of affairs. He preferred to be served by those men of mediocre attain- ments and low standards of conduct who obeyed his will, and repelled gifted and high-minded men who might become his rivals. He stood in the way of all attempts of the Tories to reconcile themselves with the Hanoverian dynasty. It would have endangered the Whig mo- nopoly, but the wholesome rivalry of the two fairly well-balanced parties has always proved a stimulus to good government. Wai- pole's influence on the younger generation of statesmen was baneful : he scoffed at ideals of purity and patriotism, scornfully labeling those who professed them as " Spartans," " Romans," and " saints." Pat- ronage was regarded as legitimate for a long time to come, and Walpole used it openly and effectively ; but the extent to which he employed money bribes for corrupting members of Parliament has never been proved. In all likelihood, however, it was great. Unfortunately, the practice did not begin or end with him. The methods, however, had become more secret by Walpole's time, and his transgressions in the matter may have been exaggerated by his opponents. Nevertheless, this fact remains true that, during the long period of his ascendancy, he discouraged the cooperation of the nobler spirits, and not only did nothing to raise, but much to depress the already low state of public morality. This must not be forgotten in giving him due credit for his great services in the material development of his country. Atterbury's Plot, 1722-1723. Speedily as the Whig Government recovered from the effects of the South Sea Company panic, the in- cident had the effect of reviving the hopes of the Jacobites. They were further encouraged in 1722 by the birth of a son to James " Prince Charlie " as his followers fondly named him, but known to his opponents as the "Young Pretender." In the same year, Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, famous for his eloquence as a preacher and for his literary gifts, thought the time had come to strike another blow for the exiled family. Largely through his efforts a wide-reach- ing plot was devised to seize the Tower and the Bank, to start a rising throughout England, to bring over Ormonde from Spain and James 1 His motto was quieta non movere, do not stir up unnecessary strife. THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 691 from Rome. The design was discovered through the Regent of France, various suspected persons were arrested, and in August the Bishop was seized and lodged in the Tower. He was tried, and, in spite of a great uproar from the Tory parsons, a bill of pains and penalties was framed in Parliament which sentenced him to banishment on pain of death. As he landed at Calais in 1723 he met Bolingbroke on his way home, to whom he remarked wittily: "Then we are exchanged." He died abroad in 1732, in the service of the Old Pretender. Wood's Halfpence and the Drapier Letters, 1723-1724. No sooner had this flurry of Jacobitism blown over than a tumult arose in Ireland, owing to a measure of the English Government which the unquiet genius of Swift magnified into a great oppression. Ireland had long been suffering from an insufficiency of copper coin. To meet this need the Treasury, after considering various projects, granted to one William Wood a patent to coin farthings and halfpence to the amount of 108,000. It is true that Wood agreed to pay the Duchess of Kendal a bribe to gain her influence in securing the patent, but the need in Ireland was real and the quality furnished was excellent. It is also true that the Irish coin was lighter than the English, though that was counterbalanced by the difference in exchange and by the superior quality of the former. Various causes, however, contrib- uted to work against the scheme. The Irish courtiers opposed it because they saw nothing in it for themselves, and the plan was not clearly explained until it was already discredited. Moreover, Wood made matters worse by boasting that he would cram his halfpence down their throats. Both the Irish and the English Parliaments passed addresses to the Crown, condemning the patent and declaring that it would involve a heavy loss to the kingdom. The main basis for the assertion was that while a pound of copper was worth 1 2d. it would circulate for 2s. 6d., but Walpole, calculating the cost of minting, duty, and exchange, proved that the profit could not exceed over one or two pence a pound. The Privy Council reported in favor of the patent, July, 1724; whereupon Swift, under the assumed name of " M.B., a Drapier of Dublin," launched a series of savage but bril- liantly finished letters against the Government. He was hailed as a deliverer, while the popular fury reached such a pitch that the patent was withdrawn. Wood was granted 3000 by way of compensation. The Treaty of Vienna, 1725. At the close of the session of 1725 George made another visit to Hanover; for the European situation had again become critical. The Spanish were bent on recovering Gi- braltar. Furthermore, they had just received an affront from France which stung them to madness. As a means of attaching Philip V to the Quadruple Alliance, Louis XV had been betrothed to the Infanta, a child of four, who had been sent to Paris for her education. But the Duke of Bourbon, who succeeded as Chief Minister when both the Regent and Dubois died in 1723, sent the little Princess home in March, 1725, and, shortly after, married Louis to Maria, Leczinska, daughter 692 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of Stanislaus, the deposed King of Poland. As a result, they deter- mined to combine with their old enemy the Emperor. Charles VI was willing to meet these overtures for various reasons, chief among them the fact that England, allied with France and Holland, was opposing his design for establishing a company at Ostend in the Span- ish Netherlands for trading with the East Indies. By the treaty of Vienna, signed i May, 1725, the King of Spain, among other things, accepted the Ostend Company and agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction, an arrangement by which Charles VI, who had daughters but no sons, provided that his Austrian lands might descend in the female line. Also, each monarch engaged to defend the other in case of attack. More disquieting still, in secret articles which afterwards came to light, the new allies agreed to demand the restoration of Gibraltar and Minorca, and, in case of refusal, to resort to force and put the Pretender on the throne of England. The combination was made all the more dangerous by the adhesion of Russia now governed by Catherine, widow of Peter the Great. The Counter Treaty of Hanover, 1725. As a counterstroke, Eng- land, France, and Prussia signed the Treaty of Hanover, or Herren- hausen, 3 September. The anti-Whig opposition complained that " Hanover rode triumphant on the shoulders of England " ; but there were plenty of purely English interests which needed to be safeguarded. Not long after, the incapable Duke of Bourbon was replaced by the Bishop of Frejus, better known as Cardinal Fleury. Already seventy- three years old when he came to office in 1726, he ruled France till 1742. Aimable and retiring in manner, he was really very ambitious and able as well. Like Walpole, he strove for peace, and since he was thrifty as well, his administration proved a blessing to his country wasted by generations of war. The Emperor managed to draw Prussia to his side, and made an attempt which proved futile to stir up the English people against their sovereign ; but, after the Spanish failed in an attempt to recover Gibraltar, his ambassador, 31 May, 1727, signed the preliminaries of a peace with England, France, and Holland. By it the Emperor was to suspend the charter of the Ostend Company for seven years, to confirm all treaties previous to 1725, and to submit other points at issue to a general congress. Spain, however, refused to yield her pretensions to Gibraltar, so that the situation remained tense. Death of George I, 3 September, 1727. Such was the state of affairs when the King died on his way to Hanover, 3 June, 1727. His wife, the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea, had died seven months before, after thirty-two years of captivity at Ahlden. Rumor said that a paper which she had left summoning him to meet her before the Divine judgment seat within a year and a day, and which was first delivered to him as he was traveling, brought on the apoplectic fit which caused his death. He left the country united at home and powerful abroad. The dangers due to disputed succession had been averted, and the leading position which the genius of William and Marlborough had THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 693 secured in European affairs had been not only maintained but in- creased. England was the guiding spirit in the Triple and Quadruple Alliances, her fleets had checked Alberoni in the Mediterranean and those of Russia, backed by Sweden, in the Baltic; while by the Treaty of Hanover she had checkmated the menacing combination of Spain and Austria. The Material Bases of the Hanoverian Power. The power of the first Hanoverians rested wholly on material bases : the Riot Act, the standing army, the attachment of the moneyed classes, and the organization of the Whig party, with a vast amount of patronage at its disposal, and effectively led by Walpole, a master of the art of parliamentary management and corruption. As a further means of securing its tenure of power the dominant party made every effort to discredit its Tory opponents by identifying them with Jacobitism and all its dire consequences the overthrow of the existing dynasty, the restoration of Roman Catholicism, and the repudiation of the National Debt. -George recognized that he owed his position to Whig support. Partly for this reason and partly because of his ignorance of the English language and English ways, he gave the Whig leaders, especially Walpole, practically a free hand in matters of domestic concern. His Hanoverian favorites, while they enriched themselves at the public expense, exercised little real control over public policy. In consequence of the attitude which the King felt himself forced to adopt he lost the advantage of playing off one party against another ; but the growth of the Cabinet and the power of Parliament was greatly fostered. While the King was strong in the strength of the party supporting him, the old sentiment and respect for the monarch had declined. The title of the new line was parliamentary, and the idea of Divine Right was fast fading away. The Whigs repudiated it ; the Hanoverian Tories could not consistently maintain it, while the Jacobites, its most enthusiastic advocates, refused to acknowledge the reigning sovereign. The High Churchmen who regarded it as an essential feature of their doctrine now counted for little. Many of the bishoprics which -they had once held were now filled with Low Churchmen ; some of them had discredited themselves by accepting William and George ; and the King to whom the others clung was of a different faith. Furthermore, the mass of Englishmen were growing more material and increasingly indifferent to religious questions. Not only were there few if any, either Churchmen or laymen, to attribute to George that " divinity that doth hedge a King," but there was nothing about him to command King worship. At his court all pomp, ceremony, and superstitious reverence was done away with ; he was not like his predecessors served on the knee at meals, and with his accession touching for the " King's evil " ceased. The Character of the Age. The age was one of coarseness in pri- vate life and of indifference to high ideals, and there was much cor- ruption and venality. One Lord Chancellor was impeached for 694 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND financial irregularities : ; three members of the Ministry were involved in the South Sea scandals; favors and support were bought and sold ; many, even in high office, engaged in treasonable negotiations with the Pretender; and not a few irreverently submitted to religious tests for the sake of getting or holding places. Yet it is to be doubted whether the tone of patriotism or sense of public obligation was lower than during the two preceding reigns ; and peace, material progress, and the growth of enlightened public opinion were preparing the way for better things. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Leadam, Political History, chs. XIII-XIX. C. G. Robertson, Eng- land under the Hanoverians (1911), introduction and ch. I (bibliography, 517-532). Cambridge Modern History, VI, ch. I (bibliography pp. 839-843). Lecky, England in the XVIII Century, I. Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles (4th ed., 1853, 7 vols.), I, II, chs. XI-XVI. Bright, History of England, III, pp. 729964. Constitutional. Hallam, III, ch. XVI. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. VII, ch. I. Biography. W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole (3 vols., 1 798). J. Morley (Viscount), Sir Robert Walpole (1889) ; an excellent sketch. Special. G. B. Hertz, British Imperialism in the Eighteenth Century (1908). J. F. Chance, George I, and the Great Northern War (1909). A. W. Ward, Great Britain and Hanover (1899). Thackeray's Four Georges is worth reading chiefly for its literary charm. Church. Overton and Relton, The English Church, 1714-1800, chs. I-V. For other references see ch. XXXVIII above. Scotland. P. H. Brown, Scotland, III, bk. VII, chs. IV-VII. Cambridge Modern History, VI, ch. Ill; for fuller bibliography, pp. 853-863. Selections from sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 246-248. Robertson, pts. XXV-XXVIII. 1 Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, in 1725. THE FIRST HANOVERIAN, GEORGE I 695 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER GEORGE I, 1714-1727 GEORGE II, 1727-1760 1 Sophia= = Frederick William I, King of Prussia, 1713-1740 Frederick the Great, Frederick = Augusta of William, Duke 1740-1786 Prince of Wales, Saxe-Gotha of Cumberland, d. 1751 d. 1765 George 111= Sophia Charlotte of 1760-1820 Mecklenburg-StreUtz GEORGE IV, WILLIAM IV, 1820-1830 1830-1837 Princess Charlotte, 1 Frederick, Duke of York, d. 1827 Edward, Duke of Kent, d. 1820 Victoria = Albert of Saxe-Coburg, 1837-1901 d. 1861 VICTORIA = Frederick, Albert Edward d. 1901 German Emperor, EDWARD VII, March-June, 1888 1901-1910 WILLIAM II, German Emperor, 1888 George V= Alfred, Arthur, Leopold. Duke of Duke of Duke of Edinburgh, Connaught Albany, d. 1900 d. 1884 Princess Mary of Edward George Patrick Andrew David THE EXILED STUARTS CHARLES I ixs II JAMES II Henrietta = Philip of Orleans, brother of James Francis Louis XIV Edward, James III Anne = = Victor Amadeus, the Old Pretender, Duke of Savoy, d. 1765, ist King_ of Sardinia Charles Edward, 1 Henry, Charles En manuel III, Charles III, Cardinal of King of Sardinia, The Young Pretender, York, d. 1773 d. 1788 d. 1807 Victor Amadeus III, d. 1796 Victor Emmanuel III, d. 1824 Mary = Francis IV, d. 1840 Duke of Modena Ferdinand = Archduchess Elizabeth of Austria Th Mary Theresa 1 = Ludwig, King of Bavaria, 1913 Rupert Luitpold 1 Mary IV, the present head of the House of Stuart. CHAPTER XL THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE AND THE OPENING OF A NEW ERA OF WAR. THE FIRST PART OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II (1727-1748) Walpole proves Indispensable. The younger George was so bitter against all his father's late supporters that his first step as King was an attempt to get rid of their chief. But Sir Spencer Compton, whom he selected as head of the Ministry, showed his incompetence at the very start by begging the man he was to supplant to draw up the royal declaration to the Privy Council. Indeed, Walpole was indispensable. The Queen, who already recognized this fact, was completely won over when he secured the doubling of her jointure from 50,000 to 100,000, while George was induced to withdraw his opposition by an increase in the Civil List from 700,000 to 800,000. Prince George's Relations with his Father. George II, who was born in 1683, was a mature man when he accompanied his father to England in 1714. Adapting himself, with considerable readiness to his new surroundings, he was able to achieve some popularity and to attract around him a considerable party of supporters, which only widened the breach already opened between him and the elder George. The quarrel came to a head in 1717 when his harsh old father drove him from the royal presence, and imposed all sorts of humiliations upon him : he denied him the custody of his children, and even went so far, according to one story, as to listen to a proposal for kidnapping him and sending him off to America. In 1720 there was a formal but hollow reconciliation, and Leicester House, the residence of the Prince and Princess, become a center of opposition to the Sovereign and his all-powerful Minister, Walpole. George II as Man and King. George II was a dapper little man, vain, pompous, and fond of the show of power. Also he was madly ambitious to shine as a general ; but, though he fought bravely at Oudenarde and at Dettingen, 1 he showed no military ability except personal bravery. 2 He was very methodical, fond of detail, and had considerable capacity for routine business. His temper was very gusty, and he was apt to fly into a passion over little things when, so it is reported, he sometimes indulged in the unkingly pursuit of kicking his hat and wig about the room. Avarice, or at least extreme thrifti- ness, was one of his marked traits. It may be that his practice of 1 In 1743, the last engagement where an English king ever appeared at the head of his troops. 2 He was sometimes called " the little captain." 696 THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 697 frequently counting his money, like the king in the nursery tales, was one of his diversions, but certainly he was very stingy with his minis- ters and favorites. The only present Walpole ever got from him was a diamond with a flaw in it. However, he must have spent much on his Hanoverian dominions, since he died comparatively poor. While he cared nothing for art or letters, he was fond of music and a stanch patron of the famous composer, Handel. In foreign policy he was an opportunist without consistency of purpose; though, in general, he put Hanoverian and Imperial before English interests. In domestic politics he was timid and cautious except for occasional outbursts of temper. 1 Yet his lack of political courage led to a moderation and prudence of conduct which had a most happy effect on the growth of the constitutional government: " his reign of thirty- three years deserves this praise that it never once invaded the rights of the nation, nor harshly enforced the prerog- ative of the Crown . . . and that it left the dynasty secure, the Constitution unimpaired, and the people prosperous." Moreover, in the midst of George's faults, two virtues stand out conspicuously: petty, spiteful, and ungracious as he was, he was absolutely a man of his word, and, though he gave his confidence grudgingly, he never withdrew it from a minister who proved worthy. It was only at intervals that he was popular ; his Hanoverian interests, his quarrels with his son, Prince Frederick, and his treatment of his wife made him so cordially hated at times that his people wished him at the bottom of the sea, and his soldiers drank to his damnation. Queen Caroline, 1683-1737. In 1705 he married Caroline of Anspach, fondly known as " Caroline the Good." Though he neg- lected and abused her, she gained such an ascendancy over him that she and Walpole came to be regarded as " the King's two ears." Pure in character, patient, and gracious, she was gifted with a keen sense of humor and uncommon tact. Understanding her consort thoroughly, she realized that he could be easily led but never driven. 2 While she spelled atrociously and spoke English only imperfectly and was not averse to gossip and broad jests, she posed as a learned woman and was fond of metaphysical and theological discussion. However, she gave her patronage to pious, learned, and worthy men and interested her- self in getting them high positions, particularly in the Church. Her death in 1737 was a sad loss to the country. The King, sincerely pentitent, gave way to spasms of grief. 1 In a Cabinet crisis in 1746 he declared that he was a prisoner on the throne, and called one of his Ministers a fool and another a rascal. A few years later he refused to prosecute the libel of a speech from the throne, remarking shrewdly that he regarded it as better than the original. By that time, the Ministers, not the King, wrote these speeches. 2 This was recognized in a song of the day which ran : "You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in vain, We know 'tis Queen Caroline and not you that reign." 698 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Strength of Walpole's Government. Again, at the accession of George II, the Pretender, who had hoped to benefit from a change of rulers, was doomed to disappointment. There was a noisy op- position in Parliament, which Bolingbroke helped to organize, 1 made up of discontented Whigs, Jacobites, and Hanoverian Tories, who called themselves the " Patriots " ; but they were too divided in their personal and political interests to pull strongly together. Outside, the Government was fiercely assailed in the Craftsman a brilliantly written sheet and other weekly periodicals, as well as in pamphlets and ballads, though to little practical effect. The speeches of the Opposition speakers were prevented from circulating by Parliament's jealous refusal to allow its debates to be printed, and Walpole's peace- ful, businesslike administration made for prosperity and contentment among the influential classes. Moreover, the Duke of Newcastle, a Secretary of State for thirty years, was, in spite of his fussy ineffec- tiveness and his absurd timidity, 2 an adroit political manager, who, by his vast control of patronage, pensions, and boroughs, held Parlia- ment in the hollow of his hand. Thus, Sir William Pulteney, 3 the Opposition leader, had to struggle against tremendous obstacles. Walpole Prime and Sole Minister, 1730. Not only was Walpole able to frustrate the attacks of his opponents in Parliament, but he managed to make himself supreme in the Cabinet by getting rid of his only rival. Thus he became the first " Prime Minister " in the mod- ern sense of the term, though the name was first applied to him by his enemies. His brother-in-law, Townshend, who had been Chief Min- ister from 1715 to 1717, but who, since his return to office in 1721, had devoted himself exclusively to foreign affairs resigned, 16 May, 1730. Various differences of opinion on questions of public policy contributed to the final breach 4 ; but the underlying cause of all the trouble was that the " firm " which had once been " Townshend and Walpole " had now become " Walpole and Townshend." The latter, however, magnanimously refused to join the Opposition and retired to his estates. One or two measures of reform were carried in the 1 Although he was allowed to return to the country in 1723 he was still excluded from the House of Lords and lived at Darnley some distance from London. 2 His family name was Thomas Pelham-Holles. There seems to be little proof for the assertion that he was a man of greater understanding, than, for political purposes, he pretended to be. It was once said that: "It seemed as if he had lost half an hour every morning . . . which he is running after the rest of the day without overtaking it." Various anecdotes are told of his ignorance and vacil- lating timidity. In the morning his reception room was crowded with place- hunters, and, according to a famous story, he would often rush out of his bedroom with his face covered with soapsuds to announce an appointment to some happy applicant for himself or relative. Possessed of an immense fortune he sought nothing for himself except power, and left office poorer than when he began. 8 A malcontent Whig, he had made common cause with Bolingbroke, was one of the chief organizers of the " Patriots, " and a tireless contributor to the Craftsman. 4 On one occasion the brothers-in-law became so heated as to seize each other by the collar and to draw their swords. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 699 years immediately following. In 1731, for example, it was provided that the proceedings in the courts of justice should henceforth be in English instead of Latin. " Our prayers," urged the Duke of Argyle, " are in our native tongue, that they may be intelligible, and why should not the laws wherein our lives and properties are con- cerned be so for the same reason? " Walpole's Excise, 1733. The Government was at the height of its popularity when Walpole introduced an excise scheme, in 1733, which, in spite of its obvious merits, roused such a howl of opposition that he bowed to the storm and abandoned it. As a means of strengthen- ing himself in the support of the country aristocracy he had reduced the land tax from two shillings in the pound to one, a step which obliged him to resort to various substitutes. No opposition was raised when he diverted half a million from the Sinking Fund of 1717 toward the expenses of the current year. In this way the whole fund was consumed within a short time, and no effectual effort was again made to reduce the Debt until toward the close of the century. While it was a shrewd political device to maintain the security of the existing Government by holding the influential moneyed classes as its creditors, it was financially unjust to hand on. the whole burden to posterity. A measure to impose an internal tax on salt, which bore rather heavily on the poorer classes, was carried by a small majority. When this proved inadequate, Walpole introduced a measure providing that, in the case of tobacco and wine, the- customs duty at the ports should be abolished, and that in its place an excise should be imposed on retail traders. At the same time, goods bonded for reexport were to be warehoused free of duty. The plan had much to commend it. It would do away with smuggling in these commodities which prevailed to such an extent that 500,000 a year was lost out of a possible 750,000.* Moreover, prices were not raised, while, by the warehous- ing provision, London would become a free port and the center of the world's markets. The Opposition and Withdrawal of the Measure. At once, how- ever, the Opposition fermented an indignation which spread through- out the land. The excise was denounced as a " plan of arbitrary power," as a " many-headed monster, which was to devour the peo- ple," 2 and its author compared with Empson and Dudley. The number of collectors required was magnified into a standing army who would be employed as creatures of the Government to control elections, while the right to enter and search places where goods were stored was condemned as an inquisitorial attack on liberty. There was cer- tainly good ground for objecting to the increase of placemen ; but the ' 1 It is estimated that 250 customhouse officers had suffered violence and 6 had been murdered in the pursuit of their duties during nine years. 2 So late as 1755 Dr. Johnson in the first edition of his famous Dictionary, defined an excise as "hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom the excise is paid." 700 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND number required was only 126, and they were to have power to search only shops and warehouses, not private dwellings. These assurances, however, fell on deaf ears. During the debates crowds surged about the Parliament House, threatening and yelling. Pamphlets multi- plied, and petitions poured in from all quarters. " The public was so heated " that rebellion was threatened. Even the army was infected : one officer flatly told the Queen that he would answer for his regiment " against the Pretender, but not against the opposers of the excise." While he still had a small though decreasing majority for his bill, Walpole, yielding to the popular clamor, quietly withdrew it ; for he regarded it as impolitic to cross the will of the people, even for their good. Toward his colleagues who opposed him he took a different attitude. The Earl of Chesterfield 1 w y as dismissed from his post of Lord Steward of the Household, and several others were deprived of their offices at Court or of their commissions in the army. Some might regard this as a " monstrous piece of resentment, " but Walpole, by thus punishing men in official position who opposed a Government measure, took a long step in the direction of Ministerial unity under the chief of the Cabinet. The War of the Polish Succession, 1733-1738. True to his pacific policy, Walpole managed to keep England out of the war which arose over the disputed Polish succession, which broke out in 1733 and in- volved most of the leading European states. It was only with the greatest difficulty that he managed to hold aloof, the Opposition declar- ing sarcastically that the engagements of the English bound them to help both parties, so they prudently refrained from helping either one. To the Queen, who was eager to enter the fray, in 1734, his reply was : " Madame, there are fifty thousand men slain this year in Europe and not one Englishman." Preliminaries of peace were arranged in 1735, but the definitive peace of Vienna was not signed until 8 November, 1738. England, though a non-combatant, had a considerable voice in the settlement of the terms which resulted in significant territorial changes. Louis Kill's father-in-law, Stanislaus Lesczinski, the defeated candidate for the Polish crown, was compensated with the duchy of Lorraine which was to revert to France at his death. Francis, the reigning Duke, the future husband of Maria Theresa, daughter and heir of the Emperor Charles VI, was given in exchange the grand duchy of Tuscany, made vacant by the death of the last Medici in 1737. Austria yielded Naples and Sicily to Carlos, son of Elizabeth Farnese, receiving in return Parma and Piacenza which Carlos had been ruling since 1731. Quarrels between George II and Prince Frederick. All the while, Walpole had to face scathing attacks from the Patriots, who denounced him as " a man abandoned to all notions of virtue and honor . . . 1 The author of the celebrated letters to his son, and the "Mr. Chester" of Dick- ens' Barnaby Rudge. He was one of the most witty and elegant gentlemen of his time. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 701 afraid or unwilling to trust any but creatures of his own making . . . with a Parliament of his own making, most of their seats purchased, and their votes bought at the public expense." However, he managed after great exertion spending, it is said, 60,000 of his private fortune to win a good, though decreased majority for the Parlia- ment of 1735. Bolingbroke in despair left the country. Although he returned later, he never again mingled actively in party politics. After the withdrawal of the old Tory chief, the Opposition began to center about Frederick, Prince of Wales, who first became estranged from his father because of the latter's refusal to carry out a treaty by which the Prince was to marry the Princess royal of Prussia with whom he fancied himself in love. Frederick was vain and weak 1 ; but by his affability and his superficial graces he managed to attract the men of talent and letters whom Walpole and the King had neglected or repulsed. His marriage to Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, in 1736, only led to new quarrels due mainly to the unwillingness of the avaricious old King to allow him such moneys as he demanded to run his household. Finally a foolish act of petulance on the Prince's part led to his being ordered from the royal presence altogether, and the Queen refused to see him even on her deathbed. This estrangement between father and son, unedifying as it was, was really a source of strength to the dynasty ; for many of the Tories who had only seen a way to power through the Stuarts, now began to fix their hopes on Frederick. Troubles with Spain. The death of Queen Caroline, 20 November, 1737, deprived Walpole of his stanchest supporter. He kept his office over four years longer ; but his peace policy, more and more fiercely assailed, at length broke down. Even the King, while he refused to accept his resignation, constantly thwarted his foreign negotiations in order to force him into a warlike attitude. In the end he yielded to the Opposition, but too late to save his place. The trouble started with Spain. There were several causes of friction. One had to do with the unsettled boundary between Florida and Geor- gia ; but the most acute and important concerned trade relations, arising from the determination of the English to break down the colo- nial monopoly to which the Spanish clung so jealously. By the Treaty of Seville, 1729, the old concessions, which Alberoni had with- drawn, were renewed, but each nation was allowed the right of search and the seizure of contraband goods. While the Spanish exercised their rights with rigor and cruelty, the English, to the total disregard of treaty obligations, were guilty of shameless smuggling. Fleets were constantly putting into Spanish-American ports under pretence of refitting, really to buy and sell goods. Others lay offshore where 1 His mother is said to have declared: "My dear first born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar ... in the whole world." A story more generally believed relates that when Prince Charlie reached Derby on his road to London in 1745* and when the whole City was filled with alarm, Frederick was playing blindman's buff with his pages. 702 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND they were visited by hosts of illicit traders. The one ship allowed by the Asiento was moored a short distance from the coast and continu- ally loaded and unloaded. Cases of violence and indignities which English seamen suffered at the hands of the Spanish coast guard were indignantly emphasized, while the violations of the law which called them forth were veiled in discreet silence. The ungracious delay of the Court at Madrid in redressing actual grievances added fuel to the flames. The Case of Jenkins' Ear, 1738. - Parliament was flooded with petitions from the merchants demanding redress. Sailors were posted in the Exchange, exhibiting specimens of the loathsome food they had to eat in Spanish dungeons. Some brought before the bar of the Commons told their stories in minute and harrowing detail. While there was some truth in what they said, they were not examined under oath. Moreover, they were encouraged by partisan zeal, even by bribes, to exaggerate and invent. The tale of a shipmaster, Robert Jenkins, related in March, 1738, aroused the chief interest. According to his account, his ship had been boarded in 1731 by a body of the Spanish coast guard, and the .captain had cut off one of his ears. He produced as evidence the severed member which he had carried about wrapped in cotton ever since. In reply to the question as to what he had done, he replied : "I commended my soul to God and my cause to my country." While this stirring phrase, which became famous, was very likely coined for him, it is now believed that he lost his ear in the manner he described, and not in the pillory as some have hinted. With a number even of his own colleagues against him, Walpole struggled in vain to stem the swelling tide of anti-Spanish opposition. The cry of "no search " ran " from the sailor to the merchant, from the merchant to the Parliament," and the Lords carried a resolution denying the right. Walpole forced to declare War, 23 October, 1739. The Prime Minister, while admitting that the English merchants and sailors had grievances, still hoped to settle them by treaty. At the same time he sought to put pressure on the Court at Madrid by preparations for war. In consequence, the Spanish released several prizes and cap- tives, and 14 January, 1739, signed a Convention by which they agreed to pay 95,000 damages to English merchants. When it became known that no provisions had been made to limit the right of search, to punish those who had inflicted cruelties on English sailors, or to settle other outstanding questions, the Convention was denounced furiously. Walpole in his defense declared in words which have become famous: " Any peace is preferable even to successful war." It was in this debate that William Pitt first impressed the Commons in a fiery speech in which he declared that the Convention was " nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy." Born in 1708, he had entered the army in 1731, and four years later was returned to Parlia- ment from the family borough of Old Sarum and joined the party of THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 703 " Boy Patriots " organized by his relative, Lord Cobham. In 1736 he was deprived of his military commission for a speech on the mar- riage of Prince Frederick, which caused offense to the Government. " We must muzzle this terrible young cornet of horse," said Walpole, who thus early recognized his possibilities. Pitt spent years in opposi- tion before he obtained a Cabinet office. In spite of the efforts of the pacific Fleury to mediate, Walpole finally realized that he must either declare war or resign. So he framed a series of demands, including absolute renunciation of the right of search, immediate payment of the 95,000 fixed by the Convention, 1 and an express acknowledgment of British claims in North America. When the Spanish rejected the ultimatum, war was declared, 23 October, 1739. Walpole and the War. The English people, anticipating much plunder and an easy victory, went mad with joy. " They may ring bells now," murmured Walpole ; " before long they will be wringing their hands." He foresaw, as the country at large did not, the dangers involved in the course entered upon so jauntily. He knew that France and Spain had allied themselves in a Family Compact in 1733, and, although Fleury had striven for peace, his country was bound sooner or later to make common cause with Spain. Moreover, the Jacobites were again active, and were to prove a serious menace. While the responsibility for stirring the national resentment to a war fever rests with the Opposition, Walpole must be blamed for yielding in order that he might cling to office. There are many reasons to explain his action : the King begged him to stay on, he did not want to surrender to his enemies, and he felt that, if a conflict were inevi- table, he was more capable of bringing it to a successful conclusion than any other man of the time. No doubt, however, love of power warped his judgment, and he made the supreme mistake of his life in undertaking to carry on a war which he believed was neither just nor expedient. He found at once that he had gained nothing by sacrificing his convictions. The " accumulated resentments of twenty years " were arrayed against him. In vain the once domineering Minister made concessions. His old opponents, and the " Boy Patriots " whom they had trained, were bent on driving him out. Against this formi- dable combination he had to fight practically alone, for he had on his side only men of mediocre attainments or damaged character. Thus he payed the penalty for his jealousy of rivals in office. The strain began to tell on his health, he slept little, and grew moody and silent. The War of Jenkins' Ear, 1739-1741. Meantime, 19 July, 1739, three months before the war was formally declared, Admiral Vernon was sent to the Spanish- American waters with instructions " to destroy the Spanish settlements and to distress their shipping." On 21 November, he took by assault Porto Bello on the Isthmus of Panama, an important station for fitting out the guarda-costas or 1 Spain had delayed payment on the ground of counterclaims against the South Sea Company. 704 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND revenue cutters. The victory was turned against Walpole ; for Vernon had been one of his most determined political opponents. The Ad- miral's triumph was offset two years later when, with a great fleet and a large army, his attempt to capture Carthagena, 1 " the strong- est place in Spanish America," resulted in disastrous failure. Some months before, 18 September, 1740, Commodore Anson started for the Pacific and only returned from a toilsome circumnavigation of the globe in June, 1744, after an absence of three years and nine months. His achievements recalled the old glories of Drake. He brought back only five of his six ships and four fifths of his crew, but had created much consternation among the Spanish and brought home a vast treasure of 500,000 from a galleon captured in the Philippine waters. Merged into the War of the Austrian Succession, 1740. On 20 October, 1740, the Emperor Charles VI died. Having no sons, he had by the so-called " Pragmatic Sanction " 2 provided that his Austrian lands should descend to his eldest daughter. This was Maria Theresa, married to Francis of Tuscany. England, who had pledged herself by the second Treaty of Vienna in 1731 to accept this arrangement, at once found her conflict with Spain merged into a grave European complication, the War of the Austrian Succession. Various male members of the Hapsburg house set up a claim to the family inherit- ance, 3 but at length united to support the pretensions of Charles Albert of Bavaria. At the same time a new Power loomed up on the horizon. Frederick, known to history as " The Great," who had succeeded to the throne of Prussia the previous May, advanced a claim to a portion of the Austrian province of Silesia with the ultimate intention of absorbing the whole. His grandfather had secured the royal title for the house of Hohenzollern in 1701 ; his testy, avaricious, and eccentric father, Frederick William, had laid the foundations of a strong monarchy by accumulating considerable financial resources and building up a standing army that was the apple of his eye. Freder- ick, a grim and ruthless figure, proved to be a military genius, a statesman, and an administrator of the first rank. With the materials that he inherited he succeeded, by an amazing clarity of vision, by sleepless vigilance, and by unremitting perseverance and toil, in per- fecting a model state of the despotic type and forcing it into the front rank of European Powers. In the conflict which he now entered he 1 Among those with him was Lawrence Washington, who named his estate on the Potomac "Mount Vernon," later famous as the residence of his younger brother George. A young ship's surgeon, Tobias Smollett, afterwards described in Roderick Random the sufferings which he himself witnessed on the voyage. 2 Originally the term was applied to certain decrees of the Byzantine Emperors regulating the conditions of subject provinces ; in another sense it came to mean a form of limitation set to the temporal powers of the Pope in various countries, and finally signified an arrangement made by a ruler for settling the succession of his family lands. 3 The office of Emperor was elective, but for centuries the head of the House of Austria had been chosen. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 705 allied himself with France, Spain, Bavaria, and Saxony, and the first two Silesian wars (1740-1742 and 1744-1745) proved to be a significant factor in the general war of the Austrian Succession. Hard beset by a Prussian army in Silesia and by a combined French, Bavarian, and Saxon army in Bohemia, the young Maria Theresa was confronted with a gloomy prospect. At Frankfort, 14 February, 1742, Charles Albert was elected Emperor under the title of Charles VII. The Fall of Walpole, 1742. With the new turn of affairs on the Continent the attacks against Walpole increased in intensity. In a motion to " remove him from his Majesty's presence and counsels forever " one of the main charges was that he had made himself " Prime and Sole Minister." This, and a phrase in his defense that an attempt to remove one of his Majesty's " servants without so much as alleging any particular crime against him, is one of the greatest en- croachments ever made on the prerogative of the Crown," are indica- tions that two of the essential features of modern Cabinet government were as yet not generally recognized. While the motion was defeated in both Houses, Walpole's majority steadily decreased. Various causes added to his unpopularity: Vernon's failure at Carthagena; heavy commercial losses due to Spanish attacks on English shipping; and the fact that George had declared the neutrality of Hanover. In none of these cases was Walpole to blame. Vernon's expedition was ade- quately equipped, and he and the commander of the land forces must share the responsibility for the repulse; Walpole had foreseen the suffering which the merchants would have to bear on the outbreak of hostilities; and he was not informed of George's action regarding Hanover until it was too late to oppose it. Nevertheless, when a new Parliament opened, 4 December, 1741, the Opposition was so strong that his friends begged him to resign. But he fought on with amazing resourcefulness, keenness, and courage, until, after his party had been defeated by sixteen votes in a petition relating to a disputed election at Chippenham, he was finally persuaded that his retirement was " become absolutely necessary, as the only means to carry on public business." On n February he resigned all his offices, though not before he had made extremely favorable terms for himself and his family. He was created Earl of Orford, and received other marks of royal favor ; moreover, during the three remaining years of his life he continued to exert such an influence on public affairs as to justify in some measure the popular outcry that he was "still Minister behind the curtain." Material as were his interests, his achievements gave him a leading place " amongst the master-makers of modern Great Britain." Pulteney's " Great Refusal." Carteret's " Drunken Administra- tion." - Pulteney, the leader of the Opposition, who had often de- clared that he wanted no office and who thought he could retain his influence over his party by a show of disinterestedness, refused to accept the office of First Lord of the Treasury. Events proved that 2Z 706 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND he made the supreme mistake of his life by declining to assume the responsibility which he had forced his rival to lay down. The incapa- ble Lord Wilmington was made nominal head of the Ministry * ; but the leading figure of the new Administration, particularly in the control of foreign affairs, was John Carteret, who became Secretary of State for the Northern Department. He was regarded as one of the most learned men of his time ; he was a master of many languages, ancient and modern ; he had a high reputation as a debater, especially owing to his unusual gifts for pungent utterances ; and he had a wide and thorough knowledge of European politics and diplomacy based on long experience. But he was one of those curious figures whose achieve- ments fall woefully short of their reputed attainments. Politics was to him a diverting game rather than a serious occupation, and he dis- dained the arts of the parliamentary manager. 2 Moreover, in an age when the vice was all too prevalent, he was noted for his excessive fondness for drink. It was partly this fact and partly the erratic course of his policy that caused the period of his brief tenure of power to be called the " Drunken Administration." In home affairs little or no change in domestic policy resulted from the overthrow of Walpole. For one thing the King desired that as many of the old ministers as possible might be retained ; but, more than this, the opposition had been directed mainly against Walpole's personal domination and his peace policy rather than against his domestic administration. Newcastle was retained as Secretary for the Southern Department, and Lord Hardwicke, one of the ablest men who ever filled that office, continued as Lord Chancellor, 3 The Tories who were left out were very bitter, loudly demanding an admin- istration " founded on the broad bottom of both parties." 4 Pulteney, failing to realize that the center of parliamentary strength was in the Commons, unwisely accepted a peerage under the title of Lord Bath. " I have turned the key of the closet on him," cried his shrewd old rival, who welcomed him to the House of Lords with the remark: " You and I are now two as insignificant men as any in England." He was hissed and scoffed at as a deserter for grasping at an " empty honor " when he refused a public duty, and " shrank into insignifi- cance." The Course of the War, 1742-1743. The advent of Carteret drew England into the thick of the continental struggle. During the session of 1742 a subsidy of 500,000 was granted to Maria Theresa, 5,000,000 was voted for troops and supplies, and an auxiliary force 1 Formerly Sir Spencer Compton. 2 He scorned the advantage which he might have got from a control of patron- age. "What is it to me," he once declared, "who is a judge and who is a bishop. It is my business to make kings and emperors and to maintain the balance of Europe." * It is said of him that "he transformed equity from a chaos of precedents into a scientific system." 4 It was at this time the term so famous in English political history took rise. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 707 of 16,000 men was sent to the Netherlands. While, owing to the lack of Dutch cooperation, they did little during the whole year but quarrel with the inhabitants, the armies of the Empress gained ground against the French in Bohemia and in the valley of the Danube. By the Peace of Breslau and Berlin, June-July, 1742, which put an end to the first Silesian War, Frederick the Great withdrew temporarily from the anti-Austrian alliance. This was a welcome relief to Maria Theresa, though the concession of the greater part of Silesia which it involved was a sore blow to her pride. George, anxious alike to pro- tect his electoral dominions and to emulate William of Orange as the head of a great continental alliance, was eager to plunge actively into the fray. Already before his fall Walpole had concluded a treaty for subsidizing a force of 6000 Hessians. Now, the King and Carteret, without consulting Parliament, arranged to take 16,000 Hanoverians into the British pay. Parliamentary sanction was secured only in the teeth of the bitterest opposition. " This powerful, this formidable kingdom," declared Pitt, who, as usual, was foremost in violent denun- ciation, " is considered only as a province to a despicable electorate." Yet the step had the advantage of stirring the Dutch to furnish a contingent, while King George levied 6000 more of his Hanoverian subjects whom he paid with electoral money. The Battle of Dettingen, 27 June, 1743. In February, 1743, the English forces in Flanders, commanded by the Earl of Stair, started east and south with the object of cutting off the French from their Bavarian allies. On the march they were joined by some Austrian forces and by the Hanoverians in British pay. Halfway between Mainz and Frankfort, on the north bank of the Main, they sat down to await the Hessian and Hanoverian reinforcements. Meantime, a French army under the Marshal de Noailles had also crossed the Rhine and approached the Main from the south. Strangely enough, neither France nor England had as yet declared war on one another, but were merely supporting their respective allies. " A ridiculous situation," wrote Horace Walpole 1 : "we have the name of war with Spain without the thing, and war with France without the name." De Noailles, by admirable strategy, managed to throw strong detachments across the river and to check an attempted march of the " Pragmatic " 2 army toward Austrian territory and at the same time to intercept its return to Hanau (just east of Frankfort), which served as a base of supplies and a rendezvous for the expected reinforcements. Thus hemmed in, the army of Stair, now joined by George II and his son, the Duke of Cumberland, had no alternative but to engage the main body of the French whom de Noailles had sent, under the command of his nephew, the Duke of Gramont, to occupy the village of Dettingen, strongly 1 The son of Robert, perhaps the most brilliant letter writer England has ever produced, and the most entertaining of contemporary authorities. 2 Stair's army was so called because it was fighting to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction. yo8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND guarded by a stream flowing into the Main, as well as by a ravine and a morass. A desperate battle was fought 27 June. In spite of the valor shown by the King and the Duke it was only the rashness of Gramont in leaving an impregnable position that enabled their army to rout the French and cut their way through. Truly the battle of Dettingen was " a happy escape rather than a great victory." Finding that the Imperial forces had driven across the Rhine another French army, which had been operating in Bavaria, de Noailles also withdrew, so that by the end of the campaign Germany was altogether free from the French. England and France as Principals in the War. France was no longer guided by the pacific counsels of Cardinal Fleury who had died, 29 January, 1743, and, impelled by fear and hatred of her ancient rival, drew closer to Spain. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau, or the Second Family Compact, concluded 25 October, 1743, she agreed to assist Spain to recover Gibraltar and Minorca, and to destroy the colony of Georgia, while Spain, on her part, agreed to transfer to France the privileges formerly accorded to England under the Asiento. The whole face of the war had been changed by the events of the past year. England, first coming into conflict with Spain over trade disputes in the western world, had been drawn into the European struggle as the ally of Maria Theresa, for the purpose of maintaining the Pragmatic Sanction and the integrity of the Austrian lands. Now she and France had been brought face to face as principals. George, " greedy for glory," had not only sent contingents to fight the French, but had actually gone in person to lead them. Maria Theresa, more aspiring still, and thirsting for revenge against the Powers who had combined against her, was determined to secure the Imperial Crown for her husband Francis, to annex Bavaria, to recover Naples from the Spanish line, to invade France, and secure Alsace and Lorraine. So far as France and England were concerned the area of the conflict was not confined to Europe, but spread to America and India. These two Powers were to emerge more clearly than ever before as rivals for maritime and colonial supremacy. The Ministry of Henry Pelham, 1743-1754. Meantime, on the death of Wilmington, 2 July, 1743, the Earl of Bath, backed by Carteret, sought when it was too late to gain the office which he had once refused. Newcastle, with the support of Orford, succeeded in securing the coveted post for his brother Henry Pelham, who remained head of the Ministry until his death eleven years later. " A timid and peace- loving politician, without any commanding abilities or much strength of character," he was sensible, tolerant, and industrious, and proved to be a capable and economical financier as well as an excellent parlia- mentary manager. He was honest, too ; though bowing to the custom of the times, he made considerable use of patronage and corruption, in which his brother was such a past master. While the King man- aged for more than a year to keep Carteret in control of foreign affairs, THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 709 he was obliged to defer more and more to the Pelhams because of their immense influence in Parliament. After Dettingen there was a brief reaction against the dominant aggressive policy abroad because of the feeling that the burden of expense was thrown more and more on England and that George was employing her resources mainly in the interest of Hanover. Carteret was denounced by Pitt as "an execra- ble . . . Minister who had . . . seemed to have drunk the potion described in poetic fictions which made men forget their country." Opposition, however, was silenced by the news that the French were preparing another invasion in favor of the Pretender. The Attempted French Invasion of 1744. After the Jacobite exiles had felt the way by means of their English and Scotch com- mittees, a force of 10,000 men, under Marshal Saxe, the most capable general in the French army, was collected at Dunkirk. Here it was joined by " Prince Charlie," in whom the Jacobites centered their hopes, since his father no longer cherished any illusions and was com- pletely discredited by repeated failure and by constant quarrels with his wife and followers. The Young Pretender, now in his twenty- fourth year, was handsome, gracious, dignified, and brave, endowed with all the charm and enthusiasm of youth. " I go, Sire," said he, on his departure, " in search of three crowns, which I doubt not but to have the honor and happiness of laying at your Majesty's feet. If I fail in the attempt, your next sight of me shall be in my coffin." The French fleet which put out 26 January, 1744, to cover the embarka- tion of the land force, found the Channel strongly guarded by their vigilant opponents. On top of this, a heavy storm came up, and the expedition, from which so much had been expected, had to put back in a very shattered condition. The only result was a declaration of war by both countries. That of Louis XV was issued 4 March, alleging, as its chief reason, that England had broken the peace by her expedi- tion to Germany. The English replied, 29 March, asserting, among other things, the violation of the Pragmatic Sanction, aid to Spanish privateers in the West Indies, and the attempted invasion of England. Dismissal of Carteret, 1744. Toward the end of November, 1744, the King was obliged to consent to the dismissal of Carteret, now Earl Granville, who had stanchly directed his Hanoverian policy. George yielded only with much grumbling, and denounced Newcastle as a " puppy " who was jealous of Granville as he had been of Orford ; but the Pelhams had too firm a hold on Parliament to be resisted. Gran- ville, with his accustomed nonchalance, is said to have left his office laughing. A "broad-bottom " administration, known as the "Minis- try of all the Factions," was thereupon constructed by the admission of some Tories and some of the party of Prince Frederick. The Dutch now entered the war, and the campaign of 1745 centered in the Nether- lands. Marshal Saxe, with a greatly superior army, defeated a com- bined force of the Austrians, British, and Dutch at Fontenoy, n May, and before the close of the summer was practically in control of Flan- 710 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND ders. These and other reverses of the English and their allies were offset by a few gains, chiefly diplomatic. Frederick had entered the war again, 10 August, 1744 ; but after he had driven a combined army of Austrians and Saxons from Silesia into Bohemia, the English Cabinet, holding before him the danger of French ascendancy, induced him to listen to terms. At the same time, by threatening to withhold further subsidies, they forced Maria Theresa to ratify the arrangement. In return for the cession of Silesia, Frederick agreed to acknowledge Maria Theresa's husband as Emperor. 1 By the Peace concluded at Dresden, 25 December, 1745, the Second Silesian War came to an end. The Capture of Louisburg, 1745. Meantime, in North America, the New England militia, assisted by a British fleet, had gained a brilliant success by the capture of Louisburg, 17 June, 1745. This stronghold, situated on Cape Breton Island, had been fortified by the French at great expense. It was one of the most important positions in the New World, for it commanded the mouth of the St. Lawrence, it controlled the North American fisheries, and had served the French as a naval base, both for their operations against New England and for securing their communications between France and Canada. The daring expedition, planned by Governor Shirley of Massachusetts and commanded by William Pepperell, was a striking manifestation of the colonial phase which the war had assumed. The Coming of Prince Charlie, 25 July, 1745. Encouraged by the reverses of the English and their allies in Flanders, Prince Charlie, 2 July, 1745, embarked from the coast of France and sailed for Scot- land in a final attempt to recover the throne of his ancestors. Perhaps the most romantic episode in the history of a country teeming with traditions of valorous and desperate exploits, the Rising of 1745 2 was undertaken in the face of every chance of failure. Unsupported by a single European power, the Young Pretender landed on the west coast of Scotland, 25 July, with only seven companions, trusting alone to his personal charm and his family name. The Highlanders, even had they given him their united support, numbered not more than one twelfth of the population of the country. As a matter of fact, some had been won over to the Hanoverian dynasty, while of those clans who responded to his call, most were destitute of discipline, torn by jealousy, and primarily concerned in plundering their enemies. In the Lowlands, while the Episcopalians were generally attached to his cause and while there was some enthusiasm for the Stuart name and a lingering discontent against the Union, the growing commercial and industrial classes saw that their best interests were bound up with the existing Government. George II was abroad, the bulk of the English army was in the Netherlands, and, at first, public opinion was apa- 1 Charles VII had died the previous January. His son concluded a treaty with Maria Theresa by which his Bavarian territories were restored, and he agreed to vote for Francis who was elected Emperor at Frankfort in September. 2 It has been immortalized in literature in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE ;n thetic ; yet, nevertheless, the English Jacobites made little or no effort to organize an insurrection. His Occupation of Edinburgh, 17 September. Prestonpans, 21 September. Having won over a few of the western chiefs, notably Cameron of Lochiel, Charles raised his standard, 19 August, 1745, in the dreary vale of Glenfinnan. Though the Scots had declared before his arrival that they would not aid hirn unless he came with 6000 troops and 10,000 stand of arms, such was the magic of his presence and his name that many, from a glorious but mistaken loyalty, flocked to join him. Others held aloof, waiting upon events. Sir John Cope, the Commander-in-Chief of the Government forces, leaving a small troop of dragoons at Stirling, drew off his army to Inverness with the intention, he asserted, of assembling the friendly clans and cutting off the Prince from the rear, though he has been accused of fearing to face an engagement. With the road thus practically unobstructed, Charles hastened south. At Perth he was joined by Lord George Murray, a veteran of 1715, who rendered effective service as a general, but added another element of discord by his hot temper and overbear- ing manner. On 17 September, after overcoming a feeble opposition to his advance, Charles entered the panic-stricken capital. As he rode through the town in a tartan coat, wearing a blue bonnet sur- mounted by a white cockade, he was welcomed with raptures by the Jacobites. That night a ball was given at Holyrood, the royal palace of his ancestors, where he completed his conquest by winning the hearts of the ladies. After a single day of rest he marched forth to meet Cope who had taken ship at Aberdeen, landed at Dunbar, and was on his way westward. The two armies joined battle, 21 September, near the little village of Prestonpans. 1 Cope's forces, unable to withstand the terrific onslaught of the Highlanders, 2 were routed completely in little more than five minutes. Unable to rally the remnants, Sir John joined in the flight. At Berwick, where they took refuge, he was wel- comed with the remark that " he was the first general on record who carried the tidings of his own defeat." The Pretender invades England, 31 October, 1745. Charles was for pushing on at once for London while the Government was still unprepared, but his advisers urged him to wait for reinforcements and for supplies. So many of his Highlanders had gone home with their plunder that he was obliged to yield, and remained in Edinburgh gathering recruits. The delay destroyed any chance of success that he may have had. George II returned from Hanover, 3 1 August ; the Dutch were called on to furnish 6000 auxiliaries that they were bound by treaty to supply; the militia were mustered in several 1 Not to be confused with Preston in Lancashire. 2 It is a curious illustration of the simplicity of the Highlanders that one of them who captured a watch and disposed of it shortly after it had run down, re- marked : "He was glad to get rid of the creature; for she died no long time after he caught her." 712 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND counties ; and General Wade was ordered to collect an army at New- castle. The mass of the people still remained indifferent; but the Government made itself stronger every day. Charles, who had been drilling his motley following and doing his best to hold them in restraint, began his invasion of England, 31 October, taking the western route to avoid General Wade. Dressed in Highland garb the Prince marched on foot, sharing the.hardships of the common soldier, paying for all he took, and maintaining admirable discipline. It was with great relief that the invaders passed Preston, so fatal to their predeces- sors in 1648 and 1715. At Manchester they were received enthusias- tically with the ringing of bells, with illuminations, as well as with other signs of popular favor, and were even joined by a body of volun- teers ; but their position grew every day more desperate. Beyond the Border Hanoverian forces were gathering at Inverness ; Glasgow and several other considerable towns returned to their allegiance; and the Crown officers reentered Edinburgh. Regiments from Flanders had been hurried to England and the Dutch auxiliaries had arrived. General Wade was advancing through Yorkshire, while the Duke of Cumberland lay in front with a force, part of which he had raised in the Midlands. A third army was forming at Finchley for the defense of London, while fleets patrolled the Channel to intercept any possible aid from France. Various means were t.aken to rouse the people : staring placards informed them that the invaders were " Papists," who ate no meat in Lent, and the Highlanders were pictured as sav- ages capable of all sorts of ferocities. The Retreat to Scotland. Charles, whose courage and enthusiasm never waned, managed to elude Cumberland and to get as far as Derby, situated only one hundred and twenty-seven miles north of London. The 6 December, the day the news reached the City, was long remem- bered as " Black Friday." " Terror scarce to be credited " reigned, shops were closed, and a threatened run on the Bank of England was only met by paying in sixpences. It was at this juncture that Lord George Murray and the other leaders insisted upon turning back. In vain Charles argued and pleaded, declaring that he would rather be " twenty feet under ground." In spite of all that has been said to the contrary, the Scots, had they not turned back, would have passed on to certain destruction. Almost no Englishmen of note had joined their ranks ; the French had sent no aid ; and, even if they had, their ships would certainly have been intercepted in the Channel. Cumberland and Wade were closing in from the north, and the army in the front of London outnumbered that of Charles two to one. Moreover, the inertness of the masses had changed to fear and hatred. The retreat was a striking contrast to the advance. Discipline was relaxed, and the embittered Highlanders ruthlessly plundered the countryside, causing the hostility to the " wild petticoat men " to grow steadily more intense. Cumberland started in hot pursuit, but on a false report that the French were preparing to land, gave up the chase. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 713 The retreating army succeeded in recrossing the Border and, 26 Decem- ber, 1745, reached Glasgow, having accomplished the extraordinary feat of marching nearly six hundred miles in fifty-six days. The Defeat at Culloden, 16 April, 1746. Early in January, 1746, Charles, whose depleted army had been swollen by reinforcements to nearly 9000 men, undertook the investment of Stirling Castle, and, on the 1 7th, defeated General Hawley, who, with stupid contempt for " Highland rabble," led the Government forces in Scotland to raise the siege. But the victory did as much harm as good to the Pre- tender's cause. New dissensions arose, the clansmen dispersed with their booty, and Cumberland was sent to take command in Scotland. Again Murray persuaded Charles to retreat, this time to the High- lands, where he might spend the winter in recruiting and preparing for the spring campaign. As the season advanced the suffering of his troops became pitiful. The district where they were quartered was bleak and barren, they were cut off from the richer Lowlands, whence they might have drawn means of subsistence, and most of the supplies from France were intercepted. Early in April Cumberland, who had finally got his army in fighting shape, marched from Aberdeen with 9000 well-armed and well-fed troops to offer battle. Charles, able to muster a force of only 5000 half-starved men, made a vain attempt to surprise the enemy during a, night carousal in celebration of the Duke's birthday. " Spent and discouraged," his little army returned to its original position at Culloden Moor about five miles east of Inverness. Here, 16 April, in the midst of a storm of snow and hail which blew directly in their faces, they were attacked and overcome by Cumber- land's forces, superior to them in every respect, in numbers, organiza- tion, and equipment. To cap all, when the center and right had been driven back, the Macdonalds on the left, who felt that they had been insulted because they had not been given the post of honor which tradition had assigned to them since Bannockburn, refused to move, standing stolidly while their chief rushed forward and was shot down, murmuring : " My God ! have the children of my tribe forsaken me ? " The army of the Pretender was destroyed, his cause was ruined. Cumberland's Butchery and the Flight of Prince Charlie. Cum- berland earned his name of " the Butcher " by the ferocity with which he hunted down, slew, and even tortured the vanquished, and pillaged and destroyed their property. 1 Many who escaped perished from hunger and exposure. The English, however, hailed him as a deliverer : Parliament voted him the formal thanks of the nation, as well as an annual pension of 25,000 for himself and his heirs. 2 Lord George Murray made a vain effort to rally the clans ; but Charles, thanking them for their zeal, bade them seek safety. Lord George himself 1 Though a recent authority has advanced evidence to show that his responsi- bility for the cruelties after Culloden has been exaggerated. 2 Thanks to an enthusiastic poet, his name has survived in the flower known as the Sweet William. yi4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND escaped to Holland. For five months, from April to September, Charles wandered about a fugitive, sometimes on the main land, sometimes among the islands off the coast. In spite of a reward of 30,000 offered for his capture, no one could be found to betray him. At one critical moment he was saved by the cleverness and devotion of a young woman, Flora Macdonald, who dressed him as a waiting maid. 1 It was during this period of exposure that he contracted the habit of drunkenness, which later proved his ruin. At length, 20 September, he was shipped out of the country from Loch-na-Nuagh, the very place where he had landed fourteen months before. In spite of his failure, his exploit was a marvelous one, and devotion to the name of " Prince Charlie " lingered in the Highlands for generations to come. Unfortunately, except for occasional flashes of his old courage and generosity, his later life was sad and inglorious. Driven from France, he wandered about Europe, visited London in disguise at least once when he is said to have declared himself a Protestant and finally took refuge in Italy. Becoming titular King on the death of his father, he married, in 1772, Louise of Stolberg ; 2 but he grew to be an invet- erate sot and so ill treated her that she finally deserted him. He died in Rome, 31 January, 1788. With the death of his brother Henry, Cardinal of York, in 1807, the male line of the House of Stuart became extinct. Measures following the " Forty-five." The Duke of Cumberland continued to press " for the utmost severity," in consequence of which more than eighty were put to death, including three noblemen who were beheaded on Tower Hill. The last to suffer was Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, a despicable intriguer eighty years old, who had crowned a long life of meanness and treachery by trying to attach himself both to the Stuarts and the Hanoverians. 3 The Transformation of Scotland after the Union. The repression of the rising of 1745, and the measures that followed, completed the social and economic transformation of Scotland which had been going on since the Union. Before that time the Highlands had been inacces- sible and barbaric. The clans formed a group of petty kingdoms, each under an hereditary chief who knew no law but tribal law. The clans- men, scorning labor, left their women and children to gather such scanty crops as their barren lands afforded and devoted themselves to the chase, to cattle raids, and to fighting. The Lowlands, where the chief industrial energy and progressiveness centered, were handicapped by a bare, rugged soil, by exposure to attack from the north and south, by religious persecution and rigid exclusion from English markets. 1 In this disguise he behaved so awkwardly that one who saw him declared : "Your enemies call you a Pretender, but if you be, I can tell you, you are the worst of your trade." 2 Known to history as the Countess of Albany. 3 He was impeached in the House of Commons. One result of his trial was an act extending to those impeached for treason the right to have counsel. THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 715 The period, following the Revolution and the Union marked a turning point in their history. Presbyterianism was restored, 1 schools were established, and, with the removal of restrictions on commerce, trade and manufactures began to flourish. The Highlands remained for a long time untouched by the change, in spite of various innovations. Paro- chial schools were set up with a view to rooting out the Gaelic tongue, a barrier to rapid assimilation. After 1715 an attempt was made to disarm the clansmen ; but the inaccessible character of the country proved a serious obstacle to its enforcement. In 1726, however, General Wade began the construction of roads, which, completed in a little over ten years, greatly facilitated the efforts of the Government in dealing with the disaffected, and in opening up the remote districts to civilizing influences. 2 After the Rising. The crushing of the Rebellion completed what the rise of the Lowland industrial class, the extension of education, 3 and the new roads had begun. Many powerful chieftains were forced to go into exile, others were ruined, so that ties which bound them to their clansmen were naturally weakened. In addition, a series of impor- tant measures was passed in 1746, which swept away the last vestiges of the old clan organization. One abolished all " heritable jurisdic- tions," providing 152,000 byway of compensation. Another made the Disarming Act a reality, and prohibited any but soldiers from wearing the national dress under penalty of six months' imprisonment for the first offense and seven years' transportation for the second. English Ministers, however, notably Pitt, wisely enlisted Highland regiments in the British service, who by their valiant achievements aroused a sense of national loyalty which went far to soften the animos- ity called forth by the previous measures of repression. Much of the old-time chivalry, romance, and picturesqueness passed away, and no little temporary distress resulted ; for the old chiefs who had been fathers to their people were often replaced by rapacious landlords intent on squeezing a profit from the tenants. But, by the extension of schools, by the introduction of improved methods of agriculture and cattle breeding, by the encouragement of the fisheries and the develop- ment of the linen industry and stocking weaving, and by the enforce- ment of law, thrift and security came to prevail over disorder and poverty. Throughout the country much that was sordid and miser- able remained, while the despotism of the Church and the gloomy 1 By an act of 1712 toleration was extended to Episcopalians: Presbyterian despotism was checked, and a small but disaffected class was to some degree recon- ciled. 2 The road system, faulty as it may have been, was praised in the following curious couplet : "If you had seen these roads before they were made You would lift up your hands and bless General- Wade." 3 The periods of residence of the Scotch representative peers in London was another important factor. 716 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Sabbath tended to darken and deaden the national character ; but the native shrewdness of the Scot, together with his frugality and diligence, led him to achieve great things at home and brought him to the front wherever he went. The Ministerial Crisis, February, 1746. While the forces of the Pretender were still unconquered, the Pelhams took occasion to add a number of supporters to the Ministry, among them Pitt, whom they demanded should be made Secretary at War. When, the King, who hated Pitt because of his fierce opposition to subsidies and his contempt for Hanover, refused to comply, they resigned. Granville and Bath, however, were unable to form a Ministry, and the Pelhams had to be recalled. The office of Secretary at War was given to Henry Fox, a man of great ability, industrious and affable, but a " political adventurer," destitute of all principle and sense of public duty, aiming solely at personal gain. By way of compromise George very reluc- tantly appointed Pitt a Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. In May he was promoted to the office of Paymaster of the Forces. The whole affair is important from the fact that the Pelhams were obliged, much against their will, to take up a man because of the public opinion that was back of him and to force him upon the King. Pitt now showed such en- thusiasm in supporting subsidies that he was bitterly attacked ; but he had come to see the need of what he formerly opposed. He showed his personal honesty, indeed ostentatiously advertised it, by refusing to follow his predecessors in taking percentages on foreign subsidies or in pocketing the interest on public moneys which he placed on deposit. The End of the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. The recall of the English troops to deal with the rising of the Scots had left the Allies even more at the mercy of the French in the Netherlands than they had been before. On the other hand, Austria had been relieved by the withdrawal of both Prus- sia and Bavaria from the war, and by the death, 9 July, 1746, of Philip V of Spain, whose son and successor, Ferdinand VI, was pacifically inclined. Bereft of two allies, languidly supported by a third, alarmed at her increasing debt, unsuccessful against the Austrians in Italy and with the St. Lawrence and Canada threatened by the capture of Louisburg, the French were ready to listen to terms of peace; but the English demands were so high that the struggle dragged on for more than a year longer. In the campaign of 1747 Marshal Saxe pushed into Holland, defeated a combined British, Dutch, and Aus- trian force at Laffeldt, 2 July, and, in September, his forces took the important fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom, one of the keys of the country. These gains, however, were counterbalanced by decisive victories of Anson, off Cape Finisterre, 3-4 May, and of Hawke, off Belleisle, 25 October, actions which practically ruined the French navy for the time being. Thereupon, the question of peace was referred to a congress called to meet at Aix-la-Chapelle. Though Maria Theresa, George II, and William, recently elected THE ASCENDANCY AND FALL OF WALPOLE 717 Stadholder of Holland, strung out the negotiations in the vain hope of a victory on land which might enable them to make better terms, the English and the Dutch finally gave in and signed preliminaries, 30 April, 1748, without waiting for their Austrian allies. The chief terms were: (i) The renewal of all former treaties, except in such points as were specifically changed, and the mutual restoration of all conquests. Thus Cape Breton reverted to France, and Madras to Great Britain. (2) The Asiento was to be revived for four years. (3) The Protestant Succession was again guaranteed, and the exclusion of the Pretender and his family from France confirmed. (4) The Emperor Francis was to be acknowledged by France and the Pragmatic Sanction renewed. (5) The Duchy of Silesia and the County of Glatz were to remain in the hands of the King of Prussia. The Empress Maria Theresa protested bitterly, and at first refused to confirm the preliminaries, declaring that she was neither a child nor a fool. At length, however, a definitive peace was signed, 18 October. The Results of the War. Curiously enough, the issue in which England and Spain had originally gone to war the right of search was passed over without mention, while England and France, after a tremendous expenditure of men and money, remained in much the same position as before. On the other hand, the Austrian lands and the Imperial title had been preserved to the daughter of Austrian Hapsburgs, though at the cost of a cherished province; Holland, already seriously weakened in the previous struggles with France, finally ceased to be a great Power ; while Prussia, destined in another war to be the most effective ally of Great Britain and a dominating force in Europe, had made her way into the front rank of European States. It was only late in the struggle that England had asserted the maritime supremacy that had once been hers, and which she was soon to demonstrate again so signally. On land she had been beaten " on every spot which my lord Marlborough had conquered." Although it was not clear to her statesmen at the time, the system of William III, and the Duke who followed him, was outworn. When, after a brief interval of repose, the conflict was again resumed, Pitt, who now held only a subordinate place in the Ministry, was to show that his country's primary mission was not to devote her best strength to fighting France in the Netherlands and in Germany, but to bend her main energies to mastering her great rival on the sea, in America and in India. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See ch. XLI below. CHAPTER XLI THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE. THE CLOSING YEARS OF GEORGE ITS REIGN (1748-1760) A Period of Calm. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was followed in England by several years of political tranquillity. The Pelhams, secure in the control of Parliament, sought to avoid trouble, while Pitt, for the time being, lent his support to the Government. The opposition was confined to Prince Frederick and his Leicester House Circle ; but, guided by no great man or principle, it was divided by bickering and intrigue. On the Prince's death in 1751, the Princess Dowager passed over to the King's side, and in 1752 Horace Walpole suggested as an advertisement : " Lost, an Opposition." The Jacobites were still uneasy; but satisfied themselves with futile evi- dences of loyalty to the Pretender, 1 such as singing songs in his praise and drinking his health. 2 Granville returned to office as President of the Council, " a mere spectator of others' greatness and ghost, of his own," chiefly famous henceforth for his sparkling epigrams. The Reform of the Calendar, 1751. During these years of quiet two notable reforms were carried through. The first was the reform of the Calendar. The English year began on " Lady Day," 25 March, 3 and, owing to an ancient astronomical error, her reckoning was eleven days wrong. The " new " or corrected style had been brought into general use in Europe in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. Only Sweden, Russia, 4 and England clung to the " old style," partly from conserva- tism, partly because the innovation was a " Popish " measure. In England the change was proposed by Chesterfield, and was worked out with the aid of two prominent mathematicians. New Year's Day was changed to i January, and the day following 2 September, 1752, was called the I4th. The timid Newcastle begged Chesterfield not to meddle with " new f angled things " ; but the measure was easily carried through Parliament. Outside, however, the opposition was gentlemen in the neighborhood of Lichfield dressed their fox hounds in tartan plaids and hunted in red uniforms. 2 Even to-day finger bowls are not used at Court or Guildhall dinners, owing, it is said, to the Jacobite custom of waving a glass over them and drinking to the King "over the water." 3 The Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. This was the first of the "quarter days" into which the year was divided. The others were Midsummer Day, 21 June; Michaelmas, 29 September; and Christmas, 25 December. 4 Russia still retains it. 718 THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 719 for some time intense. " Give us back our eleven days " was a popular cry in the next election. The altering of holy days was regarded as a profanation, and when one of the mathematicians, Bradley, died of a lingering illness, it was regarded as a just judgment, because he had " banished the old Christmas." Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Bill, 1753. The other measure the marriage Act of 1753 did away with a crying abuse. Hitherto marriages could be celebrated by a priest at any time and place, with- out previous notice or registration and without the knowledge and consent of either parent or guardian, even if the parties were minors. Consequently, disreputable persons, usually prisoners for debt, did a thriving business in joining runaway couples, as well as young heirs and heiresses entrapped by unscrupulous persons. This nefarious work centered chiefly in and about the " Fleet." l Almost every neighboring tavern and grog shop had a " Fleet parson " in its pay. In one period of four months nearly 3000 "Fleet marriages " were per- formed. Once joined, the tie was almost indissoluble, since divorces could only be secured by act of Parliament. Various attempts to remedy the evil proved ineffective till Lord Hardwicke's celebrated act of 1753, which provided that, except in the case of Quakers and Jews, no marriage should be valid which was not celebrated according to the Anglican liturgy by a priest of the Church of England. Fur- thermore, banns 2 must be published in the parish church for three successive weeks. The only alternative was a special license issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury and very costly. In the case of minors such licenses could not be procured without the consent of parents or guardians. Persons celebrating marriages contrary to law were liable to transportation. The new arrangement was natu- rally a grievance to Dissenters ; but the evils that it remedied were greater than the hardships it caused, and the Act continued in force for nearly a century. The Death of Henry Pelham, 1754. The Newcastle Ministry, 1754-1756. The death of Henry Pelham, 6 March, 1754, put an end to the prevailing political calm. " Now I shall have no more peace," cried the old King ; words which proved all too true. New- castle, in order to insure the maintenance of his own power, assumed the office of First Lord of the Treasury and took his brother's place as Prime Minister. His great difficulty came in selecting a leader of the House of Commons. 3 The three persons most capable of filling the post were William Murray, known as " the father of modern Toryism," who, as Lord Mansfield, became one of England's most fa- mous judges ; William Pitt ; and Henry Fox. Newcastle at length made overtures to Fox, who refused when he found that he was to have no voice in the disposal of secret service money or patronage. Thereupon, Newcastle chose Sir Thomas Robinson, a very dull man, quite ignorant 1 A celebrated debtor's prison in London. 2 Or notices of marriages. * When the Prime Minister is not a peer, he assumes this position himself . 720 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of parliamentary usages, whose chief recommendation was his com- pliant temper. Pitt, who declared that " the Duke might as well send his jack boot to lead us," at once allied himself with Fox. Day after day they led deadly attacks against the poor, bewildered Sir Thomas : Pitt with thundering eloquence ; Fox with insidious irony. From the modern standpoint their attitude would be indefensible, since they were both Ministers under the Chief whose representative they were attacking. At length, Newcastle, when he could bear the trouncing no longer, succeeded, January, 1755, in bringing Fox over to his side. Pitt at once broke off all connection with his temporary and ill-assorted ally. The Issues of the Seven Years' War, 1756-1763. Before many months a new war was to break out, destined to settle, to a large degree, " problems " " which had long been ripe for solution," problems " which concerned not only the British kingdom but all the civilized and almost all the inhabited world. Whether France or England was to rule in India; whether the French manners, language, and insti- tutions or the English were to prevail over the immense continent of North America ; whether Germany was to have a national existence ; whether Spain was to monopolize the tropics ; who was to command the ocean ; who was to be dominant in the islands of the Spanish- American waters ; what power was to possess the choice stands for business in the great markets of the globe." At first it seemed as if England had no one great enough to deal with the crisis. However, at the appointed hour, a man came to the front in the person of William Pitt, who proved the heaven-sent genius whom his countrymen needed so sorely. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which had settled so little in Europe, did less toward defining the situation in India and America. In the years following the inconclusive treaty, the ambitious activity of the French came to menace more and more dangerously, not only the security, but the very existence of the English in both these vast areas. The situation in India can best be made clear by a brief survey of its history. The Beginnings of the English Activity in India. Early in the sixteenth century the district now known as India, formerly under a number of independent rulers, was conquered and united by a line of emperors called by Europeans the Great Moguls. Rajahs or princes became tributary, and districts were formed under the ap- pointed viceroys. The Mogul's court at Delhi was a center of great magnificence. The decline of the dynasty, however, was rapid. The last great ruler died in 1707, and his successors degenerated into mere figureheads. While the rajahs and viceroys continued nominally dependents, it was they who came to wield the real power. Mean- time, Europeans began to press in. First came the Portuguese, then the Dutch. Close on the heels of the latter came the English. The East India Company received its first charter from Elizabeth in 1600. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Company had three THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 721 separate and independent settlements, or " presidencies," at Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay. Already, the Portuguese and the Dutch had ceased to be formidable rivals ; but a new competitor had arisen in the French. During the reign of Louis XIV they too founded an East India Company, establishing fortified settlements at Chander- nagore near Calcutta, and at Pondicherry, about eighty miles southeast of Madras. In the Indian Ocean off the Island of Madagascar they acquired two fertile islands, which they named, respectively, the Isle de France, now Mauritius, and the Isle de Bourbon. The former served as a naval base for India as Cape Breton did for Canada. The French strive for Supremacy in India. Dupleix and Clive. When the conflict broke out between England and France in the War of the Austrian Succession, the Isle de France, one of the two French pres- idencies, was ruled by La Bourdonnais ; Pondicherry, the other, by Dupleix. Both were remarkable men, though bitterly jealous of one another. La Bourdonnais managed to capture Madras in 1746; but it was handed back to the British at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The unhappy conqueror was overthrown by the intrigues of his rival and died a broken-hearted man in 1754. Dupleix, now in undisputed control, had a consuming ambition to establish a French empire in India. Vain, pompous, and no general, he was wary in council, he had great organizing ability, he knew how to play upon the rivalries of the native rulers, and his energy was tireless. With the aid of an able commander, the Marquis de Bussy, he made himself supreme in the southeastern and south central districts known as the Carnatic and the Deccan. When he seemed in a fair way to drive the British out of India, his victorious career was suddenly checked by a man to whom, more than any other, Great Britain owes the beginning of her present Indian Empire. This was Robert Clive (1725-1774), the son of an impoverished squire. Owing to his idle, wayward temper, his father, despairing of his chances of a career at home, procured for him a clerkship in the East India Company. Arriving almost penniless, he was frequently so depressed that he more than once attempted suicide. However, he soon secured a military commission. In August, 1751, he first showed the stuff that was in him when with a little army of five hundred, more than half of them Sepoys, 1 he took the city of Arcot, in the face of over a hundred thousand spectators, without firing a shot. Though the fort was almost in ruins, he successfully defended the conquered city against an army of ten thousand men. Under his senior, Major Lawrence, he followed up his first success by a series of brilliant victories in the surrounding Carnatic. The French Company, who cared more for dividends than for political dominion, finally gave way to the English in this district, and Dupleix died in 1763, crushed with grief and disappointment. Clive, who 1 Native troops in the European service. Of his eight officers five were mer- chants' clerks. 3A 722 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND went to England to recover his health, returned in 1755 with tremen- dous work before him. For some time, however, the interest of the English Government centered chiefly in North America. The French and English in North America. There the boundary line between Canada and Nova Scotia had been left unsettled by the late peace, while, in addition, there was a large, ill-defined territory between the head waters of the Ohio River and the southern shore of Lake Erie, claimed by both Great Britain and France. More serious still, the French determined to establish themselves in the disputed district and to secure the control of the Mississippi basin with a view to uniting their settlements on the St. Lawrence with those on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. To that end, the Marquis Duquesne, Governor of Canada, was instructed to undertake the construction of a chain of forts in the Ohio country. In the spring of 1753 he sent out an expedition which built two, one on the southern shore of Lake Erie, the other on a tributary of the Allegheny. If the French suc- ceeded in carrying out their policy, the English colonists would be con- fined to a narrow strip of territory between the Appalachians and the Atlantic, unable to expand westward, cut off from the profitable Indian trade beyond the barrier, and surrounded on three sides by their greatest rival and enemy. By way of protest the Governor of Virginia sent George Washington, then a young surveyor who had been active in opening new trade routes to the Great Lakes, to demand that they withdraw from the valley of the Ohio country. He failed, of course. Moreover, in 1754, the enemy succeeded in planting another stronghold, which they named Fort Duquesne, at the point where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers unite to form the Ohio, and defeated a small force of colonial militia which Washington led against them. The struggles to secure disputed territory brought on the war between Great Britain and France which led to the expulsion of the latter from the main land of North America. Boscawen's Attack and Braddock's Defeat, 1755. While as yet no formal declaration of war had been issued, Admiral Boscawen, sent early in 1755 with instructions to attack the French fleet from Brest if it should sail for the St. Lawrence, met the enemy in a thick fog off the banks of Newfoundland. Though he captured two ships, the remainder got safely into Louisburg. On 9 July, General Brad- dock, who had been dispatched from England to recover Fort Du- quesne, was caught in ambush almost ten miles from his destination and mortally wounded. Seven hundred of his troops were shot down, while the rest sought safety in flight. The Plight of Newcastle. In April, 1755, George had gone abroad to look after his Electorate. The efforts of Newcastle to meet the crisis which had arisen were confused and vacillating. Public re- sentment grew steadily more intense against the " hoary jobber," " who would embrace everything, and was fit for nothing." Yet, in justice to him, it must be admitted that he was in a difficult position. THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 723 While bound to defend the British colonial possessions in America, he did not want to seem to begin the war. Great Britain had a defensive alliance with the Dutch, and Spain was peacefully inclined. The alliance of the one and the neutrality of the latter depended upon England's not being openly the aggressor. Moreover, Hanover was in an exposed position, while Sweden and Denmark were inclined to France. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to sign the treasury warrants for the payment of a subsidy to Hesse, the al- ready perplexed Minister was reduced to such despair that he turned to Pitt. He offered him a seat in the Cabinet and dangled before him the most glowing prospects, if he would only support the policy of subsidies for there were other subsidy treaties pending in the House of Commons. But though Newcastle pleaded and even wept, Pitt firmly refused. He was in favor of a national war, he wa's willing to protect Hanover, and he ardently desired an office where he could exercise for his country's good the powers which he was convinced that he possessed ; but he could not give his sanction to the subsidy treaties. 1 Fox, who was next applied to, was superior to scruples, and in return for a Secretaryship of State and the leadership of the Commons, agreed to support the treaties. In spite of a brilliant speech of Pitt's, the royal address recommending the subsidies was carried. The next day, together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other opponents of the policy, he was dismissed. The Loss of Minorca, June, 1756. In the early months of 1756 the nation was trembling at the prospect of an invasion from France, but the French menace was intended merely to cover another design the capture of Minorca. Although the English Ministers were warned of preparations at Toulon, they refused to see anything in them but a feint to disguise what they regarded as the real objective the attack on England. While there was still time, they made no attempt to reenforce Minorca, where the Deputy Governor in command was an old, infirm man. It was not till 7 April, just three days before the French armament sailed from Toulon, that an English fleet was dispatched from Spithead. The commander, Admiral Byng, 2 was the last person to choose for the work ahead of him : while personally brave, he was overcautious, irresolute, inclined to magnify difficulties, and reluctant to assume responsibility. When he reached Gibraltar, he found that the French had already descended upon Minorca and that the commander had withdrawn into the fortress of St. Philip's which protected Port Mahon. Sailing on, he engaged the enemy, 20 May. While slightly worsted in the engagement, the investing 1 "I am sure," he declared a short while later, "that I can save this country and that nobody else can." The King had at first refused to allow Newcastle to offer him a Cabinet office. "Pitt will not do my German business," he said, re- ferring to his policy with regard to subsidies. 2 Son of the famous victor at Cape Passaro, who had shared in the British cap- ture of Minorca in 1708. 724 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND fleet were driven off by the energetic attack of his rear admiral, West. Nevertheless, he became very despondent and held a council of war in which he recommended withdrawal to Gibraltar on the grounds that his losses were great, that his ships were in a bad condition, and that even a victory would not enable him to relieve the fortress be- sieged by the land forces of the French. The Council agreed, and Minorca was left to its fate. Byng's real fault was in not realizing the moral effects of a naval victory whatever happened to Minorca, and that even a defeat was preferable to inglorious retreat. Toward the close of June, St. Philip's and Minorca passed into French hands. The news was received in England with a storm of grief and indigna- tion. While the Ministers were blamed for their delay, the chief resentment was directed against Byng. In the great towns he was burned in effigy, his country house was attacked by a mob, while Parliament and the Ministers were overwhelmed with petitions de- manding vengeance. Newcastle, hoping to divert the popular wrath from himself, not only yielded to it, 1 but sought to excite it still more. Byng was recalled and confined at Greenwich. The Declaration of War, 1756. The Grouping of the Powers. Meantime, England had declared war, 18 May; France replied, 9 June, and before long nearly all Europe was involved. The grouping of the Powers was different from that in the previous conflict ; for Prussia now appeared as an ally of England, and Austria as an opponent. Frederick, with a greedy eye on Hanover, had hitherto opposed his uncle, George II ; but a combination of great Powers against him com- pelled a change of attitude. Austria, finding that England was dis- inclined to go to war to aid her in recovering Silesia, had turned' to her old enemy, France. 2 Louis XV, in responding to her overtures, was influenced by three considerations: an Austrian alliance promised an extension of boundaries into the Netherlands; a combination of the Catholic against the Protestant powers appealed to him in the light of a grand crusade, for he was as devout as he was debauched ; and, finally, he was personally embittered against Frederick, who had unguardedly referred to him more than once with great contempt and had openly scoffed at his all-powerful favorite, Madame de Pom- padour. 3 In consequence, a treaty was concluded, i May, 1756, between France and Austria, aiming at the partition of Prussia. Russia, Poland, Saxony, and Sweden joined the combination. Outnumbered by 90,000,000 to 5,000,000, Frederick, directly he suspected what was afoot, made advances to King George. The result was a treaty by which the two Kings bound themselves during the trouble in America to allow no troops of any foreign nation to enter or pass through Germany. 1 To a deputation from the City he exclaimed: "Oh, indeed, he shall be tried immediately, he shall be hanged directly." 2 Maria Theresa's astute minister Kaunitz had influenced her to this step, 3 Frederick named his favorite lap dog after her. THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 725 Frederick and the Third Silesian War, 1756-1763. In spite of the great combination against him, Frederick enjoyed many advan- tages over his opponents; his army, though small, was admirably equipped and trained ; he had a goodly supply of treasure on hand, while they were ill supplied with ready funds ; then, not only was he a transcendent military genius, but he was fighting against a many- headed grouping, always difficult to operate in concert ; finally, he was prepared and they were not. Suddenly, in August, 1756, he de- manded from the Empress a statement of her intentions, with war as the alternative. When he received an evasive answer he poured his troops into Saxony. Thus began the third Silesian War which was coterminous with the Seven Years' War (17 56-1 763). 1 Frederick had many defeats as well as victories during the course of the struggle ; but he fought on with rare constancy and ability, and his activity furnished an invaluable diversion to the English. The Devonshire Ministry, November, 1756, to April, 1757. Pitt a Secretary of State. The autumn of 1756 was marked by a revolu- tion in the English Ministry. Fox, finding that Newcastle gave him no power or confidence and tried to thrust upon him responsibility for measures in which he had no share, resigned his secretaryship in October. After trying once more to win over Pitt, and after a vain effort to find a Secretary sufficiently strong to support him in the House of Commons, Newcastle resigned very reluctantly. .A ministry was finally constructed with the Duke of Devonshire as the nominal head, but Pitt, who became a Secretary of State, was the real power in the Cabinet. Among other things, his appointment is significant from the fact that he was the first English statesman forced into a Cabinet position by pressure of public opinion. Beyond his family connection with the Grenvilles 2 he had no organized following in the Commons and little parliamentary influence. Indeed, he was opposed to party connection and aimed to break the power of the Whig oligarchy, to call to the service of the State the best men irrespective of their political affiliations, to bring the royal power into harmony with the parlia- mentary, which in its turn should be the true servant of the people. Abroad, he wanted to build up the British Empire, and but only as a means to that end to make Great Britain a dominant power in Europe. Great as was his success in asserting the power of his country abroad, his efforts to bring about unity at home were less happy, largely because he failed to realize the distinction between party and faction. By scorning to attach to himself a strong party backing, he was bound in the long run to be overcome by his opponents. Estimate of Pitt. The man who now at the close of his forty- eighth year first had a chance to try his ability on a large scale had 1 Known in American history as the French and Indian War. 2 In 1754 he had married Lady Hester Grenville, sister of Richard (Lord Temple) and George Grenville. The family in the course of half a century furnished twelve great officers of State, including three First Lords of the Treasury. 726 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND hitherto distinguished himself as a furious critic of the Administration, as an orator of fiery and irresistible eloquence, and as a man who refused to enrich himself at the public expense. Gifted with a rich, sonorous voice and an inspiring presence, he had also an uncommon power of launching phrases that compelled attention. While he was a careful student of language and of the subjects which came up for debate, his greatest effects were produced extemporaneously. His set speeches were usually failures. At times he was overelaborate, florid, and even bombastic ; but by his terrible earnestness and his fierce and majestic bearing he struck his listeners with awe and held the House in absolute control. He was fully conscious of his ability, but his ambition was for public service, not for private ad- vancement. The people, whom; as no other statesman of the time, he loved and understood, made him their idol. Nevertheless, when he felt that they were wrong, he never hesitated to cross their will. He openly defended Byng and later denounced their hero John Wilkes. Yet in this lofty, heroic character there were many grave faults and inconsistencies. Under Walpole he clamored for war, while at the same time opposing the maintenance of a standing army ; he bitterly attacked both Walpole and Carteret for their policy of subsidizing Hanover and other German states, though afterwards, in order to obtain office, he allied himself with the Pelhams and supported the very policy he had unsparingly condemned. To be sure, he had high motives for desiring office, he had a right to alter his opinion, and circumstances had changed ; but it is a wonderful tribute to his mag- netic influence that neither this change of front nor various other in- consistencies seriously affected his moral ascendancy. Another of his traits is the most difficult of all to explain. While he spent most of his life in opposition and could, at times, be almost insolent to his sovereign, he adopted, at others, an attitude toward royalty that was almost abject. " The least peep into the closet," wrote Burke, a younger contemporary, " intoxicates him and will to the end of his life." At the royal levees it is said that " he used to bow so low that you could see the tip of his crooked nose between his legs." He was vain, artificial, and always posing for effect. 1 Moreover, he was so irritable, hot-tempered, and overbearing that it was almost impossible for any one to work with him. But his temper can be excused from the fact that he was a lifelong sufferer from gout and from a nervous disease frequently so acute as to amount almost to insanity. Yet, after all has been said, he was tireless in his country's service, her greatest War Minister, one of the great builders of her Empire, a true friend of liberty, and a true patriot in short a grand, heroic figure whose character and achievements overshadow his blemishes. 1 On occasion he read aloud from Shakespeare's plays to his family, and when he came to the comic parts, he had another read them, thinking that to do it himself was derogatory to his dignity. THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 727 Pitt's " System." Pitt's hand was seen in the speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament, 2 December, 1756, in which a scheme for a national militia, to which George II was known to be opposed, was recommended. Although prostrated shortly after by gout, he soon reappeared and took energetic measures for carrying on the war. Highland regiments were pressed into service, and a force of militia was drafted to defend the country in place of a body of Electoral troops who were sent back to Hanover. Regardless of the charge of inconsistency to which it exposed him, he next proposed a grant for the defense of the Electorate, and, in this case, he was justified, since the proposed subsidies were not for purely German objects, but as a measure of defense against the French, who were making ready to attack Hanover. Pitt's great combination of military and naval strategy known as his " system," which he now began to develop, 1 was for a long time misunderstood, largely owing to the remark which he once made, and which has been so frequently quoted, that he would conquer America in Germany. As a matter of fact, his main energies were devoted to beating the French -in America and to securing command of the seas in order to prevent them from sending reinforcements and supplies to their colonial forces. His continental operations were designed to keep them occupied and to prevent them from gaining such successes as would counterbalance English achievements in the central theater of the war. 2 While he contented himself with sending abroad subsidies and occasional contingents, France, by virtue of her position, was obliged to divide her energies between the European war and the colonial and maritime struggle with Great Britain. The Execution of Byng, 14 March, 1757. During December and January Byng was tried by court martial at Portsmouth. The court, while acquitting him of treachery or cowardice, rendered an opinion that he had not done his utmost to relieve St. Philip's castle or to defeat the French fleet. According to the Articles of War, it was obliged to impose the death penalty for neglect of duty, though it unani- mously recommended the Admiral to the royal mercy. The public, however, demanded a victim for the loss of Minorca. Threatening letters were sent to George, and glaring posters appeared with the jingle: "Hang Byng or take care of your King." Pitt strove manfully against the tide, but he had no parliamentary support and had not yet won the royal favor. So the public had its way. Byng, meeting his fate with manly courage, was shot, 14 March, 1757. The judges have been criticized for confusing error of judgment with neglect of 1 Newcastle may have anticipated him in recognizing the usefulness of the Highland troops and foreseeing the advantage of concentrating the main efforts in America ; but he lacked the force to put his ideas into effect. 2 Clive was unable to persuade Pitt of the importance of winning an empire in India, and the expeditions sent to that region were intended mainly for the protec- tion of trade and commerce. Nevertheless, what was accomplished there in this war was to bear rich fruit in the future. 728 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND duty; but the blame rests on the King; he no doubt felt that an example was necessary for hesitating commanders in the future, but he was also influenced by the late Ministers who wanted a scapegoat for their own short-comings. The Dismissal of Pitt. His Recall as Secretary in the Second New- castle Ministry. George II had not yet overcome his aversion to Pitt, and he hated his brother-in-law, Earl Temple. As he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, he did not look upon himself as King while he was " in the hands of those scoundrels," adding that he was de- termined " to get rid of them at any cost." The die was cast by the Duke of Cumberland who refused to accept the* command of the electoral army if Pitt continued as Secretary. As a result, the latter was dismissed in April. Newcastle was intrusted with the task of forming a Cabinet, but the " Aspen Duke " vacillated long between his " thirst for place and his dread of danger." For nearly three months the distracted country, with a tremendous war on its hands, remained without a Government. Public sentiment was manifestly for Pitt ; stocks fell, while so many cf the chief towns presented him with the freedom of their city that " it rained gold boxes." * At length, much to the disgust of the King, an arrangement was made by which Pitt came back as Secretary with the whole charge of foreign affairs, while Newcastle became Prime Minister, devoting, himself to the congenial task of managing Parliament. The Campaign of 1757. Pitt, forced to " borrow the majority of the Duke of Newcastle," was to achieve glorious things; but on his advent to office, June, 1757, the prospect seemed gloomy enough. " Whoever is in or whoever is out," wrote Chesterfield, " I am sure we are undone both at home and abroad. ... I never yet saw so dreadful a prospect." Everything was in confusion, the debt was piling up, the country was in constant fear of invasion, and the loss of Minorca was not only a blow to British prestige, but threatened her supremacy in the Mediterranean and her commerce in the Levant. Moreover, the military events of the year were almost uniformly un- successful. In America the Earl of Loudon, a weak and irresolute man wittily likened to " St. George upon the sign posts, always on horseback, but never advances " proved no match for the able and alert Montcalm, commander in Canada. A joint land and naval expedition, sent by Pitt in September against the coast of France, with a view of effecting a diversion for the Duke of Cumberland and Frederick, proved a costly and fruitless failure. In Germany, too, the results were most discouraging. Cumberland, with an army of 50,000 composed of Hanoverians, Prussians, and contingents of mer- cenaries, was unable to prevent the French, with a superior force of 80,000, from overrunning and devastating the Electorate. Finally, hemmed in at Stade, with his communications cut off from the neigh- 1 In reference to the boxes in which the freedom was presented. THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 729 boring Elbe, where four English men-of-war were stationed, he signed a convention at Kloster-Zeven, 8 September, by which he agreed to send home his auxiliaries and to withdraw his remaining forces across the river, with the exception of a small garrison which he was allowed to leave at Stade. Cumberland made the best terms possible, but both the English and the Germans denounced the convention as an " ignomin- ious capitulation." George, who in a panic had given him full powers to treat, immediately recalled the Duke, refused to speak to him, and said in his hearing : " This is my son who has ruined me and disgraced himself." Cumberland never served again during the remainder of his life. Frederick, already hard pressed by the Austrians and threatened by the Russians, now had to face, in addition, two French armies released from the west by the recent capitulation. So de- spondent that he contemplated suicide, he nevertheless managed to defeat the French at Rossbach in Saxony, 5 November, and then, with amazing energy and ability, to advance into Silesia and to win an overwhelming victory over the Austrians at Leuthen, 5 December, thus bringing to a triumphant close a long and desperate campaign. The Campaign of 1758. Operations in North America and Africa. In 1758 the effect of Pitt's system first began to bear fruit. He de- vised elaborate plans to carry on the war on four continents : in America, Africa, India, and Europe. His chief energies were devoted to America. Three forces were prepared. The main attack, which was directed against Louisburg, was intrusted to Amherst, and was supported by a fleet under Boscawen. The fortress surrendered 27 July, and the submission of the whole island followed at once. Most conspicuous for bravery and energy was General Wolfe, the second in command, a " chinless, sandy-haired young man " of thirty. His father was a general under Marlborough ; he himself had served in the army since he was fourteen years old ; he was an earnest student of his profes- sion, and had fought at Dettingen and other famous battles ; but his abilities had first been discovered during the ill-fated expedition against the French coast in the previous year. His appointment marked one of Pitt's most daring innovations, splendidly justified by its re- sults selection for important posts on the basis of merit rather than seniority or influence. A second force, under General Abercromby, was ordered to secure the French forts commanding Lake George and Lake Champlain in order to open the way for an attack on Canada, but he was repulsed in a foolhardy attack against Ticonderoga and returned to New York. A third army, sent out from Philadelphia under Brigadier Forbes, succeeded in capturing Fort Duquesne, thus securing the " Key of the great West." The next year Fort Pitt was erected, a name which survives to-day in the great manu- facturing city of Pittsburgh. An expedition against the French pos- sessions on the west coast of Africa, sent out, curiously enough, at the suggestion of a Quaker, secured possession of the river Senegal and the Island of Goree. 730 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The War in Europe, 1758. Fleets were fitted out to seal up the French ports and to guard the Channel. During the summer, two expeditions were sent against the coast of France. In view of the actual damage inflicted on the enemy the destruction of a relatively small amount of shipping Fox's tart comparison, " breaking win- dows with guineas, " had some point. Nevertheless, these invasions effected their purpose of diverting the French from sending reenforce- ments to Germany. Frederick's victories had been received with joy in England, where he was hailed as the " Protestant hero." Par- liament voted him a subsidy of 670,000 and agreed to support an army of 35,000 in western Germany, the command of which, on Frederick's suggestion, was given to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, a capable general who had already distinguished himself in the Prus- sian service. Ferdinand during the year fought the French on the whole with success; but the poor Hanoverians suffered pitifully from the fighting as well as from the marching and countermarching through their territory. Farther east, Frederick managed to beat back an invasion of the Russians who got within a few days' march of Berlin; but he was severely handled by the Austrians in Saxony, though they failed to profit by the victory of Hochkirchen, 14 October, in which they nearly annihilated his army. Even Pitt was appalled by the increasing cost of the war. " I wish to God," he wrote to New- castle, " we could see our way through this mountain of expense." But the people supported him loyally, and Newcastle, though with a sour grace, used his influence in Parliament to secure the necessary grants. The generous outlays were rewarded the coming year by a series of victories rarely paralleled in history. Measures for Home Defense, 1759. Owing to a threatened French invasion in 1759, Pitt's first care was to provide for the defense of the country. There was ample ground for the " magnanimous fear " which prompted him. Flat-bottomed boats were building at Havre and at various points along the French coast; fleets were equipped at Toulon and Brest, and a squadron was collected at Dun- kirk under Thurot. The British preparations were equally elaborate. A fleet was stationed in the Channel, troops were drawn up along the exposed parts of the coast, and the country militia were mustered: " All the country squires are in regimentals," wrote Horace Walpole, i August, 1759. In order to forestall the expected attack, Rodney bombarded Havre and demolished many of the transports. Bos- cawen, by destroying two ships of the Toulon fleet and forcing two more to run aground off Lagos in August, practically put an end to the danger of an invasion on a large scale. Another English fleet covered Dunkirk, while still another under Hawke blockaded Brest. The Plan of Campaign against Quebec. Pitt, however, did not allow these measures for home defense to interrupt his plans for the conquest of North America. A fleet was dispatched to the West THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 731 Indies, which, though checked at Martinique, captured Guadaloupe, i May, 1759; but Canada was the main object of the campaign. Three expeditions, starting from different points, were directed to converge on Quebec, the stronghold of the Province. One from the west, forming the left wing and consisting of colonial forces and friendly Indians, was to reduce Niagara, sail across Lake Ontario, and pass down the St. Lawrence by way of Montreal. The army of the center, under Amherst who had superseded Abercromby, was to start from New York, strike again at Ticonderoga, secure Lake Cham- plain, and push on by the river Richelieu into the St. Lawrence. The eastern or right wing, composed of an army under General Wolfe and a fleet under Admiral Saunders, was to sail up to Quebec from the mouth of the St. Lawrence. It was an extremely hazardous under- taking for such widely separated bodies of troops to attempt to co- operate ; because, dependent as they were upon slow and uncertain means of communication, they stood every chance of failing to com- bine at the proper moment, in which case the separate contingents were exposed to the danger of being crushed in detail by the vigilant and energetic Montcalm. That the attempt succeeded was due to the genius of Wolfe, " formed to execute the designs of such a master as Pitt," and to the loyal and intelligent cooperation of Saunders. Wolfe was frail of body, weak in health, unattractive in manners as well as appearance, subject to flurries of temper, 1 and inclined to vain boast- ing ; 2 but he was endowed with an indomitable spirit which rose supreme over his faults and infirmities. As a general he combined bravery with knowledge, dash with caution. 3 The western expedition succeeded in taking Niagara; but though it did a good work in breaking the line of communication between Louisiana and Canada and in partially isolating Detroit and the other western posts, it did not undertake to descend the St. Lawrence. Amherst, too, was only partially successful. The French abandoned Ticonderoga and Crown Point at his approach; but they gave him such serious trouble at the northern end of Lake Champlain that it was too late in the season, after he had disposed of them, to proceed further. Thus the whole task of reducing Quebec rested upon Wolfe and Saunders. Fortunately for Great Britain, the French adminis- tration was corrupt and divided and the country was too exhausted 1 The following is an example of one of his outbursts : "The Americans are in general the dirtiest, most contemptible, cowardly "dogs you can conceive. Such rascals ... are rather an incumbrance than any real strength to an army." 2 Pitt invited him to dinner on the eve of his departure for the Quebec campaign. During the evening he drew his sword, strutted about and burst into a "stream of gasconade and bravado." Earl Temple, the only other guest, relates that, after Wolfe had left, Pitt lifted up his eyes and arms and exclaimed : " Good God ! that I should have trusted the fate of the country and of the Administration to such hands." 3 George II, who came to have implicit confidence in him, replied to one of his detractors : "Mad, is he ? then I hope he will bite some of my generals." 732 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND by the continental war to send adequate forces to the relief of Canada. Montcalm, on the news of the impending attack, concentrated the whole French defense in and about Quebec, which, from its situation on a steep bluff commanding the St. Lawrence, was one of the strong places of the world. While the French and Canadians had the ad- vantage of position and outnumbered " the British as well, the latter were better drilled and organized, and were backed by a powerful fleet. Between one and two thousand of the defenders were gathered in the town ; the remainder, nearly fourteen thousand, were stationed along the steep and strongly fortified left bank of the river below the town. The Capture of Quebec, September, 1759. From July to Septem- ber they successfully withstood all attempts of the British to overcome them from this side. At length, on the advice of his brigadiers, Wolfe decided to move his forces past Quebec and attack from the other side. For thirty miles the river bank was sheer and rocky with only an occasional break. Montcalm, who expected that the attempted land- ing would be made some miles up the river, had disposed his chief forces accordingly ; but Wolfe had discovered a place only a mile and a half down the bank which led to the Plains of Abraham, a plateau over- looking the town. In the early morning of 13 September, 1759, he crossed from the southern shore 3 with four thousand men and made his way up the almost impassable ascent by a path so narrow that in places two could not walk abreast, and gained possession of the bluff which was guarded by a garrison of only two hundred men, who fled and left the invaders in possession. Montcalm, when, from his camp below Quebec, he heard the sound of muskets, hurriedly mounted his horse and rode toward the scene of action. " This is serious busi- ness," he murmured, as he saw the redcoats in the distance, and hastily summoned his forces. Unable, however, to contend against the superior discipline of their adversaries, the French wavered, broke, and fled for refuge within the walls of the town. In this conflict on the Plains of Abraham, which decided the fate of New France, both commanders were mortally wounded. " See how they run," said an officer as Wolfe lay dying. " Who run? " cried Wolfe, raising him- self on his elbow. " The enemy," replied the officer. " Then God be praised ! I die happy." Montcalm died the next day. When told that his end was near, he answered : "So much the better ; I 1 Some supplies, however, were sent, and it added greatly to the difficulties of Wolfe and Saunders that the French men-of-war in which they were conveyed managed to elude the latter's second in command and slip into the mouth of the river directly the ice broke up in the spring. 2 Wolfe started with an army of about 8000. 3 Before embarking he took from his neck the miniature of his betrothed to be sent to her in far-off England in case he did not survive. There is a familiar story, that as he floated along the dark, silent stream he repeated to the officers in the boat Gray's Elegy, adding : "Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec." THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 733 Shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." The garrison yielded 1 8 September. However, the junction with Amherst had been pre- vented, and the French who fled to Montreal were able to hold out for another year. Hawke's Victory at Quiberon Bay, 20 November, 1759. The news of. the fall of the stronghold which the British had begun to believe impregnable was received with wild exultation, but it was mingled with mourning for the loss of the man who had brought the conquest of Canada within sight. " Joy, grief, curiosity, astonishment," wrote Walpole, " were painted on every countenance." On the mo- tion of Pitt, who in his speech did not fail to pay a deserved tribute to Saunders, the House of Commons voted a monument to Wolfe in Westminster Abbey. Within a few weeks came the news that Hawke, 20 November, had overcome the Brest fleet in Quiberon Bay. His achievement was a marvel of daring and skill. Heedless of the rocks and shoals of an unfamiliar coast, and in the teeth of a heavy storm and a high sea, he had boldly pursued the enemy toward the shore, and with the loss of only two ships he took or sunk five of the French and scattered the rest. Following upon Boscawen's victory over the Toulon fleet in August, the result was to make the British again supreme at sea and to put an end to the prospect of a general in- vasion by the French. Thurot did manage to escape the British blockading squadron at Dunkirk and to reach the coast of Ireland in February, 1760, but his little squadron was defeated and he him- self killed in an engagement fought with three British frigates on the 28th. The War in Germany. All the while, Frederick was struggling for existence against the Austrians and Russians, who were pressing in upon the Saxon and Silesian frontier. In spite of defeat and despon- dency, he held his ground, leaving Ferdinand of Brunswick free to deal with two great armies in western Germany. The latter, after some preliminary reverses gained a decisive victory over the combined forces of the enemy at Minden, i August. The entire destruction of the French was only prevented by the refusal of Lord George Sackville either from panic or spleen against Frederick to charge the broken columns with his cavalry, which had been held in reserve during the earlier part of the fight. The " Great Year " of Victories, 1759. Altogether, the year was unique in the annals of the British military achievement. In America, in Africa, in India, in Europe, by land and sea, wherever her forces had been engaged, they had been signally victorious. Al- most every month had brought news of a fresh triumph : in January the capture of Goree ; in June of Guadaloupe ; in August of the victory at Minden ; in September of Lagos ; in October of the reduc- tion of Quebec ; in November of the success in Quiberon Bay. " In- deed," said Horace Walpole, " one is forced to ask every morning what victory there is for fear of missing one." Fortunately, too, 734 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND British trade and manufactures grew and flourished, thus enabling the country to bear the enormous burden of the war. Pitt, who by his genius and his industry had planned the campaign, equipped the expeditions, and selected the commanders, had breathed into the na- tion his own heroic spirit. At length England, as Frederick the Great joyfully testified, " had borne a man." Even the King had been completely won over. " Give me your confidence, sir," Pitt had said to George, not long after his appointment, " and I will deserve it." " Deserve my confidence and you shall have it," was the royal reply. Pitt made good his pretensions and the King kept his word. " Those only who had favors to solicit remembered that there was a Duke of Newcastle," the real Prime Minister was Pitt, and the Commons loy- ally voted him all that he demanded. India, 1756-1760. The " Black Hole " of Calcutta, 20 June, 1756. Meantime, an empire was being won in India. The conquest began in Bengal, where a powerful line of princes ruled independently of the Moguls in everything but name. In April, 1756, Suraja Dowlah succeeded to this great inheritance. He was only nineteen, feeble in intellect, but ferocious in temper, and consumed with hatred for the Europeans. When the presidency of Calcutta began to erect new fortifications against the French, he led forth a vast army and took possession of Fort William, 20 June, 1756. That very night, in spite of his promise that the lives of the prisoners should be spared, one hundred and forty-five men and one woman were, by the command of the officers, thrust into the common dungeon of the fort, known to the English as the " Black Hole " of Calcutta. It was only eigh- teen feet by fourteen, with two small windows overhung by a low veranda. After a night of indescribable suffering, witnessed by the guards with " fiendish glee," twenty- three of the hundred and forty- five were found alive' in the morning. Although Suraja Dowlah had not given the orders for committing this atrocity, he expressed no regret ; he caused the dead to be flung into a pit, the living to be plun- dered, and sent some of them to prison loaded with heavy chains. The news which reached Madras, 16 August, found the English in the midst of a struggle with the French for the control of the Carnatic. After a long quarrel as to who should command, Clive, with a force of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys, was dispatched north in a British fleet. The native garrison at Calcutta was easily put to flight, the settlement being abandoned to the English, 2 January, 1757. Not long after, the news reached India of the declaration of war between Great Britain and France. Suraja advanced with a huge though motley army, but, frightened at the determined attitude of his foes, first concluded a treaty of alliance with them, and later sought to ally himself with the French. Thereupon, Clive, who in the meantime had taken possession of Chandernagore, made up his mind that there could be " neither peace nor trade " until Suraja Dowlah was disposed of. THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 735 Clive's Victory at Plassey, 23 June, 1757. Sending a letter to the Nawab in which he charged him with his breach of the recent alliance, Clive marched from Calcutta with 3000 men, of whom only a third were English. On the morning of 23 June, 1757, he engaged the enemy at the village of Plassey, where they had mustered a force of 35,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, together with forty canon under the di- rection of Frenchmen in the native service. _ " If a defeat had ensued," declared Clive, " not one man would have returned to tell it." How- ever, timidity, lack of organization and treachery neutralized the Suraja's superiority of numbers. Before night his army was in full flight. With a loss of twenty-two slain and fifty wounded, Clive had won Bengal and laid the foundations of the British Empire in India. Suraja, who had escaped during the battle, was later caught in the foothills of the Himalayas, brought back, and though without the knowledge of the English executed. The directors of the East India Company made Clive Governor of Bengal, in which capacity he displayed the same astonishing ability that he had shown as a conqueror. When he again returned to England on account of his health, in February, 1760, it was said that " with him it appeared that the soul was departing from the body of the government of Bengal." He was rewarded with an Irish peerage and a seat in the English House of Commons. 1 While he had made a fortune for himself, and while vanity and instances of bad faith may be charged against him, he was subjected to unusual temptations. 2 Chatham, mindful of his achieve- ments, hailed him as a " heaven-born general." He was destined to go out to India for a third and final visit. The Battle of Wandewash and the Winning of the Carnatic, 1760. All the while, the struggle between the English and the French had continued in the southeast. In April, 1758, a great French armament arrived under the command of the Comte de Lally. His aim was to secure Madras and to drive the English altogether out of the Carnatic. He succeeded, not long after his arrival, in taking and destroying Ford St. David's ; but he alienated the natives by trampling on their caste distinctions, he was hampered by lack of funds, and he grew steadily unpopular even with the French. In view of all the obstacles which he found or created, he was still occupied with the siege of Madras when the arrival of an English fleet forced him to retire. Colonel Eyre Coote, who later landed with reinforcements of English troops, 27 October, 1759, captured the French fort of Wandewash. On 29 November, Lally, in an attempt to recover the fort, was defeated by Coote at the battle of Wandewash, 22 December, an engagement which established the English ascendancy in the Carnatic, as Plassey had 1 Irish peers were, and are, eligible for election to the English Lower House. 2 He appropriated 200,000 from Suraja's vast stores of wealth. "When I recollect entering the Nawab's treasury," he declared years later, "with heaps of gold and silver to the right and left, and those covered with jewels at this moment do I stand astonished at my own moderation." 736 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in Bengal. One place after another yielded to their arms, and with the fall of Pondicherry in January, 1761, the French lost their last stronghold in India. In spite of restorations of territory, made in 1763, they were never able to recover their lost ground, and their East India Company soon became extinct. The future struggles of the British were with the natives and not with the rival European Powers. Clive, not Pitt, directed the movements which started his country on the road to her Indian Empire, but the latter by his timely reinforcements and by keeping the French occupied in other quarters contributed not a little to the result. The Capture of Montreal, and the Completion of the Conquest of Canada, 1760. With the approach of the spring, in 1760, the condi- tion of Quebec became critical. The garrison was greatly reduced by sickness, the opening of the St. Lawrence was blocked by ice, while the defenses of the town on the land side were far from strong. How- ever, Murray, the English commander, was able to hold off an attack- ing force sent by the French Governor-General, Vaudreuil, until an English fleet came to his relief. After his failure to retake Quebec, Vaudreuil shut himself up in Montreal. Three British armies were sent against him General Murray's from Quebec, another from Crown Point, and the third under Amherst from Oswego. Amherst, who acted as commander-in-chief, by " one of the most perfect and astonishing bits of work which the annals of British warfare can show," managed to concentrate these various forces so effectively that Mon- treal, surrounded without hope of relief, was forced to capitulate, 8 Sep- tember, 1760, and the British conquest of Canada was finally complete. The Turn in the Tide of Frederick's Fortunes, 1760. While his ally was winning empires in America and India, Frederick was trying to recover from his reverses and to hold his own against the Austrians and the Russians. Unwilling to contract new loans or to impose further taxes upon his own subjects, he resorted to desperate devices to eke out his English subsidy; he levied assessments in Mecklenburg and Saxony, he sold great quantities of the Saxon forest to speculators, he withheld the pay of officials, he debased the coinage, he forced prisoners to enlist in his service, and sent hired adventurers throughout Germany to secure recruits by force and by specious promises. Although he defeated one Austrian army at Liegnitz, 15 August, 1760, thereby securing Silesia, he was unable to prevent another force from joining with the Russians and marching on Berlin, which they occupied for three days. Having relieved his capital, Frederick marched into Saxony, which the Austrians had again entered, and drove them out after a victory at Torgau, 3 November, the last and bloodiest battle of the Third Silesian War, in which he lost 14,000 and the enemy 20,000. At the close of the campaign he fixed his headquarters at Leipzig with the feeling that the tide in his fortunes had turned. Ferdinand, though with some difficulty, held the southern and western frontier against two French armies which together amounted to two hundred thousand men. THE DUEL FOR EMPIRE 737 The Death of George II, 25 October, 1760. In the midst of the triumph of English arms George II, who was seventy-seven years old, and who had for two years been losing his sight and his hearing, died, 25 October, 1760. In spite of his faults, he could boast that during a reign of thirty-three years he had not in a single instance violated the Constitution. To whatever cause his moderation may have .been due, t"he result was happy for England. Coveting military glory, he was for years in " awful contemplation of a very involved European situation " and at length " plunged into the infinite sea of perplexity." Curiously enough, Pitt, the man who had begun by earning his hatred, crowned his reign with glorious achievement. 1 Though George gave his confidence grudgingly, he gave it unreservedly, and, from 1757 until the end of his reign, the policy of the country was practically Pitt's policy. With the accession of George's son a momentous change was to come. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Leadam, Political History, chs. XX-XXVII. Robertson, England under the Hanoverians, chs. II, III. Cambridge Modern History, VI, ch. II (bibliog- raphy, pp. 844-857). Bright, History of England, III, pp. 966-1033. Stanhope, History of England, II-IV. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, I, II. Constitutional. Hallam, III, ch. XVI. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. VII, ch. I. Biography. Coxe's and Morley's Walpole. Hon. Evan Charteris, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, 1721-1748 (1913); a brilliant scholarly apology. Lord Rosebery, Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections (1910) goes to 1756, scholarly, and charmingly written. F. Harrison, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1905) ; a brief sketch. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays (3d ed. 1853), I, II ; two famous essays on Pitt. The two great biographies of Pitt are A. von Ruville, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (3 vols., 1907, Eng. tr.), and Basil Williams, The Life of William Pitt (2 vols., 1913) ; the former hostile, the latter favorable. T. W. Riker, Henry Fox, First Lord Holland (2 vols., 1911). P. C. Yorke, The Life and Correspond- ence of Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke (3 vols., 1913). Scotland. P. H. Brown, III, bk. VII, chs. YI-VTII. Cambridge Modern History, III (bibliography, pp. 858-863). Army and Navy. Fortescue, British Army, I, II. Mahan, Sea Power, ch. VIII. J. S. Corbett, England in the Seven Years' War (2 vols., 1907). Clowes, Royal Navy, III. America. Cambridge Modern History, VII, chs. I-IV (bibliography, pp. 753-779). India, ibid., VI, ch. XV (bibliography, pp. 925-932). For further bibliography on America and India, Robertson, 523, and Leadam, 515. Contemporary. John, Lord Hervey, Memoirs of the Reign of George II to the Death of Queen Caroline (ed. J. W. Croker, 2 vols., 1848) ; ill-natured and to be read with caution. Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II (ed. Lord Holland, 3 vols., 1846). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, no. 249, and Robertson, pt. I, nos. XXIX-XLIII. 1 "I shall burn my Greek and Latin books," wrote Horace Walpole. "They are the histories of little people. . . . We subdue the globe in three campaigns, and a globe ... as big again as it was in their days." "You would not know your country again," he writes to his friend, Sir Horace Mann. "You left it a private little island living upon its means. You will find it the capital of the world ; St. James' Street crowded with nabobs and Indian chiefs." CHAPTER XLII THE REVIVAL OF THE ROYAL ASCENDANCY. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III (1760-1770) The Significance of the Reign of George III. The accession of George III, 25 October, 1760, marked a notable attempt to revive the personal power of the sovereign, and a consequent interlude in the progress of Cabinet and party government for over twenty years. The reign, which lasted for sixty years and which was only exceeded in length by that of one English monarch, 1 proved to be one of the most eventful in the annals of the country. While his two predecessors had seen the wisdom of leaving the Government largely in the hands of their Whig ministers, George III bent all his energies to break the power of the dominant oligarchy and systematically to impose his will upon the nation. No sovereign has ever repeated the attempt, in which he succeeded during the first third of his reign. Another result of his accession was the return to power of the Tories after nearly fifty years of exclusion from office. Events had been working in their favor for some years before George III ascended the throne. Al- though the Whigs monopolized office and power and controlled Parlia- ment, they were at odds among themselves. The party was split into various factions, each dominated by one of the great families. 2 Moreover, Pitt, while he was nominally a Whig, bound by close family connection with the Grenvilles and, since 1757, by a working agree- ment with Newcastle, hated all party combinations. His views and example did something to discredit the old system, though his methods and aims were quite the opposite of those of the new King, Pitt's idea was to call in the best men of both parties, who were backed by the people and who voiced popular opinion. George's was to put in office only those who would serve his purpose in establishing the royal ascendancy. Consequently, Pitt, in spite of his hatred of the great Whig families which he shared with George, was one of the first to go. Aside from the disintegration of the Whigs, other causes rendered the situation most favorable for the revival of a strong monarchy. The Stuart rivals of the Hanoverian line had been hopelessly discredited by the failure of 1745. Furthermore, the victories of Pitt had aroused 1 Victoria, 1837-1901. 2 These were the Pelham Whigs led by Newcastle; the Russell Whigs by the Duke of Bedford ; the Grenville Whigs by Lord Temple ; and the Cavendish Whigs led by the Duke of Devonshire. 738 THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 739 a tremendous loyalty and national enthusiasm that was bound to reflect luster on the Crown. Finally, the new King inspired in his subjects the confidence that he was a typical Englishman. George III, his Personal Traits. George III was now twenty-two years old. Owing to the quarrels of his father, Prince Frederick, with the late King, the boy's early years were passed apart from the royal court, so that he grew up " full of prejudices . . . fostered by women and pages." He was generally good-natured and cheerful, but idle and inclined to fits of sullenness whenever his will was crossed. Utterly ignorant of business when he became King, he shook off his slothful habits and applied himself zealously to his duties. Yet he never overcame his early lack of education. To be sure, he spoke French and German fluently ; but he was deficient in general informa- tion, and his letters were always ungrammatical and full of mis- spelled words. Though he had a good ear for music, of which he was very fond, he was woefully lacking in taste for art and literature. His favorite occupation was agriculture, which gained for him the popular title of " Farmer George." In private life he was unpre- tentious, even homely, and most thrifty in his management of his household ; in public he bore himself with exceeding dignity, and was insistent in small points of ceremony, always requiring, for instance, that his ministers should stand in his presence. Perhaps his most admirable quality was his unquestioned bravery. This, together with his simplicity, purity of family life, and his piety, endeared him to the middle-class Englishman. Conscientious he was, too, and right in his intentions ; but overestimating his own wisdom and rectitude, he could appreciate no point of view but his own, and treated with rudeness, vindictiveness, and even treachery all those who presumed to differ with him. His Policy. Patriotic and high-minded statesmen who were as- sertive and independent were kept out of office, while those who did his bidding, however incompetent or dissolute, were given the royal confidence and favor. Economically as he managed his household, he spent such vast sums in the bestowal of bribes and pensions that with a Civil List greater than that of any of his predecessors it was 800,000 he was always in debt. His money, together with the patronage and the boroughs which he controlled, was lavishly em- ployed in maintaining a strong body of supporters 1 in Parliament, who were known as the " King's friends." They were not admitted to the circle of his personal intimates, who were all kindly, honest folk ; but a monarch professing such high principles should not have tolerated them at all. Employing such men and such methods, he might well say : " This trade of politics is rascally business. It is a trade for a scoundrel and not for a gentleman." Yet something 1 He was not above coercing tradesmen. There is a story that in the election of 1780, when he opposed Admiral Keppel, he rushed into a shop, crying: "The Queen wants a gown, wants a gown. No Keppel ! No Keppel!" 740 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND should be said by way of extenuation. His mother, Augusta of Saxe- Coburg, who had so much to do with forming his mind, was narrowly pious and brought to England the traditions of a petty German court. Ceaselessly she instilled into him the idea of prerogative, and exhorted him to " be a King." Her closest and most trusted adviser, John Stuart, Earl of Bute, reenforced her teachings. Bute was a Scotsman, a handsome man of elaborate polished manners, of literary and scientific tastes, with a great talent for intrigue ; but of slender ability, pompous, haughty, and unpopular. A magnifier of royalty, he is said to have procured for his pupil the manuscript of Black- stone's famous Commentaries on the Constitution, 1 which voiced his views. The work, however, with which he chiefly influenced the young George was Bolingbroke's Idea of a Patriot King, which advocates the principle that a king shall govern as well as reign, that he shall rule independently of party. 2 Had George carried out these latter precepts according to Pitt's ideal he might have rendered a service in breaking up the Whig oligarchy ; for its leaders were at odds among themselves, it had ceased to stand for definite principles, and it main- tained its ascendancy by bribery and corruption in an unrepresentative parliament. It admitted Pitt to power solely by virtue of necessity ; otherwise it was absolutely regardless of public opinion. Unfortu- nately, the state of things which George brought about was worse than that which he attacked. In order to restore the influence of the Crown, he used the Tories as a body of servile henchmen, instead of building up the party on a strong, wholesome footing ; instead of re- forming the representative system and the public service he in- creased parliamentary and official corruption ; he swelled the National Debt, made serious encroachments on the liberty of the subject, and lost to England the richest and most flourishing of her colonies. In short, although no one could have had better intentions, he " in- flicted more profound and enduring injuries upon his country than any modern English King." In a final estimate some allowance must be made for the fact that twice in the first half of his reign he was attacked by fits of insanity, and spent the last ten years of his life in complete mental darkness. The Opening of the Reign, 1760. George's first aim was to break up the coalition between Pitt and Newcastle, to put an end to the war with France, and to place his favorite Bute at the head of affairs. The Cabinet was torn with dissension, and Pitt was so high-handed that he had not a single stanch supporter in the whole body. Yet he was still the popular idol, while Bute was hated, partly as a Scots- 1 The four volumes were published successively from 1765 to 1769. 2 George's Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Stretlitz, whom he married in Sep- tember, 1761, played no part in the politics of the reign. She was a model of do- mestic virtues, apparently with little inclination or ability for affairs, concerning which the King seems never to have consulted her. She brought up a family of fifteen children, though unfortunately some of them, notably the Crown Prince, were no credit to their home training. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 741 man and more particularly because of the suspicion that the Princess Dowager was too much under his influence. Only a few days after the beginning of the new reign a handbill appeared in the Royal Exchange with " No Petticoat Government " in glaring letters. And it was a favorite practice for the city mob at almost every demon- stration during the next years to hang a petticoat or a bonnet, together with a jack boot, 1 on a pole or burn them in effigy. The King himself, however, was received at first with an enthusiasm unequaled since the Restoration. He declared his intention of striving for an " honor- able and lasting peace," but was wise enough to substitute at Pitt's suggestion the words " just and necessary," in place of " bloody and expensive," in characterizing the war. In other respects, too, he seemed at first to be liberally inclined. After the first Cabinet Council he ceased to attend, thus fixing a practice which prevailed henceforth, and he yielded his hereditary revenues, except in the case of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, in return for an increased Civil List. The Resignation of Pitt, 5 October, 1761. While the English successes continued during the year 1761, and while the Allies in Ger- many managed to keep the enemy occupied, there were various indi- cations that George's efforts to bring about a peace would soon prevail. In March, 1761, Bute became Pitt's colleague as Secretary of State, and other Tories were brought into office. What with subsidies and the steadily increasing military establishment the debt was piling up alarmingly ; increasing difficulty was experienced in filling the ranks, and riots were of frequent occurrence. Worse yet, now that the French no longer had colonies to defend, there was every prospect that they would concentrate in Germany, which meant the loss of Hanover unless more men and money were sent abroad. Peace negotiations which had begun as early as November, 17^9, were resumed in the spring of 1761, but Pitt, who had once declared that, so long as he retained power, " no peace of Utrecht should stain the annals of England," was bent on utterly destroying^ the power of France. Bedford argued in reply that such a result would inevitably bring about a great European coalition against England in the interest of the balance of power, and that to take Canada from France would remove an effective means of retaining a hold on the North American colonies. The French, who might have been forced to accept Pitt's hard terms, were encouraged to resist when Charles III of Spain, who had succeeded the pacific Ferdinand VI in 1759, ranged himself on her side and presented a series of demands to the English through the French negotiators. Pitt scornfully refused to consider any claims brought before him in such a manner, and before long broke off negotia- tions with the French as well. Suspecting that the two monarchies were in secret alliance, and that Spain was on the point of joining in the conflict, he made ready to strike at her exposed places, while, in 1 To represent John, Earl of Bute. 742 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND a Cabinet Council, held 2 October, he proposed an immediate declara- tion of war against Spain before she could complete her preparations. Events proved that he had interpreted the situation correctly ; for, 15 August, Charles III and Louis XV had signed a new Family Com- pact uniting their countries in an offensive and defensive alliance. No one in the Council except Lord Temple agreed with Pitt; so, after a series of stormy discussions, he resigned, 5 October. 1 The End of the Newcastle Ministry, 1762. Thus the King and his party succeeded in overthrowing the great War Minister in the full course of his victorious career. More than this, they adroitly turned the people against him, for the moment, by inducing him to accept the title of Baroness Chatham for his wife and a pension for three lives for himself and his family. 2 He certainly deserved all the recognition which the Government could offer ; but it was contrary to his former professions to take a reward for his services, and, what is, indeed, pathetic, he received these marks of royal condescension with almost servile gratitude. Public opinion, however, veered once more to his favor when Spain, having completed her arrangements, openly pro- claimed her alliance with France. Great Britain was forced to reply by a declaration of war, 2 January, 1762. Thanks to Pitt's prepara- tions a series of new and striking successes followed. Martinique and the neighboring islands were speedily taken ; 14 August, Havana yielded after a siege of little more than two months ; and the capture of Manila followed in October. Moreover, the Spanish, who had invaded Portugal, were driven out of that country, while the French were held in check in Germany. Newcastle, who had rejoiced at the fall of Pitt in the hope that he might recover his lost ascendancy, had been speedily disillusioned. The King and his followers treated him with studied rudeness and neglect. When they ceased even to consult him in questions of patronage, the veteran old place-rnonger resigned, May, 1762, seizing as a pretext Bute's refusal to continue the Prussian subsidy. The King's favorite, who for months had been virtually Prime Minister, now openly assumed the position. The Bute Ministry, 1762-1763, and the Peace of Paris. Bound to secure peace at all costs, Bute bribed the energetic and unscrupu- lous Fox with the promise of a peerage to serve as leader in carrying it through the Commons. " We must," said George, " call in bad men to govern bad men." The resulting Treaty of Paris bears a striking resemblance in many respects to that concluded at Utrecht in 1713. In both, the terms obtained, though advantageous to Great Britain, were nothing like as favorable as her military and naval 1 In view of what he had achieved the language of a court flatterer to Bute is curious : "I sincerely wish your Lordship joy of being delivered of a most impracti- cable colleague, his Majesty of a most imperious servant, and the country of a most dangerous minister. I am told the people are sullen about it." 2 "What ! To blast one's character for the sake of a paltry annuity and a long- necked peeress !" was Horace Walpole's biting comment. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 743 successes entitled her to demand ; both were pushed through Parlia- ment by corruption and intimidation in the teeth of stout opposition; in both, the Tories, who came to power after the Whigs had fought the battles, excluded from the final settlement the man who had led the country to victory. Now, as fifty years earlier, the dominant party was accused of deserting the allies of the country. Bute protested that Prussia was guaranteed from danger before British subsidies and troops were withdrawn from Germany ; but Frederick, who also believed that the new Prime Minister intrigued with Austria behind his back, was so infuriated that he became hopelessly alienated. The loss of his support was seriously felt in the crises of years to come. The Terms of the Peace. The preliminary articles were con- cluded, 3 November, 1762, and the definitive peace was signed at Paris, 10 February, 1763. France withdrew her troops from Germany ; she restored Minorca, and ceded Canada, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and all the islands in the river and Gulf of St. Lawrence, together with such territories as she claimed east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans. She also gave up several of the West Indian islands, in- cluding Granada, St. Vincent, and Dominica, as well as her African possessions on the Senegal. Great Britain, on her part, restored Belle Isle ; she granted the French certain fishing rights in the St. Lawrence and off the banks of Newfoundland, ceding the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon as shelters, on condition that they should never be fortified, and agreed that the navigation of the Mississippi should be free to both countries. She also restored Martinique, Guadaloupe, and other West Indian islands, together with Goree in Africa. In India there was a mutual restoration of conquests made since 1749, though the French were forbidden to have troops or fortifications in Bengal, and obliged to agree to acknowledge the native princes in the Carnatic and the Deccan whom the British chose to support. Spain ceded to Great Britain Florida, together with all her other possessions east of the Mississippi, and gave up her claims to the New England fisheries. France compensated her with Louisiana and New Orleans, while England restored Havana, but reserved the right to cut logwood in the Bay of Honduras. Manila and the Philippines were handed back without any territorial equivalent, since the news of the conquest did not arrive until after the signature of the preliminaries. 1 The Opposition to the Peace and the Resignation of Bute, 1763. These terms were substantially what Pitt had rejected in 1761, so that England profited nothing by another year of victories. She had made tremendous gains ; but she had ceded, without adequate compensation, territories actually held at the end of the war. The restoration of Martinique, Manila, Goree, the exchange of Havana for Florida, together with concessions to France of her fishing rights and the return of her factories in India roused a storm of protest 1 Manila, however, paid a ransom of 1,000,000, but half of this sum was in bills on the Spanish treasury which Spain refused to honor. 744 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND throughout England. Bute was hissed and pelted as he went to and from Parliament, and had to employ a bodyguard of bruisers and butchers to protect him. Numerous abusive libels appeared, some, it is said, instigated by the agents of Frederick the Great. The feeling against the Administration was embittered by a new loan at n per cent, let out to royal supporters, and by a tax on cider which caused a revolt in the western counties. Bute resigned, 7 April, 1763. Doubtless he was weary of duties to which his abilities were unequal ; his unpopularity was injuring the cause of his royal master, and he felt that he could exercise his influence just as effectively behind the throne. He had accomplished the King's two main purposes of putting an end to the war and breaking up the Whig connection ; but he left the country seething with discontent and deprived of its only powerful ally. The Grenville Ministry, 1763-1765. John Wilkes and his Sig- nificance. Bute was succeeded by George Grenville (1712-1770), who took the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had entered Parliament as one of the " Boy Patriots," and for years worked side by side with Pitt. Owing, however, to his opposition to the increasing cost of the war, he went over to the royal side after the accession of George III, receiving the office of Secretary of State in Bute's Cabinet. He was upright, in- dustrious, skillful in finance, and well versed in parliamentary pro- cedure; but he was overbearing, narrow-minded, and ungracious, utterly lacking in tact and breadth of political outlook. George hoped that he would prove a pliant instrument ; but in this he was disappointed, as he was in the hope that the retirement of Bute would put an end to the unpopularity of the royal policy. No sooner had the new Minister come into office than he became involved in a momen- tous quarrel with John Wilkes, a profane and profligate man of fashion, who, by his wit, his audacity, and his skill in meeting the ill-advised attempts of the Government to suppress him, became the darling of the populace. By the agitation which he stirred up, at least two important principles in the progress of the liberty of the subject were established : that general warrants 1 were illegal, and that the House of Commons may not permanently exclude any member, not legally disqualified, whom the constituents may choose to elect. 2 More- over, in the conflicts centering about this prince of popular agitators, public meetings and associations first came to figure prominently in English politics. The North Briton Review, No. 45, and its Consequences, 1763- 1764. In June, 1762, Wilkes had been chiefly instrumental in found- ing the North Briton Review, a journal devoted to attacking the Government. Unlike its predecessors, it printed in full the names of those against whom its articles were directed instead of using merely 1 That is, warrants which do not specify the persons to be arrested for a partic- ular offense. 2 This was not finally recognized till 1782. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 745 the initial letter. In the famous " No. 45," which appeared 23 April, 1 763 , a speech from the throne defending the recent peace was vigorously assailed, together with the whole policy of the past few months. While the personal character of the King was referred to with respect, his favorite was lashed unmercifully. It had been the practice for some time for the chief ministers to prepare the speech from the throne, and, as a matter of fact, Bute had been the author of the one in ques- tion. Wise old George II had been content to accept the situation ; but his grandson was infuriated at the assumption that he was only the " first magistrate of this country . . . responsible to his people for due exercise of the royal function in the choice of his ministers," and he determined to crush the man who sought to reduce him to a mere figurehead and who presumed to assail those whom he had selected to do his will. Accordingly, a general warrant was issued, directing the arrest of the " authors, printers, and publishers " of the offensive number as well as the seizure of their papers. Wilkes was apprehended on the word of the publishers and lodged in the Tower. He protested on two grounds : that general warrants were illegal ; and that, as a member of Parliament, he was entitled to the privilege of freedom from arrest on civil process. He succeeded in bringing the case before the Court of Common Pleas, where Chief Justice Pratt decided in favor of his parliamentary privilege and pronounced the momentous opinion that general warrants l were illegal. The End of the First Stage of the Proceedings against Wilkes, 1764. Wilkes was not only released but was awarded damages. He celebrated his triumph with audacious assurance; he accused the Secretary of State, who had ordered the seizure of his papers, of robbing his house, and reprinted No. 45 with notes, to prove that during the two preceding reigns the ministers had written the royal speech from the throne. This prompted the Government to measures of sys- tematic vindictiveness : Wilkes was dismissed from his office of colonel of militia ; spies were set upon his track ; his letters were opened at the post office, and the Attorney-General brought suit for libel against him in legal form. Parliament met, 15 November, 1763. Though the case was still pending, the Commons proceeded to vote No. 45 " a false, scandalous, and seditious libel," and to order it to be burned by the common hangman. In the Upper House, Lord Sandwich, one of Wilkes' boon companions and a man of the most abandoned rrtbrals, suddenly produced an indecent parody of Pope's Essay on Man, entitled an Essay on Woman and a blasphemous version of the Veni Creator, which the Peers at once voted to be " scandalous, obscene, and impious libels." Undoubtedly they were; but Wilkes had intended them only for private circulation, and the motives of his opponents were only too apparent. The popular excitement be- came intense. The London mob defeated an attempt to burn No. 1 They had hitherto been held to be legal, though regarded as contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the liberty of the subject. 746 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND 45, substituting a jack boot and a petticoat in its place. Wilkes was hailed as the champion of popular liberty, and his portrait became a favorite sign for taverns. In Parliament, however, the Court in- fluence was so strong that a resolution was carried through both Houses " that privilege of Parliament does not extend to ... writing and publishing seditious libels." Wilkes, in danger of his life, fled to France. In his absence he was expelled from the Commons, 19 January, 1764, and, 21 February, the Court of King's Bench passed sentence against him for reprinting No. 45 and for writing the Essay on Woman. On his failure to appear he was outlawed. Four years later he was destined to return and raise a new issue. The Beginning of the Breach with the Colonies. The Causes of the Revolution. No sooner was Wilkes temporarily out of the way than Grenville, supported by George III, adopted a series of measures relating to the American Colonies which produced the first of a series of explosions that led to the Revolutionary War and the consequent dismemberment of the British Empire. In order to understand the causes for this crisis, at least two great and difficult questions have to be answered. First, what was the situation, political, social, and eco- nomic, in the Colonies? and what was their attitude toward Great Britain when the attempt was made to impose the new policy upon them? Secondly, what measures really called forth the resistance and what measures or causes merely contributed? Furthermore, one is bound to ask whether the British measures may be justified, historically, politically, economically, or legally, and on what grounds the Colonies had a right to resist. The Institutional Divergence between the American Colonies and Great Britain. The answer to the first question must be sought in the institutional development of the two countries, from the first planting of the Colonies in America. This will show that two separate branches, two types of people, had grown from one parent stock. The England of the eighteenth century was not the mother country of those settled across the Atlantic ; but both were the offspring of the Puritan England of the seventeenth century. Those who migrated carried with them the tradition of the opposition to absolute mon- archy and an established Episcopal Church, New England, particularly, coming to represent the " dissidence of Dissent." Those who remained at home turned their backs on the extreme results of the Puritan Revolution, and even restored, in a modified form, both monarchy and Episcopacy. Moreover, growth in a different environment tended to accentuate divergence in form and spirit of government. The Americans had progressed to far greater lengths in the direction of democracy and equality. Almost every man who possessed a moder- ate amount of property could vote and be represented in the colonial assembly. In some colonies, to be sure, he must own land, but land was cheap and easy to acquire. In England the franchise depended upon no general rule but upon queer and illogical qualifications. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 747 Differences in the Theory and Practice of Representation. Even more striking were the differences in the distribution of representatives and in the theory of representation. In the Colonies it was the general practice for a member of the assembly to represent his town or district ; the areas of representation were frequently reapportioned, and bribery at elections was practically unknown. In England corruption pre- vailed to an alarming extent, and the greatest inequalities existed. Rotten boroughs with scarcely an inhabitant returned two members each, while flourishing towns like Manchester and Birmingham sent none. It is estimated that a majority of the 558 members of the House of Commons were elected by less than 15,000 voters in a popu- lation that numbered almost half as many millions, and that 154 in- dividuals, among them the King and various peers, controlled the choice of 307 members. The British theory was that every one was virtually represented in Parliament. The essential thing was to have an elective body'between the King and the people, and it was contended that a Cornish man was just as truly a representative of Lancashire as if he had been returned from that county. The Colonists, who were used to a different system, refused to accept this theory of vir- tual representation. Furthermore, they were in a different situation. In England public opinion, voiced in petitions and public meetings, counted for something even in the unrepresented districts, while a handful of colonists three thousand miles across the sea could do little to affect the course of British legislation. Training and Preparation for Independence. Thus the English- men in the New World were steadily growing apart from the English- men in the Old. Moreover, the Colonists had received a long and effective training in self-government in their town meetings, in their county administration, and in their provincial assemblies. Also hard conditions of life in an undeveloped country had generated courage, energy, resourcefulness, and independence of restraint. Their preachers, saturated with the revolutionary doctrines of Milton, Locke, and other advanced thinkers of the seventeenth century, preached and taught views quite at variance with the views of the men in power under George III. Then, although up to this time there had been no common grievance to call forth united resistance, there had been constant friction and bickerings between the colonial assemblies and the Crown officials, men who were all too frequently either incompetent or unscrupulous. 1 The Commercial System. Along with these differences in political theory and practice, the British commercial system was an equally, perhaps a more important factor in preparing the way for the final break. As in the case of the other European powers of the period, the British policy for the regulation of colonial trade was mainly one 1 "America," it was complained, " has been for many years made the hospital of Great Britain for her decayed courtiers and worn-out dependents." 748 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of selfish and jealous exclusiveness. The aim of her Navigation Acts was to confine the carrying trade of " English " J lands to ships built within the British Empire, owned by the people thereof, and navigated by officers and crews who were subjects of the English King, and to give England a monopoly of colonial trade. Certain colonial products, such as tobacco and sugar, known as " enumerated goods," had to be laid on the shore of England or pay an export duty from the prov- ince where they were produced. Furthermore, with few exceptions, European goods destined for the Colonies must pass through England, the prime object being to give to English merchants the profit of handling the wares. 2 In 1733 the famous " Sugar Act " was passed, imposing heavy duties on rum, molasses, and sugar imported from the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indies into English colonies on the American continent. This act, had it been enforced, would have completely stifled a very profitable three-cornered trade by which the New Englanders shipped lumber and fish to the foreign West Indies and exchanged them for rum and sugar and molasses. With the West Indian rum, and with New England rum made from West Indian molasses, they bought slaves on the coast of Africa which they sold to the planters. Restrictive as were all these regulations, they were to some degree counterbalanced in various ways. Colonial industry, especially shipbuilding, was promoted by the share the Colonists enjoyed in the carrying trade of the Empire. Then there were drawbacks of duties on goods reexported from England ; there were bounties to encourage the production of certain commodities; and certain privileges and certain exceptions were allowed. For example, colonial tobacco enjoyed a monopoly in England, and rice could be shipped south of Cape Finisterre directly from the Colonies. 3 Owing to the lax administration prevailing before the advent of Gren- ville, they manufactured what they liked, sent ships where they pleased, and purchased European wares more cheaply than Englishmen them- selves. The theory of trade regulation was not questioned because it was rarely enforced in practice ; but it was a potential grievance. The Colonies had become economically self-sufficing and were in a position to resist when the restrictions on their trade became a reality. The Seven Years' War as a Factor in Provoking the Crisis. At the moment when the constitutional and economic development of the Colonies was reaching its maturity, the Seven Years' War came to precipitate the crisis. It gave the Colonies a sense of unity resulting from achievement in a, common undertaking, it stimulated a martial spirit, and by transferring Canada from France to Great Britain it removed a serious menace to the safety of the Colonies, and thereby one of the most powerful bonds which might have held them to the 1 This term included the Colonies. 2 These provisions may be found in the acts of 1660, 1663, 1672, and 1696. 3 Also they had the advantage of the English naval protection. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 749 Home Country. 1 However, the war furnished the occasion for the new British policy which gave the impulse to revolt. The Grenvilie program comprehended three measures : the enforcement of the Trade and Navigation Acts ; a Stamp Act ; and a Quartering Act. There was justification for them all. Not only had the Colonists openly and systematically evaded the acts regulating commerce, but they had actually supplied the enemy with goods during the recent conflict. Moreover, a formidable rising of the Indians in 1763, known as the Conspiracy of Pontiac, had shown that the Colonies were in real danger. The English Ministry felt that the Home Government should not bear the whole burden of the defense of the Empire, laden as it now was with an enormous debt of nearly 140,000,000 and intended to employ the money to be raised by the stamp tax solely for colonial purposes. On their part, the several Colonies had made considerable contributions toward the French and Indian War, for which most of them were still in debt. Now it was proposed to curtail one of their chief means of livelihood, and, at the same time to subject them to taxation over which they had no control. In addition, the act for quartering troops in their midst, together with a proposed plan for taking over the payment of judges and other chief civil officials hitherto at the mercy of the provincial assemblies, threatened to re- duce them to complete administrative dependence. They felt that they were bound to resist. The Question of Parliamentary Supremacy over the Colonies. The question of the legal right of the British Parliament to tax the Colonies was hotly debated and provoked sharp differences of opinion both in America and in England. Franklin drew a distinction between internal taxes and import duties ; but leading patriots almost from the start refused to accept it, and it was soon discarded. Pitt's distinction between import duties for purposes of revenue and for regulation of trade was one that had historical justification, but it was impracticable. Moreover, the shackling of the trade was, from the colonial point of view, fully as unjust and involved fully as much hardship as the imposition of revenue duties. The theory later ad- vocated by Edmund Burke was the most reasonable; that, while Parliament had the right to tax, it was inexpedient to exercise it. The Colonies, however, not only denied the right of Parliament to tax them, but even called in question the legislative supremacy of that body, 2 asserting that they were the peculiar subjects of the King. 1 This result had been predicted by many far-seeing thinkers, among others by the Swedish traveler Kalm in 1748, by the French minister Vergennes, and by various Englishmen, including Lord Bath and the Duke of Bedford. Canada would have been just as dangerous in the hands of Great Britain, except that after it became a British possession there was a chance of winning the Canadians over to the colonial side. 2 As early as 1761 James Otis, in a celebrated speech against the legality of writs of assistance (i.e. general writs of search which did not specify the particular place to be searched) , declared that acts of Parliament tyrannical to the subject were unconstitutional and hence null and void. 750 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND It was only later that they discovered l that it was George III who was responsible for most of the measures which they resented. There was another instance of the institutional divergence which had de- veloped between the two branches of the English race. England had no written rigid constitution limiting the power of Parliament ; the English Constitution was the whole body of law and custom which had accumulated through the ages. The Puritan Revolution had decided that Parliament was practically omnipotent, and since 1707 the King had never ventured to veto a bill. On the other hand, the Colonies all had some form of written constitution supreme over legislative enactment a charter, a proprietary grant, or governor's instructions and the veto was a reality. While they strove to extend the powers of their assemblies, they had grown up in the tra- dition of limited powers. The Crown lawyers, however, in maintain- ing the legislative supremacy of the Parliament over the Colonies could point to a long series of measures, including the Navigation Acts, which applied to them. 2 Undoubtedly Parliament had a legal right to legislate for the Colonies, nor was its claim to impose taxes strictly illegal, but it was contrary to custom. George III and his supporters in the Ministry, like the Stuarts before them, failed to realize the un- wisdom of insisting upon legal rights in the teeth of popular opposition. Summary of the Causes of the Revolution. This, in brief, was the situation. The Colonies were ready to break away. Politically they had grown apart from Great Britain, they were prepared for self- government by long training in managing their local concerns, and they had been estranged by frequent quarrels with the executives sent from home. 3 They were economically self-sufficing, and would only tolerate the selfish and exclusive system framed in the interests of British merchants so long as it was not enforced. The first attempt to make it a reality would, no doubt, of itself have provoked opposition. It happened, however, that the new policy was accompanied by an inexpedient innovation in taxation which led to the first outbreak of resistance. 1 Patrick Henry (in 1763), in arguing a celebrated legal case known as the "Par- son's Cause," which involved the right of the sovereign to veto an act of the Virginia Legislature, was one of the few thus early who went further. He declared that even a king had no right to veto a good law. 2 Among them an Act for establishing a General Post Office (1710); an Act regulating the Transportation of Criminals (1717); an Act extending the Bubble Act of 1 7 20 ; an Act for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants in the American Colonies (1740) ; and an Act extending the New Style of Calendar to the Colonies, 1752. s Another factor which contributed to the final break had its origin in religious, ecclesiastical, and sectarian differences. Certain devoted Episcopalians on both sides of the water wanted to see Church of England bishops established in the Colo- nies. The Government made no attempt to comply with the request ; but the fear that it would, became real and general ; the ministers of the opposing sects, together with the patriot leaders among the laymen, played upon this fear, and the prejudice and apprehension thus excited became a potent cause of estrangement. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE HI 751 Grenville's New Customs Act and Provisions for Enforcing Trade Regulations, 1764. Up to the close of the Seven Years' War the British Government had never seriously regarded the Colonies as revenue producers, indeed, the greatest ignorance prevailed concern- ing them. 1 The new plan of imposing upon them a share of the im- perial burden had been contemplated in Bute's administration; but it was left to Grenville to carry it through. 2 His great knowledge of administrative detail, his hatred of irregularity and evasion of law, and his want of tact led him to press the policy. He found that the customs revenue from the Colonies amounted to less than 2000 which it cost nearly 8000 to collect, and further, that nine tenths of their tea, wine, sugar, and molasses were smuggled. In 1763 the old Sugar Act of 1733 expired. In spite of petitions, supported even by the royal Governor of Massachusetts, against the renewal of its pro- visions, Grenville in 1763 passed a new act imposing several new duties. The duty on molasses was reduced one half, and new bounties and concessions were offered ; but all this was to no purpose ; for stringent measures were taken to prevent smuggling, and the principle was announced in the preamble that the purpose was to raise a revenue. The Stamp Act suggested, 1764. The apprehension thus excited was further enhanced on the news of the design to quarter 10,000 troops in the Colonies. The East India Company and Ireland provided their own armies, and the British Government felt that the Americans should do the same, since the several provinces were extremely re- luctant to supply militia for the common defense, especially to send contingents to exposed points when their own particular localities were free from danger. It was to help defray the expenses of this standing army that the Stamp Act was imposed. It was expected to yield about 100,000, an amount less than one third the cost of main- taining the contemplated military establishment. There is little doubt, however, that if the Colonies had paid their part willingly, they would very soon have been called upon to provide the whole. More- over, the form of tax was a decided innovation. Hitherto, internal taxation had been left to the provincial assemblies. In 1739, a similar project for raising funds by a Stamp Act had been proposed to Walpole; but he had wisely refused. 3 Again, in 1754, Pitt had rejected a more reasonable suggestion to levy a tax to be apportioned among the several Colonies and raised in any manner they should see fit. Grenville, however, was a man of a different stamp from either Walpole or Pitt. In March, 1764, along with his customs bill, he introduced and carried a resolution declaring that " for further de- 1 It is said that letters had been sent even from the Secretary of State to the Governor of the Island of New England. 2 Macaulay's saying is famous that he lost the Colonies, because he was the first minister to read the American dispatches. 8 "I have set Old England against me," he declared to Chesterfield, "and do you think I will have New England likewise ? " 752 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND fraying the expenditure of protecting the Colonies it may be proper to charge certain stamp duties on the Colonies." At the same time, though he preferred this form of tax as the fairest, as well as the easiest and least expensive to collect, he gave the Colonists a year to suggest a better scheme. The Passage of the Stamp Act, 22 March, 1765. The Colonies, instead of suggestions, framed resolutions and addresses denying the right of Parliament to tax them at all. If the measure were carried, they asserted, " it would establish the melancholy truth that the inhabitants of the Colonies are the slaves of the Britons, from whom they are descended." One possible solution of the difficulty, advocated by Otis and Franklin, was to admit American representatives into the British Parliament. Grenville, after a short consideration, re- jected it. It is doubtful if he could have carried it through, and equally doubtful whether, in the end, it would have satisfied the Colonies themselves. In January, 1765, the measure, so momentous in its consequences, was carried in a thinly attended session after a " most languid debate." Among the few opponents was Colonel Barre, who is said to have originated on that occasion the term " sons of liberty." : Pitt, the stanchest colonial champion, was in bed with one of his frequent attacks of gout. Outside, the indifference was as great as in Parliament ; George III, who gave his assent to the bill, 22 March, was one of the first to recognize the gravity of the situation. 2 According to the Stamp Act all newspapers, bills, policies of insurance, and legal documents were to be written on stamped paper to be sold by officials appointed for the purpose. It was provided that they should be Americans, and Franklin, though as colonial agent 3 he had opposed the measure, anticipated so little difficulty that he procured an appoint- ment for one of his most intimate friends. The Stamp Act Congress and the American Opposition, 1765. When the news reached America, where public sentiment was being worked upon by skilful agitators, storms of protest burst forth. Virginia passed a series of resolutions which were termed " the alarum bell to the disaffected," and 7 November, a Congress representing nine Colonies met in New York. Declaring " that it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of English- men, that no taxes be imposed upon them, but with their own con- sent, given personally or by their representatives 4 ; " they sent petitions embodying their views to the King and to both Houses. Like the Short Parliament of 1640, the Stamp Act Congress was 1 The phrase, however, does not occur in the report of the debate. 2 "I am more and more grieved at the accounts of America," he wrote, 5 Decem- ber, 1765. "Where the spirit will end is not to be said. It is undoubtedly the most serious matter that ever came before Parliament." 3 The various Colonies were represented by agents in London. 4 They repudiated the idea of representation in the British Parliament and in- sisted that they could only be taxed by their provincial assemblies. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 753 chiefly significant for bringing the leaders of the opposition together and enabling them to formulate a common plan of resistance. But the opposition did not stop with peaceful methods. In Massachu- setts there were wild outbursts of mob violence, an unruly example that was followed in many other colonies. The merchants entered into agreements to import no more goods, to cancel orders already given, and to pay no debts to .English creditors till the Act should be repealed. The lawyers refused to use the stamped paper, and all legal business came to a standstill. On i November, the day the measure was to have gone into effect, shops were closed, bells were tolled, flags were hung at half mast, newspapers appeared with a death's head in place of the stamp required by law, and copies of the Act were hawked about the streets with the inscription : " The folly of England and the ruin of America." Finding that it was hopeless to transact business otherwise, the governors were obliged to issue orders " authorizing non-compliance with the Act." The Regency Bill and the Fall of Grenville, July, 1765. The opposition had been encouraged by the fall of Grenville in July, 1765. For some time George had wanted to get rid of him. His Ministry was weak and unpopular in Parliament, and had aroused an increasing spirit of dissatisfaction among the people. Also, he had proved to be a disappointment personally: he was too stubborn to suit the King's purposes and wore him out with constant interviews and long lectures. " When he has wearied me for two hours," complained George, " he looks at his watch to see if he may not tire me an hour more," and he once declared : "I would rather see the devil in my closet than Mr. Grenville." His only reason for continuing to put up with him was the dreadful alternative of falling into the clutches of a Whig Ministry. The final break came over a Regency Bill following upon a mental disturbance which attacked the King early in 1765. George was induced to give his assent to the exclusion of his mother, the Princess Dowager, from the list of regents on the ground that otherwise the Commons would not pass it. When he discovered that this was merely a trick devised by the opponents of Bute, he ordered Grenville to announce to the Commons a royal message recommending that the Princess be included. The Prime Minister, although no party to the original deceit, refused. Thereupon, the King made a vain effort to form a Ministry that would consent to his terms. Pitt refused twice, because his brother-in-law, Lord Temple, would not join him. Grenville, however, had become so intolerable that George dismissed him in July, and called in the Whigs under the leadership of the Mar- quis of Rockingham. He intended to submit to them only until he could make another arrangement. Grenville, whose tenure of power had been marked by the disastrous struggle with Wilkes and the opening of the conflict with the Colonies, managed to achieve one good result before his dismissal : he secured from the King a promise that henceforth he would cease to consult Bute in affairs of State. 754 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Rockingham Ministry, 1765-1766. The Rockingham Minis- try was a " mixture of wornout veterans and raw recruits." The Whig majority were young men of rank and wealth. Lord Rockingham, their leader, who possessed vast estates and extensive influence, was primarily a sportsman. He was lacking in knowledge and industry and was a bad and reluctant speaker ; but he was modest, aimiable, and thoroughly upright. It is said that he had a way of looking when George advanced questionable proposals that caused that mon- arch to dread him worse than men of more fluent tongues. The com- bination w y as far from strong and it was contemptuously described as " a lute-string Ministry fit only for summer wear." Yet by sheer force of character and united devotion to the public service it not only set a noble example, but made a strong fight against the arbi- trary ambition of the King and the prevailing corruption, and carried through important remedial measures. It repealed the Stamp Act, secured the parliamentary condemnation of general warrants, and put an end to the practice of depriving military officers of their com- mands for political opposition. It accomplished all this in the teeth of the constant and underhanded opposition of the King, and, except in the case of the Stamp Act, without the much-needed help of Pitt, who had refused to join. 1 While sympathizing with their measures, he was opposed to government by the aristocratic Whig connection that did not rest on the good will of the King and people. The Advent of Edmund Burke, 1765. In the session of 1765-1766 Edmund Burke made his first appearance in Parliament. The son of a Protestant Irish attorney, he had come as a young man to Lon- don, where he was soon recognized as a writer of wide learning, deep discernment, and uncommon power of literary expression. In 1765 he became the secretary of Rockingham, through whose patronage he secured his seat. Although he never attained the influence in the House of Commons which his talents and his commanding per- sonality 2 warranted, men of later generations have come to regard him as the most profound thinker on political subjects of his time. Lofty in ideals and free from corruption, he was at the same time tactless, irritable, and partisan, and he was more effective in dealing with principles than with men. His fluency, his vast knowledge, and the overrichness of his imagination led him to speak too often and at too great length, and he emptied the House so frequently that he was known as the " dinner bell." A body made up mostly of placemen and mediocrities was not calculated to appreciate him. Nevertheless, he was from the first recognized as a power to be reckoned with, and there were times when the sweep of his eloquence 1 Chesterfield described the Ministry as "an arch that wanted a keystone and that keystone was Pitt." 2 Dr. Johnson once remarked that: "No man of sense could meet Mr. Burke by accident under a gateway to avoid a shower without being convinced that he was the first man in England." THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 755 rendered him irresistible. He differed from Pitt not only upon many current questions, but in fundamental principles of policy. For example, in opposition to his older contemporary, he believed in building up a strong permanent party independent of the Crown. Moreover, while he strove against abuses, he was opposed to any alteration of the machinery of the Constitution. He advocated the publication of debates and improved methods of election and he led the fight against placemen and parliamentary corruption. On the other hand, he was opposed to shortening the term of Parliament, on the ground that more frequent elections would only increase disorder and bribery ; a place bill, he maintained, would exclude many men of standing and ability ; binding members by instructions from their constituents, he insisted, would deprive them of that power of exercis- ing the reason and judgment which is the true function of the legis- lator. Disfranchisement of rotten boroughs and redistribution of seats he condemned as a rash experiment. The excesses of the French Revolution drove him into a still more conservative position, though his later views are by no means inconsistent with his earlier. Al- though the mainstay of the Rockingham party, he never held a seat in the Cabinet. The Repeal of the Stamp Act, 1766. Burke made two speeches on the repeal of the Stamp Act which " filled the town with wonder, 1 ' and Pitt championed the cause of the Colonies with his wonted fire. " The idea of a virtual representation of America," he declared, " is the most contemptible idea that ever entered the head of a man." He rejoiced that the Colonies had resisted l the attempted taxation and insisted that the Stamp Act be " repealed absolutely, totally, immediately." Effective as were all these speeches, a still more ef- fective argument was the attitude of the British merchants, who rep- resented in strong petitions that the interruption of American trade and the non-payment of debts had already involved a loss of 4,000,- ooo. In vain did the Iting seek to block the efforts of the Ministry by secret instructions to his agents in Parliament. Unfortunately, the bill for repeal which passed both Houses in March, 1766, was coupled with a Declaratory Act to which the Rockinghamites gave a reluctant consent, maintaining the right of Parliament to tax the Colonies. For the moment, however, this ill-advised and empty assertion did nothing to temper the joy with which the news was received throughout England and America. The trouble, however, had only begun. The commercial restrictions still remained, 2 and the Colonies, having won in their first encounter, were bound to resist in the future, any measures that touched their interests. The Minis- l " Three millions of people," he cried, "so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." 2 Though some of the duties, notably on molasses, were materially reduced by the Rockingham Ministry. 756 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND try, which by its conciliatory policy might have won their confidence, did not long survive ; for George took advantage of divisions among its members to turn it out of office in July. The Grafton-Pitt Ministry, 1766-1770. The new Ministry was formed by Pitt, who finally consented to employ his great talents and popularity in defending the Crown against the great Whig houses and their connections. He had other large and ambitious plans, in- cluding the formation of a great Protestant league in Europe and the reform of Parliament at home ; but his whole undertaking ended in failure. Declining to take the responsibility himself, he chose the office of Lord Privy Seal and selected as a figurehead the Duke of Grafton, one of his admirers who had entered politics from a sense of duty rather than for personal or factional ends. Unfortunately, he was timid, irresolute, loose in morals, and inclined to neglect public business for racing and hunting. Without a party following Pitt was obliged to fill the remaining offices in such a haphazard fashion that his product was known as the " Mosaic Ministry." Moreover, he duinfounded his friends by accepting a peerage. In ceasing to be the " great commoner," for that had been his title, the Earl of Chatham impaired his influence with the people, and shut himself out of the House which was the only proper field for his match- less eloquence. Tortured by the gout, he became increasingly irritable, and was finally attacked by a " gloomy and mysterious malady," probably nervous prostration, which led him to shun all public business. In March, 1767, he went into retirement, whence he did not emerge for over two years. The Townshend Acts, 1767. In the absence of Pitt the chief power was seized by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Towns- hend, whose inability and lack of judgment or scruple was unhappily combined with a brilliancy of wit and personal charm which made him " the spoiled child of the House of Commons." His budget for the year 1767 having been defeated by a vote to reduce the land tax from four to three shillings in the pound, 1 he rashly attempted, in- stead of resigning, to make up the deficiency by duties on American commerce. In thus reopening the controversy he shares with Gren- ville and the King the responsibility for the disastrous results that followed. Late in the spring he carried an act imposing port duties on glass, lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea, legalizing writs of assistance and providing that the revenue raised under the act should be employed in maintaining civil officials independently of the colonial assemblies. Any surplus was to go toward the support of troops. Another act aimed to make the customs service more ef- fective by establishing an American Board of Commissioners. Before it passed Townshend had died, 1767, leaving a fatal legacy to his suc- cessors. It was estimated that the Townshend duties would yield only 1 This is notable as the first defeat of a Ministry on a money bill since the Revo- lution of 1688, THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 757 40,000; but they involved principles most dangerous in their con- sequences limitless possibilities of taxation, coercion, and crippling of trade. The Resistance of the Colonies and the Weakness of the Grafton Ministry, 1766-1769. The hollowness of the distinction between internal and external taxation was now generally evident x and the smoldering embers of opposition in the Colonies again burst forth into flame. Once more, Massachusetts led the way : the merchants renewed their non-importation agreements, the Assembly petitioned the King, and a circular letter, composed by Samuel Adams, was dis- patched early in 1768 to the other colonial legislatures asking for concerted action. The Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer by John Dickinson, recommending peaceful but resolute resistance, both voiced and influenced the prevailing sentiment. Unfortunately, the British Ministry was unfitted either for conciliation or vigorous repression. Grafton could exercise little authority over his disorganized and unruly colleagues, and sorely harassed by the attacks of opposing factions, he weakly allowed the Cabinet, which had only sullenly acquiesced in the passage of the Townshend Acts, to fall more and more under the royal control. Townshend was succeeded by Lord North, a favorite of the King's, and, one by one, the ministers were replaced by advocates of an uncompromising policy. A force of troops under General Gage was sent to Boston in the autumn of 1768; but, though quiet was maintained for a time, contentment was not restored. Then a sug- gestion to apply to Massachusetts an old law of Henry VIII, providing that offenders outside the kingdom might be brought to England for trial, provo'ked the Virginia Resolves of 1769. They declared that such a step was " highly derogatory of the right of the British sub- ject," denied again the authority of Parliament to tax the Colonies, and insisted upon the right of joint petition. In general, such resolute- ness was displayed, and the non-importation agreements worked so effectively against British trade, that the Ministry proposed, as a means of reconciliation, to remove all the Townshend duties except a tax of three pence per pound on tea. Grafton, and even North, wanted to do away with the duty on tea as well, but they were over- ruled. The measure, carried in 1769, was announced to the Colonies in a " harsh and ungracious " circular letter. The Middlesex Election, 1768. The situation at home was also charged with trouble. High prices and hard times had aroused grave popular discontent, which manifested itself in frequent riots and strikes. The general election of 1768 was marked by more buying and selling of votes than ever before, and those in the past had been corrupt enough. The most notable fact in the election, however, was the choice of John Wilkes as a member from Middlesex. He had divided his time abroad between scholarly pursuits and disreputable wander- 1 A witty Irishman remarked that it made no difference whether the money was taken from the coat pockets of the Colonists or their waistcoat pockets. 758 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND ings. Returning only a few weeks before the election, he had been escorted to and from the polling place by an unruly London mob. After the votes had been taken he submitted to the authorities, and under the old sentence was committed to the King's Bench prison, where he remained till April, 1770. During this period of nearly two years he was active with tongue and pen, and, besides contesting a significant parliamentary issue, managed to get himself elected as an alderman of London. A huge mob, which gathered to demand his release, was, after an order to disperse, fired upon by the King's troops, 10 May, 1768. This incident, known as the " Massacre of St. George's Fields," aroused intense popular fury. In February, 1769, the Com- mons decided on Wilkes' expulsion. So far, they were technically within their rights, for they were the sole judges of the validity of election returns. When, however, the men of Middlesex proceeded to reelect him, they overstepped their authority by declaring him in- capable of sitting in the existing parliament. There was no law de- claring ineligibility for any of the charges standing against him, and it required more than a resolution of either House to make one. 1 Finally, on the fourth election, Colonel Luttrell, the court candidate, though receiving a minority of the votes, was awarded the seat. The King, who had influenced the Commons partly through his " Friends," and partly by working on their jealousy of privilege, had won a tem- porary and costly victory. He had defied the rights of the electors, and Wilkes, who in the beginning was supported only by the enemies of the Court and the more turbulent among the masses, became the popular hero. 2 In spite of annual motions in his behalf, he was never admitted to the Parliament of 1768, though he continued to be a thorn in the flesh of his opponents. In 1774 he was returned in the new general election and admitted without opposition. In May, 1782, he finally carried a motion to expunge from the Journal the record of his incapacity made in 1769. He had given a decided im- pulse to public agitation outside, and had taught the Commons a lesson which they never forgot that the voice of the electors could not be defied. 3 The "Letters of Junius," 1769-1772. The example of Wilkes in the North Briton had greatly stimulated attacks on the Government in the newspapers. These were usually in the form of letters signed with a fictitious name, preferably that of a patriot of antiquity. The most famous are the " Letters of Junius " which have survived as an 1 Such a law, of course, would have to pass both Houses and receive the royal signature. 2 Franklin in 1784 stated as his belief that "if George IV had had a bad private character and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of the kingdom." 3 Wilkes, however, had long ceased to be a firebrand ; though he advocated some liberal measures he never counted as a force in Parliament. He ended his days in the scholarly leisure which he loved, but, owing to his extravagant habits, died a poor man. THE FIRST YEARS OF GEORGE III 759 English classic. The first to attract attention appeared in the Public Advertiser, 21 January, 1769, and though the " acme of audacity " was reached in a famous letter to the King on 19 December, the se- ries did not come to an end till 21 January, 1772. They owe their in- fluence to three facts : the men and the times which they attacked ; their wonderful style ; and the mystery of their authorship. Grafton, North, Sandwich, and George himself were fair game ; the policy of the Ministry was timid and bungling; the Colonies were defiant; Spain and France were contemptuously overriding British foreign interests ; the people at home were restive ; and the King could count only upon the hide-bound Tories and paid henchmen. Junius, to be sure, had no firm grasp of general principles or liberal progressive views, having no sympathy, for example, either with the American cause or with the parliamentary reform; but he had an intimate knowledge of the political situation, he saw clearly the weakness and the vices of the men in power, and exposed them with fiendish skill. His style for clearness, polish, and sustained, biting invective has never been surpassed, though his prolonged fury grows monotonous, and his hatred of those he attacked led him at times to violate both truth and decency. Naturally a man who wrote what Junius did could not dis- close his identity, but he realized fully that the effect which he pro- duced was greatly enhanced by the baffling secrecy in which he wrapped himself. " There is something oracular in the delivery of my opin- ion," he wrote to Wilkes; " I speak from a recess which no man can penetrate . . . the mystery of Junius increases his importance." True to prediction which he once made, his secret apparently died with him. More than thirty names have been suggested as possible authors of the letters. The weight of evidence, however, points most conclusively to Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818), who in early life was an amanuensis to Pitt, later a clerk in the War Office, and subsequently a member of the Council for India. The End of the Grafton Ministry and the Advent of Lord North, 1770. Chatham, who emerged from his seclusion in July, 1769, at once threw himself into opposition against the Ministry which he had constructed in its original form. He vehemently denounced its American policy and its attitude toward the Middlesex election, in which, he maintained, the Commons had betrayed their constituents and violated the Constitution. Lord Chancellor Camden, who sup- ported him, was dismissed, 17 January, 1770, and various resignations followed. Grafton, unable to fill their places and finding his situation hopelqss, resigned on the 28th. George at once offered the vacant place to Lord North, who continued to hold the Chancellorship of the Exchequer as well. North was ludicrous in appearance : he was un- wieldy in figure, awkward in movement, while his prominent, short- sighted eyes and puffy-cheeks led Horace Walpole to remark that he looked like a blind trumpeter. Neither was he a statesman nor orator of the first rank ; but he was an admirable gentleman, an excellent 760 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND scholar, he was gifted with a ready wit 1 and uncommon tact. Un- fortunately, though obstinate . at times, he was too easy-going and too fond of the King. Against his better judgment, and with indolent docility, he allowed George to persuade him into measures so disas- trous 2 as to make his Administration one of the most inglorious in English history. Again and again he tried to resign, only to yield when George begged him not to desert him. In the face of bitter attack he placidly slept on the Treasury Bench and made no effective effort to check the blundering and corruption for which he was offi- cially responsible. After a decade of tireless and unscrupulous effort George III had made his personal power supreme, and as long as North remained in office the King ruled as well as reigned ; but his policy proved so fatal in its results that he was at length obliged to resign the conduct of affairs to a Minister responsible to public opinion. One result, however, he achieved, he broke the power of the Whig oligarchy beyond hope of recovery. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See ch. XLIII below. 1 Once when Thomas Townshend, later Lord Sydney, after whom the capital of New South Wales is named, declared in a violent attack: "I will have his head, I will have his head," he replied : "The honorable gentleman has expressed a desire to have my head, let me state that under no circumstances would I have his." 2 "In all my memory," he once remarked, "I do not recollect a single popular measure I ever voted for." CHAPTER XLIII THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE END OF THE PERSONAL ASCENDANCY OF GEORGE III (1770-1783) The North Ministry and the Ascendancy of the King, 1770-1782. Contrary to expectation, North's Ministry, described as a " forlorn hope," remained in power longer than all the previous Ministries of the reign combined. George III to a large degree directed the policy of the Government, and his extensive use of patronage and corruption, the activity of his " Friends," together with the adroitness of North as a party leader, enabled him to maintain a " crushing and docile majority " in Parliament. The eclipse of Chatham in the House of Lords and the dissensions between his followers and those of Rocking- ham were also elements of strength to the headstrong King. More- over, the popular excitement aroused by the Middlesex election gradu- ally subsided and gave place to a state of almost unexampled political stupor. " A little spirit," George had written to North, " will soon restore order in my service." The Grenville Election Act, 1770. Nevertheless, the Opposition succeeded in carrying one or two measures of reform. First in im- portance was a bill introduced by Grenville for trying disputed elec- tions. Formerly such cases had been tried by a committee of the whole House, with the result that they had been invariably decided in favor of the candidate whose party had a majority in the Commons, quite regardless of the rights of the electors. According to the new arrangement forty-nine members were chosen by ballot ; from them each party removed one member alternately until the number was reduced to thirteen, and then added one member each. The body of fifteen thus constituted was sworn to render its decisions independ- ently of Parliament. As each party would naturally seek to exclude the abler men among its opponents, the method of reduction was known as " knocking the brains out of the committee," but the Act, limited at first to seven years, worked so well in practice that in 1774 it was made permanent. It remained in force till 1868, when the duties were handed over to the judges. Grenville died a few months after the passage of the measure which did honor to his name. The Struggle over the Reporting of Debates, 1771. In this same year, 1770, the jury in the case of Woodfall, one of the publishers of the " Letters of Junius," brought in a verdict of " guilty of printing and publishing only." Nevertheless, Lord Mansfield rendered an opinion confirming the old doctrine that the jury could only bring 761 762 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in a verdict as to the facts, and that it was within the province of the judges alone to decide whether or no the accused was guilty of libel. In spite of intense opposition his ruling remained law till Fox's cele- brated Libel Act of 1792. In the session of 1771 the Commons became involved in a quarrel with the press over the question of reporting debates. It had guarded its privilege of excluding strangers so jeal- ously that it was known as " the unreported Parliament." In view of the growing strength of public opinion it was unwise to attempt to keep its proceedings secret, and it was only natural that erroneous and unfair accounts of what was said and done should be spread abroad in print. The matter came to an issue when, on the complaint of Colonel Onslow, the House sought to arrest some offending printers. The newspapers replied with the most vehement denunciations, char- acterizing Onslow, for instance, as a " paltry, insignificant insect." The Lord Mayor Crosby and the aldermen of London, chief among them Wilkes and Oliver, intervened to protect the printers from ar- rest within the City, and apprehended the messenger of the Commons for assault. For this they were called to the bar of the House, and Crosby and Oliver were sent to the Tower, where they were held until the end of the session. Wilkes refused to appear except as a member from Middlesex. After he had twice repeated his refusal, the Commons wisely avoided another conflict with such a dangerous person by sum- moning him before them on a day when the House was adjourned. George approved of their discretion, declaring that " he would have nothing more to do with that devil Wilkes." The result of the struggle was really another step in the direction of the freedom of the press, for, although the House still maintained that publication of debates was a breach of privilege, no further attempt was made to punish the reporters. The great progress of the press as a political factor is one of the most sig- nificant features of this period ; next to the failure of George's Ameri- can policy, it played the most important part in putting an end to the personal ascendancy of the monarch which he had succeeded in reviving. The Royal Marriage Act, 1772. Blameless in his private life as he was corrupt in his political methods, George III suffered keenly from the scandalous conduct of two of his brothers, the Dukes of Cumberland and Gloucester. Even worse to his exalted ideas of royalty was the fact that both of them married below their station. To prevent such indiscretions for the future, which would inevitably lower the prestige of the kingly family, and, in case of secret alliances, might bring confusion to the succession, he procured the passage of the Royal Marriage Act. It provided that no descendant of George III under twenty-five years of age could contract a valid marriage without the consent of the sovereign, nor after that age ex- cept by the sanction of Parliament. The Act which remains sub- stantially in force to-day while working hardship to individuals, has proved to be beneficial from the public standpoint. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 763 The Boston Massacre, 5 March, 1770. Meantime, early in 1770, the first blood had been shed in the controversy between Great Britain and her American Colonies. For some time the more unruly element in the city of Boston had been annoying the British troops until, on the evening of 5 March, they were provoked into firing upon their tormenters. Three were killed, some half dozen were slightly wounded, and two mortally. Whoever was to blame, the " Boston Massacre " excited the fiercest indignation throughout the Colonies. Yet when the soldiers were brought to trial, leading patriots volunteered to de- fend them, and all were acquitted except two who received light sentences. The Hutchinson Letters, 1773-1774. Although the Government paid little attention to the Colonies for three years, the unrest there grew steadily. Extremists were active ; mobs were frequent ; loyal- ists were roughly handled, in some cases tarred and feathered; and revenue officers were obstructed in the performance of their duties. In June, 1772, the Gaspee whose commander had shown more zeal than discretion and regard for law in the pursuit of smugglers in Narragansett Bay ran aground and was promptly boarded and burned by the natives. An attempt to bring those concerned to England for trial failed. It led, however, to the formation of colonial committees of correspondence in 1773, which, in conjunction with local committees organized the previous year, furnished a complete system of machinery for united revolutionary action. Early in this same year, Benjamin Franklin, who was acting as agent for Pennsyl- vania, Massachusetts, and two of the other Colonies, procured certain confidential letters written by Hutchinson l to a former secretary of Grenville, in which the methods which the British Government should employ in dealing with the Colonies were very frankly discussed. . He sent them to Massachusetts to be handed about among a few of the leading patriots, on condition that they should not be published or even copied. Nevertheless, they soon found their way into print, were circulated throughout the Colonies, and aroused the greatest indignation. Franklin was summoned before the Privy Council, 29 January, 1774, where he was denounced by Wedderburn, the Solicitor- General, in terms of studied insult. The Council roared with laughter while Franklin stood without moving a muscle. His methods of pro- curing the letters may have been questionable ; but he was an old and eminent man, while his accuser was a shifty politician of whom Junius said : " There was something about him that treachery could not trust." The treatment which Franklin received was bound to turn him into an uncompromising opponent of the English Government, 2 and to affect hosts of sympathizers in the same way. 1 He had been Governor of Massachusetts Bay since 1771. 2 There is a familiar story, not well authenticated, that Franklin laid aside the homespun suit which he wore on that day and never put it on again until he signed the French alliance in 1778. 764 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Boston Tea Party, 16 December, 1773. Meantime the Government by an ill-advised attempt to assist the East India Com- pany, whose affairs were in a bad way, opened the breach still wider. Among other measures of relief it was provided that a large amount of tea which the Company had on hand should be sent from England free of duty and subject only to a tax of three pence per pound payable at the American ports. Since the tea sold in England was burdened with duties aggregating a shilling a pound, the Colonists were greatly favored over the home consumer. It has commonly been said that what they objected to was the principle of taxation involved, and that North would have done wisely to impose the duty at the time of export, leaving the Company to reimburse itself by a proportional in- crease of price on the sale of the goods in America. It has recently been shown, however, that the objection was not so much to the tax as to the fact that the tea was consigned to friends of the Government, and that the resistance was instigated mainly by the English and American merchants who resented being discriminated against in order that a great monopoly might be benefited. Toward the close of the year 1773, consignments of East India tea were shipped to Bos- ton, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. On the night of 16 December, a body of men disguised as Indians boarded the vessels which had recently arrived at Boston and emptied three hundred and forty chests, valued at 18,000, into the harbor. The ships for New York and Philadelphia returned without landing their cargoes, while the consignment for Charleston was stored in the customhouse, whence it was sold later. The Acts of 1774. The action at Boston, following upon the heels of the printing and circulation of the Hutchinson letters, determined George III to make an example of the town and at the same time to impose such coercion upon Massachusetts as would break its spirit and check further resistance. To that end, four " penal laws " were passed in- 1774. The first closed the harbor of Boston and trans- ferred the port to Salem until the losses of the East India Company should be made good. The second suspended the charter of the Province, increased the power of the Governor, transferred to the Crown the nomination of councilors, and provided that town meetings, regarded as " nurseries of sedition," should not be held without the Governor's consent. The third enacted that all persons charged with a capital offense in executing the law in Massachusetts should be taken to Nova Scotia or to England for trial. The fourth was a new quarter- ing act. The so-called " Quebec Act," passed the same year, extended the boundaries of Canada to the Mississippi on the west and to the Ohio on the south ; granted freedom of worship to Roman Catholics ; and allowed them to be tried by French law in civil cases, though in criminal matters the English law was to prevail. It provided further, that the Governor-General should be assisted by a legislative council appointed by the Crown : there was to be no representative assembly, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 765 and taxation was reserved to the British Parliament. The measure, designed to deal with problems and promises arising from the peace of 1763, was a wise and just one, for it gave the Canadians nine tenths of whom were French what they expected and desired, and they showed their satisfaction by remaining loyal throughout the en- suing war. The American Colonies, however, were furious, for the Act seemed to them a design to cut them off from the western lands which they claimed, and to extend " Popery " and arbitrary govern- ment to their very doors. The First Continental Congress, 5 September, 1774. The Ministry had calculated that the leaders would be intimidated by a show of force and that the other colonies would not support Massachusetts. On the contrary, the repressive measures of 1774 called forth a de- termined and united opposition from north to south and led swiftly to the final crisis. George III himself realized the gravity of the situation : " The die is now cast," he declared ; " the Colonies must either submit or triumph." On 5 September, a Congress met at Philadelphia in which all the thirteen Provinces, except Georgia, were represented. Doubtless the majority, 1 while insistent on re- dress of grievances, hoped that some means of averting the conflict might be arranged. As yet there was little thought of independence. Owing, however, to the activity of the aggressive party, the Congress took a series of decided steps. It approved the " Suffolk Resolves," 2 looking toward armed resistance in case of necessity; it demanded the revocation of a number of recent laws, notably those of 1774; it drew up a declaration of rights ; it framed general non-importation and non-exportation agreements ; it sent a petition to the King and an address to the English people, after which it adjourned till May. In spite of warm professions of loyalty it was evident that the leaders would consent to no terms short of complete surrender. The British Government had failed either to conciliate or coerce, and had blundered along to a point where it was impossible to turn back. Attempts at Conciliation. Chatham, who had risen from a sick bed in time to lift his voice against the last of the repressive acts of 1774, rejoiced in the " manly wisdom and calm resolution of Con- gress." Yet he was anxious to avert a rebellion, foreseeing that France and Spain would seize the opportunity to avenge their defeat in the Seven Years' War. Moreover, both he and Burke were insistent on regulation of trade, failing to realize that the Colonies would now op- pose that as strenuously as they had resisted the attempts to tax them. A few of the Ministers, including North, were inclined to con- ciliation, though they were ready to do the King's will, while Parlia- ment was, since the general election of 1774, more than ever under his 1 According to John Adams, one third were Whigs, one third Tories, and the rest "mongrels." 2 So-called because they were passed in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 766 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND control. The views of two of the most acute and most original thinkers of the time are interesting. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Glouces- ter, argued that it would be for England's best interests to let the Colonies go. Since they refused to contribute to the expenses of the Empire, they were only a useless burden, while separation would make no difference to commerce ; for it was an economic law that trade sought the best markets, and England's were far superior to those of any European nation. Adam Smith maintained that restric- tions of trade were not only injurious to the Colonies, but to the Mother Country as well. He favored peaceful separation, though* in view of the impossibility of bringing it about, he recommended colo- nial representation in the British Parliament. Neither the views of Tucker nor of Smith, however, met with acceptance even from the leading Whigs. Nevertheless, the Opposition in Parliament kept up a jealous but futile agitation against coercion. Both Chatham and Burke, early in 1775, introduced conciliation schemes which failed to pass, and numerous petitions from the commercial towns were " shelved." On 20 March, North, with the consent of the King, did move a resolution, providing that if any Colony would pay its quota toward the common defense and the expenses of the civil administra- tion, no taxes would be imposed except for regulation of trade. This attempt came too late. The Outbreak of War, Lexington and Concord, 19 April, 1775. Already, Massachusetts had been declared in rebellion. On 19 April occurred the memorable skirmishes of Lexington and Concord which opened the war that lasted until American independence was secured. The result was due to the courage and persistence of a resolute mi- nority. Many were opposed to fighting at all. Others who in the beginning put their hand to the plow later sought to turn back. Spread through the Colonies there was a large and influential body of loyalists numbering from a third to a half of the population. In a minority in New England, it formed a majority in the Middle Colonies, and fully equaled the patriot party in the South. It is estimated that at least 20,000 subsequently joined the British army. Their motives were various. Some were timid, some were indifferent, some had large property interests which they feared to jeopardize, others were actuated by a sincere desire to maintain the unity of the British Em- pire. Many held to their convictions in spite of privation, suffering, and danger : they were tarred and feathered, their property was destroyed or confiscated, and they were imprisoned and exiled. In England, at the beginning of the war, the King and his ministerial agents not only controlled Parliament, but were supported by the bulk of the nobility and landed gentry, the clergy of the Established Church, and the legal profession. The opposition was confined to the merchants, the Dissenting preachers, and the laboring classes, the latter of whom were disinclined to serve beyond the seas or to fight against men of their own blood. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 767 Comparative Strength of the Combatants. The troops who en- listed on the Colonial side were mostly raw, insubordinate, and unwill- ing to serve for any length of time away from their own neighborhoods. The total population was less than three million souls, funds were scanty, and the supply of arms, ammunition, clothes, and provisions was lamentably inadequate. The Colonists had to contend against a wealthy country with a population nearly three times their own, against trained armies, and a navy reputed to be invincible. 1 Owing, however, to recent economies and to dishonest contractors both arms of the service were reduced in numbers and faulty in equipment. Then the British undervalued the fighting capacity of the Americans 2 and the obstacles to be overcome. The country which was to be sub- dued was three thousand miles off and extended along a thousand miles of sea coast. There could be no theater of war, for the vast stretch of country was cut into pieces by many and great rivers, and reached back to a region of trackless forests. It was difficult to con- quer and impossible to hold. Great Britain, " by her command of the sea, might easily destroy its commerce, disturb its fisheries, bom- bard its seaport towns, and deprive it of many of the luxuries of life, but it could strike no vital blow." The Colonies were hardy and re- sourceful, they had a widely extended militia system, 3 and they had the experience of two great wars, and were led by a commander whose greatness of character and devotion to duty have rarely been equaled. The British generals proved singularly ineffective 4 and confined their attention mainly to taking and holding the leading seaboard towns, when their best chance of success lay in tracking down and destroying the opposing army. The issue was only decided, however, when 1 The British army at the opening of the war, including the forces in Ireland and the garrisons at Gibraltar and Minorca, numbered less than 40,000. George had tried unsuccessfully for some time to increase this establishment. When a larger force became necessary, he determined to employ German mercenaries. As Elector of Hanover he lent a force to set free the garrison at Gibraltar and hired from the petty princes of Brunswick, Hesse Casset, and Waldeck about 17,000 troops. The Americans and the English Whigs were bitter against this step ; but, impolitic as was the action of the King, the conduct of the German rulers was most reprehensible. Frederick the Great declared that if their troops passed through his territories, he would tax them like cattle. Much more barbarous was the em- ployment of Indians. They proved of little value in regular fighting; for they fled to the woods at moments of danger when they were most needed, but were guilty of bloodthirsty raids against lonely, exposed settlements. The Americans were the first to employ Indians and would have used more if they could have got them, but that does not excuse the British for sending them to massacre defenseless women and children. 2 The first Lord of the Admiralty, for example, declared : "They will bluster and swell when danger is at a distance, but when it comes "near, will like other mobs throw down their arms and run away." 3 Though its efficiency was weakened by the custom of short-term enlistments. 4 Lord North is said to have remarked of the British generals: "I do not know whether they will frighten the enemy, but I am sure they frighten me whenever I think of them." 768 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND France and Spain finally threw their weight in the scale against Great Britain. The Continental Congress, 10 May, 1775. Washington, Com- mander-in-Chief . The Continental Congress assembled at Phila- delphia for its second meeting, 10 May, 1775. It assumed executive powers, rejected North's plan of conciliation, and provided for the organization into a Continental Army of the troops which had flocked to the blockade of Boston after the Lexington fight. Doubtless their most important step was the appointment of Washington as Com- mander-in-Chief, 15 June; for to him more than to any other single man was due the triumph of the American .cause. Bunker Hill, 17 June, 1775. The Siege of Boston, 1775-1776. Before he arrived in Boston the battle of Bunker Hill had occurred, 1 7 June, in which the bravery of the British troops and the stupidity of their generals were alike conspicuous. It was a defeat for the Americans, with all the moral effects of a victory. Washington, when he heard " how they had fought," declared that " the liberties of the country were safe." The siege of Boston continued for nine months, though the American commander found the greatest difficulty in holding his ill-assorted forces together during the winter. Howe, who had superseded Gage in October and was " equally incompetent," was finally forced to evacuate the town, 17 March, 1776. Thence he sailed to Halifax, where he waited for reinforcements in order to attack New York. King George, who was disappointed in his hope that the Southern Colonies would remain loyal, finally resorted to force. He sent an expedition against the Carolinas ; but an attempt in June to reduce Charleston was heroically repulsed, and the British com- mander Clinton sailed to New York to join Howe. For three years the South was left free to send help to the North. The Declaration of Independence, 4 July, 1776. By the beginning of 1776, the idea of separation had become very strong in the Colonies, which, hitherto, had been fighting mainly to secure redress of griev- ances. The change of sentiment was due to various causes, among them the employment of German troops and the discovery that King George and not the Ministry or Parliament was responsible for the coercive policy of the past few years. More influential than all else, however, was a pamphlet by Thomas Paine 1 (1737-1809), entitled Common Sense. Paine was a radical, and later a free thinker, who after a quarrel with the English Government, had come to America in 1774 and had been warmly welcomed by Franklin. On 4 July, 1776, Congress at Philadelphia adopted the Declaration of Independence. It was printed the following day, and signed by such members as were present, 2 August. The Campaign of 1776. In the teeth of the Whig opposition the Government made vigorous preparations for the campaign of 1776. 1 He later boasted that his pen had been as effective as Washington's sword. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 769 At the same time, General Howe and his brother Admiral Lord Howe were appointed commissioners to treat with any colonies or individuals who were willing to submit. The military operations of this year centered about New York. Howe, with his Halifax forces, his reen- forcements, and the troops of Clinton, had an army of 25,000 to which Washington, who had hurried from Boston, could only oppose 19,000 ill-equipped and half-trained men. So the Americans were driven successively from Long Island, from Manhattan Island, then over the Hudson into New Jersey, and finally across the Delaware. It was only Howe's incapacity and Washington's energy that prevented the " disorderly mob " from being utterly crushed. Washington thought " the game was pretty well played out," and Congress in a panic fled to Baltimore. Suddenly, however, he revived the dying hopes of his countrymen by recrossing the Delaware River on Christmas night and capturing a Hessian force at Trenton, and then destroying a detachment at Princeton. Neither commander attempted any- thing further till spring. In England, although the Opposition was so discouraged by the successes of the King's army about New York that they almost ceased to attend Parliament, the situa- tion was far from satisfactory. It was impossible to procure sailors except by impressment and extravagant bounties. Expenses were so heavy that another loan had to be raised and new and burden- some taxes imposed. Burgoyne's Campaign, 1777. The British plan of campaign for 1777 was suggested by Burgoyne, a general of high connections and considerable military experience, who was also a man of fashion and a writer of plays. He was to lead an army down from Canada, by way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson, and to effect a junction at Al- bany with Howe, who was to march up from New York. Had the plan succeeded, the road to Canada would have been secured. New England would have been isolated, and the British would have been able to concentrate their efforts against the middle and southern prov- inces. The cooperation of Howe was essential in order to prevent the Americans from thrusting an army in between and crushing Bur- goyne before the junction could be effected. Howe, as usual, did the wrong thing, and was backed by the Colonial Secretary, Lord George Germain, who, as Lord George Sackville, had played such a sorry part at Minden. He decided to proceed first against Philadelphia, trust- ing that he could return in time to cooperate with Burgoyne, who, he calculated, could not reach Albany till September. Leaving Clinton with an army of 8500 to garrison New York and to " act as circum- stances may direct," Howe embarked late in July. Obliged to take the longer route by Chesapeake Bay and forced to fight a battle with Washington, whom he repulsed at the Brandywine, it was 27 Sep- tember before he occupied Philadelphia. He spent another month in opening up the Delaware in order to secure his communications with New York, and then passed the winter restfully in the city, while 30 770 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND his troops and officers wasted their time in idleness and social diver- sions. Washington, who had been repulsed at Germantown, 4 October, in an attempt to enter Philadelphia, went into winter quarters at Val- ley Forge. His army, half starved and almost barefoot, seemed on the verge of dissolution ; but during those gloomy months the men were drilled into an effective fighting machine by Baron Steuben, a German officer who had adopted the American cause. Moreover, events had happened which turned the tide of the war. The Failure and Surrender of Burgoyne. Burgoyne's first move- ments had promised well. George, on receipt of the news, is said to have rushed into the Queen's rooms, crying : "I have beat them ! beat all the Americans." But his rejoicing proved premature. The invaders had a rough country to travel over, they found it difficult to procure supplies, and a strong American force was collected to meet them on the west bank of the Hudson. Defeated in a series of engagements and surrounded by a force outnumbering his own by four to one, Burgoyne surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga, 17 October, 1777. By the Convention there concluded his troops were to be allowed to return to England on condition of not serving in America again during the war. These favorable terms were doubtless due to Clinton's advance up the Hudson early in the month with the small force which Howe had left him. The Continental Congress, much to its discredit, evaded the agreement, and, although Burgoyne and his staff were allowed to go home in the spring of 1778, the rank and file were held in the country. Howe's failure to cooperate with the northern army and his failure to track down and crush the ex- hausted forces of Washington were largely responsible for the miscar- riage of the campaign. 1 The result determined France to throw her weight in the scale, Spain followed later, and the conflict between Great Britain and her colonies was enlarged into another great Euro- pean struggle. The French Alliance, 1778. For some time, the French and Span- ish Governments had been secretly providing the Americans with money and supplies, and many Frenchmen, chief among them the Marquis de la Fayette, volunteered for service in the Continental Army. 2 Benjamin Franklin, who went as diplomatic agent to France in December, 1776, was warmly welcomed by the circle who were be- ginning to interest themselves in those problems of religious and politi- cal philosophy which heralded the approach of the Revolution of 1789. The French Government, however, had no enthusiasm for the American cause ; its aim was to revenge the humiliation it had suffered at the hands of Pitt and to recover as much as possible of the colonial trade and pos%essions it had lost. On 6 February, 1778, a few weeks after 1 He sent in his resignation 22 October, after it was too late to retrieve what had been lost. 2 France was not the only country which furnished volunteers. At one time it was estimated that, out of twenty-nine major generals, eleven were foreigners. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 771 the news of Burgoyne's surrender reached Paris, a formal treaty of alliance was concluded with the United States, 1 by which it was agreed that, in case of war between France and Great Britain, neither party would make peace without consulting the other, or until the independ- ence of the United States should be acknowledged. France gave up all claim to Canada, but was to have any conquests she might make in the West Indies. This alliance proved a godsend to the American cause. It created an effective diversion against Great Britain ; it opened French ports to American privateers ; it brought increased money, supplies, munitions of war, powerful fleets, and at length an army. Furthermore, it breathed enthusiasm into the lukewarm and despairing. It was high time, for the situation was gloomy enough. Finances were at a low ebb ; large issues of paper money had disor- ganized prices and gravely damaged public credit; enlistments had fallen off woefully, and it was difficult to pay the soldiers who remained in the service ; Congress was at odds with the army, and the officers were intriguing and quarreling among themselves. Now, at last, the steadfastness of Washington and those who supported him was to be rewarded. The Party Situation in England. The Death of Chatham, 1778. - The American disaster, while it aroused various individuals and cities to raise troops, encouraged the Opposition to renewed attacks against the Government. Their force was greatly weakened, however, by a sharp difference in policy. Chatham, though continuing to urge extreme concessions, stopped short at independence, while the Rock- ingham party were now ready to grant even that. North, who had carried on the war for years against his better judgment, after begging in vain that the King allow him to resign, finally introduced and car- ried a conciliation bill conceding practically all that Chatham had advocated. Commissioners were sent to America; but Congress, now backed by France, would listen to no terms which did not include recognition of independence, and when the commissioners appealed to the people in an ill-advised manifesto, they only met with rebuff. The Court party in its straits had already made overtures to Chatham, who might have had some influence with the revolutionists, but he would take no steps without an " entire new Cabinet." George III replied stolidly that " no advantage to the country nor personal danger to himself would make him stoop to the Opposition." Now- adays such action would be impossible ; but for the time being the King had arrested the growth of responsible Cabinet government. He showed an obstinacy equal to that of the Stuarts though his posi- tion was not the same; for he had a majority in Parliament, even though it was held together by corrupt methods unknowr^in their days. Yet George cannot be wholly blamed, for the Opposition was bitter, it rejoiced unpatriotically at the American successes, and 1 The name assumed by the Colonies in the Declaration of Independence. 772 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND obstructed his military plans. The majority, to be sure, had laudable reasons for desiring the failure of the King's war, some because they thought it unrighteous, others because it would break down the royal ascendancy, force upon the Crown a Ministry of the people, and put an end to the regime of corruption. Naturally George could not see this. On the other hand, many supported his policy from a sincere feeling that the greatness of England depended upon the retention of the Colonies even by force. On 7 April, 1778, Chatham, broken by illness, appeared in the House of Lords, and made his last speech, which was an earnest plea against conceding American sovereignty and yielding to the claims of France. In the midst of the debate he fell in a fit and was taken home, where he died, 1 1 May. Thus passed the " great, illustrious, faulty being " who had achieved so much for England. His death made for a partial unity in the ranks of the Opposition. The Military and Naval Events of 1778-1779. Clinton, who had succeeded Howe as Commander-in-chief, evacuated Philadelphia, 1 8 June, 1778, and hastened to New York to meet an expected French attack. In July, a fleet under D'Estaing arrived, but, after failing in an attack on Newport, departed for the West Indies, without at- tempting anything further. The center of the war now shifted to the Southern Colonies. In November, Clinton sent a British force to Georgia, which captured Savannah, overran the whole Province, and opened the way for an invasion of South Carolina before the close of the year. In the West Indies, the advantage lay with the French during the years 1778 and 1779. In spite of the skill of her officers and the boldness of her sailors, Great Britain was failing to maintain her supremacy at sea. This was due to the sad state into which the naval administration had fallen since the last war, and to the abandon- ment of Pitt's policy of striking at the fleets of the enemy before they got to sea. On 12 April, 1779, Spain joined France in an alliance against Great Britain, and declared war, 16 June. Her first step was to attempt the recovery of Gibraltar which, however, was ably de- fended by General Eliott during a memorable three years' siege. Though the combined French and Spanish fleets were unable to effect their aim of destroying British commerce, American privateers proved very troublesome. It is estimated that by the end of 1778 they had taken over a thousand merchant ships. Privateering kept many from enlisting in the regular service, drew others from the farm and the shop, but it weakened the enemy, brought much money into the country, and helped to keep up enthusiasm for the war. A most notable exploit was that of John Paul Jones, a Scottish adventurer in the American service, who, 23 September, 1779, while cruising off the coast of Scotland, attacked a fleet of British merchantmen convoyed by the Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough. He compelled the two men-of-war to strike, though the merchantmen escaped. His ship the Bonhomme Richard, an old French East Indiaman made THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 773 over, sank the next day. Washington spent the year above New York, quietly watching Clinton. The English Situation. The Gordon Riots, 1780. The North administration was beginning to lose strength, and the people were growing weary of war taxes. On 6 April, 1780, Dunning, an Opposi- tion member, succeeded in carrying a resolution in the Commons " that the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." In the House of Lords, the Duke of Richmond was urging manhood suffrage and annual parliaments. Such was the situation when a sudden wave of anti-Roman Catholic fanaticism swept over the country. In 1778, Sir George Savile had carried a bill in Parliament " enabling Catholics who abjured the temporal juris- diction of the Pope to purchase and inherit land and freeing their priests from liability to imprisonment." A similar measure for Scot- land was defeated, owing to a violent popular outcry which manifested itself in riots at Glasgow and Edinburgh. This encouraged a number of bigots in England to form a Protestant Association under the presi- dency of Lord George Gordon, a half-crazed scion of a noble Scottish house. On 2 June he marched to Westminster at the head of 60,000 persons, bearing a monster petition demanding the repeal of Savile's Relief Act. The firm refusal of Parliament led to a furious uprising, and, from the 2d to the 7th, mob violence reigned in the City. 1 Some who took part were honest fanatics, but the majority were the crim- inal and disorderly class bent more on plunder than the safeguarding of religion. They sacked Roman Catholic chapels and the houses of those who favored the Relief Act, they invaded wine cellars, dram- shops, and distilleries, smashed open casks of raw spirits and drank the fiery contents as it flowed in the streets. They broke into prisons, released the inmates, and the terrifying rumor spread that they were going to free the lunatics from Bedlam 2 and the lions from the Tower. The authorities seemed paralyzed, peaceful citizens were obliged to wear blue cockades 3 and join in the cry " No Popery! " to protect their lives and property. The man who finally arose to the occasion was King George, who declared that there was at least one magistrate who would do his duty. By a royal Order in Council the King's troops and the militia were called out and they dispersed the rioters. Of one hundred and thirty-five prisoners brought to trial twenty-one were executed. Gordon was acquitted on the ground that he had not anticipated the outrages arising from his foolish demonstration. 4 Smaller riots took place in Bristol, Hull, and Bath, but the Govern- ment stood by its Relief Act. The whole affair is a curious example 1 Dickens has told the story in a popular and graphic fashion in Barnaby Rudge. 2 A popular corruption of St. Mary of Bethlehem. The asylum was originally a priory. 3 Symbol of the Association. 4 He ended a very chequered career in Newgate in 1793, dying in the Jewish faith. 774 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of belated bigotry and of the weakness of the public authorities. 1 The riots, however, did something to strengthen the Government; for they discredited popular agitation to which the Whigs had ap- pealed, and united the forces of law and order in support of the exist- ing system. The Armed Neutrality. In 1778, France had adopted a novel principle in maritime law, namely, that the goods of neutral powers trading with belligerents were exempt from seizure, provided they were not contraband of war. Holland, because of her great, carrying trade, welcomed this innovation, as did Frederick the Great; for he saw that it would weaken Great Britain, who had always exercised freely the right of seizure of ships engaged in commerce with her enemies. Early in 1780, Catherine of Russia was induced to issue a declaration asserting, in addition to the above principles, that only specified goods were contraband and that blockades to be binding must be effectual. On the basis of this declaration accepted by France, Spain, and the Americans Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, and the Em- peror joined her in a league of " armed neutrality." Great Britain, thus isolated, found it necessary henceforth to deal cautiously with neutral ships, since she was dependent upon the Baltic powers for naval stores. Fortunately, Catherine was not unfriendly, and jo- cosely referred to the league as the " armed nullity." It was a gain rather than a misfortune that Great Britain added Holland to the list of her enemies by declaring war on her 20 December, 1780. She had been supplying France, Spain, and the Americans with military and naval stores and had allowed privateers to fit and to sell prizes in her ports. Her navy was not strong, and, since she was no longer a neutral, her commerce and her colonies could be attacked with im- punity. The War in 1780-1781. The Southern Campaign. Early in 1780, Clinton went South in person and attacked Charleston, which surrendered, 12 May. Leaving Corn walk's, who soon overran the greater part of South Carolina, he returned to New York, for another French fleet was under way, laden with troops to assist Washington. The year, however, was a gloomy one for the Americans in the North as well as in the South. Washington's army had spent the winter of 1779-1780 at Morristown, exposed to rigorous weather and " con- stantly on the point of starving " ; the French squadron which ar- rived in July with 6000 troops under the command of Rochambeau was blockaded in Newport, Rhode Island, by a British fleet and did nothing ; the paper money issued by Congress had so depreciated that a hundred dollars in bills was only worth one of gold, and France was so nearly bankrupt that her Chief Minister, Vergennes, suggested a truce. In September, 1780, Benedict Arnold, after an unsuccessful 1 "Our danger is at an end," wrote the historian Gibbon, "but our disgrace will be lasting, and the month of June, 1 780, will ever be marked by a dark and diabolical fanaticism which I supposed to be extinct." THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 775 attempt to betray West Point on the Hudson to the British, fled to the enemy's camp and received a commission in the King's army. 1 For the remainder of the war the decisive fighting was in the Southern Colonies and on the sea. General Gates, who had been overwhelm- ingly defeated at Camden in South Carolina, 16 August, was super- seded in December by Nathaniel Greene, one of Washington's favorites, and perhaps his ablest officer. Though unsuccessful in winning battles, he had the genius of William of Orange for wag- ing victorious campaigns. 2 Aided by bands of irregular forces under independent leaders like Sumter and Marion, he gained ground steadily. In May, 1781, Cornwallis, after a series of Pyrrhic victories, marched into Virginia to join a British force which Clinton had sent to that Province. Before the end of the year the forces which he left behind had abandoned everything in the Carolinas except Charleston. 3 The Struggle for the Command of the Sea. With the British armies divided between New York and Virginia, the command of the sea proved a deciding issue. In the spring of 1780 the English Ad- miral Rodney arrived in the West Indies. Owing to the inability of his officers to understand his signals, he failed to crush a French fleet under De Guichen, after which he sailed for the New York station, where he committed a serious blunder in not destroying the squadron blockaded in Newport. Although a brave and able officer, he was an old man, enfeebled by sickness and dissipation, whose misfortunes and mistakes proved very costly in this critical period. On 3 Feb- ruary, 1731, he seized the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, a rich entrepot for the French, English, and American traders alike. In his anxiety to guard his booty he allowed a fleet from Brest under De Grasse to reach the American coast in August, 1781. The Surrender of Cornwallis, 19 October, 1781. It was a time when " some splendid advantage was essentially necessary ... to revive the expiring hopes and languid exertions of the country," when the " poor old currency was breathing its last gasp." Assured of the cooperation of De Grasse, Washington and Rochambeau now ar- ranged a joint movement against the British. Washington wanted to strike at Clinton in New York ; but yielded to the French, who pre- ferred to direct their efforts against Cornwallis in Virginia. He man- aged to deceive Clinton as to their intentions by letters meant to be intercepted. Supported by the King and his Ministers, Cornwallis had marched into Virginia against the wishes of his superior officer, who wanted him to remain in the Carolinas until he had conquered 1 Major Andr6, who acted as Clinton's agent in the negotiations was captured, tried by court martial, and hanged as a spy. He has had many sympathetic advo- cates, but it is now generally agreed that his trial was fair, his sentence just, and that Washington only did his duty in refusing to mitigate it. 1 "We fight," he said, "get beat and fight again." 3 The British held Charleston and Savannah till the end of the war. 776 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND them completely. As the result of a misunderstanding, due to this difference of opinion, Cornwallis concentrated his forces at Yorktown on a tongue of land between the mouths of the York and James Rivers, where he could be easily bottled up. Admiral Graves, 1 who sailed south in pursuit of the French fleet from Rhode Island, found De Grasse blocking the Chesapeake and was so roughly handled that he went back to New York to refit. Cornwallis, cut off from all help from the sea, surrendered to Washington and Rochambeau, 19 October, 1781. On that same day Graves had again left New York, bearing on board a relieving army under Clinton. Finding that they were too late, they turned back. The catastrophe at Yorktown was due to four causes : to the conflict of opinion between Clinton and Cornwallis ; to the un- tenable position which Cornwallis selected; to the fact that Clinton allowed himself to be deceived by Washington ; and to the failure of the British admirals to secure the command of the sea. It sealed the fate of the war. The Resignation of North, 20 March, 1782. The King received the news with his accustomed fortitude, and stubbornly insisted on con- tinuing the fight, but North now gave up all hope. Various reverses followed : Minorca was lost in February, and by spring the French had secured many of the West India Islands. The peace party grew to be overwhelming in Parliament and throughout the country : the Opposition combined forces against the Government, and, 20 March, North, after barely escaping a vote of want confidence, announced his resignation. George was so appalled that he talked of retiring to Hanover. Although they had acted together for the moment, there were still two parties in the Opposition. Lord Shelburne led the old Chatham Whigs opposed to party connection and American inde- pendence, while Rockingham, backed by Burke and Charles James Fox, stood for both of these policies. As the lesser of two evils, George invited Shelburne to form a Ministry, but, realizing that he could not get one without the Rockinghamites, Shelburne refused. George was finally forced to accept Rockingham as Prime Minister, though he refused to negotiate with him personally. Shelburne was made Secretary for Home and Colonial affairs and Charles James Fox became Foreign Secretary. Burke had to content himself with the office of Paymaster of the Forces. By a curious compromise that would be no longer possible the Tory Lord Thurlow 2 was retained as Lord Chancellor. The Second Rockingham Ministry, March- July, 1782, and its Work. The new Ministry, in spite of the royal attempt to thwart its efforts, accomplished much during its brief tenure of power. Contractors were excluded from the House of Commons and revenue officers were 1 He had with him a portion of the West India fleet under Hood sent by order of Rodney, who had gone home on sick leave. 2 One of his great assets was his imposing appearance. Burke once said that no one could be as great as he looked. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 777 deprived of the right to vote. 1 Burke, after having tried for years, succeeded at length in carrying a measure of economical reform. While far short of what he desired or his party expected, it saved the country 72,000 a year by the abolition of useless offices. This Ministry also opened the peace negotiations and granted legislative independence to Ireland. The Irish Situation. Although the material condition of the people had improved during the century, Ireland was in a pitiable state at the opening of the reign. It was governed as a subject country. It was excluded from the benefits of the Navigation Acts and from all commerce that might compete with that of England. Greedy agents and middlemen crushed the peasantry with heavy rents and burdens, while the great landlords were mostly absentees. Arable lands were turned into pasture, and rights of common were disregarded. In- tense poverty and suffering were the result. Religious grievances were equally acute. Although the worst provisions of the penal laws were not enforced, Roman Catholics were excluded from office, from the practice of law, and from the army. The poor were called upon to pay tithes for the support of the Anglican Establishment, the clergy of which were indifferent to their interests and whom they hated as cordially as they loved their own ignorant but devoted priests. Par- liament represented exclusively the Protestant aristocratic minority. The management of affairs was in the hands of a body of men called " undertakers," and abuses in corruption and patronage flourished rankly. In 1761, a secret organization, known as Whiteboys, from the white smocks which they wore, began to manifest the widespread resentment against enclosures and tithes by nocturnal raids in which they maimed cattle, destroyed fences, and resorted to other violence. They were eventually put down, but their advent marks the beginning of secret associations and armed risings. The Independence of the Irish Parliament, 1782. The American war exercised a marked influence on the situation. The reasons were three : heavier taxes and the closing of the American and French markets aroused increased discontent ; the example of the American Colonists stimulated resistance ; and the English Government was too much occupied to crush it. Pressed by their leaders, Grattan and Flood, Lord North in 1778 removed a few of the restrictions on trade. He would have gone further but for the opposition of the English manufacturing interests. Another bill was passed enabling Catholics to secure leases for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, and even to inherit lands, provided they were not converts. As a means of secur- ing further concessions, non-importation agreements were formed ; but another method proved more effective. The war had necessitated the removal of the Irish garrison. To supply their place in defending 1 It was estimated that there were from 40,000 to 60,000 in an electorate of 300,000. 778 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the country from attack and internal disorder, the Irish Protestants l organized into bodies of volunteers. While thoroughly loyal, they were masters of the situation and insisted on their demands. In conse- quence, the English Parliament, at North's instigation, removed a number of the remaining shackles in 1779-1780. About the same time a bill was passed freeing the Irish Dissenting Protestants from the sacramental test for omceholding. 2 Grattan now began an eloquent and earnest demand for legislative independence. This was finally granted by the Rockingham Ministry in May, 1782. A host of grievances still existed and bitter struggles were to follow; but something had been gained. The Revival of British Sea Power, 1782. The British still occupied New York, Charleston, and Savannah, and now their navy, which had at length been brought into shape, showed itself worthy of its tradi- tions, even those of the days of Pitt. On 12 April, 1782, Rodney, having returned to the West Indies, engaged De Grasse, who was planning to join the Spanish in an attack on Jamaica. The " Battle of the Saints," so-called because it was fought off the Isle des Saintes, is notable for the successful employment of a form of tactics common in the Dutch w r ars of the seventeenth century. Recently revived, it was destined to be used with great effect in the next war with France. The form of fighting most in vogue during the interval had been to engage the enemy ship by ship, van to van, center to center, and rear to rear. By the new manceuver, known as " breaking the line," the British ships would force a gap somewhere in the enemy's line, isolate a portion of their ships, and overwhelm them by force of numbers. 3 At the Saints the French line was cut in two places and the attack directed against the center, De Grasse was captured, together with five of his ships, Jamaica was saved, and a serious blow struck at the French navy. In September, Eliott met a final attack on Gibraltar with admirable skill and daring, though the siege was not finally raised till February, 1783, after the close of the war. Lord Shelburne (1737-1805). The Rockingham Cabinet worked together in securing domestic reforms and granting legislative inde- pendence to Ireland ; but a split came over its chief problem the peace negotiations. This was due to the strained relations between the two remarkable men who dominated all the others. The Earl of Shelburne had passed fourteen years in opposition, but was now en- joying the royal favor because of his hostility to the Rockingham wing. He was a progressive thinker, quite in advance of his time in 1 Many of the Catholics would have joined them, but they were prevented at first by the old law forbidding them to bear arms. 2 It was not till 1828 that English Dissenters secured this concession. 3 It is no longer believed that Rodney was responsible for the revival of this form of fighting. Howe and Kempenfelt were among the first to take it up, while Rodney, who belonged to the old school, opposed it for some time. The sinking of Kempenfelt's ship, the Royal George, at Spithead, 19 August, 1782, is the subject of a famous poem by Cowper. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 779 many of the policies which he advocated. He supported parlia- mentary and economical reform, free trade, and the protection of neutrals ; he sympathized with the principles of the French Revolu- tion ; and was one of the first statesmen to appreciate the rising impor- tance of the middle class. In spite of his great abilities and broad outlook possibly to some degree because of them he was perhaps the most unpopular and distrusted public man of his time. The aversion with which he was regarded was, aside from jealousy, due largely to his undisguised contempt for parties, his plausible and insinuating manner, coupled with his suspicious nature and cynical estimate of the motives of other men. 1 Charles James Fox (1749-1806). Charles James Fox was the son of Henry Fox, Lord Holland. He entered Parliament at the age of nineteen as a member from the deserted borough of Midhurst, where his father bought him a seat. At first he was chiefly noted for his extravagance, 2 his dissipation, and for his reckless but brilliant opposi- tion to all liberal measures. In 1774 he left the Tory party and passed the remainder of his life mostly in opposition, as an ardent champion of popular liberty. Curiously enough, his breach with the King's party was based rather on personal grounds than on those of broad general policy. His estrangement began with the passage of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, which he opposed because he was born of a runaway match. His final secession was due to his dismissal from the Treasury because he had embarrassed North by advocating stronger measures against the printers than the prime minister cared to take. Then he joined the Rockingham Whigs, came under the influence of Burke, and opposed the war against the Colonies, as well as most of the other policies of the King. Much can be urged against him besides the irregularities of his private life. He was violent in his attacks on the Government, sometimes even forgetting loyalty to his country in the zeal with which he defended, first the American and later the French Revolution. Also, he was deficient in qualities of statesmanship and was a bad party manager. 3 On the other hand, he was unusually gifted as a debater, with the rare power of stripping away all super- fluities and penetrating directly to the heart of a question. He had a love for the best in literature which the riotousness of his life never blunted. Moreover, in spite of his hot partisanship, he harbored no personal rancors. His nature was simple, generous, lovable, and noble: he was the chivalrous defender of the unfortunate and waged unselfish war against religious intolerance and political op- pression. 1 There is a famous eulogy of Shelburne in Disraeli's Sybil. Disraeli was one of his few admirers. 2 His father before his death paid 140,000 to meet debts which his son had con- tracted mainly in gambling. 3 His blunders in 1 783-1 784 and in 1 788 proved especially disastrous to his party. 780 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Opening of the Peace Negotiations. Aside from other differ- ences, Shelburne and Fox represented opposing policies. Fox wanted to acknowledge the independence of the Americans immediately in order to detach them from the French alliance, while Shelburne wanted to make the acknowledgment of independence one of the conditions of a joint treaty with the Allies as a means of obtaining better terms. The question was complicated from the fact that, so long as Shelburne's view prevailed, he remained in charge of the American negotiations as Colonial Secretary, while as soon as the United States was acknowl- edged as an independent power, all diplomatic dealings with them would pass to Fox as Foreign Secretary. Thomas Grenville, whom Fox named as his agent to treat with the French Minister Vergennes at Paris, complained that he was hampered by Oswald, the represent- ative whom Shelburne had sent to treat informally with Franklin, and that the Colonial Secretary was concealing from the Cabinet a proposition from Franklin concerning the cession of Canada. Fox, furiously indignant, proposed, 30 June, the recognition of American independence forthwith. When he was outvoted in the Cabinet, he threatened to resign. The very next day Rockingham died, and George III, seizing the chance to break the power of the party, ap- pointed Shelburne head of the Ministry. The Shelburne Ministry, July, 1782-February, 1783, and the Com- pletion of the Peace Negotiations. It was now possible to continue the peace negotiations without friction in the Cabinet. Shelburne, however, soon came round to Fox's policy of detaching the Americans from the French alliance, and, to that end, acknowledged the inde- pendence of the United States, 27 September, 1782. Less than two months after, the American commissioners, 30 November, without consulting the French Minister, signed preliminaries of peace, on con- dition that a final treaty should be concluded after terms had been arranged between Great Britain and France. Owing to the condi- tional nature of the arrangement, the commissioners cannot be fairly charged with violating the terms of the alliance of 1778. On the other hand, they had not observed their instructions from Congress to negotiate only in harmony with the French Government. Their justification rests on the fact that they suspected, with good reason, that France was backing Spain in an effort to restrict American boundaries to the narrowest geographical limits, and, on her own ac- count, was anxious to exclude the new country from Newfoundland fisheries. Franklin, devoted as he was to the French, might of him- self have been shrewd and patriotic enough to resist these designs, but much credit is due to John Jay and John Adams who joined him in July and October, respectively. 1 The definitive treaty of peace 1 Jay had been Minister to Spain, where he had learned something of the Spanish designs as well as of the acquiescence of France, and suspected much more. Adams had been negotiating a treaty with Holland. He was naturally suspicious of the French, and, as a New Englander, was profoundly interested in the fisheries. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 781 between Great Britain and the United States was signed at Paris, 3 September, 1783. France and Spain signed their treaty with the British at Versailles on the same day. The Terms of the Treaty of Paris. The chief terms of the Treaty of Paris were the following : (i) The independence of the United States was formally acknowledged and the boundaries of the new country defined. (2) The United States was to have the right to fish off the banks of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as well as the right to cure fish on certain specified shores. (3) The navigation of the Mississippi was to be open to both countries. (4) Debts con- tracted before the war were to be binding. (5) The restitution of the confiscated estates of loyalists was to be recommended by Congress to the several states. 1 The Treaty of Versailles. France received certain of the West India Islands and restored some that she had conquered. In Africa she got both Senegal and Goree, which had changed hands during the war. Her rights in the Newfoundland fisheries were defined; she received the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in full sovereignty, and her commercial establishments in India were restored. Spain re- tained Minorca and West Florida, which she had recently conquered, and Great Britain ceded East Florida back to her. On her part, she restored the Bahama Islands and confirmed the British claim to cut logwood about the Bay of Honduras. The Defeat of the King. America, although she emerged from the contest poor and exhausted, had gained almost everything for which she had striven. Great Britain had lost the most valuable of her colonies. It was years, however, before any change was manifest in the principles or practice of her colonial system, either administrative or economic. Nevertheless, at subsequent crises in her constantly increasing Empire, she showed that she had not forgotten the costly lesson which she had learned. The more immediate result was at once evident. George's system of personal government had broken down, and, though he soon shook himself free from the hateful dom- ination of the Whigs, he never succeeded in reviving his ascendancy. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. William Hunt, Political History of England, 1760-1801 (1905), from the Tory standpoint, chs. I-XII (annotated list of authorities, pp. 459-469) . Robertson, England under the Hanoverians, "The Reign of George III," chs. I, II. Cambridge Modern History, VI, ch. XIII (bibliography, pp. 902-912). Bright, History of Eng- 1 Shelburne could obtain no better terms on this point. Of the thousands who left the country, some settled in Great Britain ; but the greater part established themselves in the present province of New Brunswick and along the valley of the St. Lawrence. The states made no restitution, and Great Britain provided for them as far as she was able. Besides grants of land, pensions, and half pay to officers, she distributed over 3,000,000. 782 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND land, III, pp. 1035-1112. Stanhope, History of England, IV- VII. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, III-V, chs. IX-XVI. Constitutional. T. E. May (Lord Farnborough), Constitutional History of Eng- land since the Accession of George III (3 vols., the edition of 1912, ed. by Francis Holland, continues the work to 191 1) ; the best work on the period ; the arrangement is topical and not chronological. Taylor, Origin and Growth, II, bk. VII, ch. 2, sees. 1-6. Biography. The lives of Chatham cited in ch. XLI above. Sir G. O. Trevel- yan, The Early Life of Charles James Fox (1880) ; goes to 1774; an admirable pic- ture of the life of the period. J. Morley (Viscount), Burke, a Historical Study (1867) ; "the best estimate of Burke's political position." Morley, Edmund Burke (1879) is a brilliant and valuable, sketch. Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, Life of the Earl of Shelburne (Marquis of Lansdowne) (3 vols., 1875-1876 ; new ed., 1913), while aiming to place Shelburne in a favorable light, is a distinct contribution. Contemporary. Horace Walpole, Letters ( 1 6 vols. , ed. Mrs. P. Toynbee, 1 903-1 905) . Walpole is the acknowledged prince of English letter writers. His Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 1760-7772 (4 vols.,ed. G. F. R. Barker, 1894), and Journals of the Reign of George 111,1771-1783 (2 vols., ed. Doran, 2 vols. 1859) are gossipy and Whig in sympathy, but are the records of a keen observer. N. W. Wraxall, Histori- cal and Poslumous Memoirs, 1772-1784 (89) (ed. H. B. Wheatley, 2 vols., 1884); garrulous and amusing. Correspondence of George III with Lord North, 1768-1783 (2 vols., 1867, ed. W. B. Donne) ; excellent for illustrating George Ill's system of personal government. Mme. D'Arblay, Diary (7 vols., 1854, new ed. A. Dobson) ; a graphic but adverse picture of life at the court of George III. The Letters of Junius (2 vols., 1904). The American Revolution. For bibliography see Hunt, 465-466 ; Cambridge Modern History, VII, 780-788. The latter work, chs. V-VII, contains a good brief account of the causes and course of the Revolution. E. Channing, History of the United States (1912), vol. Ill; the best general work on the period. John Fiske, American Revolution (2 vols., 1891) is a very readable, popular treatment. Sir G. O. Trevelyan, The American Revolution (4 vols., published 1899-1912) is a brilliant piece of writing marked by the Whig sympathy for the American cause, which may be used to check the Tory bias of Hunt. For special phases of the subject see : G. L. Beer, Commercial Policy of Great Britain toward the United States (1893) and British Colonial Policy (1907) ; H. E. Egerton, British Colonial Policy (1898) ; A. L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies (1902) ; C. H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution (1902). Military and naval. Fortescue, British Army, III. Clowes, Royal Navy, IV. Mahan, Sea Power, chs. IX-XIV. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 250-254. Robertson, pt. I, nos. XXXIV-XXXVII, pt. II, nos. XIV-XXI. CHAPTER XLIV EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND TO THE EVE OF THE INDUS- TRIAL REVOLUTION Characteristics of the Period. The three most significant features of the century following the Revolution of 1688 were: the develop- ment of Cabinet and party government ; the expansion of England ; and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. Of these, the two former have already been considered in connection with the political narrative. In many respects the period between 1688 and 1784 may be considered as a unit. While the development of the party system was not finally completed until the reform of Parliament gave the people a full share of representation, the Cabinet had, by 1760, taken practically its modern shape, and the advent of the younger Pitt to power, twenty-four years later, marked the end of the efforts of George III to stop its growth. If Great Britain's position as a World Power was not secure until the overthrow of Napoleon, she had, by 1763, driven the French out of Canada and become the dominant power in India, and, within twenty years, the American Revolution and the teachings of Adam Smith had contributed to break up the old colonial system, to discredit its principles, and to prepare the way for a more liberal commercial policy. Still ^ a third factor, making for the new laissez-faire policy, was the Industrial Revolution which introduced machine production and factories, and which was even more momen- tous in its consequences than the great political upheaval in France. The series of inventions by which the transformation was brought about culminated, about 1785, in the application of the steam engine as a motive power. The effect in changing the attitude of the manu- facturer and the merchant toward the traditional trading policy is obvious. With superior methods of production they realized that they could supply better and cheaper goods than any other European country, and that, with unrestricted competition, they could command the markets of the world. Industrial Development previous to the Great Inventions. The interval between the Revolution of 1688 and the era of machinery and steam was not without evidences of industrial progress, iftuch of this was due to the Huguenots, who, fleeing from France, introduced new industries and improved methods. But industries and processes which came into conflict with those already established were bitterly opposed. Furthermore, native workmen manifested stubborn hos- tility to the competition of the refugees and the introduction of labor- 783 784 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND saving devices. Also, there was a growing friction between labor and capital ; for even before the age of machinery and factories, there were evidences of the rise of capitalism. In a few towns, manufac- tures on a large scale had appeared, while, even in the country, capi- talists had begun to supply the domestic workers with materials as well as with looms and stocking frames. The purer form of the domestic system survived longest in Yorkshire, where, as a rule, the spinners and weavers owned their instruments of production, pro- vided their own wool, and sold their cloth to traders in neighboring towns or at periodical markets and fairs. Elsewhere, however, even in the seventeenth century, troubles in the cloth trade indicate that differences were developing between the worker and the capitalist owner. These had gone so far by 1718 that a proclamation was issued against " lawless clubs," a forerunner of the later measures against trade unions. This was followed by an act of Parliament (12 Geo. I, c. 3) against combinations of workmen; but this did not prevent occasional strikes, one of which occurred at Norwich in 1754. The wool manufacturers steadily fought their rivals, the linen manu- facturers, chiefly strong in Ireland, as well as the importers and manufacturers of cotton. The Cotton Industry. Cotton products in the form of calicoes, cambrics, and chintzes were originally brought from India, and became speedily popular because of their lightness and cheapness. It is difficult to say when the manufacture began in England, since the name was originally applied to a certain type of wool fabric. The first unequivocal mention in literature occurs in 1641. Toward the close of the century those interested in the woolen business, having become seriously alarmed, succeeded in arousing great popular opposition, and persons who wore cottons were attacked in the streets. In re- sponse to numerous petitions, a law was passed, in 1 700, prohibiting the importation of these fabrics, while another, in 1721, practically for- bade the use of, for dress or furniture, printed or dyed goods con- taining any cotton. But the public demand proved too strong to be resisted; the law was evaded, and an act of 1736 allowed the manufac- ture of goods, with a weft l of cotton, provided that the warp was of linen yarn. The prohibition of pure cotton fabrics was not removed till 1774. As a matter of fact, the linen warp was essential, since the art of spinning a sufficiently tough cotton thread for the purpose was for a long time unknown. The chief center of the industry was in and about Manchester. This Lancashire district was peculiarly adapted for the industry ; Liverpool furnished a convenient port for the im- portation of raw cotton from India, and, more particularly, from the American Colonies, which soon came to be the chief source of supply, while in the moist climate of the west midlands the threads were less likely to break than in dryer regions. 1 The weft consists of the threads running from side to side, the warp of those running up and down. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 785 The Flying Shuttle and the Spinning Jenny. Although it- re- quired several spinners to keep one weaver supplied, the first of the new inventions was an improvement in the hand loom. Hitherto, the shuttle which carried the weft had to be transferred from one hand of the weaver to the other as it passed through the warp. Not only was the process slow and cumbersome, but, owing to the shortness of the human arm, breadths of cloth wider than three quarters of a yard had to be woven by two persons. This was remedied by a mechanical device, known as the " flying shuttle," patented by John Kay in 1733, by which the shuttle was thrown from side to side along a board. As a result, the inequality between the weavers and the spinners was greater than ever. Kay and others busied themselves with the problem of improving the process of spinning; but no practical re- sults were achieved until James Hargreaves, about 1764, invented the spinning jenny with which eight spindles could be worked in a row. Moreover, the machine was so simple that a child could run it. At his death, in 1778, there are said to have been 20,000 jennies in opera- tion with eighty spindles each. Both Kay and Hargreaves were at- tacked by angry mobs of artisans, who furiously insisted that bread was being snatched from their mouths. Kay died in poverty on the Continent, and Hargreaves got only an inadequate return for his invention. The Water Frame and the Beginning of the Factory System. The spinning jenny was worked by hand. It had scarcely appeared when Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) put into practical operation a spin- ning machine which came to be known as the "water frame," though it was first worked by horse power. Aside from the more effective motive force, it had a further advantage of spinning a harder and firmer thread than Hargreaves' jenny. Arkwright began as a barber's apprentice and later became a hair merchant. During the course of his visits to rural cottages he came to realize the need of improved processes of manufacture. Since he was absolutely without mechanical training, he sought the aid of a clock maker who showed him the model of one Thomas Highe, which he proceeded to appropriate. Obtaining his first patent in 1769, he at once erected a spinning mill, and, in 1775, "patented a series of adaptations for performing on one machine the whole process of yarn manufacture." Unscrupulous in making use of the inventions of others, he was energetic and resource- ful in developing previous processes, as well as in enlisting capital for his enterprises, and left a fortune of 600,000. A forerunner of the modern captain of industry, he was, more than any other single man, the founder of the factory system. The spinning mule of Samuel Crompton (1753-1827), invented 1779, combined the best features of the jenny and the water frame, and, in addition, spun a thread finer and stronger than had hitherto been possible. The art of spin- ning was now far in advance of the art of weaving, but the water loom of Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823) a machine which he patented 786 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in 1 785 restored the balance. Cartwright was a clergyman, and the idea of undertaking the invention was suggested to him by a chance conversation with a group of Manchester gentlemen who were visiting some cotton mills near Matlock. Having no mechanical training himself, he got a cabinet maker and a smith to aid him. Unlike Ark- wright, however, his plans were his own ; he was also unlike Arkwright in that he had no capacity for money making. Another momentous invention of 1785 was that of cylinder printing which multiplied a hundred fold the printing of calico, formerly done by hand. The im- proved processes of spinning and weaving were first employed in the cotton manufacture, and were only slowly adapted in the woolen industry. The Pottery and Iron Industries. The second half of the eigh- teenth century also marks an era in the pottery industry. Chelsea china became famous in the first half of the century, and the manu- facture of earthenware was already started in Staffordshire ; but the finest work was done abroad till Josiah Wedgewood (1730-1795) be- gan to produce his wares. He started as a poor boy in the potteries of Burslem. In 1759, he opened works of his own, and ten years later he established his famous manufacturing village of Etruria. Relying upon the superiority of his product, he only took out one patent in his lifetime. Besides pottery for practical use he produced works of exquisite art, and not only gained the English market, but invaded the Continent, whither he exported five sixths of his wares. The prog- ress of the iron manufacture was for a long time seriously hampered from the fact that charcoal was used in smelting, and there was a great outcry against depleting the forests for this purpose. In 1735, Abram Darby began to use coke. The next stage in iron manufacturing came in 1760, when the Carron works were erected in Stirlingshire under the superintendence of John Roebuck (1718-1794), who intro- duced blast furnaces supplied by pit coal. In less than a quarter of a century the processes of puddling and rolling iron had been put into operation. From the time when pit coal began to be employed the output of iron steadily increased, though it was only after the employ- ment of steam engines to work the blast furnaces that real progress began. Canal Transportation. Improved facilities for transportation, due to the construction of canals, contributed vastly to the increasing industrial development. Canals with locks had long been in use on the Continent ; but it was not till 1761 that the first one was opened in England. It connected the coal mines of the Duke of Bridgewater with Manchester, seven miles distant. While the funds were provided by the Duke, 1 the actual construction was due to the genius of his 1 The story of the Bridgewater Canal is one of the accidents of history. On his return from the grand tour, he became engaged to a famous beauty, the widowed Duchess of Hamilton ; but they quarreled, the engagement was broken, and the Duke went to his Worsley estates and devoted his vast wealth and exhaustless EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 787 steward, James Brindley (1716-1782), a man without any advantages of early education. Some of his engineering feats, such as carrying the canal over a river by an aqueduct thirty-nine feet high, made him seem a magician to his contemporaries. From Manchester he extended the canal to the Mersey, thus uniting by a water route the growing manufacturing center to Liverpool, destined to become the greatest of Atlantic ports. Brindley, before his death, had designed nearly four hundred miles of canal, the Grand Trunk being among the works which he projected but did not live to finish. In 1790, a chain of water routes was completed by which the four great ports of London, Hull, Bristol, and Liverpool were connected, and the same year marked the opening of the canal between the Forth and the Clyde. Before the advent of the railways more than 2600 miles of canals had been con- structed in England alone. In view of the miserable condition of the roads, the effect of the new system of transportation, which decreased the cost of carriage about seventy-five per cent, was incalculable. Markets were extended, and coal, iron, stone, and other heavy mate- rials, could, for the first time, be utilized at considerable distances from the center of supply. The potteries profited greatly ; for, in the case of this brittle ware, safety as well as cheapness had to be consid- ered. James Watt and the Steam Engine. The final stage in the Indus- trial Revolution came with the introduction of the steam engine for running machinery in mills l and factories. Although Hero of Alex- andria is reputed to have devised, in the third century B.C., a steam engine, it was not till the very end of the seventeenth century that the expansion of steam was practically applied. In 1698, Thomas Savery patented a steam pump for raising water from mines. Seven years later, Thomas Newcomen, a blacksmith, put into operation a cheaper and more effective engine. For three quarters of a century steam power was used only for pumping. It was the genius of James Watt (1736-1819) that transformed it into a genuine motive force. Watt was the son of a Scotch shipwright. He became instrument maker to the University of Glasgow, and developed not only great manual dexterity, but unusual scientific attainments and wide culture. With the conscious purpose of improving upon his predecessors, 2 he mastered French, Italian, and German, in order to familiarize himself with the work already done in other countries, and made a careful study of the Newcomen engine. As a result, he developed the old device for pump- ing up and down into an impulse for circular motion. He took out his earliest patent in 1769. First associated with Roebuck in the con- struction of improved steam engines, he joined himself , after Roebuck's failure in 1773, with Matthew Boulton, who had a great manufacturing patience to the canal problem. Had he married and settled down as a man of fashion in London, England might have had to wait for years for her canals. 1 The name "mill" is a curious survival from the days of water power. 2 The old story about the tea kettle is apparently a myth. 7 88 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND works at Soho near Birmingham. He secured his second patent in 1781, but he and Boulton had a long uphill fight in the face of mishaps, opposition of reactionaries and rivals, and infringements on patents. Success finally came, and Watt opened the way for endless possibilities in production and distribution. In 1785, the first steam spinning ma- chine in a cotton factory was set up at Papplewick ; the example was soon followed in industries of all sorts, and the factory system, which was destined within a generation to make England the workshop of the world, had entered upon its modern phase. 1 The Effects of the Factory System. The effects of the Industrial Revolution, 2 for good or ill, were tremendous. One of the most immediate was that it gave the country resources to carry on another war with France which resulted in the overthrow of Napoleon. Then it led to a complete transformation of the condition of laborers. Those who had hitherto lived in the country, spinning and weaving in their own cottages and generally cultivating a little farm at the same time, were turned into factory hands. Another result was the shifting of the chief area of population from the south and east to the midlands and north. Bare moorlands, dotted with small villages, began to swarm with life, crowded towns sprang up, and the air was blackened with the smoke from countless chimneys. The moneyed classes had formerly been the landowners, the merchants, and the financiers ; now a new class emerged the capitalist manufacturer destined to at- tain great social and political influence. Some were cultivated men like Boulton and Wedgewood; others were grinding taskmasters. Much good came from multiplying the conveniences of life ; moreover, the cheapening of processes of production stimulated consumption, and, in the long run, made for increased employment; but at first the displacement from old employments resulted in bitter suffering. Also, the overcrowding of towns with no sanitary provisions for in- creased numbers, as well as exacting supervision in the factories, was grievous to operatives brought up in fresh country air, who, even if they worked long and hard, had at least been their own masters. In one sense, the riots provoked by the new inventions were blind and unreasoning ; in another, they were justified ; for they were provoked by real misery. The middle classes generally favored the laborers, partly from natural conservatism and partly for fear of increased poor rates ; but the capitalists had the balance of strength on their side in the struggle against the forces of discontent. There were no laws to hinder them from employing child labor and no effective regu- 1 William Murdock, who was associated with Watt and Boulton, in 1784 set up the first traction engine in England and one of the first in Europe. In 1798, he introduced gas lighting at Soho, sharing with Lebon the honor of first utilizing this form of illumination. 2 The new industrial system was greatly fostered by two developments which preceded it the expansion of commerce, resulting to a large degree from the great wars, which gave Great Britain access to world markets, and to the organi- zation of credit and capital which began with the foundation of the Bank of England. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 789 lations against lowering wages, while increasingly strict measures were passed against combinations of workmen. The domination of capital and the movements to resist it antedate the factory system ; but the problem now became more acute. The cessation of trade and labor regulation, of protection and special privileges, made for expansion of business, and developed a robust self-reliance, but, with the absolute and uncontrolled power which the great masters of industry enjoyed under the regime of laissez-faire which came to prevail for half a cen- tury and more, the strong throve and the weak were crowded to the wall. Maritime Enterprise. During the eighteenth century, English seamen were sailing in distant waters and exploring far-off lands. Many of them were chiefly bent on seizing the treasure and crippling the resources of Britain's enemies, some even were buccaneers; but they contributed much to foster the colonial and commercial suprem- acy of their country by extending her oversea possessions and open- ing new markets. In the early part of the period, the West Indies ajid the African coast were still terrorized by the pirates who made war on British and foreign merchantmen alike. One of those sent out to suppress these sea rovers was the notorious Captain Kidd, who turned buccaneer himself, and, after five years of nefarious activity, was cap- tured and hanged in 1701. In 1722, Roberts, the infamous Madagas- car pirate, was disposed of by Captain Ogle of the Royal Navy. The career of William Dampier (1652-1715), who, in 1708, rescued from Juan Fernandez the sailor Alexander Selkirk whose narrative formed the basis of Robinson Crusoe had an adventurous career directly the opposite of Kidd's. Beginning as a freebooter, he later entered the Government service and published valuable records of his travels and observations on the natural features of the places he visited. But the greatest explorer of the century was Captain James Cook (1728-1779), who finished " the main track of ocean discovery " and prepared the way for British dominion in Australia and New Zealand. The New Agricultural Revolution. There was, during the eight- eenth century, a revolution in agriculture as well as in industry. While it was greatly stimulated by the factory system, which created a growing demand for food for the operatives, the transformation in farming methods began before the new industrial organization was fairly established. The enclosures made during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had left five sixths of the land untouched. The movement which was now resumed had an object different from the previous one. Instead of turning the common lands and the small holdings into sheep pasture, the guiding motive was to redistribute and consolidate the scattered strips of arable land with a view to effecting improvements in tillage, which were impossible while the old system of common cultivation lasted. Contrary to the older practice, when the villeins were simply dispossessed, the work was authorized by statute 790 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND or by " deed of mutual agreement," though almost in variably the initia- tive came from the landowners and manorial lords, and the small cultivators seldom dared to refuse. The defects of the old system of intermingled strips, common cultivation, and common pasture were many and serious. An enterprising farmer was seriously handicapped, because he could do nothing without the consent and cooperation of those associated with him, who might be incompetent and backward. Again, much time was consumed in going from one acre strip to another, and much land was wasted by footpaths, as well as by the balks or stretches of unplowed land which separated the various holdings. Then the absence of permanent walls, fences, or hedges led to encroach- ment, to disputes, and consequent litigation. Finally, the herding of cattle, belonging to all sorts of men, on the common pastures was a fruitful source of contagion. The new system was attended with many inestimable advantages ; not only were the scattered strips con- solidated and the common pastures partitioned, but much uncultivated land was enclosed, waste was reclaimed, and more scientific farming was introduced. Pioneers in the Movement. The little villages with large stretches of unused acres ceased to be self-sufficing, and, aided by improved roads and canals and more productive methods, began to seek more distant markets ; but only by the abandonment of the old routine was it possible to meet the demands of the growing industrial population. The chief pioneers of improvement were Jethro Tull, Lord Townshend, Robert Bakewell, and the famous traveler and agricultural expert, Arthur Young. Jethro Tull (1674-1740), who has been called " the greatest individual improver of the century," was more significant for the principles he established than for his own practical achievements. More effectively than any one before him, he demonstrated the value of clover and turnips as a substitute for fallow. The increase of the turnip crop, he argued, made it possible to keep more stock ; this meant more fertilizer for the soil, which, thus enriched, would, in turn, yield more crops for man and beast. Tull's more original contribu- tions were the drill for planting seed, which prevented the waste from sowing broadcast, and the introduction of horse hoeing, which facili- tated the work of keeping turnips and other growing crops free from weeds. His experiments were only carried to practical success by such great landowners as Lord Townshend, in this period, and Coke of Holkam, chiefly in the next. Townshend (1676-1738), after his retire- ment from politics in 1730, withdrew to his estate at Rainham in Norfolk, where he introduced rotation of crops, cultivated turnips, and increased his yield by seed drilling, horse hoeing, and the revived practice of marling. The great innovator in stock breeding was Robert Bakewell (1725-1795) of Dishley in Leicestershire. Up to his time sheep had been raised mainly for wool, and cattle for draught purposes and milking. Thin sheep produced the finest wool, while long-legged, raw-boned cattle were best for drawing heavy burdens. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 791 To meet the growing demand for food, Bakewell set himself to breed fat types that would yield more mutton and beef. His efforts were crowned with amazing success, though more especially in the case of sheep. As a result of the impulse which he fostered, the average size more than doubled. 1 Results of the Agricultural Revolution. The results, however, were not effected without grave disturbances of the old rural order. In spite of nominal compensation, the small freeholders almost invaria- bly lost by the redistribution. Indeed, from lack of capital to intro- duce the improvements required under the new system, a great major- ity of them, and of the lesser tenants as well, were extinguished. Much of the land was bought up by the great landlords or by wealthy mer- chants and manufacturers, who either let it to large farmers on long leases or cultivated it themselves. Between 1740 and 1788 it is esti- mated that between 40,000 and 50,000 farms were absorbed by the great proprietors. 2 While a greater portion of this land was devoted to tillage, there were certain districts where cattle raising prepon- derated. Coke, when he was complimented on the building of his new castle at Holkam, replied : " It is a sad thing to be alone in the country in which one dwells ; I look about me and see no other house than mine. I am the ogre of the legend and have eaten all my neigh- bors." Some of the dispossessed yeomanry sank to the rank of laborers, others flocked to the growing industrial centers, while a few were fortunate enough to rise to the position of capitalist tenant farmers. The typical member of this new class was often a very grand person indeed. He kept great hospitality; he entertained his guests with French or Portuguese wines; his daughter played the piano and dressed in imitation of the nobility. In short, he became more prosperous than the old squire, and was as much above the freeholder as the man- ufacturer was above the artisan. The agricultural transformation, though not accomplished without petitions and even riots, was inevi- table. The domestic system with its adjunct farming was on the road to extinction when the rise of the factories precipitated it. Science and Scholarship. While no discoveries in pure science were made during this period comparable to Newton's, or to those which the future had in store, the eighteenth century was a period of 1 At the Smithfield market in London the average weight of sheep and beeves in 1710 was 28 and 370 Ib. ; in 1795 it had increased to 80 and 800 respectively. 2 As the century advanced enclosures multiplied amazingly, as may be gathered from the following table : Number of acts Acres inclosed Anne 2 i ,439 George I 16 17,660 George II 226 318,778 Under George III, from 1760 to 1796, the number of acres enclosed had swelled to 2,804,197. 792 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND growing enlightenment, of diffusion of knowledge, and of patient research as well. John Ray (1627-1705), who worked at the classi- fication of plants and insects, is sometimes described as " the father of modern zoology." John Woodward (1625-1728) did pioneer work in recognizing the existence of various strata in the earth's crust, and is recognized as one of the founders of experimental plant physiology. Edmund Halley (1656-1742) is notable for making the first calcula- tion of the orbit of a comet, and for originating the sciences of life statistics and physical geography. Joseph Black (1728-1799), whose popular lectures at Edinburgh on chemistry were famous, laid the foundations of quantitative analysis and originated the theory of specific heat, while his investigations in latent heat gave the first impulse to Watt's improvement of the steam engine. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) discovered oxygen in 1774, a discovery which through the work of Lavoisier in France led to a complete reconstruction of chemi- cal science. Benjamin Franklin, in 1754, sent to England an account of his famous experiment with the kite and key which " established the identity of thunder and lightning with the phenomena of elec- tricity," and important work was done by contemporary Englishmen in the subject destined to be so big with possibilities. 1 Little progress was made, especially during the time of the first two Georges, either in medicine or surgery. Among the few signs of advance was the introduction of inoculation, which became a general practice about 1740. In spite of its dangers, it contributed much to stay the scourge of smallpox before the days of vaccination. Another significant step was the breaking down of the monopoly of the Barber-Surgeons by independent teaching in anatomy and surgery. Richard Bentley (1662-1742) is generally regarded as the greatest of England's classical scholars. His most famous achievement was to show that the Epistles of Phalaris were the forgery of a later age. More im- portant than his conclusion is his method, which marked an epoch in the science of critical investigation. He also showed that the so-called ^Esop's Fables were not the work of their reputed author, but an adapta- tion by a fourteenth-century Byzantine from those of an earlier date. The second half of the century witnessed the rise of a new and impor- tant school of historians the popular and literary. Foremost among them was the celebrated philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), whose History of England (1754-1761), though manifestly biased against the Puritans, and though superseded, to a large degree, by the work of investigators since his time, is distinctive for its style and from the fact that it fashioned the views of the rank and file of readers for a century. But the greatest of all English historians was Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, notwithstanding its unsympathetic treatment of Christianity and its 1 The reputed inventor of the term "electricity" was William Gilbert (154- 1603), physician to Queen Elizabeth and author of the first great physical work in the English language, a work in which he showed that the earth was a magnet. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 793 ponderous style with monotonously recurring periods, remains among the world's classics. 1 Religion and Theology. While not lacking in acrimonious con- troversies, the greater part of the century was marked by an absence of religious enthusiasm, by a tolerant, rational, and materialistic spirit. It was an age of common sense in thought and conduct. The mass of the rural clergy were still poor and often ignorant. Among those with better incomes the sporting parson, keen on hunting and hard drinking, was becoming a familiar figure, while many of the incum- bents of London parishes were immersed in society and politics. Even the better sort preached cold, unimpassioned sermons, inculcat- ing industry and moderation on prudential grounds, advocating charity and benevolence, to be sure, but shunning any approach to mysticism and asceticism. The sacrifice of the principle of Divine Right, the admission of latitudinarians to episcopal office, and the suppression of Convocation all tended to shake the prestige of the old orthodox High Church party. Another evidence of religious apathy was the decline of Nonconformity, which began to be remarked about the beginning of the second quarter of the century. A characteristic feature of the age was the rise of a school of English Deists, who, while believing in a personal God, rejected most of the distinctive features of the Christian religion, such as revelation and the authority of the Church. 2 John Toland (1670-1722), one of the best known, was the inventor of the term " pantheism." Although provocative of much controversy, they had no great or enduring effect on English religious thought. On the other hand, they exercised a strong influence on the French Encyclopedists and contributed to the rise of Biblical criticism in Germany. Philosophical Speculation. The third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671- 1713), whom his opponents have classed among the Deists, led a reaction against the ethical doctrines of his former master Locke. From his study of the ancients he came to the conclusion that the moral sense was innate and that morality was not something imposed by external authority. 3 George Berkeley (1685-1753), Bishop of Cloyne, who made war on the Deists, but more especially on mate- rialism, was a more profound thinker than Locke. He rejected the 1 An important step in the progress of art, learning, and science was the founding, in 1753, of the British Museum, one of the world's great libraries. It consisted of three great collections the Cottonian, formed by Sir Robert Cotton in the reign of Charles I and purchased by the Crown in the reign of Anne; the Sloane, as- sembled by the physician Sir Hans Sloane ; and the Harleian, brought together by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. The two latter were secured about this time for a sum far below their real value. They were housed in Montague House, the resi- dence of the last Duke, who had died in 1749. The money for its purchase was raised by lotteries authorized by Parliament. 2 Their earliest English forerunner was Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648). 3 Francis Hutchinson (1694-1746), one of his supporters, is the reputed orig- inator of the phrase: "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," which was adopted by Jeremy Bentham and became the watchword of the Utilitarians. 794 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND doctrine of the reality of matter and taught that time and space have no existence except in the mind. In one sense his teaching led to skep- ticism ; in another, by making mind the ultimate reality, he was the founder of modern idealism. The most acute thinker of the century, however, was David Hume, whose History has already been noticed. In 1 739-1 740 he published his Treatise of the Human Understanding, with the design of introducing the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects. Most of his subsequent philosophical writings are developments of this early work. While his attacks on the prevailing systems of metaphysics and natural religion and his attempted reduc- tion of all reasoning to a product of experience were destructive or skeptical, he prepared the way for constructive work in many fields. By overthrowing the prevailing fallacy of the " original contract," he broke ground for a truly historical study of institutions. In ethics he was the intellectual father of Bentham and the Utilitarians, and by his writings on political economy he profoundly influenced Adam Smith. He was the forerunner of the associationist psychology l ; he was the pioneer of modern empiricists, 2 and, both through his fol- lowers and his opponents, has left an enduring impress on all metaphys- ics since his time. Though he owed much to Locke and Berkeley, he repaid the debt with usury. Among the other thinkers of the century should be mentioned Richard Price (1723-1791), the author of Pitt's Sinking Fund, 3 whose system of ethics anticipated that of Kant, as Hume anticipated the epoch-making German in some of his metaphys- ical views. The Wesleyan Methodists. Meantime, earnest men had come to realize that a revival of spiritual life could not be brought about by the prudential ethics and rational orthodoxy inculcated by the divines of the period, that it was essential to make an appeal to the common people by means of the supernatural and the spiritual, by fervid, evangelical exhortation. This was achieved through the efforts of three Oxford men John Wesley (1703-1791), Charles (1707-1788), his brother, and George Whitefield (1714-1770) who brought about a tremendous revival, known as Wesleyanism or Methodism, which ranks as one of the great movements of the century. Not only did it create a great sect, one of the greatest in the present English-speaking world, but it left an enduring influence on the Church of England, and modified profoundly the social and political consequences of the Indus- trial Revolution and the upheaval in France. The Wesleys were the sons of a rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire. In 1729 they joined a little band of students in an organization for mutual improvement, nicknamed the " Methodists." John Wesley was the real organizer of the subsequent movement, Charles was most famous for his hymns, 1 The theory which regards the association of ideas as the fundamental laws of mental action and development. 2 One who bases all knowledge on direct experience and observation rather than on theory. 3 See below, p. 817. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 795 many of which are in general use to-day ; while Whitefield was the eloquent popular preacher. The truly vital moment came in 1739, when John Wesley was " converted," when he first felt that Christ had taken away his sin. Then followed the wonderful course of field preaching with appeals to men and women to seek salvation by throw- ing themselves upon the mercy of the Savior. Unhappily, a difference grew up between John Wesley and Whitefield over the question of free grace, but although, in 1749, the two men became hopelessly estranged, each continued to pursue in his own way the work they had begun in common. John Wesley was, curiously enough, a High Churchman, who always regarded himself and his Society as members of the Estab- lishment. It was only when urged by others that he adopted such innovations as lay preachers. Although he took to field preaching, partly because most of the Anglican clergymen refused him the use of their pulpits and partly because no ordinary church would hold the enormous crowds who flocked to hear him, he always insisted that such meetings should not be held during the regular hours of church ser- vices and that the sacrament should not be administered by ministers not ordained according to the forms of the Church of England. Four years after his death these restrictions ceased to be observed, and, in 1795, the Wesleyans or Methodists became an independent sect. 1 There is much to criticize about Wesley and his followers they were often self-righteous, extravagant, and superstitious but they ac- complished a great mission. They sought out the lowly and the vicious and " revealed to them a new heaven and a new earth " ; they restored their self-respect and kindled hope in their bosoms by assurance of forgiveness and salvation for all who repented of their sins. They diverted into channels of religious enthusiasm much of the discontent engendered by the suffering caused by the industrial changes and stimulated by the French Revolution. They contributed to awaken the Church from its torpor ; and the new religious enthusiasm which they aroused led many to join the old Nonconformist bodies which took a fresh start toward the end of the century. Furthermore, they quickened the development of Sunday schools, and, directly or indi- rectly, the philanthropic and humanitarian movements which led to prison reform and the abolition of the slave trade, and which were big with results in coming generations. Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations. In 1776 Adam Smith (1723-1790) published his Wealth of Nations, which marked an epoch in political economy. Even before the book appeared, advanced thinkers had attacked the most cherished of the mercantile theories, arguing that money was not wealth, but only a measure of value ; that it was a fallacious principle to hamper trade by prohibiting the export 1 Already, in 1784, Wesley, under pressure of necessity, had ordained two pres- byters Coke and Asbury as "superintendents" to ordain ministers and to perform other episcopal functions in the United States, thus laying the foundation of the American Methodist Episcopal Church. 796 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of specie by fixing legal rates of interest, and by forcing foreign mer- chants to spend the proceeds of their sales in buying native goods. Already, too, the American Colonies had repudiated the exclusive trade policy of the Mother Country, and manufacturers had begun to strive against the old restrictions which shackled competition in the produc- tion and distribution of wares. Moreover, in view of the additional fact that Hume and Tucker, as well as the French minister Turgot, furnished Smith with a goodly stock of ideas, his admirers have gone too far in hailing him as the creator of political economy. Neverthe- less, his work is of incalculable significance in first presenting in a luminous, orderly, and convincing form, views and tendencies that were just beginning to take shape. The gist of his argument, which, within a generation, came to meet with general acceptance, was: that economics must be divorced from politics ; that national power, resting on the balance of trade and the accumulation of specie, was distinct from the well-being of the people; that, under the mercan- tilist system, the interests of consumers and, indeed, of a great mass of producers, were sacrificed to those of a small privileged group ; that the individual should be left free to pursue gain in his own way ; and that the greater the sum total of individuals who prospered, the greater would be the national wealth. He showed, too, that, in international trade, every nation must buy as well as sell, and that, in time of peace, such reciprocal trading was a benefit to all parties concerned. Some of his views and assumptions were erroneous ; but, in the main, his teachings were adapted to the stage of development at which Great Britain had arrived. Prose Writers of the Age of Anne. Addison and Steele. Classi- cism, or pseudo-classicism, dominated English literature during the greater part of the century. Many eminent writers flourished partic- ularly during the reign of Anne, which is sometimes called the " Augus- tan Age " of English literature. While it was a period of decided limitations, there was perfection within certain limits. In contrast to the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, there was little sweep of imagina- tion, little display of ornate diction, or quaint and obscure learning. Conventions were carefully observed and clearness and finish were sought rather than originality. Much of the writing reflected the artificiality of existing society and was often social or political in its aim. In prose, the miscellaneous or social essay was highly perfected and the novel took its rise. The Weekly Memorial, 1689, containing literary reviews and book notices, and Defoe's Review, 1704, were the fore- runners of the more famous Tatler, 1709, and Spectator, 1711. The Taller aimed to combine " morality with wit," and to recover its readers out of " that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age is fallen." Richard Steele (1672-1729), the founder, was soon joined by Joseph Addison (1672-1719). First in the Tatler, then in the Spectator, as well as in the later but inferior Guardian, the two accomplished a notable work. By their comments on current events 797 they have left a valuable record of the political and social conditions of their time ; by their exhortations and by their example they made the coarseness and cynicism of the Restoration drama unfashionable ; by gentle irony and by precept they inculcated more gracious standards in the art of living ; by their reviews of British and foreign books they fostered knowledge and love of literature ; and, finally, by the easy elegance of their style they furnished a model which profoundly affected the development of English prose writing. Addison, the creator of the immortal Sir Roger de Coverley, though he achieved his lasting fame as an essayist, also wrote verses; produced Cato, a tragedy which had a great vogue in his day; and was active as a Whig pamphleteer. Furthermore, he sat in Parliament, held office under the Government, and, though somewhat reserved, was, by his grace and serenity of manner, a popular figure in society. " Dick " Steele was his schoolfellow, both at Charterhouse and at Oxford, and, likewise, supported the Whig party in Parliament and in his writings. In contrast to Addison's placid, prosperous existence, Steele led a chequered career, frequently involved in financial and other difficulties ; but he was as lovable as he was irresponsible, and, in spite of his irregularities of conduct, remained through life a genial apostle of decorum, elegance, and good taste. He generously recog- nized the superior popularity of his collaborator and prided himself on starting him as an essayist, declaring that the world owed Addison to Steele. Unhappily, toward the end of Addison's life the two friends got into a quarrel that was never healed. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). The most striking literary figure, however, of the period of Anne and the early Georges was Jonathan Swift. Born in Dublin of English stock, he went, after a reckless career at Trinity College, to act as the secretary of Sir William Temple in England. Subsequently, he took holy orders, becoming Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 1713. His life was a series of disappoint- ments, which embittered a nature, not without noble, generous qualities, though curiously crossed with traits of meanness, of bullying, and self- seeking. During his later life he was afflicted by a mental disorder, evidences of which had manifested themselves even earlier, and which help to explain his peculiarities. Most of his writings were called forth by one or another current problem : with one exception they appeared anonymously ; and Gulliver's Travels was the only one for which he received any pay. The Battle of the Books was inspired by the famous Bentley controversy regarding the Letters of Phalaris, a controversy in which Sir William Temple was engaged. In the same year appeared the Tale of a Tub, written seven years earlier, a remarkable satire on the theological conflicts between the Romanists, the Anglicans, and the Dissenters. Swift also contributed several notable party pamphlets first on the Whig and then on the Tory side, his Conduct of the Allies ranking as his greatest achievement in this field. His mixed nature is seen in his break with the Whigs about 1 7 10. 798 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND It was partly due to lack of preferment; but, also, he resented the fact that Queen Anne's Bounty was not extended to the Irish clergy and that the Whigs were inclined to favor the Dissenters, whereas, he wanted to maintain the integrity of the Church of England, not so much on spiritual grounds, but as a political bulwark against religious extremists. Much of his political satire, violent as it is, was inspired by hatred of sham, injustice, and oppression, rather than by party bias. His attitude toward the Irish in the case of Wood's Halfpence best illustrates his peculiar disposition. He always professed great con- tempt for the people and the country, and stayed away as much as he could; but a feeling that they were being treated unfairly impelled him to write the Drapier Letters, which made him a popular hero among those for whom he had so little regard. His pleasantest work was his Journal to Stella, a daily account of his doings during the brief period that he was a foremost figure in London society and politics, written to Esther Johnson, whom he is supposed to have secretly married. Gulliver's Travels, on account of its strange and diverting adventures, has always been a favorite children's book, though, curi- ously enough, it is fundamentally a scathing satire on the weaknesses, follies, and vices of mankind, with particular reference to Swift's own day. For biting humor and unadorned simplicity and clearness often veiling, however, a most subtle innuendo his style has never been equaled. Coarse but virile, it ranges from the most comical grotesqueness to the sternest tragedy. The Age of Dr. Johnson. New characteristics are manifest in the early Georgian period. It marks the beginning of the Grub Street author, 1 who had to fight poverty and lived in a literary Bohemia. The era of literary patronage had practically passed and men of letters had to rely more and more on their own efforts. It has been argued that the Grub Street tradition has been exaggerated, and that much of the suffering was due to the faults and peculiarities of individuals themselves ; but the lot of struggling authors was hard enough in all conscience. Another distinctive feature of this period was the rise of the modern novel. The age, too, was stamped by the literary domina- tion of Dr. Johnson, though, all-powerful as he was, he strove in vain to stem the tide of a growing romantic revolt against the prevailing classic traditions. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the son of a Lichfield bookseller. He was educated at Oxford, spent a few years as a provincial journalist and schoolmaster, and, in 1737, went to London. He had a long, hard fight to attain recognition and financial independence; but the experiences which he underwent taught him pity for the struggling members of his craft. His famous Dictionary, 1755, the fruit of seven years of toil, marked the turn in his fortunes. Undoubtedly the best of his many works is his Lives of Poets, which appeared in ten volumes between 1779 and 1781. Meanwhile, in 1 So-called from a poor street where many of the hack writers lived. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 799 1763, he made the acquaintance of James Boswell, who later immor- talized him in the most delightful biography in the English language. It is a mine of quotable sayings, and, moreover, since nothing was too minute for his biographer to record, Johnson is made to stand out be- fore us in the midst of his circle as no'man in the past. He was a unique personality. A talker of unusual gifts, though somewhat ponderous and domineering, he shone preeminently at the Literary Club, founded, in 1764, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and frequented by Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, and Gibbon. As a writer, Johnson was a critic rather than an originator, with a style that is overelaborate, heavy, and particu- larly in his early days wordy, though always clear and correct. In spite of strong prejudices, he was generally sane in his judgments, an enemy to all shams, and one who set high moral standards in writing and conduct. Altogether, he was a man greater than what he wrote. Defoe and the Rise of the Novel. The novel, the rise of which dates from this period, is as dominating in modern English literature as was the drama in the Elizabethan and early Jacobean ages. The name is derived from novella, the Italian word for a short prose story. The more realistic descend from the Spanish picaresque l tales which re- late the adventures of roving scapegraces, selected as heroes. On the other hand, the knightly epic of the Middle Ages prepared the way for the later novel of romance. After Bunyan, Daniel Defoe (1661-1731) was the pioneer among modern realistic novelists. While he made no use of religious allegory and chose to picture sordid phases of life with the coarsest frankness, the edifying and moral endings of his books show that, like the author of Pilgrim's Progress, he aimed at reaching the Dissenters of the lower and middle classes. He spent the greater part of his life as a journalist and pamphleteer and was nearly sixty before he produced his first famous work of fiction, Robinson Crusoe, 1719, which has been a joy to succeeding generations of youth. In 1722 appeared the Journal of the Plague Year, a fictitious account of the visitation of 1666 put in the mouth of a pretended eye-witness. In his novels, of which Moll Flanders and Colonel Jacque are the best known, the incident is the main feature, and there is little direct attempt at characterization. Defoe was without imitators in his own life- time. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), a printer, who produced Pamela, 1730, Clarissa Harlowe, 1748, and Sir Charles Grandison, 1753, discarded adventure to a large degree. In his novels, told in the form of letters, love appears as the main theme, there is consider- able attempt at psychological analysis of character, and contemporary life is minutely pictured. Richardson was the first of the sentimental- ists and very didactic as well, aiming in his writing to inculcate virtue and correctness of behavior. Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. The most delightful novelist of the century, unquestionably, was Henry Fielding (1707-1754). 1 From picaro, meaning literally "rogue." 8oo A HISTORY OF ENGLAND A man of good family, he went to Eton, studied law at Leyden, and served as a London police magistrate, thus seeing many aspects of life. He began his literary career as a writer of plays. His first novel, Joseph Andrews, 1742, was a parody on Pamela, the smug sentimental- ism of which aroused his disgust, but, instead of telling his story in the form of letters, he reverted to Defoe's novel of incident, and devel- oped his subject into a vivid picture of life of contemporary England, of its innkeepers, justices, parsons, its people of fashion, and their footmen and ladies' maids. Tom Jones, 1749, and Amelia, 1757, while primarily an elaboration of the same general type, have the added element of more involved plots. Fielding was intensely realis- tic. " I have writ little more than I have seen," he tells us : his charac- ters and incidents are drawn from life, " and not intended to exceed it." His humor is broad ; he is never subtle or analytic ; he rails at pretense and selfishness, endowing some of his characters with a plentiful supply of these qualities; but by nature he was a whole- some optimist, without a touch of sourness or moroseness. Not the least charming parts of his work are the pages where he stops the flow of his narrative to tell us his view of things in general, or where he airs his learning through the mouth of one of his characters, usually an indigent scholar. Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), whose best-known books are Roderick Random, 1748, Peregrine Pickle, 1751, and Hum- phrey Clinker, 1771, is another novelist of the picaresque type, who, from his experience as a ship's surgeon, adds to our knowledge of the life of the period by his pictures of seafaring people and conditions on shipboard. He had an original and powerful gift for character draw- ing ; but his work is marred by coarseness and his savageness in satire. Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) was a parson of a very unclerical sort. In 1766 he produced Tristam Shandy, which he wrote " with no clear design of what it was to turn out ; only a design of shocking people and amusing myself." Two volumes of his Sentimental Journey appeared in 1768. His work is marked not only by the absence of plot, but by a conscious disregard of it ; his humor is subtle, allusive, and insidious. He was a fantastic sentimentalist who pictured life, not as it actually existed, but for the sake of the moods it aroused in him. His real achievement was the creation of such a lovable, whim- sical character as Uncle Toby, one of the immortals of literature. Goldsmith, Fanny Burney, and Horace Walpole. Among the notable single novels of this period is the Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), which Dr. Johnson sold for him in 1766, thus saving him from a debtor's prison. The peculiar charm in this work is due to the sweet, unworldly figure of Dr. Prunrose, to its bits of exquisite nature description and to its pervading sentimentalism, which vaguely foreshadows the later romantic prose. Fanny Burney, or Madame D'Arblay (1752-1840), continued the realistic tradition, notably in Evelina. Like Richardson, she wrote with a moral aim ; but her work is chiefly interesting for the light which it throws on the EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 801 fashionable London life of the period. Horace Walpole (1717-1797), fourth Earl of Orford, famous as a collector, as a virtuoso in art, as the author of spirited memoirs, and as the most fascinating letter writer in the English language, led a return to far-off, unreal things, to medieval romance, in his Castle of Otranto, 1764. This gave the impulse to a type of " Gothic " romance, many of which appeared during the half century following. Philip, Earl of Chesterfield (1694- 1773), in his Letters to His Son, once so widely read, represents the hollow, superficial standards and worldly wisdom characteristic of the men of rank of his day. The Poetry of Pope. The unquestioned leader among the poets of the days of Anne and the first two Georges was Alexander Pope (1688-1744), a man who attained perfection in a particular form of art by virtue of his very limitations. As a Roman Catholic he was cut off from the public service, and by deformity and weak health from various other forms of activity. He took up the heroic couplet of Dryden and gave to it an exquisite finish that surpassed even that of his master. He showed the first real taste of his quality in the Rape of the Lock, 1712. His translation of Homer, which occupied him from 1715 to 1725, brought him between 8000 and 10,000, the highest price ever obtained for a piece of literary work up to that time. His Dunciad, or rhymed essay on dullness, which appeared in successive parts, was a venomous attack on his literary enemies, far inferior to the satire of Dryden. The oft-quoted Essay on Man, a subject sug- gested to him by Bolingbroke, was only a part of a contemplated series of poems intended to be a comprehensive survey of human nature. Toward the close of his life he was occupied with a group of transla- tions from Horace, which rank as his most finished products. Not only was he unexcelled as a deft craftsman in versification, but he voiced the spirit of the age, its love of polished satire, its proneness for moral reflections, and its regard for external elegancies and artificial social conventions, together with its lack of imagination and imperfect appreciation of nature. His mean and spiteful nature was due partly, no doubt, to his physical infirmities. The Signs of the Romantic Revolt. Although some excellent poems appeared l during the interval between the passing of Pope and the wonderful revival which began toward the close of the century, these two generations can scarcely be called a poetic age. The most signif- icant fact was the growth of a revolt against the reigning classicism against the heroic couplet of Dryden and Pope, and against the tendency to deal with man chiefly in his conventional social environ- ment. There was an effort to sound the deeper springs of the human 1 Among the minor poets were hymn writers who have made a profound appeal to successive generations of worshipers. Isaac Watts (1674-1748) and Charles Wesley both wrote numbers of famous hymns, though it is doubtful if any single hymn of either of them attained a higher degree of popularity than the Rock of Ages of Augustus Toplady (1740-1778). 802 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND soul, to reawaken reverence for the past, and an enthusiasm for the beauties of nature. The Seasons of James Thomson (1700-1748) is a manifestation of the new tendency, both in the subject which he chose and the blank verse in which he wrote it. 1 Then the Night Thoughts of Edward Young (1683-1765) is marked by an introspective gloom, a communing of man with his own heart, quite foreign to the school of Pope. Thomas Gray (1716-1771) was noted for his wide learning, and, in spite of his sad, secluded life, was a man of varied interests, active as a letter writer and diarist. He also had an enthusiasm for natural scenery and Gothic architecture ; yet, for all his romantic aspirations, he never wholly freed himself from the fetters of the times in which he lived. However, his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is one of the most perfect poems in the English language. A curious evidence of the reviving interest in the past was James Macpherson's publication of two poems, Fingal and Temora, in 1762 and 1763, as the alleged work of an ancient Gaelic poet Ossian. They were denounced as forgeries by Dr. Johnson and others; but they were really based, though how far is uncertain, on genuine legends. More remarkable, though less regarded at the time, were the literary forgeries of the precocious poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), who, as a boy of twelve, attained access to the medieval charters of St. Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol, and began to fabricate verses, and other pieces, which he tried to pass off as genuine works of antiquity. Unable to obtain recognition, he was reduced to despair and poverty, and poisoned himself in London when only eighteen. A work which had the profoundest effect in reviving an interest in old English poetry, and which inspired the leaders of the dawning romantic movement, 2 was the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published by Bishop Percy in 1765. Drama and Music. Though many of the so-called " Restoration " dramatists were writing at the beginning of the century, they were survivals of a past age. In the reign of Anne the theater began to give way to opera. This was due partly to the fashionable craving for novelty, partly to a real reaction of morals and taste, and partly to the activity of the Government in suppressing as " licentious," plays of a dangerous political complexion. In 1 73 7 a Play House Bill was passed, prohibiting the production of plays without a license from the Lord Chancellor, and providing that all unlicensed actors should be classed as " rogues and vagabonds." For a time, the Italian opera had a great vogue. To be sure Colley Gibber (1671-1757) had considerable suc- cess, both as a playwright and as an actor, but the stage "only came to its own again when David Garrick (1717-1779) began his won- derful career with the revival of Shakespeare in 1741. In 1774 1 Among other poems he was also the author of the famous Rule Britannia. 2 Goldsmith, though he wrote some charming verses, including the Traveller, 1764, and the Deserted Village, 1770, was not primarily a poet, and apparently was uninfluenced by the revolt. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 803 Mrs. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) was the first of the famous Kemble family of actors to achieve recognition. About this time, began to appear those comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan, which have continued to be a source of delight ever since. Goldsmith's Good-natured Man was produced in 1768, his She stoops to Conquer in 1773, while Sheridan's Rivals, School for Scandal, and the Critic date from 1775, 1777, and 1779, respectively. Meantime, the oratorio had gained an enduring hold on the English public. This was due to the genius of Handel (1685-1759), who, in 1712, took up his permanent residence in the country. At the age of fifty-four, after three succes- sive failures as an opera manager, and after he had written no less than forty-two operas, he turned to oratorio a form of composition in which he had made two ventures before he came to England. While he made no advance over his predecessors on the instrumental side, he developed choral music to a point which has never been excelled. From the appearance of Saul, in 1739, his success was permanent and lasting. Among his most famous productions are the Messiah (1741), Judas Maccabeus (1747), and Joshua (1748). "The Golden Age " of English Painting. In painting there was, from the Revolution to the middle of the eighteenth century, an in- terval of darkness destined to be followed by a glorious dawn. The official portrait painters were mediocre foreigners and natives of even less talent. Kneller (1646-1743), who came to England in 1675, sup- planted Lely, and for forty years was so deluged with commissions that ordinarily he painted only the head and hands of a portrait, leaving the rest to be filled in by his assistants. The Dilettanti Society, 1734, and the Society of Arts, 1753, did much for the encour- agement of painting, particularly by instituting competitive prizes and by lending their rooms for exhibitions. Meanwhile, in the painter and engraver William Hogarth (1697-1764) an artist of unique genius had arisen. Knowing his London as few have known it before or since, he portrayed its comedy and its tragedy with a rare gift of pictorial satire and a strong didactic sense. His chief weakness was as a colorist and his absence of feeling for beauty of form. Some of his pieces were simply engraved, others were engraved first and then painted. His first print, The Taste of the Town, appeared in 1724. Among his best-known works are : the Harlot's and the Rake's Pro- gresses, 1732 and 1735 ; the Marriage a la Mode, 1745, and the portrait of Simon Eraser, 1746. During the second half of the century there flourished a wonderful triumvirate Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the first president of the Royal Academy (founded 1768), created a new epoch in portrait paint- ing, and is generally regarded as the greatest master of the art which England has ever produced. He discarded conventional draperies and excelled in reproducing the individuality of his subjects in feature and pose as well as in dress. On the other hand, he suffered from a lack of early training in drawing and anatomy, which he himself 8o 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND lamented, and his delicate coloring has not withstood the ravages of time. Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) made him look to his laurels, while George Romney (1734-1802), although a less finished artist, had a keener sense of purely physical beauty, and painted with more warm human feeling than either of his two great contemporaries. Richard Wilson (1714-1782) was the pioneer of modern English landscape painters, though he showed strong traces of the influence of Italian scenery and of the classical style of older Frenchmen, Poussin and Claude Lorrain. Unhappily, he was not appreciated until after his death, and spent most of his days in destitution. Even Gainsborough, who went far beyond him in the fidelity with which he reproduced distinctively English scenes, had to rely on his portraits for his living. Population and Pauperism. The population of England, in 1750, has been estimated at six and one half millions. In 1801, the date of the first official census, it had increased to nearly nine. This is very striking in comparison with the growth since the Restoration, when the country contained about five million inhabitants. Equally striking was the shifting of the centers of density from the south and east to the midlands and the north. Thanks to abundant harvests and steadily increasing trade, the laboring classes seem to have been fairly well off during the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, or until the depression due to the Industrial and Agricultural Revolu- tion. The amount expended for poor relief sank from 819,000 in 1698 to 600,000 in 1742, and then rose again, first slowly and then rapidly, till it reached 2,000,000 in 1784. These figures, however, are some- what illusive, since a workhouse test was imposed in 1723, and out- door relief was not resumed till 1782. During the interval many pre- ferred to suffer rather than go to the poorhouse. Many of the pro- visions of the famous Act of 1834 were suggested far back in this period, as were the measures passed in the first decade of the twentieth century for old-age pensions and for the compulsory insurance of laborers to provide sick benefits ; and it was argued then, as now, that such provision could best be achieved through voluntary friendly societies. Evidences of Reforming Zeal. Although the age, particularly before the Wesleyan revival, was a material one, when the majority were chiefly intent on business or pleasure, there are some isolated instances of philanthropy and reforming zeal. In 1736 an act was passed to check the alarming increase of gin drinking among the lower classes. It led to so much smuggling and evasion that its principles were practically abandoned in 1743. Regulation of the traffic in 1751 and 1753 abated the evil only to a small degree. There were a few private philanthropists, lonely voices crying in the wilderness. Chief among them was James Oglethorpe (1696-1785), who, in 1729, succeeded in procuring a parliamentary inquiry into prison -condi- tions. Horrible abuses were exposed, a few regulations were EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 805 made, and some of the worst offenders were removed and punished ; but no thoroughgoing reform was undertaken for over a century, and Oglethorpe turned his attention to the colony of Georgia, which he founded in 1733 as a refuge for poor debtors and oppressed foreign Protestants. Forty years later, John Howard (1726-1790) took up the work which Oglethorpe had abandoned in discouragement. He was a Dissenter of independent means, who became High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1773. He began his work of prison reform in the same year, apparently inspired by the knowledge, gained from his new office, that persons acquitted of guilt were kept in confinement on account of fees incurred while held for trial. He also discovered appalling conditions, resulting in a frightful prevalence of jail fever. As a result of his evidence, presented before the House of Commons, two bills were passed in 1774: one providing for fixed salaries in place of jailers' fees ; the other, for improving the prevailing unsanitary conditions. These provisions were generally evaded ; but he kept on unwearyingly, publishing his findings in a series of works on the State of Prisons, the first of which appeared in 1777. He made inspection tours, not only throughout the United Kingdom, but in most of the continental countries as well, spending 3000 of his own money in the work. Reform came slowly, but his ceaseless efforts bore fruit in the following century. Lawlessness and Crime. Brutal punishments still continued. Prisoners hung in chains all over the land. After the '45, heads were seen rotting on Temple Bar. By a law not repealed till 1790, women guilty of murder or treason were to be publicly burnt, though in practice they were usually strangled first. The barbarous law of pressing to death prisoners who refused to plead before a jury was not repealed till 1772, though the practice was abandoned in 1735. The pillory was still a cruel and degrading spectacle, and men and women were still publicly whipped at the cart's tail. All that can be said is that conditions were worse on the Continent, where torture and arbi- trary imprisonment were still legal. Partly owing to the overseverity of the criminal code, more especially owing to the inadequate machin- ery for its enforcement, lawlessness prevailed to an alarming extent. The high duty on tea, coffee, French wines and brandies, muslins, and cambrics led to a large amount of smuggling, though Pitt's measures l somewhat decreased the amount. Goods were landed by night at secluded inlets and bays, and loaded by armed bands on wagons and pack horses. Customhouse officers were overawed, or more often bribed, and we even hear of fifty or a hundred desperate men doing their work by day on the open beach. Highwaymen con- tinued to ply their calling. The mail between London and Bristol was robbed five times in five successive weeks, and in 1757 a mail robbery took place within two miles of London. George II, while 1 See below, p. 816. 806 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND walking alone in the gardens of Kensington palace, was confronted by a thief, who jumped over the wall, pleaded poverty in courteous language, and took his purse. Thefts, shoplifting, pocket picking, and even open robbery occurred in the very heart of the city. Hanging and transportation proved of little avail. Jack Sheppard, who was hanged in 1724, and Dick Turpin, who followed him to the gallows in 1739, were regarded as heroes by many youths who were tempted to emulate their stirring, adventurous careers. The first quarter of the nineteenth century had already run its course before milder laws and the beginnings of an effective police system prepared the way for a decrease of crime. Life in London. In London, throughout the century, there was an epidemic of card playing among the upper and middle classes which tended to displace reading and intelligent conversation. Lot- teries and raffles were extremely popular. Fashionable folk gambled for stakes that were appalling. In those days, before art galleries or zoological gardens, the lions at the Tower were one of the great sights of the Town, whence the term " social lion." The fairs Bartholo- mew Fair, May Fair, and Southwark Fair still flourished, and, next to the theater, were regarded as the " chiefest nurseries of vice." Ranelagh (on the site of a villa of Viscount Ranelagh in Chelsea) was opened in 1742, and vied with Vauxhall as a place of amusement. The London season extended from October to May, while, during the intervening four months, the theaters were closed and all social func- tions ceased. The standard of manners and conduct set by the essays of Addison and Steele declined under the first George, largely owing to the example furnished by him and his court, but developed toward the middle of the century into the formal stilted type repre- sented in Chesterfield's Letters. About 1750, Mrs. Montague, following the lead of the late Queen Caroline, made an heroic effort to improve the intellectual status of women by giving parties at which cards were excluded. She and her set gained the name of " blue stockings " from the fact that Benjamin Stillingfleet attended some evening assemblies of one Mrs. Vesey, at Bath, in gray-blue worsted stockings, instead of the black silk required for evening dress. Mrs. Thrale was another woman of literary aspirations, and at her parties Burke and Dr. Johnson exercised their unequaled gifts in conversa- tion. Great extravagances of dress continued nearly through the century. Men were resplendent in coats, waistcoats, and breeches of bright-hued silks, while women appeared with huge hoopskirts and amazing headdresses or pompadours a foot high. But the new in- ventions and the effects of the American and French wars were soon to change all this. In dress, as in agriculture, in industry, and in so many other ways, England had reached the threshold of the modern world. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 807 FOR ADDITIONAL READING General conditions. Traill, Social England, IV, ch. XVI; V, chs. XVII, XVIII (authorities, pp. 225-226, 495-496). Robertson, England under the Hanoverians, introduction, pt. I, ch. IV ; pt. II, ch. IV. Leadam, Political History, ch. XXVIII. Hunt, Political History, ch. XIII. Lecky, Eighteenth Century, I, chs. I, II ; II, ch. V; VII, ch. XXI. Social and industrial. J. Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Anne (2 vols., 1882), and Old Times (1885) ; the latter made up of newspaper cuttings and caricatures. W. C. Sydney, England and the English in' the Eighteenth Century (2 vols., 1891). E. S. Roscoe, The English Scene in the Eighteenth Century (1912). T. Wright, England wider the House of Hanover (2 vols., 3d ed., 1852, reprinted as Caricature History of the Georges). Creighton, History of Epidemics. J. Howard, The State of the Prisons (4th ed., 1792). Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History (1899). E. P. Cheyney, Industrial and Social History of England (1901). Both of these are good brief sketches. Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, (4th ed., 1907), pp. 403-668. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce (4 vols., 1805). J. R. Porter, Progress of the Nation in its Various Social and Industrial Relations (1851, new ed. F. Q. Hirst, 1911). A. Toynbee, Lectures on the Industrial Revolu- tion of the XVIIIth Century in England (1896). S. Smiles, Lives of Engineers (3 vols., 1861-1862). S. and B. Webb, English Local Government, 1688-1835 (3 vols., 1906) ; valuable for local conditions. A. Young, Tour in the Southern Counties favols., 1788); Tour through the North (4 vols., 1770); and The Farmer's Tour through the East of England (4 vols., 1771). Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages and Agri- culture and Prices, V, VI. Prothero-, Pioneers of English Farming, chs. VII, VIII. Learning and literature. Cambridge Modern History, VI, chs. XXIII, XXIV, (bibliography, pp. 964-970). Moody and Lovett, chs. X-XII. . Taine, English Liter- ature, III. G. Saintsbury, Short History of English Literature (1898). Cambridge History of Literature, IX, X (bibliographies at the end of the volumes). T. S. Perry, History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century (1883). E. Gosse, Eighteenth Century Literature (1898). L. Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols., 2d, ed., 1881), and English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century (1909). W. Raleigh, The English Novel (1894). Religion. Wakeman, chs. XVIII, XIX. Stoughton, Religion in England, VI. Lecky, III, ch. VIII, for a discriminating account of Wesleyanism. For a full bibliography of religion in the eighteenth century see Cambridge Modern History, VI, pp. 851-857. Life in Scotland. Lecky, II, ch. VI. H. G. Graham, Social Life in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols., 1900). For a full bibliography see P. H. Brown, III, pp. 435-444. W. L. Mathieson, The Awakening of Scotland, 1747-1797 (1911) con- tinues his Scotland and the Union. CHAPTER XLV THE YOUNGER PITT: THE NEW TORYISM AND ADMINISTRA- TIVE REFORM (1784-1793) The Coalition Ministry, April-December, 1783. Shelburne re- signed, 24 February, 1783, owing to a vote of censure on the terms of the peace. The terms were as good as Great Britain could expect, but Fox and North combined against their common political enemy, and the Prime Minister, now more unpopular than ever, could not muster followers enough to meet their attack. This " unnatural junction " with the man to whom he had been persistently hostile was defended by Fox on the grounds that the country needed a " broad and stable administration," and that, what with the close of the war and the end of George's personal rule, his chief points of difference with North were at an end. But, strong party man as he was, it would have been more consistent to have attempted to unite the two factions of the Whigs, since the question of American independence no longer kept them apart. The King was desperate, for he had always hated Fox, and he was infuriated at North for deserting his cause. After a stubborn fight, during which he again threatened to retire to Han- over, he was obliged to accept the Coalition Ministry. The Duke of Portland was made nominal head, but the real leaders were North and Fox, who became Secretaries of State. The King's hostility to Fox was accentuated because of his intimacy with the Prince of Wales, a dissipated spendthrift. Fox abetted the Prince in his extravagance, who reciprocated by warmly supporting the Coalition, which George III was accustomed to designate as " my son's Ministry." He was determined to get them out as speedily as possible. When they came to kiss hands, 1 it is said that he put back his ears with the air of a vicious horse determined to overthrow its rider. He nearly suc- ceeded on the question of providing for the Prince's establishment ; but the rock on which the coalition foundered was a bill for the settle- ment of the government of India. The State of India at the Close of the Seven Years' War, 1763. Up to 1763 the English in India had been mainly occupied in over- coming European competitors. By that date they had practically excluded their rivals. Henceforth, they were concerned chiefly with 1 A ceremony performed by each Ministry on its introduction to office. 808 THE YOUNGER PITT 809 extending their sway over the native rulers and in establishing a satisfactory system of government. The Company, under its royal charter, which since 1 708 1 had been renewed at intervals of about twenty years, consisted of a court of proprietors, or stockholders, and a board of directors. It was represented in India by the govern- ors, or presidents, and their councils, at Calcutta, Madras, and Bom- bay. The authority of the Moguls at Delhi had faded almost to a shadow. Beside the viceroys of provinces and the rulers of tributary states, who exercised practically independent powers, there were the Marathas, a group of tribes of Hindoo stock who, under the Peshwa of Poonah, were very strong in the western and central districts, though they, too, were somewhat on the decline. The affairs of the Company were sadly mismanaged during the period following its triumph over the French. In 1765 Clive, who had been in England for five years, was sent back as Governor of Bengal with full powers to set matters right. He deprived the officers of the " double batta," or extra allowance, which they had been collecting from the native rulers, and put down a mutiny which they started in consequence; he forbade the civilians to receive presents ; and put an end to private trading. Unfortunately, ill health compelled him to return to Eng- land, in January, 1767, before he had completed his work. North's Regulating Act, 1773. Suddenly, Madras was exposed to serious danger from the attacks of Haidar Ali, a Mohammedan adventurer of rare ability, who had made himself master of Mysore, a province in the hill country on the border of the Carnatic. This danger, together with the departure of Clive, dissensions at the India House, and the general ineffectiveness of the Company's rule, caused its stock to drop to 60 per cent. A parliamentary inquiry followed, and a brief immunity from governmental intervention was secured only by a promise on the part of the Company to pay 400,000 a year and to appoint supervisors to order its affairs. Then came a famine in Bengal, in 1770, which so reduced its resources that it had to turn to the Government for help. As the result of another parliamentary investigation, Lord North, in 1773, passed a measure known as the Regulating Act. It provided that the annual payment should be remitted, that a loan of 1,000,000 should be advanced, and that bonded tea might be shipped to America free from English duties. In return, the dividends of the Company were reduced to 6 per cent until the loan should be repaid, and the government in India was extensively reorganized. A supreme court was sent up, the Governor of Bengal was made Governor-General, and was surrounded by a coun- cil of four members named by Parliament. During the investigation leading up to the passage of this act a fire of criticism was directed against Clive, and a vote of censure was passed condemning many of his acts. Though it was declared that he " did at the same time 1 The date when the old and the new companies were united. 8 io A HISTORY OF ENGLAND render great and meritorious services to his country," he was so un- strung by the strain of the conflict that he died by his own hand November, 1774. Warren Hastings (1732-1818). Warren Hastings, the Governor of Bengal, was appointed the first Governor-General. He had come to India as a youth of eighteen, and in the course of twenty years had worked his way to the top by sheer force of ability. Frail in appear- ance, he was a masterful and even ruthless man. The situation which he had to face was one of enormous difficulty. The people were in the depths of distress, affairs had been grossly mismanaged, the English in India were intent on private gain, and the directors in London were at odds among themselves in everything except a con- suming desire for dividends. Already as Governor of Bengal, Hastings had proved an effective administrator and had introduced excellent reforms. He now brought order out of chaos ; he replaced the native ministers, whom Clive had employed, by Englishmen ; moreover, by improved methods of taxation and by careful economies, he increased the revenue, while at the same time he protected the people against plunderers. Unfortunately, however, the pressure of war and the financial demands of the Company led him to adopt too many high- handed and cruel measures. One of the earliest was to let to the Wazir of Oudh, for forty lacs of rupees, 1 a body of English troops to destroy his enemies, the Afghans, who had conquered Rohilcund on the northern border. Confronted, after he became Governor- General, first with a war against the Marathas and then with another against Haidar Ali, he resorted to acts of pitiless extortion. He re- quired from Chait Singh, the Raja of Benares, in addition to his annual tribute of 50,000, a contingent of troops. When the Raja, already suspected of disaffection, refused, Hastings promptly increased his tribute tenfold a penalty out of all proportion to the offense. To enforce his demands Hastings went to Benares with a small force, and in the teeth of a popular insurrection, in which he showed him- self magnificently indifferent to personal danger, he drove out Chait Singh and set up a successor pledged to obey him. Then he made a bargain with the young ruler of Oudh to deprive his mother and grand- mother, the Begums or Princesses, of the lands and treasure of the late Nawab. In order to accomplish his purpose he subjected them to a siege, wasted their territories, and tortured and starved their chief ministers. The landed property was given to the reigning Prince, the treasure was appropriated for the Company. While it does not excuse the inhumanity and injustice of the acts for which he was responsible, it must be borne in mind that Hastings took noth- ing for himself, 2 that his sole aim was to secure resources to save the British dominion in India. 1 A rupee is worth about fifty cents, and there are a hundred thousand in a lac. 2 Moreover the treasure belonged not to the Begums, but to the Nawab, and the Begums were engaged in a conspiracy to root out the British power in India. THE YOUNGER PITT 8n Fox's India Bill, 1783. Rumors of what was going on, the fact that the Company's loan was still unpaid, and the hostility of the Rockingham Whigs to an official who was a product of North's Regu- lating Act led to a parliamentary investigation in 1781. In the report which followed, the administration of the Company was condemned, and the removal of Hastings recommended. The Directors refused. Since they had the legal right so to do, the only way of effecting any reforms was by a complete reorganization. The logic of events had made a trading company the ruler of vast territories. Necessity of wars for extension and defense, coupled with a desire for constant dividends, had led to inevitable results. The struggle became acute in the autumn of 1782 when Fox introduced the famous measure 1 to deprive the Company of its exclusive powers of government and to remedy the crying abuses in the existing system. There were two bills. The first transferred the government of India to a body of seven commissioners nominated by Parliament and holding office for four years. Vacancies were to be filled by the sovereign. These commissioners were to act as trustees for the Company's property, though its management was to be in the hands of a council of directors acting under the orders of the commissioners. They were also named in the Bill, but vacancies were to be filled by the court of directors. The second bill dealt with administrative reforms ; for example, the curtailing of monopolies and the extortion of presents, the regulation of the hiring out of British troops, and turning the holdings of native landholders into hereditary estates. The arrangement was attacked furiously both as a party measure and as a violation of vested rights. It was pointed out that the commissioners named in the act were all supporters of Fox 2 and that they would have control of patronage worth 300,000 a year, which would give them an enormous political influence. The answer to these objections was that the appointments were limited to four years, that tne commission was bound to lay its proceedings before Parliament, and that the King, on the address of both Houses, had the power to remove any or all the members. The measure, however, was defeated, not on the ground of any of the objections which were raised, but by the King's hatred of the ministers who framed it. The Defeat of Fox's India Bill and the Overthrow of the Coalition, December, 1783. After it had passed in the Commons, King George eagerly adopted a plan suggested by Lords Temple and Thurlow to block it in the Upper House. Temple was given a paper to circulate among the peers, stating that His Majesty would " consider as an enemy " whoever voted for the India Bill, and was empowered to use stronger words if he thought necessary. By this underhand means 1 Though popularly known as "Fox's India Bill," the details were largely the work of Burke. 2 Lord Thurlow declared : "The King will in fact take the diadem with his own hands and place it on the head of Mr. Fox." 812 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND it was lost by nineteen votes. The Commons vainly protested in a resolution, declaring that " to report any opinion or pretended opin- ion of his Majesty upon any bill " pending in Parliament in order to influence votes was " a high crime and misdemeanor." A resort even to the long-discarded right to veto which the King originally contemplated though contrary to the principle of government by a responsible ministry would at least have enabled him to accom- plish his purpose in a straightforward manner. Pitt's Struggle with the Coalition, 1783-1784. On 18 December George dismissed the Ministry and in his perplexity he turned to William Pitt to form a new one. Pitt was the second son of the Earl of Chatham ; he had entered Parliament in 1780 at the age of twenty- one, and with all the vehemence of his father had opened his career by denouncing the war with the American Colonies, as " most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical." He had haughtily refused a subordinate office in the Rockingham Ministry, but Shelburne had paid a tribute to his name and talents by making him Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Now, when not yet twenty-five, with a remnant of the Chatham Whigs and a few Tories at his back, with a Ministry, save for himself, drawn exclusively from the Upper House, and discredited by the fact that he was the appointee of a sovereign who had been guilty of a piece of unscrupulous tyranny, he had to face a hostile majority led by two veterans, one the most skillful party manager and the other the most adroit debater of the period. It was an audacious but heroic under- taking, which to the Opposition appeared to be a " boyish freak." l The battle which followed is perhaps the most remarkable in parlia- mentary history. At first it was an uphill fight : motion after motion was carried against him, and an India bill which he framed was de- feated both in the first and second readings. Nevertheless, he re- fused to resign, nor was he keen on dissolving Parliament until he was sure of a majority in the elections. Fox, who led the Opposition, played into his hands by his violence and his blunders. His most fatal error was in insisting that the present Parliament should continue. His aim was to hold on to his majority till 25 March, 1784 when the Mutiny Bill expired, and then to paralyze the administration by re- fusing to renew it. Pitt's patience, courage, calmness, and dis- interestedness gradually won him^ supporters until, when the Mutiny Bill came up for vote, it easily passed. Multitudes of addresses from all parts of the country convinced Pitt that he could now safely try the issue of a general election. He secured an overwhelming majority. 2 1 It was described as a "mince pie administration which would end with the Christmas holidays." 2 It has been suggested that Pitt's victory was due to influence and to adroit electioneering rather than to real popularity ; but though those factors played a part they always played a part then, and in this instance it is a part that can be easily exaggerated. THE YOUNGER PITT 813 Fox had offended the Whigs by his outspoken opposition to an appeal to the people during the preceding winter and had alienated the Tories by his attacks on the royal prerogative. One hundred and sixty of his supporters, " Fox's Martyrs " as they came to be called, lost their seats. Although the Whigs had been routed, it was a triumph not for the King but for Pitt. Henceforth, the Prime Minister con- trolled the Government. While he came to call himself a Tory, he represented a new, liberal form of Toryism resting on popular more than on royal support. The Westminster Scrutiny, 1784-1785. Pitt's triumph was marred by one ungenerous action his treatment of his rival in the so-called " Westminster Scrutiny." The election was hotly con- tested, and all eyes had been centered upon it because of the candidacy of Fox. He was supported by numerous powerful friends, among them the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Portland, and the charming Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was accused of dispensing kisses in return for _votes. Westminster returned two members, for which there were three candidates, including Fox. The two others were Pitt men. One of them, Admiral Lord Hood, easily won first place. Fox, who started at the bottom of the list, had finally reached second place when the polls were closed at the end of forty days. The rejoicing of the Whigs was cut short when Wray, the defeated candidate, demanded a scrutiny on the ground of fraudulent voting. As a matter of fact, there had been more votes cast than there were electors, so the High Bailiff was quite within his rights in granting the request ; but he should have returned Fox's name on the day the writ was returnable, and left the final settlement to the committee of the Commons ap- pointed under the Grenville Act. This he refused to do and was supported by Pitt. Although the Bailiff was ordered to proceed with " all possible dispatch," eight months were wasted on a single parish. It was only after a vote had passed the Commons ordering an im- mediate return that Pitt gave way. Fox, who in the meantime had been sitting for a small Scotch borough, finally took his seat as a member from Westminster and ultimately secured 2000 damages. Parliament sought to prevent such injustice for the future by a law providing that, henceforth, the polls were to be closed at the end of fifteen days, and that, though scrutinies might still be granted on demand, they must be stopped six days before the day on which the writs were returnable. William Pitt. For an unbroken period of seventeen years Pitt was Chief Minister. After an interval of three years he came to power again, and died in office in his forty-seventh year. At an age when most Cabinet ministers have only begun their career, his was ended after he had held the chief position in the State for twenty years. He had many qualities peculiarly fitting him for his great opportuni- ties and responsibilities. He had uncommon talents as a parliamen- tary speaker which had been carefully developed by his father and by 814 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND his own efforts in the University and in the House of Commons. He had a rich sonorous voice ; he spoke with exquisite finish, convincing logic, and, when he chose, with extreme clearness. In addition, he was fluent and ready, dignified, courageous, and resourceful. On the other hand, he was not original or profound, he lacked imagination and fervid enthusiasm. Burke referred to him as the " sublime of mediocrity." His printed speeches are often verbose and repetitious, hardly bearing out the great reputation which he enjoyed in his time ; but he doubtless suffered from the faulty system of reporting ; more- over, as the defender of the Government policy, he had often to use words to conceal thought and to parry the searching questions of the opposition. In a word, he spoke as a party manager rather than as an impassioned orator. In public he was awkward, stiff, cold, and formal, with a " good deal of marble " in " his composition." Even as a young man he bore himself " with all the sour and severe insolence of sixty." 1 Yet he could be merry and simple enough with his relatives and his few chosen friends, and he had a rare power of sensing, the temper of the nation. While he did not attract, he dominated his political associates and commanded their respect. His private life was pure ; he was absolutely indifferent to financial gain. 2 His only vice was one all too common in those days intemperate drinking of port which contributed to his early death. 3 He was avaricious of power, more than once dropping a measure of which he approved for fear of weakening his position, though he had this excuse that he ruled in a critical time, and may have honestly felt that the security of the State depended upon his tenure of office. His Position and Problems. His position in the spring of 1784 was one of unusual strength. He had the prestige of his father's great name ; he had won a dramatic fight against a combination which seemed well-nigh irresistible; the Whigs were hopelessly eclipsed and the extreme Tories were still discredited by the failure of the American war. He was pledged to no particular policy, he was sup- ported by the moderate men of both parties, while the King, bound to him by gratitude, and realizing that the strength of the Govern- ment depended upon his popularity, was obliged to recognize him as Prime Minister in fact as well as in name. Pitt not only restored and firmly established the rule of the responsible minister, but during his ascendancy practically did away with parliamentary corruption. To be sure, he was only carrying on the work of the second Rockingham Ministry, and he had little temptation to resort to illicit methods ; 1 The phrases are Burke's. The French contemporary Chateaubriand de- scribes him dressed in black, pale of face, his nose in the air, irregular in his meals and in his sleep, negligent in attire, devoid of pleasure or passion, greedy of power, scorning honors, and wishing to be only William Pitt. 2 He was usually financially embarrassed, a prey of dishonest tradesmen and servants. In the winter of 1783-1784 he refused the Clerkship of the Pells, a sine- cure which yielded 3200 annually when his private income was only 300 a year. 3 He once came to the House so drunk that he saw two Speakers instead of one. THE YOUNGER PITT 815 nevertheless, his high ideals and his achievements in this regard de- serve recognition. For example, he did away with the abuse of dis- tributing contracts for loans and lotteries to favored supporters of the Government and awarded them to the lowest bidder. To prevent fraud the proposals were sent sealed to the Bank of England. Almost the only questionable step to which Pitt resorted for strengthening his power was the lavish creation of peers. 1 At the Revolution of 088 the number of temporal peers was one hundred and fifty, at the acces- sion of George III there were only one hundred and seventy-five. Previous to 1783 the creations and promotions under George III aggregated seventy-two, while Pitt in nineteen years added one hundred and forty. The result was to make the House of Lords a Tory stronghold and to greatly lower the average intelligence of that body. This was the price paid for breaking up the Whig oligarchy. Pitt's India Bill, 1784. In the session of 1784, Pitt succeeded in carrying an India Bill which differed in some particulars from that which had wrecked the Coalition. It provided for a Board of Control consisting of six members appointed by the King. While the Com- pany was left in the control of patronage, its civil and military ad- ministration was put under the superintendence of the new board. That body could transmit orders to India without informing any but a secret committee of three of the directors. The Cover nor- General, together with the presidents and councils in India, were chosen by the Company subject to the royal approval, and the King had the power of removal at any time. A court was set up in England for the trial of abuses committed in India. In addition, there were many provisions for internal regulation adopted substantially from Fox's bill. With the exception of a few amendments, Pitt's arrangement, with its system of dual control, continued in force until 1858. The State of the Finances. Pitt's greatest services were in the field of financial reform, where the situation which he had to face demanded uncommon courage and ability. The Public Debt had increased from 126,000,000 to 240,000,000 since 1775, and the deficit for the year 1783 was not far from 3,000,000. The public credit was at a low ebb. Three per cents ' 2 stood 56 or 57. About 14,000,000 of the debt was unfunded, while outstanding bills circulated at a discount of from 15 to 20 per cent. Commerce had suffered from the loss of colonial trade. The customs revenues were greatly diminished, owing to wholesale and shameless smuggling. It was estimated that 2,000,000 was lost in this way; for example, out of 13,000,000 pounds of tea imported annually, less than one half 1 In the graphic words of Disraeli : " He made peers of second-rate squires and fat graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched them froni the counting houses of Cornhill." 2 Government stocks paying 3 per cent interest. They were called "consols" because the interest was paid from the Consolidated Fund. Three of the great funds, the South Sea, the Aggregate, and the General Funds, had been consolidated in 1751. 8i6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND paid duty. The abuse of franking 1 deprived the Government of at least 170,000 a year. Since postage was very high, " franks " were much sought after by the friends and supporters of members, and were frequently bought or even forged. Grave abuses existed in the department of public accounts. There were 40,000,000 to be ac- counted for. In 1785 there were four Treasurers of the Navy and three Paymasters of the Forces whose accounts had never been settled since they left office. One Treasurer had retained public moneys in his hands for forty years. The auditors left all business to clerks who were powerless, even if they tried, to enforce any regulations. The customs were in a most confused and complicated state. Even after Burke's economical reform, one hundred and ninety-six sinecures existed in this department alone. There were sixty-eight separate groups of duties. Many different duties were imposed on the same article - in one case fourteen appropriated at various times to pay interest on different branches of the National Debt. Pitt's Reforms. Pitt set himself to simplify and purify this chaos of confusion and corruption, to increase the revenue, and to put the finances on a sound basis. He began, in 1784 and 1785, by funding the unfunded debt. Also he framed effective measures against smuggling. By the " Hovering Act " he provided for the confisca- tion of suspected vessels found hovering within four leagues of the coast. Furthermore, he lessened the temptation to smuggle by re- ducing many duties that were too high, making good the loss by im- posing other taxes more equally distributed and less liable to evasion. For example, he reduced the duty on tea from 119 to 12^ per cent, and made up the difference by a window tax. Following the excellent plan which Walpole had failed to carry through, he transferred the customs duty on wine to the excise. The revenue was slightly in- creased by checking the abuse of the franking system. To guard against further misuse of public moneys, he provided that the Treasurers of the Navy should close their accounts every year. In place of the old inefficient auditors he set up a new commission, and appointed another body to inquire into fees and perquisites of public officers. Burke, who should have stanchly supported the measures, opposed them solely on party grounds, describing the plan for a commission of inquiry as a " rat-catching bill instituted for the purpose of pry- ing into vermin abuses." Pitt, however, went on undeterred. As sinecures in the customs department became vacant he ceased to fill them up, and abolished fifty vacancies which had accumulated in 1798. Before the close of his Ministry the revenue had increased from 14,000,000 to 22,000,000, and cost only 3000 a year more to collect. Doubtless his greatest reform in financial administration, and one of the most important in English commercial history, was his consolidation of the different branches of the customs and excise in 1 Franking was the privilege which members of Parliament enjoyed of writing "free" across the cover of letters. THE YOUNGER PITT 817 1787. He abolished the existing duties on different articles, substitut- ing in each case a single duty, usually equal to the former total. Then he brought the whole into a single Consolidated Fund on which the Public Debt was secured. This measure, so simple in theory, proved so complicated in practice that it required no less than three thousand resolutions to carry it into effect. 1 Burke gave it his enthusiastic support. The Commercial Union with France, 1786-1787. In common with a few advanced thinkers of the time Pitt saw the inestimable advan- tages of unrestricted commercial intercourse between Great Britain and her neighbors. His attempt to establish freedom of trade with Ireland in 1785 failed, but he succeeded the following year in carrying through a commercial union with France. The idea was not new. At the close of the late war Shelburne had made a vain effort to es- tablish such a union. 2 The opposition was strong and persistent. Narrow views as to the advantage of trade exclusiveness still pre- vailed, and any association with France, generally regarded as the nat- ural enemy of England, was particularly repugnant to a great ma- jority. The agreement provided for complete freedom of trade except in certain specified articles. The duties on all commodities not speci- fied were reduced or placed on the footing of the most favored nation- 3 Fox and Burke led in assailing the project, mainly on the political ground that it was essential to the balance of power for England to hold France in check instead of aiding her to expand her resources. Others, arguing more from the economic standpoint, contended that France would flood England with luxuries and drain away all her specie. In spite of the gloomy prophecies of the Opposition, the treaty, which remained in force for six years, 4 proved very beneficial to both countries. Pitt's Sinking Fund, 1787. Of all Pitt's financial measures his Sinking Fund probably made the greatest impression upon contem- poraries. His motive was most praiseworthy. With the return of peace he felt that steps should be taken to redeem at least a portion of the Public Debt in order that posterity might be less heavily burdened. Owing to his wise administration and to the growth of commerce and manufactures, he found himself with a surplus of 900,000 at the end of 1786. By a slight increase of taxation he determined to bring this amount up to 1,000,000, and to raise a like sum every year for the reduction of the debt. Instead of being paid out at once, this annual surplus was to form a Sinking Fund. Once before England had had such a Sinking Fund ; but Walpole gradually began to draw 1 A beginning in this direction had already been made in 1751. 2 A twenty -year agreement with Russia expired in 1766. ^This, however, was without prejudice to the Family Compact of 1761 or the Methuen Treaty. * While the duty on French wines was reduced, that on Portu- guese wines was proportionately lowered. 4 It was broken off on the eve of a new war with France. 3G 8i8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND on it for current needs, and by 1735 it was practically exhausted. The plan adopted by Pitt was somewhat more elaborate. It was due to Dr. Price, a Nonconformist minister who attained a considerable reputation from his writings on public questions. His scheme was in substance to set aside an annual sum for the purchase of stock, the inter- est of which was to be employed in buying more stock. Thus the fund was to go on accumulating at compound interest and was ultimately to be applied toward the extinguishing of the debt. The principle worked admirably so long as there was a surplus ; but the difficulty arose when money was borrowed to maintain and increase the Sinking Fund. This happened in 1792 when it was provided that one per cent of every loan contracted should be applied to this object. Sometimes money was borrowed at a higher rate of interest than the old debt bore or the Sinking Fund earned. Even if the rate was the same, there was a loss due to the expense of the transaction. It was estimated that before the Sinking Fund was done away with in 1823 it had cost the country about 20,000,000. 1 Thus the measure of which Pitt was most proud proved to be the most indefensible, at least from the standpoint of pure finance. Politically, his action may be justified on the grounds that he believed that the war which began in 1793 would prove a short one, and that the popular veneration of the Sinking Fund kept up a martial enthusiasm which would speedily have damp- ened if he had begun by laying heavy taxes. His Attempts at Parliamentary Reform, 1782, 1783, and 1785. In 1785 he brought forward a scheme of parliamentary reform. It was a subject in which his father had been much interested, and he him- self had already introduced two measures, one in 1782, the other in 1783. His plan of 1785 contemplated disfranchisement of the de- cayed boroughs, but only with the consent of those who controlled them and in return for a money compensation. The members were to be transferred in the first instance to the counties, in subsequent cases to the populous towns. The right of voting was also to be ex- tended. The Bill was defeated, and Pitt never brought up the ques- tion again. It must be said in his defense that, so late as 1788, he did not have a party on which he could depend for all purposes. His personal following has been estimated at 52. The " Crown party," which supported him only so long as the King willed it, numbered 185. The Opposition amounted to 138, and the balance of the 558 members were independent voters. Hence, his apparent timidity or even hostility toward many meritorious measures. The African Slave Trade. His attftude on the abolition of the African slave trade, while not above criticism, was more praiseworthy than in the case of many other reforms. In 1787 a Society was formed for the suppression of this horrible traffic. It was composed mainly of Quakers, though many of the leaders were not of that sect, 1 A new Sinking Fund was started in 1875, but it is constituted solely from surplus revenues, and depends for its continuance on the annual vote of the Commons. THE YOUNGER PITT 819 notably William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Zachary Macau- lay, father of the historian. Pitt appointed a committee to investigate the charges of cruelty alleged against those engaged in the transpor- tation of slaves. Shocking disclosures resulted. It was found that the unfortunates were packed tightly on the lower decks and in dark, stuffy holds ; that they were supplied only with bread and water and very scantily at that, and were flogged at frequent intervals to give them sufficient exercise to keep them alive. Pitt introduced a bill to suppress the trade in 1788; in the following year he joined Fox and Burke in supporting another introduced by Wilberforce ; and in 1792 he made a speech on the subject which was perhaps the greatest he ever delivered. Powerful interests, however, with which the King was allied, stood in the way, and though Pitt alienated many sup- porters by his outspoken attitude, and though Wilberforce and Clarkson retained their confidence in him to the last, it remained for Fox, confronted by the same obstacles, and as a member of one of the weakest ministries in English history, to prepare a measure of suppression which carried easily in 1807, shortly after his death. Pitt's Strength and Achievements. His Limitations. A survey of Pitt's activity as Prime Minister during these years will go to show that he did his greatest work as a reformer of administrative detail, especially in finance. It is true that he made use of the ideas of others ; but he showed the capacity of the statesman in carrying them into effect. In matters of larger policy he was less successful, as his later management of the Sinking Fund indicated. In other fields of domes- tic policy, for example, parliamentary reform, abolition of the slave trade, religious toleration, and concessions to Ireland, his views were generally wise and liberal. Nevertheless, he accomplished almost nothing to carry them into effect. He had ideals which his great predecessor Walpole had apparently scorned ; but, like him, he was overready to drop measures which threatened such opposition as to endanger his ascendancy. During the last part of his first and during all of his second Ministry he was secure in a substantial majority, but by that time the country was involved in a war with France which absorbed all the energy of the Government. Moreover, the French Revolution had provoked among the rank and file of Englishmen a horror of progressive measures which lasted for a generation. In one sense Pitt did not show himself to be a great war minister : he frittered away the resources of the country in subsidies to foreign powers and in scattered, futile expeditions. On the other hand, his popularity, his persistence and courage kept alive the national en- thusiasm and thus tided the war over a critical period. If he was not a great constructive statesman or war minister, few have done more to reform and purify the English financial administration, few have ex- celled him as a parliamentary debater, and none as parliamentary leader. 820 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1786-1795. In February, 1785, Warren Hastings returned from India. Already inclined to throw up his office on account of the opposition and criticism he had met with, he finally made up his mind when he found that Pitt would give him no hope of support. While the King and the Court party received him with great favor, the Opposition straightway proceeded to attack him as a means of dealing a blow at the Government. Their hostility was whetted by the opportunity of putting Pitt in a dilemma. If he supported their charges, he ran the chance of breaking with the King and his following ; if he refused, he might properly be accused of seeking to cover up grave scandals. Nevertheless, Hastings might never have been brought to trial but for the indiscretion of his parliamentary agent, Major Scott, who challenged Burke to produce evidence for the accusations made by the Whig party. As a result, charges pre- paratory to an impeachment were framed and put to vote in the Com- mons. The first, relating to the Rohilla War, was dismissed. The second, dealing with the fine imposed on the Raja of Benares, carried. The result was largely due to Pitt, who declared, that while the Raja was bound to furnish money and men, the fine imposed upon him was " exorbitant, unjust, and tyrannical." The Prime Minister's sense of justice in this case rose superior to party considerations, and the King sustained him, though he declared that it was not possible to " carry on public business " in India " with the same moderation that is suitable to an European civilized nation." The third charge, based on the treatment of the Begums of Oudh, was then easily carried. Burke presented the impeachment before the Lords, n May, 1786, but the trial did not begin till 13 February, 1788, and dragged on for seven years. The accusers, especially Burke and Sheridan, 1 ' spoke with wondrous eloquence, but marred theircase by violence and abuse. It was established that Hastings had been confronted by unusual problems ; that, while he had been guilty of acts of cruelty and extortion, he had done nothing for his own enrichment; and that he had ruled with effectiveness and success. Finally, in 1795, he was acquitted on every count. The trial cost him 70,000, which was subsequently repaid to him. The Misconduct of the Prince of Wales. Meantime, a crisis had occurred in which Pitt once more proved his superiority over Fox as a parliamentary tactician. It was bound up with the latter's intimacy with the Prince of Wales, whose relations with his father had grown steadily worse. King George was stern and unsympathetic ; but the character and conduct of the Prince would have been the despair of the most indulgent parent. He was mean and false, as well as ex- travagant and dissipated. In December, 1785, he committed an act of incredible folly by marrying secretly Mrs. Fitzherbert, a widow of Roman Catholic faith, who was five years his senior. She 1 The famous dramatist, who had been in Parliament since 1780, THE YOUNGER PITT 821 was a woman of excellent reputation, who yielded to his proposal only after he had threatened to kill himself if he were refused. By a provision in the Bill of Rights he was thus disqualified from the throne, except for the fact that the Royal Marriage Act rendered secret mar- riages of the royal family null and void. The marriage was first mentioned in Parliament in 1787, when the payment of the Prince's debts came up for discussion. Fox, declaring that he spoke from " direct authority," emphatically denied the rumor. When he learned that the Prince had deceived him, he refused to speak to him for a year. The denial proved so effective that the Commons granted 180,000 toward the payment of the Prince's debts, though that by no means covered all that he owed. Pitt brought about a reconcilia- tion with his father, and procured for him an additional 10,000 a year from the Civil List upon his promise never to run into debt again. It was not long, however, before he resumed his old courses. The King's Insanity and the Regency Question, 1788. On 5 November, 1788, the King was attacked by a fit of insanity which for a time was regarded as incurable. A Regency seemed inevitable. Though the Prince was far from fit to rule the country, every one agreed that the office of Regent belonged to him. That meant the return of the Opposition to power under Fox, who had again resumed friendly relations with his former boon companion. Regarding the position of the existing Government as hopeless, Lord Chancellor Thur- low " ratted " to the other side. On a chance that the King might recover, Pitt postponed the meeting of Parliament by successive ad- journments, though only for a time : much as he loved power, and although he was a poor man, he was prepared to lay down office ; but he was determined that the Prince should only be appointed Regent with limited authority defined by Parliament. Fox and his party, anxious for a free hand, especially in patronage, insisted that Parliament had no right to impose limitations. This was absolutely inconsistent with all of Fox's political principles and a great tactical error. Pitt, when he heard him declare his position, slapped his leg and cried: " I'll unwhig the gentleman for the rest of his life." Plac- ards were posted in the streets with the legend : " Fox for the Prince's prerogative, and Pitt -for the privileges of Parliament and the liberties of the nation." The Regency Bill, 1788-1789. The King's Recovery. Finally, a bill was drawn up conferring the Regency upon the Prince of Wales and defining the limitations to be imposed upon him. A curious device was adopted by Pitt to give it the legal character ordinarily secured by the royal assent. The Great Seal was to be put in com- mission and the commission was to affix the seal to the Bill. This attempt to create a " phantom king " was sharply criticized, espe- cially by Burke, who declared that it was an attempt on the part of the two Houses to legislate contrary to a statute of Charles II. 1 1 Passed in May, 1661, the i3th year of Charles II. 822 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND This was sound criticism ; but, as usual, he damaged his cause by the violence of his denunciations. Redeemed " folly personified, shaking his cap and bells under the name of genius." Pitt, with rare dis- interestedness, agreed that the Regent should have full power of dismissing his ministers and dissolving Parliament ; but, by the Bill, he was bound by other rigid restrictions. He could confer no peer- ages save on members of the royal family ; he could grant no offices or pensions not terminable at the King's pleasure, except in unavoid- able cases, such as judgeships ; he could not give away any part of the King's estate, real or personal ; and he was to have nothing to do with the care of the King's person or the management of the royal household, which was entrusted to the Queen. The Prince, with the greatest reluctance, accepted the terms, or* condition that they should not be binding for more than three years. They were carried through the Parliament in the form of resolutions. In order to give that body a legal status, it was formally opened by commission under the Great Seal, 3 February, 1789, and the resolutions were turned into a bill. It had passed the Commons in this form and had already reached the committee stage in the Lords, when it was stopped by the news that the King was on the road to recovery. On 10 March, it was announced that he was completely restored to health. The result was due largely to intelligent treatment by Dr. Willis. 1 Pitt, by the tact and good judgment which he had shown throughout the crisis, strengthened his position with King, Parliament and people, while Fox, by his woeful blunders in striking at the authority of Parliament and in attempting to overthrow a Ministry possessing the popular confidence, greatly diminished the already waning influence of his party. The French Revolution and its Effect on England. Not long after, a tremendous upheaval began in France which was destined to exercise a profound influence upon the history of England. The spirit of liberty, of equality, of opposition to established institutions, and hos- tility to class privileges which underlay all its excesses, proved ulti- mately a potent factor in helping to create the modern English demo- cratic State ; but its immediate effect was to check the progress of reform for more than a generation. It produced a terror of innova- tion not only in the minds of conservatives, but even of moderate men, and it plunged the country into a war which absorbed its chief wealth and energy from 1793 to 1815. The Tory party which carried this war to a triumphant conclusion was securely intrenched in power for more than a decade after its close. Meantime, England was going through the great Industrial Revolution, due to the introduction of the 1 Directly the King began to mend, Thurlow changed sides again, much to the disgust of the leaders of both sides. In a speech in the House of Lords he recalled the favors he had received from the King. "When I forget them," he said, "may God forget me !" "The best thing that can happen to you," was Burke's com- ment, while Pitt cried : "Oh, the rascal !" THE YOUNGER PITT 823 factory system. Acute social problems were pressing for solution, problems resulting from overpopulation, and from poverty caused by the war and by the readjustment of economic conditions. With these problems the dominant party, primarily concerned with pre- serving its class privileges, had little understanding or sympathy. The Whigs, who, since the break-up of its aristocratic cliques, had again become the party of progress, were weakened by the secession of their more moderate members, and discredited by the revolutionary principles of the extremists and by the critical and anti-national atti- tude which they assumed toward the French war. The Causes of the French Revolution. The causes of the French Revolution may be traced partly to philosophical speculations. The writings of Montesquieu, of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists 1 led to a spirit of unrest, to a questioning of existing institutions in Church and State. More important still, were the works of Rousseau advocat- ing views on the popular origin of government and the natural equality of man, which were largely colored by the theories of the English philosophers of the seventeenth century, notably Hobbes and Locke. These speculations, and England's example in the Puritan Revolution and in the Revolution of 1688, all played a part in weakening, among thinking Frenchmen, respect for tradition and established authority. Yet these influences, solely of themselves, would not have brought about a revolution in France. The French philosophers contemplated peaceful reform by the spread of education and the properly directed efforts of a strong, enlightened monarch. But the logic of events proved too powerful. The reverses in the struggles against the Eng- lish, especially in the War of the Spanish Succession, had broken the spell which attached to the Old Regime. Then came the American Revolution to serve as a further stimulus to the discontented and the oppressed. These speculations and these events were the sparks which lit the flame. The inflammable material was to be found in the deplorable conditions existing in France the wretchedness of the lower classes, all the more striking from the splendor and extravagance prevailing at Court, and accentuated by the special privileges of the noblemen and the clergy who owned two thirds of the lands, who were largely exempt from taxation which bore so heavily upon the poor, and who enjoyed seigniorial rights oppressive to the unfortunate peas- ants who cultivated their estates. The arbitrary power of the sovereign, the expensive and wasteful administration, and the injustice of the laws completed the burden of grievances. England was happy by comparison. To be sure, the governing classes were selfish, extrava- gant, and, even yet, not free from the taint of political corruption ; moreover, there was much poverty and distress among the lesser folk. On the other hand, there were few recognized class privileges ; there was nothing corresponding to the French noblesse, which was a closed 1 The Encyclopedia was produced by many collaborators under the supervision of Diderot and D'Alembert, 1751-1765. 824 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND hereditary feudal caste 1 ; the English laws were in theory the same for all ; and Parliament, in spite of its imperfections, was virtually a representative body. The smaller gentry sat side by side with trades- men and merchants in the Commons. The majority of the landlords lived on their estates and were closely identified with the interests of their tenantry. Furthermore, owing to over a century of almost continuous wars, to the wasteful administration, and the extrava- gance of Louis XIV, France was bankrupt. The Outbreak of the French Revolution, 1789. In the autumn of 1787 Arthur Young, the famous authority on agriculture, reported " a great ferment among all ranks of men who are eager for some change without knowing what to look to or to hope for." The situa- tion was rendered more acute by a famine in the following year, caused by a drought and a destructive hail storm. A bitterly severe winter intensified the suffering and discontent. For a number of years the King's Ministers had labored in vain to bring about a better con- dition of things. At length, Louis XVI, acting upon the advice of his Minister, Necker, summoned the Estates General to meet at Versailles, 5 May, 1789. This body had not met since 1614. The commons or third estate, who equaled the number of clergy and nobles put together, soon formed themselves into a National Constituent Assembly. 2 On 20 June they assembled in a tennis court adjacent to the palace, where they took an oath not to separate until they, had given their country a constitution. On a rumor that Necker was to be dismissed and the Assembly dissolved, a mob arose in Paris, 14 July, and stormed the celebrated state prison known as the Bastille. Following the disturb- ances in Paris came risings of the peasants against their seigniorial lords in various provinces. In the confusion which ensued, many of the more uncompromising nobles began to emigrate. The 4th of Aug- ust was marked by the surrender of seigniorial rights, the abolition of titles, and the sweeping away of various other privileges and abuses. The Declaration of the Rights of Man appeared on the 27th. Early in October, the King was forced to move from Versailles to Paris, whither the Assembly accompanied him. A democratic, monarchical constitu- tion was then drawn up, to which he gave his assent, 14 July, 1790. The Reception of the Revolution in England. The news of the events in France during the first few months following the outbreak of the Revolution was received in England with general satisfaction. Pitt thought with the majority that the overthrow of the Old Regime would be followed by the establishment of orderly, constitutional government. Moreover, with Britain's old enemy thus occupied, he 1 All but the eldest sons of English peers ranked as commoners, and the ranks of the nobility were not infrequently recruited from men who had succeeded in the professions and trade. 2 The various Revolutionary Governments were : the National or Constituent Assembly (1789-1791); the Legislative Assembly (1791-1792); the National Convention (1792-1795) ; the Directory (1795-1799) ; the Consulate (1799-1804) ; and the Empire under Napoleon (1804-1815). THE YOUNGER PITT 825 hoped for a period of peace and light taxes. Burke, however, took an opposite view from the start. He foresaw that the frenzy which had manifested itself in mob violence would never stop with moderate reforms, that the French example might be so contagious as to endanger the stability of existing institutions in England and other European countries. The attitude of Fox was quite different from that of either Pitt or Burke. On the news of the taking of the Bastille he wrote : " How much it is the greatest event that has happened in the world and how much the best." While regretting the attending bloodshed, he rejoiced at every step in the progress of the Revolution. Events proved that Burke's fears were only too well founded. The upheaval in France resulted not in constitutional government, but in anarchy, followed by a military despotism and a series of aggressive wars in which almost every state in Europe was shorn of territory or had its government overthrown. The ultimate results of the Rev- olutionary movement, however, went far to justify Fox's admiration of its fundamental principles. The democratic spirit, if not wide- spread, was at first very active in England. Dr. Priestley, a famous Unitarian divine and man of science as well, wrote in October : " There is a glorious prospect for mankind before us." He hoped that the movement would spread to other countries, putting an end to civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. Dr. Price and Shelburne, now Marquis of Landsdowne, were equally hopeful. " The Society for Com- memorating the Principles of the French Revolution," generally known as the Revolution Society, met on 9 November, 1789, under the presidency of Lord Stanhope and sent a congratulatory address to the National Assembly, a proceeding which called forth Burke's celebrated Reflections on the French Revolution. 1 Other clubs sprang up in many of the larger towns, and the press was busy turning out pamphlets and libels expressing advanced views. Nevertheless, the spirit of disaffection made little progress. The King had recovered the popularity lost by the failure of the American war, his illness had called forth increased loyalty, and the control of affairs was in the hands of a Prime Minister secure in the public confidence. The Split in the Whig Ranks, 1791. Burke's Reflections was an- swered by Thomas Paine in his Rights of Man, a rough, stirring appeal to the masses, and by James Mackintosh in his more polished Vin- dici& Gallicce; but they failed to check the steadily increasing con- servatism of the majority. Fox and Burke were growing more estranged, owing to their opposing views on the French Revolution. The final break came in the debates on a Bill for the Government of Canada in the spring of 1791. Fox, who objected to some of its provisions among them one authorizing the sovereign to grant hereditary titles taunted Burke at every opportunity with the re- actionary attitude which he had adopted toward the French Revolu- 1 Burke took as a text for his Reflections a sermon which Price preached on that occasion. 826 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tion, although that was a matter which had no bearing on the question at issue. Burke's final speech, 6 May, was one of the noblest and most pathetic efforts of his whole life. Previous differences of opinion had never interrupted his long and intimate friendship with his old polit- ical disciple. That friendship he now declared he was prepared to sacrifice. Fox, moved even to tears, protested without avail. The debate resulted in more than a personal break between Fox and Burke, it marked another split in the ranks of the Whig party. At first Burke, denounced as a deserter, stood almost alone. Within a year, however, the majority came round to his side, while the following of Fox shrank to the " weakest and most discredited Opposition " Eng- land has ever known. In his Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs and in his private correspondence Burke defended the consistency of his attitude, distinguishing, with great effect, the Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution from the movement in France. He made a powerful plea for the party " attached to the ancient tried usages of the Kingdom " and to security of property. " It was now absolutely necessary," he insisted, " to separate those who cultivated a rational and sober liberty upon the plan of our existing Constitution, from those who think they have no liberty, if it does not comprehend a right in them of making to themselves new Constitutions at their pleasure." He was hot for intervention, on the express condition, however, that such intervention should be solely for the purpose of restoring order in France, and with no idea of territorial aggrandize- ment or setting up despotism anew. But he failed to realize the futility of attempting to suppress permanently the new ideas to which the French Revolution had given birth, or to gage accurately the selfish conflicting aims of the European powers. Pitt's Foreign Policy, 1783-1788. The Triple Alliance, 1788. - Pitt was more cautious, and his policy, though the logic of events forced him later to depart from it, was simple and consistent to avoid interfering directly or indirectly in the affairs of France. Dur- ing the decade which had elapsed since he came to power, England had managed to keep clear of European wars, and in his foreign relations Pitt had met with only one serious setback. England had emerged from the American war without a friend on the Continent. Prussia, who was equally isolated, seemed to offer the only prospect of alliance ; but Frederick was still unfriendly. Joseph II, who became Emperor on the death of his mother, Maria Theresa, in 1780, was full of restless plans, big with possibilities of disturbance. One of his feats was to annul the Barrier Treaty of 1715 and force the Dutch to withdraw their garrisons from the barrier fortresses. This facilitated the French conquest of the Netherlands, three years after the outbreak of the Revolution, a step which furnished one of the principal causes for drawing England into the great French war in 1793. The death of Frederick the Great, 17 November, 1786, paved the way for the closer relations between Prussia and England. Shortly after, an THE YOUNGER PITT 827 occasion arose which led to a close alliance. France allied with the Dutch republicans and drove the Stadtholder from power. When the dominant party went so far as to arrest the Princess of Orange and refused to grant satisfaction for the insult, Frederick William II, who was her uncle, determined to take action. He sent an army into Holland, England made active preparations to assist him in the inter- ests of the Orange party, France backed out, and a Triple Alliance was formed, in 1788, between Great Britain, Prussia, and the Dutch Orange party for mutual defense and the maintenance of peace in Europe. The British had succeeded in withdrawing from their isolation. Nootka Sound, 1789-1790. The outbreak of the Revolution, which in its first stages absorbed the whole energies of France, enabled Pitt to secure a great advantage in a quarrel with Spain. The antag- onism between the two countries still continued. England persisted in her efforts to break through the Spanish colonial monopoly, while an added cause of friction had arisen from the suspicion that the British were encouraging disaffection in the South American colonies. In order to strike a counterblow, the Spanish attacked an English trading settlement on an island in Nootka Sound, off Vancouver. They refused satisfaction on two grounds : that they had an exclusive claim to the west coast of America as far north as 60, and that they had been the first to explore and occupy this particular district. Great Britain retorted that the Spanish occupation had , not been effective and so could not preclude British rights of trading, fishing, and settlement. Her position was supported by the other members of the Triple Alliance, while Spain was disappointed in her hopes of aid from Austria, Russia, or the United States. The National As- sembly offered help only upon terms impossible to accept. So Spain, in spite of imposing warlike preparations, was obliged to sign a treaty, 28 October, 1790, yielding the territory in dispute. Thus Pitt was able to gain a great diplomatic triumph, not the least important feature of which was the fact that he detached Spain from France. Pitt's Failure to check the Expansion of Russia, 1791. The general aim of Pitt's foreign policy was to secure peace and maintain the balance of power by means of the Triple Alliance. Catherine of Russia was determined to extend her power north and south, and, to this end, sought to encroach upon the dominion of the Turks and to get a tighter grip on Poland. So, in 1787, she forced the Turks into a war. Pitt managed to obtain a favorable peace for Gustavus III of Sweden who had been contending against Russia in the Baltic region ; but he was unable to force Catherine to come to terms with the Turks on the basis of the status quo. She insisted on retaining her conquest of Ochakov and the territory to the river Dniester. He was greatly hampered by the fact that the Prussians were anxious to share in another partition of Poland. 1 Austria, of course, inclined to Russia. 1 There were three partitions of Poland between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which took place in 1772, 1793, and 1795, respectively. 828 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND His chief difficulty, however, came from the opposition in Parlia- ment, which refused to back him in a war because of the damage to English trade and manufactures which it might involve, and because of the view always held by Pitt's own father that friend- ship with Russia offered an effective check against France and Spain. Burke denounced the new policy as an " anti-crusade " for assisting " destructive savages " against a Christian power. Consequently, Russia was able to arrange a peace on her own terms, August, 1791, and was left free to continue'her aggressions against Poland as well. Pitt's Effort to avoid Intervention in French Affairs. For a time Pitt held aloof from any attempt to intervene in France. In spite of his belligerent attitude toward Russia he was really anxious for peace, to develop his commercial and financial reforms, to keep down taxes, and to reduce the debt. Moreover, he thought that Burke exaggerated the danger and even the importance of the French Revolution. It was clear that the majority of Englishmen were opposed to Revolu- tionary doctrines. However, it soon became apparent that the French Revolutionists, far from confining themselves to their own country, were determined to spread their gospel of freedom through- out Europe. In England, in spite of the prevailing hostility to Rev- olutionary ideas, various societies were formed to promulgate them. In addition to the Revolutionary Society there were the Society for Constitutional Information and the London Corresponding Society, all of which were in communication with the Jacobins in Paris. 1 The London Society was the most violent of all. Inflammatory speeches were made at its meetings, and under its auspices the most violent pamphlets and broadsides were circulated. Notwithstanding the opposition of Fox and the other extreme Whigs, a royal proclama- tion against seditious writings was issued, 21 May, 1792, and proved effective in checking the Revolutionary propaganda. Thomas Paine fled to France to avoid proceedings against him. The French am- bassador, Chauvelin, who protested against the Proclamation, re- ceived a just rebuke. French Aggressions in the Netherlands, 1792. Meantime, although Pitt felt so secure that he divided the surplus of the past year between the Sinking Fund and a remission of taxes, events were moving rapidly on the Continent. Marie Antoinette, the Queen of Louis XVI, had applied for aid to her brother, the Emperor. Before steps were actually taken in response to her request France declared war on Austria, 20 April, 1792. In August Louis XVI was deposed and he and his Queen imprisoned. The English ambassador was recalled forthwith, on the ground that the sovereign to whom he was accredited reigned no more. Chauvelin remained in London without official status. Then came the September massacres in Paris, which filled even Fox with horror. Meantime, the Austrians, and the Prussians who had allied with them, crossed the frontier, 31 August. Fred- 1 The Society of Friends of the People was chiefly interested in parliamentary reform and held aloof from the French Revolutionary party. THE YOUNGER PITT 829 erick William II had declared : " The comedy will not last long . . . the army of advocates will soon be annihilated ; we shall be home before autumn ; " but the invaders were repulsed at Valmy, 1 21 September, and before the end of October were forced to withdraw from France. The French commander Dumouriez next turned to the Netherlands ; he defeated the Austrians at Jemappes, 6 November, after which he overran the whole country. Territorial aggression and the spread of Republican ideas went hand in hand. In Holland the old Republican party raised its head again, whereupon the States General appealed to Great Britain and received assurances that in case of need they would be protected. The Opening of the Scheldt, and the Decrees of 19 November and 15 December, 1792. On 16 November, the French declared the river Scheldt open to navigation. This was at once a violation of the treaty rights 2 of the Dutch and a defiance of Great Britain, who was bound to protect them. The triumphant Revolutionists, who had also annexed Savoy and Nice, declared in their exultation that they would " break all the Cabinets of Europe." They held out hopes to the English societies with whom they corresponded that a republic would soon be set up in Great Britain, and sent emissaries to stir up disaffection in different parts of the country. It was an especially favorable time. Owing to a bad harvest, the price of wheat was high, and the poor, particularly among the manufacturing classes, were suffering for food. Riots broke out, accompanied by frequent cries of "No excise! " " No King! " On 19 November, the National Convention issued a decree offering to assist, even by force of arms, all nations aspiring to liberty. In view of the aggressions in the Nether- lands and of this open invitation to revolt, the English Government began to prepare for a possible conflict, though Pitt still hoped to maintain peace. A proclamation was issued, i December, calling out the militia, and Parliament was summoned to meet on the i3th. When it had assembled, the Government, which "had already taken steps to increase the army and navy, introduced an Alien Bill which became law in January, 1793. It placed all foreigners under sur- veillance; prohibited them from bringing arms or ammunition into the country; and authorized the Government, if necessary, to expel them. Fox declared that the danger was exaggerated, resisted all restrictive measures, and advised the recognition of the French Re- public, which had been declared, 22 September. But he was little heeded ; for the designs of the dominant Revolutionary party grew steadily more menacing. They began to treat the Austrian Nether- lands as a part of France and to introduce democracy. On 15 Decem- ber, 1792, the National Assembly issued another decree, declaring that in every country occupied by French armies the commander should proclaim the sovereignty of the people and suppress the existing 1 Goethe, who was in the Prussian camp, declared : "On that day a new era of history began." 2 It had been closed to all except the Dutch by the Peace of Munster in 1648. 830 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND system of government. " The French Nation," so ran the decree, " will treat as enemies the people who, refusing or renouncing liberty and equality, are clesirous of preserving their prince and privileged castes, or of entering into accommodation with them." The Outbreak of War with France, 1793. As late as 31 December, 1792, Grenville, the British Foreign Secretary, declared that his Majesty still desired peace, but a peace " consistent with the interests and dignity of his own dominions, and with the general security of Europe." All the while, the French were preparing to invade Holland, though they were full of soothing assurances to the English that they did not mean to hold the Netherlands in permanent subjection, and that their decree of 19 November was meant to apply only to countries where the desire of the people for a Republican Government was manifestly expressed. However, in a vote of 13 January, which was really an ultimatum, they refused to reverse their action in opening the Scheldt ; they insisted that they should judge when to interfere in behalf of insurgents in other countries ; and de- clined to set a definite time for their withdrawal from the Nether- lands. Grenville sent a haughty reply; but negotiations were still dragging on when the execution of Louis XVI, 21 January, sent a shudder of horror through England, and the very people in the streets cried: " War with France! " l Chauvelin, who had been informally representing the Republic, though Grenville refused to accept his credentials, was ordered to leave the country, and, i February, France declared war on Great Britain and Holland. Though the declaration came from France, Pitt and Grenville had come to realize that the conflict was inevitable, and had virtually closed the negotiations by refusing to listen to more assurances and by their abrupt dismissal of Chauvelin. The active promulgation of Revolutionary doctrines taken alone would not have dragged Pitt from his neutral attitude ; and, unlike Burke, Frederick William II, and the Emperor, he had no desire to undertake a crusade for the restoration of monarchy in France. It was the violation of the treaties relating to the Scheldt, which threatened the security of the public law of Europe, the occupa- tion and threatened annexation of the Austrian Netherlands ; and the danger of an invasion of Holland, that finally determined his attitude. 2 In his opinion it would be a " very short war and certainly ended in one or two campaigns." Burke predicted that it would be a " long war and a dangerous war." As a matter of fact, with one brief lull, it lasted for over twenty years. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See ch. XL VII below. 1 The Prince of Wales declared : "If God Almighty came over as an envoy, He could not now prevent a War." 2 France in possession of the Low Countries with Antwerp as a port would have been a grave menace to British maritime supremacy. CHAPTER XLVI THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS (1793-1802) General Features of the War. The outbreak of the war in 1793 found England unprepared to undertake military operations on a large scale. In the year 1792 the British army numbered only 17,300 men, while at the time of the French declaration it had only been increased by 10,000. Instead of strengthening it at once, Pitt relied on small expeditions sent out to cooperate with the French royalists. This plan proved futile as well as costly, and Pitt might have foreseen it ; for English experience had proved that a people, however disaffected, seldom cooperate cordially with a foreign invader. It was not till new methods were employed after Pitt's death that the British army achieved effective results. Another source of weakness in the begin- ning arose from the fact that the first generals were chosen because of their family connections rather than for their military ability. In striking contrast, the British navy showed from the start the su- periority for which it had been famed. In February, 1793, the sea force was raised to 45,000; from that time on the number of ships and men was constantly increased, and under skilled and heroic com- manders a steady succession of victories resulted. Nevertheless, while the British navy effected much by blockading French ports, sweeping her fleets from the sea, and capturing her colonies, the final issue had to be fought out on land. A significant factor was the ulti- mate transformation in the character of the war. Great Britain's continental allies in the beginning were not peoples, but absolute monarchs concerned in maintaining their power and preserving or extending their boundaries. Then the French Government changed from a Republic bent on a general crusade for liberty to a military despotism aiming primarily at territorial aggrandizement. The re- sult was to produce a great national reawakening in Spain, Russia, and Prussia. Only after that happened was France struck down in her victorious career. Great Britain alone had from the very begin- ning been animated by an intense and persistent national opposition against the Republic and the Napoleonic Empire alike. Meantime, with her fleets and her subsidies, she had saved Europe by sustaining her allies until they were able to turn and overthrow their aggressor. Great Britain emerged from the war with an enormous debt of 840,000,000. Although the favored classes gained huge profits 831 832 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND from the expansion of commerce and manufactures and the high prices of foodstuffs, the poor suffered intensely and the country had to face more than one sharp financial crisis. The First Coalition, 1793-1797. The Campaign of 1793. The war opened with a period of hard times and a money stringency. The bad harvest of 1792 had produced widespread distress. On top of that came a sudden shrinkage of credit and withdrawal of deposits, due to the prospect of a general European conflict. The banks, having greatly extended their circulation since the recent industrial development, were hard put to it, and many failures resulted, partic- ularly in the country and the smaller towns. The Prime Minister only checked the crisis by getting the assent of Parliament to issue 5,000,000 in exchequer bills l to be advanced at reasonable interest on good security. In spite of this unpromising state of affairs, the Government went on with its preparations for war. Alliances were formed with Prussia and Austria 2 ; Russia, whose troops were occupied in Poland, agreed to lend her fleet to assist the British in preventing neutrals from supplying the French with food ; Portugal promised to send ships to the Mediterranean ; British subsidies were advanced to the King of Sardinia ; treaties were made with the King of the Two Sicilies ; and troops were hired from Hanover and Hesse Cassel. This First Coalition, as it came to be called, began with a series of decided successes. The French were driven out of the Netherlands and defeated in the Rhine country, while a British fleet, assisted by Spain, which joined the Coalition in May, captured the important naval station of Toulon. The prospect looked dark enough for France. On the borders her troops were .unruly, her generals were inefficient, her ablest commander, Dumouriez, fled to the Austrians, and her war ministers proved incompetent. Most of the leading cities outside Paris were in revolt, while a formidable insurrection had broken out in the Vendee. The Allies, with 300,000 men posted along the frontier from the Alps to the Netherland sea coast, might by a sudden con- certed movement have taken the French capital, but their troops were kept inactive while they quarreled about the partition of territory, much of which was not yet in their possession. The crisis inspired the French to heroic efforts. In August they ordered a universal con- scription, and under a new War Minister, Carnot, who proved a genius in the work, the raw recruits were amalgamated with the regulars into an effective army. They recovered ground in the Netherlands as well as in the Rhine country, whence Frederick William II had with- drawn to look after his Polish interests. The Vendeans were crushed and scattered, while a British force sent to aid them returned home without even landing. Toulon also was recovered, in which achieve- 1 These are negotiable, interest-bearing bills of credit issued by the Exchequer under authority of acts of Parliament. They are issued for five years at most and in sums of 100, or in multiples of that amount. 2 Great Britain and Holland were already allied. 833 ment a young Corsican artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, first came into military prominence. All this was only slightly offset by British successes in the West Indies and in India, and by their cap- ture of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Measures of Repression, 1793-1795. The turn of the tide, due to the patriotic enthusiasm of the French and the selfish division of the Allies, was accompanied by the " Reign of Terror " in France a carnival of bloodshed lasting from early in 1793 to the summer of 1794, when the extremists, who had got control of the Convention, acting through Revolutionary committees sent hundreds to the guillotine, either because they would not go far enough in support of the Revolu- tion or because their condemnation offered a chance to confiscate their goods. The result was to convince Pitt of the necessity of over- throwing the existing Government. 1 At length he had come round to adopt the attitude of Burke. Fear that the French victories and the ascendancy of the violent party might encourage the Republican sympathizers in England, although there is little evidence that they were gaining ground, led to further repressive measures. Late in 1793 a Traitorous Correspondence Bill was carried which made it treason even to purchase French stocks. Printers and preachers of sedition, or what was interpreted as such, were prosecuted, and spies were employed to report every sign of disaffection. A few were rigorously punished. One poor bilisticker was imprisoned for six months for posting an address asking for parliamentary reform, and an attorney, who remarked in a coffeehouse that he was " for equality and the rights of man," had to go to prison and stand in the pillory. The courts, however, showed their fairness in the acquittal of others, notably in the case of Home Tooke, a sturdy agitator and former sup- porter of Wilkes, who was tried for treason in 1794. Yet in the same year the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended for the first time since 1745. In the teeth of a small but vociferous opposition in Parliament, 60,000 men were enrolled in the army and 85,000 in the navy. Volun- teers were added and letters were sent to lords lieutenants to collect subscriptions from the counties. These were denounced by Fox and Sheridan as revivals of the old benevolences, but there was this important difference, that, irregular as was the proceeding, it was sanctioned by Parliament. The Campaigns of 1794-1795. In July, 1794, Pitt's Government was greatly strengthened when the Duke of Portland and other leading Whigs, who had seceded from the portion dominated by Fox, took office in the Cabinet. The Reign of Terror in France came to an end on the 27th of the same month, 2 when Robespierre was arrested, together with a number of his violent associates. With the return of the moderates to power the English peace party raised its voice. 1 "Any alternative," he declared early in 1794, "was preferable to making peace with France upon the basis of its present rulers." 2 9 Thermidor, according to the new Revolutionary calendar. 3H 834 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Pitt, however, realized that it was not a time to secure favorable terms. To be sure, the British successes continued at sea. -They gained in the Mediterranean and in the West Indies and, in a notable fight lasting from 28 May to i June, known as the " Glorious First of June," Hood won a decisive victory over the Brest fleet off Ushant, though he failed to intercept a provision fleet from America for which the French were anxiously waiting. It was in this battle that " break- ing the line " was first employed as a deliberate policy by the British commander. But the campaign in the Netherlands, whence the British designed, in company with the Dutch, the Prussians, and the Austrians, to march on Paris, resulted disastrously for the Allies. On 26 June they were defeated at Fleurus and forced to evacuate the Aus- trian Netherlands. In September the Prussians retired across the Rhine and were followed by the Austrians in the spring. The French invaded Holland in the winter of 1794-1795, whence the British, left unsupported, were obliged to withdraw. The Stadholder fled to England, the Franco-Dutch party set up the Batavian Republic, and, 10 May, 1795, entered into a dependent alliance with France. Prussia, who was mainly interested in the final partition of Poland which took place in this year, concluded with the Convention the Peace of Basle, 5 April, and, 22 July, Spain followed suit. Pitt, who had got authority from Parliament to levy new taxes and to raise new loans, guaranteed a monthly subsidy to Austria. Russia, too, gave her financial aid ; but, even thus fortified, Austria was unable to hold her ground against the French, either in Germany or northern Italy. In June two successive bodies of emigres, who, assisted by the British, landed at Quiberon Bay to support another rising of the Breton royal- ists, were decisively defeated by the Republican general, Hoche, while a third expedition, under the Count of Artois, younger brother of Louis XVI, which came to the aid of the Vendeans, was no more successful. The royalist cause in the west of France was ruined. Suffering and Discontent in England. The Repressive Acts of !795- The year 1795, so disastrous to the Allies on the Continent, was also marked by great suffering among the English poor. Two more bad harvests in succession brought the price of wheat, which had been 43 shillings the quarter 1 in 1792, to 75. Bread riots broke out in many places, and the Government, in spite of its efforts to meet the situation, was blamed for the prevailing distress. Demands were made for annual parliaments, for universal suffrage, and a speedy peace. When the King rode to and from the opening of Parliament, 29 October, 1795, he was hailed with hisses and cries of: " Bread ! Bread ! No Pitt ! " His carriage w r as pelted and the windows were broken. Two more repressive measures resulted. The Treasonable Practices Bill declared the mere speaking or writing against the King or the established Government to be treason, and made it a misde- 1 A quarter was eight bushels or a quarter of a long ton by weight. THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 835 meaner to incite another to such speaking or writing. The Seditious Meetings Bill forbade any political meeting except upon previous notice by a resident householder, and even authorized any two jus- tices of the peace to dissolve a meeting called in a legal way. These drastic acts were fortunately limited in duration, and, as a matter of fact, were never enforced. Pitt's Failure to make Peace, 1796. The power of France was greatly strengthened by a new constitution, October, 1795, vesting the executive in a directory of five. Carnot, who was a leading member, planned a comprehensive campaign against Austria in which three armies were to converge against Vienna by way of the Main, the Danube, and the Po. While the two northern armies were unsuccess- ful, the third, under Napoleon Bonaparte, managed to push its way to within eighty miles of Vienna. In consequence, the Austrians were forced to sue for peace in April, 1797. Meantime, Pitt had shown his readiness to end the war, particularly since the Republican excesses had apparently run their course and the French Government seemed to have been established on a stable basis. Preliminary negotiations, opened in March, 1796, were rejected by the Directory, and the British Government again offered terms in the summer only to meet with another rebuff. The Directory alleged as an excuse Great Britain's insistence on the surrender of the Austrian Netherlands ; but really, although there was a strong party opposed to continuing the war, they had no desire to make peace, particularly since Catherine of Russia, who died in November, 1796, was succeeded by her son Paul, who declared himself neutral. Moreover, owing to a defensive al- liance concluded with Spain, 19 August, 1796, British fleets and com- merce were excluded from the Mediterranean, and Napoleon was free to pursue his designs against the Austrians without fear of his com- munications by way of Italy being broken. Such being the situation, the French Government dreamed of ruining British trade by closing the continental ports against her, of isolating her from her European allies, of stirring up rebellion in Ireland, of invading her shores, and of overthrowing Pitt and the Monarchy. The Critical Years, 1796-1797. In December, 1796, an expedi- tion from Brest sailed for Ireland. Owing, however, to stress of weather and the incapacity of French naval officers, the fleet was scattered, the commander, Hoche, did not arrive at all, and, though a portion of the fleet managed to reach Bantry Bay, it turned back without even attempting to land. The invaders thus missed the chance of an easy conquest ; for there were scarcely any regular troops to defend the country. Another French expedition landed at Fish- guard Bay ; but the French soldiers, disconcerted, it is said, by some old Welsh women in red cloaks and beaver hats, whom they took for regular troops, were easily captured by hastily mustered forces of local levies. Nevertheless, the condition of England was critical : indeed, the years 1796 and 1797 were the darkest in the whole war. The 836 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND debt had increased 80,000,000 since the opening of the conflict, while every variety of taxation had been tried as well. Her allies had met with an almost constant succession of defeats. Threatened at any moment with an invasion, though Fox declared that there was more danger to the people of England from the encroachment of the magistrates, strenuous efforts were made to strengthen the army and navy and to raise more money. The response was warm and enthu- siastic. A loan of 1 8,000,000 was subscribed so quickly that hundreds were turned away. Thus it came to be known as the " loyalty loan." 1 Then came an acute monetary crisis. It was due, not to lack of credit or of substantial wealth, but to a dearth of currency to carry on the business of the country. The payment of subsidies, the necessity of purchasing food supplies abroad, and the closing of the markets in France, Spain, Holland, and Italy had all contributed to the scarcity of specie. Then the fear of invasion caused many to draw their desposits from the local banks which in their turn drew on the Bank of England. To meet the threatened run, the Bank, after consulting with the Government, suspended cash payments in February, 1797. This measure, intended to be temporary, lasted till 1819. It is a tribute to the soundness of English business and financial conditions and to the public confidence that there was never more than a slight depreciation of paper. The Battle off Cape St. Vincent, 14 February, 1797. Notwith- standing the fiascos at Bantry Bay and Fishguard Bay, the French proceeded with their plans of invasion. A Spanish fleet sailing from Carthagena was to join the French at Brest, and, together with a Dutch squadron gathered off the Texel, the combined forces were to make a simultaneous descent on the English coast. On St. Valen- tine's Day, 14 February, 1797, Sir John Jervis attacked the Spanish, who greatly outnumbered him, off Cape St. Vincent. After a hard day's fighting, in which Commodore Nelson distinguished himself by his audacious courage, the British fleet won a notable victory. 2 The result was to cheer greatly the English in the midst of their financial crisis and to lessen materially the danger of the dreaded French in- vasion, though the Brest and Texel fleets, each guarded by a British squadron, were still intact. The -Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, 1797. At this juncture, when all depended upon the navy, a widespread mutiny broke out. While the sailors were worked upon by pamphlets distributed by the democratic societies, they had many real grievances. Their pay had not been increased since the reign of Charles II, though the cos,t of living had risen 30 to 40 per cent 3 ; owing to the dishonesty of con- tractors, their food and clothing were both bad and insufficient, their 1 The Government offered 112 of stock at 5 per cent for every 100 subscribed. 2 Jervis was created Earl St. Vincent. Nelson became a rear-admiral, 20 Febru- ary, although his promotion was already decided upon before the battle. * The pay of the army had, to some degree, kept pace with changing conditions. THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 837 quarters were frightfully unhealthy, and they were subject to arbitrary and barbarous punishments. Most of the men were pressed and many of them were recruited from the lowest criminal class, who were ripe for anything. In the winter of 1796-1797 the able seamen, who had an especial grievance in being withdrawn from the more prof- itable merchant service, sent a petition to Lord Howe. When the Admiralty hesitated to grant their demands, they raised the red flag of mutiny at Spithead on 15 April, just as the fleet for Brest was about to put to sea. Then the authorities agreed to all their demands. It required another armed demonstration, however, before the bill to raise their pay was pushed through Parliament, whereupon Howe, whom the sailors knew affectionately as " Black Dick," went down from London with the news of the vote, together with a royal pardon, and quelled the mutiny. The result encouraged an outbreak 1 2 May, in the fleet off the Nore, 1 which was destined to reenforce the North Sea squadron. The movement here was in the hands of a much more desperate class, who blockaded the mouth of the Thames and pre- vented trading vessels from going in and out. However, the vigorous efforts of the authorities, assisted by the better-minded men, soon forced the mutineers to give in and surrender Parker, their leader, who was hanged at the yardarm. The Government, recognizing the gravity of the crisis and the justice of the complaints, was wisely lenient. Less than a score were put to death. Although impress- ment and flogging continued for a long time to come, the condition of the crews was steadily improved. 2 The End of the First Coalition, 1797. The British Victory off Cam- perdown, n October. While Great Britain was struggling with a financial crisis and a mutinous fleet, France, too, was in difficulties. Public spirit was at a low ebb, loans could only be procured at exorbi- tant rates of interest, and taxes were arbitrary and crushing. Carnot was opposed to the extreme Republicans, while another member of the Directory was a royalist. Pitt seized the occasion to reopen negotiations for peace in the summer of 1797, but while the terms were being discussed, a coup d'etat, 4 September, 3 resulted in the ex- pulsion of the two moderates from the Directory. The two Jacobins who replaced them were hot for war and demanded impossible con- cessions. Austria, 17 October, concluded with France the treaty of Campo Formio. Great Britain was isolated, and the First Coalition had been broken into pieces. England was saved from invasion, ho\vever, by another great naval victory. The mutiny had spread even to the fleet of Admiral Duncan who was blockading the Dutch off the Texel. At one time he had only one ship besides his own, but he managed to keep the enemy in port by constantly running up flags to make them believe that he was signaling to parts of his fleet 1 The name is applied to the estuary of the Thames. 2 Nelson's care for his men was particularly noteworthy. 3 18 Fructidor, according to the new calendar. 838 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND which were not in sight. When they at length weighed anchor, he was strong enough to- engage, and won a decisive victory off Camper- down, ii October, lygy. 1 The French were still reluctant to give up their cherished project. In the following spring they collected an invading force along the coast prepared for transport ; but Napoleon, who was placed in command of this " Army of England," felt that it was hopeless to attempt an invasion while Great Britain retained her mastery of the seas. Consequently, he turned to another plan which he had formed, of striking India by way of Egypt. This left England free to deal with a dangerous rebellion which had come to a head in Ireland. The Situation in Ireland, 1782-1789. In Ireland the grant of legislative independence in 1782 had done little or nothing to relieve the situation. The interests of the Roman Catholics, the Protestant Dissenters, the Episcopalians, the native Irish, the Anglo-Irish, the English, the landowners, and the peasantry conflicted and inter- mingled in a most bewildering fashion. The Irish Parliament, while nominally free, was composed of Protestants nobles, gentry, and placemen over whom the English government officials exercised great control by means of patronage, bribery, and influence. The Roman Catholics not only had no representation, but no vote, and were ex- cluded from office as well as from all the professions except that of medicine. The Protestants were divided among themselves. There were two main groups. One consisted largely of those in the English interest, mostly officeholders and pensioners, chief among them Fitzgibbon, the Chancellor, and the Beresfords, a family who con- trolled a vast number of appointments. The opposition, in which Grattan was the leading figure, was made up partly of men of wealth and family who chafed under English control ; but there were many attached to this party who desired a genuine reform of Parliament. Within this group there were some, headed by Grattan, who desired to include the admission of Roman Catholics in their scheme of reform ; others wanted merely to break up the government control of boroughs, which was even more shameless than in, England. Below those who were working mainly for political equality were the peasantry, whose chief grievances were financial and economic. The exorbitant rents squeezed from them by the middlemen, who hired the lands from the great landlords often absentees and the tithes for the support of the Established Church were burdens which bore heavily on the lesser folk, whether Protestant or Catholic. In their wretchedness they saw no hope but in force. The Whiteboys, who resumed their nightly raids in Munster and parts of Leinster, were of the Catholic faith, but they directed their efforts mainly against the rent collectors and the tithe proctors. In spite of the common grievances Ulster was torn by acute religious animosity. Protestant "Peep of Day Boys" combined to protect themselves, and sought to deprive their Catholic 1 Duncan was created Earl of Camperdown as a reward for his achievement. THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 839 neighbors of arms which by law they were forbidden to carry. The latter formed themselves into societies of " Defenders." New Prot- estant organizations followed which took the name of Orange Lodges. Thus lawless violence was met by lawless violence. The French Revolution. Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen. In the midst of this wild disorder came the news of the French Revolu- tion and the visits of Revolutionary agents promising the overthrow of tyranny, religious and secular, and a millennium for the downtrodden. The Roman Catholics at first had little sympathy with the movement which included in its propaganda the overthrow of their Church; but the northern Protestants of the lesser sort, many of whom were Republicans at heart, eagerly welcomed the new teachings. They hated the exclusive knot which governed the Irish Parliament as much as they hated those of the opposite faith, and they longed to be rid of middlemen and tithes. There was an opportunity for the ruling classes to maintain their ascendancy by playing the opposing religious parties against each other. Foreseeing this, Wolfe Tone, a Dublin barrister, nominally a Presbyterian, but really a free thinker, formed in 1791, the Society of United Irishmen, in which he sought to make the hostile elements set aside their religious animosity in pursuit of a common object the breakdown of the English power through reform of Parliament. Tone's activity caused a split in the ranks of the Roman Catholics. The minority, composed of the bishops and the educated classes who looked to Pitt for further measures of relief, broke off all connection with the more violent majority, who threw in their lot with the United Irishmen. Instead of wisely granting sufficient concessions to satisfy the moderates, those in authority, after holding out great hopes, only conceded grudgingly just enough half measures to anger the Protestant clique and to stir up the Roman Catholics to increasing agitation. In 1792, a bill was forced through the Irish Parliament admitting them to the practice of law and re- pealing restrictions on education and intermarriage. In 1793, they were admitted to the grand juries and to the magistracies ; the prohibition to bear arms was repealed; and they were given the right to vote for members of the Lower House. This last conces- sion was far from satisfactory; for the poor and ignorant tenantry who received the franchise were completely under the control of the landlords and borough owners, while the wealthy and intelligent Catholics were still excluded from sitting in Parliament and from the higher offices of State. 1 It is natural to suppose that the dominant Protestants would fight to the last ditch the admission of the Roman Catholics, who from their vastly superior numbers would speedily get control of the country. Fitzwilliam made Lord Lieutenant. His Recall and its Conse- quences, 1795. The reformers, however, were filled with new hope 1 Parsons, in a debate, declared : "It courts the rabble and insults the Catholic gentry." 8 4 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND when Lord Fitzwilliam, one of the Portland Whigs who had joined Pitt's Cabinet in 1794, came out as Lord Lieutenant early in 1795. He understood that he was to have a free hand. Pitt, however, though he favored further measures for the relief of Catholics, was disinclined to concede any more than was absolutely necessary while the war lasted. Consequently, he gave the Lord Lieutenant instructions to yield only so far as he was obliged to. In view of the sentiment which he found prevailing, Fitzwilliam felt justified in taking decided steps directly on his arrival. He at once arranged with Grattan to introduce a bill to admit Roman Catholics to Parliament, and dismissed from office the chief of the powerful Beresford connection. The pensioners and placemen set up a furious howl ; Beresford appealed to London ; Pitt bowed to the storm, recalled Fitzwilliam, and the bill was defeated. Fitzgibbon, now created Earl of Clare, managed by indirect means to persuade King George that he could not, without a breach of his coronation oath, consent to any further Catholic relief. 1 The events of 1798 defeated the only possible chance of a peaceful settlement of the Irish question. Many of the disappointed threw themselves into the arms of Tone, who, however, was obliged to leave the country, and sailed for America. On the other hand, the violence of the em- bittered Catholics forced numbers of the northern Protestants over to the Government side, and the Orange Society was founded. A rev- olution was rapidly approaching. The Government averts a Rising in Ulster. The United Irishmen, who had been forcibly suppressed in 1794, were now reconstituted on a basis distinctly republican and treasonable. Instead of trying any longer to hold the two religious parties together, the leaders sought to influence the Catholics by persuading them that the Protestants were plotting their extermination. They also emphasized their agrarian grievances, and sought to lessen their distrust of the French Revolu- tion by pointing out that it had led to the abolition of tithes. In consequence, the " Defenders " combined with the United Irishmen, adopted a military organization, and appealed to France, whither Tone, from his exile in America, went for aid in 1796. The French reply was to send the two expeditions which came to such a futile end. Meanwhile, the Government acted with prompt decision. In the autumn of 1796 the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and bodies of yeomanry and infantry were organized from the gentry. Shortly before the sailing of the French fleet several leaders of the United Irishmen were arrested in Belfast. Early in 1797 martial law was proclaimed. Arms were searched out and seized, houses were burned, and Catholics were barbarously tortured and put to death. There were few regular troops in the country, and the volunteers who sup- plied their place were goaded to excess by long-existing feuds. Aber- crombie, the Commander-in-Chief , sought to mitigate their harshness, 1 One further concession was granted : the foundation at Maynooth of a col- lege for the training of priests. The endowment, however, was most scanty. THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 841 but he was overruled and resigned. The work of suppression was car- ried on by General Lake. Informers assisted, by constant reports of the movements of the conspirators. The Irish authorities were given free hand, and the English Ministers declined all requests to interfere on the side of mercy. The Rebellion of 1798. A general rising was planned for 23 May, but owing to the prompt arrest of many leaders, to the loyalty of the moderate Catholics, and the energy of the authorities, the designs of the rebels were in a large measure frustrated. An attempt on Dublin failed, and a rising in Kildare, marked by destruction and cruelty on the part of the insurgents, was speedily put down. In Carlow they were suppressed with a savagery that surpassed their own. Houses in which arms were found were burned ; suspected persons were shot or barbarously tortured. The most gruesome instrument of torture was the " pitch-cap " ; a cap lined with burning pitch was forced on the head of the unhappy victim, and he could only remove it by tearing off his scalp. One man, at least, drowned himself to end his misery. William Judkin Fitzgerald, the High Sheriff of Tipperary, stamped out the rebellion in his country with a courage only exceeded by his ferocity. After the revolts in the north and west had been practically suppressed, the civil war came to a head in Wexford and Wicklow, where little resistance had been anticipated. The outbreak, partic- ularly in Wexford. where strife raged for some weeks, was precipitated by the Protestant yeomanry and militia. The real though not the nominal leader of the rebel army, which rapidly swelled to a force of 15,000 men, was a priest, Father John Murphy. After taking the city of Wexford, where they left a garrison, they marched to a place called Vinegar Hill. There they set up a camp, there they heard mass, there their anti-Protestant hatred was inflamed by fiery sermons, but, frenzied and undisciplined, they failed to make the most of their opportunities except for violence and revenge. 1 The loyalist forces struggled bravely until the arrival of General Lake with regular troops. By the capture of Vinegar Hill he broke the back of the rebellion, 21 June. It had been practically confined to the province of Leinster ; for only two outbreaks had occurred in ah 1 Ulster, while Munster and Connaught remained quiet. The Aftermath of '98. The French, hampered by the fact that the British fleets controlled the Channel, sent two small expeditions to Ireland, which arrived after the Rebellion was over, only to be finally overcome and taken. Among the prisoners was Wolfe Tone who was condemned to death, but committed suicide in prison. Lord Cornwallis who had succeeded as Lord Lieutenant and Commander- in-Chief, 20 June, managed to check the bloodthirsty execution which followed the Wexford war by an act of indemnity containing only a few exceptions. Unhappily, the burning and wasting, the ruthless 1 Many of the better sort, however, including the priests, did their best to pre- serve order. 842 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND destruction of life and property committed by both parties impover- ished the country, led to a stagnation of industry and credit, revised and accentuated the old religious and racial animosities, and undid the effect of such slight conciliation as had been attempted during the past two decades. The most direct result of the Rebellion was to determine Pitt and his Cabinet to bring about a union between the Irish and the English Parliaments. As early as 1782, he had thought of this possi- bility as the only solution of the vexed question of Catholic relief. Catholic members absorbed in the English Protestant Parliament would count for little, while they would inevitably dominate the Irish once they were admitted within its walls. Moreover, a union offered a means of breaking up the corrupt rule of the Protestant minority and of checking the revengeful fury of the Orangemen. The charge that Pitt fostered the Rebellion in order to pave the way for his project is absurd, though there is little doubt that he eagerly welcomed the opportunity. The Ijrish Union, 1799-1800. The two Parliaments had been united for a brief period under Cromwell, but the arrangement had come to an end at his death. At the time of the union with Scotland, and occasionally in the years which followed, the Irish Parliament sug- gested such an arrangement in the interest of their trade. After the commercial concessions of lyyS-iySo 1 and the repeal of Poyning's law in 1782 the prevailing sentiment came to be that such a step would be a sacrifice of Irish nationality. After the Rebellion the matter was brought forward by a recommendation in the royal address opening the Irish Parliament in 1799. It was bitterly, and, for the moment, successfully opposed by the leaders of the Irish opposition, headed by Grattan. The Roman Catholic bishops supported the Government in the hope of securing provision for their priests, commutation of tithes in money payments, and Catholic emancipation. The main energies of Cornwallis and his Secretary, Castlereagh, who, with the Earl of Clare, had the measure in charge, were directed toward the manipulation of the members of Parliament and the powerful interests which controlled the seats. They justified the means which they employed on the ground .of disagreeable necessity. To Cornwallis it was particularly " dirty work " for which he despised himself, and he often longed to kick those whom he was obliged to court. Not daring to hazard a general election, sixty-three members of the exist- ing House of Commons were replaced by supporters of the Govern- ment ; some exchanged their seats for office, some sold them outright, some resigned to avoid taking sides. Borough owners, who would 1 In 1785, just previous to the commercial treaty with France, Pitt framed a measure of free trade with Ireland. His scheme was accepted by the Irish Parlia- ment, who agreed in return to pay a fixed contribution to the support of the Brit- ish navy. Unfortunately, the jealousy of English merchants compelled the Prime Minister to modify his original proposition. The Irish rejected the plan in its amended form, and one more cause of estrangement was the result. THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 843 lose profit and influence by the destruction of the Irish Parliament, were bought with 15,000 apiece. Twenty new Irish peers were created, sixteen were promoted, and five were rewarded with English peerages. Some votes were bought with places and pensions, some by direct bribes, but the amount employed for the latter purpose has doubtless been greatly exaggerated, and Cornwallis seems not to have had anything to do with it. In one way and another, however, the Government spent i ,000,000. In spite of the preponderating strength of the Government supporters, the anti-unionists fought stubbornly, even raising 100,000 to outbid their opponents. The Articles of Union were carried in the new session which opened 15 January, 1800. The bill based upon them, after passing both the Irish and English Parliaments, received the royal assent i August. The Terms of Union. In the change in the royal title and arms the now long meaningless " King of France," which Edward III had adopted in 1339, was dropped. By the terms of the Act of Union, four spiritual peers sitting in rotation in successive sessions, and twenty-eight temporal peers elected for life, represented Ireland in the House of Lords, 1 and one hundred members in the House of Commons. Free trade was established between the two countries ; Great Britain was to contribute fifteen parts, and Ireland two, toward the revenue of the United Kingdom, and the debts of the two countries were to be kept distinct for twenty years, or until they reached the same propor- tion as their respective contributions to taxes. The preservation of the United Church of England and Ireland was to be an " essential and fundamental part of the Union." The first session of the united Parliaments was held 22 January, 1801. Pitt and the Union. His Resignation, 1801. The Union seemed to offer a way out of pressing difficulties, and certainly the old arrange- ment with a separate and independent Irish Parliament and an executive appointed and instructed by an English Ministry dependent on English party changes was far from satisfactory. Nevertheless, the measure was carried by methods that cannot be justified and was forced down the throats of the Irish, five sixths of whom are said to have been against it. Furthermore, the most influential Roman Catholics, who might have seriously hampered the efforts of the Government, were won over by the assurance circulated by Castle- reagh that as soon as the Parliaments were united they would be re- warded by the three concessions which they desired State payment of their priests, commutation of tithes, and, above all, Catholic eman- cipation. While Pitt gave no formal pledges, he was sincerely anxious to realize their hopes, but he had to contend against the monumental obstinacy of King George. Very likely it would have been wiser for Pitt to have insisted upon a preliminary pledge from the sovereign 1 The creation of new peerages was limited to one for every three that lapsed until the number was reduced to one hundred. Contrary to the Scotch practice, Irish peers were entitled to sit for English constituencies. 844 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and the Cabinet that the Union would be accompanied by the con- cessions desired, and that otherwise he would resign and oppose the whole project. George might thus have been obliged to yield, as he had more than once before. 1 Once the Act had been carried he was in a better position to resist. In September, 1800, Pitt brought a meas- ure of Catholic relief before the Cabinet for discussion. Wedderburn, now Lord Loughborough and Chancellor, betrayed the secret to the King, so that Pitt had no opportunity either of preparing the mind of his sovereign gradually or of pushing through his project with a rush. When he formally opened the question in January, George declared : " I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes such a measure." His scruples about his coronation oa-th were groundless, since Pitt was devising a new political test binding the Catholics to support the existing Constitution in Church and State. Yet, rather than oppose the royal will, he resigned, 5 February, 1801. In March, after the King had been threatened with another attack of his old malady, he agreed, whether in or out of office, never again to open the question during the reign. Once more the hopes of the Catholics had been raised only to be dashed. They were not admitted to Parlia- ment till 1829, commutation of tithes was not conceded till 1838, and payment of priests has never been granted. The failure to carry these concessions, to which the Government was morally if not literally bound, was responsible for much of the trouble with Ireland which followed. 2 Napoleon in Egypt. Failure of his Designs against the British Power in India, 1798-1799. A few days before the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1798, Napoleon started for the Mediterranean with the design of de- stroying the British power in India. Many years later, while in exile at St. Helena, he lamented his change of plan. " On what do the destinies of Empires hang ! " he declared. " If, instead of the expedition of Egypt, I had made that of Ireland, . . . what would England have been to-day, and the Continent, and the whole political world ? " He was able to carry out the first steps in his new project without a setback. He captured Malta, passed on to Egypt, took Alexandria, July, 1798, and defeated the Mamelukes 3 in the Battle of the Pyramids on the 2 1 st. Nelson, however, in hot pursuit attacked him at Aboukir Bay, and in the famous Battle of the Nile, i August, destroyed his fleet, and with it his hopes of establishing a French empire in the East. Nelson, wounded in the engagement, refused the eager surgeon who 1 Though this was the first time his religious convictions had ever been at stake, and it is doubtful if he could have been induced under any circumstances to sacrifice them. 2 An abortive rebellion instigated by the French, which broke out in 1803, re- sulted in the execution of the leader, Robert Emmet, and in coercive measures which only accentuated the bitterness of the Irish. 3 Formerly slaves, they were now an effective body of cavalry who, under their beys or chiefs, ruled the country of which the Sultan of Turkey was the nominal overlord. THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 845 hastened to his side, saying : " I will take my turn with my brave fellows." Learning that the French admiral's ship was on fire, 1 he generously sent boats to rescue the sailors who had flung themselves into the sea. Napoleon, after his defeat, started for Syria with the design of capturing Constantinople and attacking Europe from the East. Failing in an attempt to take Acre, the key to the control of the Syrian coast, May, 1799, he returned to Egypt, where he received news which caused him to leave his army and hasten to France. In India Tipii the successor of his father Haider Ali as ruler of Mysore who had been in communication with Napoleon, was awaiting aid from him to start a revolt. To anticipate the threatened danger the Governor-General, Lord Mornington, sent an army against him. Tipii was defeated and slain, while Mysore was divided and placed under British protection. Mornington was created Marquis of Wellesley. His brother, Sir Arthur Wellesley, who commanded a division of the invading army was destined later, as the Duke of Well- ington, to become the conqueror of Napoleon. The failure of the Eastern expedition was attended by two important results : it averted a serious danger to the British ascendancy in India as well as to the supremacy of British commerce in the East, and it led to the formation of the Second Coalition. The Second Coalition, 1799-1801. The first step toward the new Coalition was taken by the half-crazy Paul of Russia. Encourage- ment at Napoleon's defeat, resentment at the seizure of Malta which belonged to the Knights of St. John, of whom he was protector, and fear of the spread of Republicanism were the motives which prompted him. The actual organization was the work of Pitt. The Coalition, consisting of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Portugal, Naples, and Turkey, was completed in the early months of 1799. At the start, the Allies were successful in forcing the French across the Rhine and in driving them out of northern Italy. Moreover, in Naples a republic, set up in 1798 with the aid of the French, was overthrown in June, 1799, by a counter-revolution. In the autumn the tide began to turn. On 26 September, the Russian general Korsakov, with a body of Aus- trian allies, was defeated at Zurich. Thereupon, Suvorov, the vic- torious commander in northern Italy, who had crossed the Alps with the design of invading France, gave up the campaign and retired with the Russian troops to Germany. Moreover, a joint invasion of Hol- land by the English and Russians, assisted by the Orange party, ended at a great cost of men and money in the capitulation in October of the Duke of York, 2 the nominal commander, and the withdrawal of the Allies. During the winter Paul, disgusted at the failure of his arms and convinced that Austria and Great Britain had not cooperated cordially with him, withdrew from the Coalition. 1 The heroism of Casabianca has been celebrated by Mrs. Hemans in a familiar poem. 2 Second son of George III. 846 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND % The Break-up of the Second Coalition, 1799. Meantime, Napoleon, hurrying from Egypt, had reached France in October. With the aid of his grenadiers the Directory, which had grown very unpopular, was overthrown by the coup d'etat of 18 and 19 Brumaire (9 and 10 November). By a new constitution proclaimed in December, the fourth since 1789, Napoleon was made First Consul for ten years with virtually supreme powers. While he was able to forestall another expedition planned by Pitt to assist the royalists in La Vendee and Brittany, he sent a personal letter to George III, expressing a desire for peace. He later declared that his motive was to strengthen himself with the French party, now in the majority, which desired to end the war. The British Government, thinking that France was too ex- hausted to hold out much longer, played into his hands by insisting upon impossible terms. In England the burden of the war was growing heavier and heavier. An income tax went into effect in April, 1799, and new loans were contracted. The commercial classes were thriving, and so were the farmers ; but the poor suffered more and more from soaring prices, especially of food. Wheat rose to 106 shillings the quarter. A meeting was held in London which petitioned for peace ; but the great majority still supported the war policy of the Govern- ment and frowned on the expression of Revolutionary opinion. Bills were passed toward the end of the year 1800 suppressing corresponding societies, restricting debating societies and combinations of workmen, and obliging printers to obtain certificates and to affix their signatures to all they printed. The repressive measures were now so complete in theory that " the popular constitution . . . was practically sus- pended." Austria, which was supporting the allied cause in northern Italy, was defeated by Napoleon at Marengo, 14 June, 1800, largely owing to the failure of the British to send troops in season. Great Britain recovered Malta, but the Austrians, defeated at Hohenlinden, 3 December, were unable to hold out any longer, and, 9 February, 1801, signed the Peace of Luneville. Among other things they ceded Belgium (the Austrian Netherlands) and recognized the Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian Republics, all of which were under French domination. The Second Coalition had gone the way of the first. The Bombardment of Copenhagen, 1801. Paul, won over by the blandishments of Napoleon, who, he hoped, would crush out repub- licanism and establish a dynasty, had, in the meantime, planned an armed neutrality similar to that organized by his mother nearly twenty years earlier. By the terms of this new agreement signed by Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia in December, 1800 it was provided that : (i) the neutral flag should cover an enemy's goods, not contra- band of war ; (2) blockades to be binding must be effective ; (3) ships convoyed by a man-of-war belonging to the sovereign of any of the signatories should be exempt from search on a declaration from the captains that they contained no contraband. The situation had THE GREAT WAR WITH FRANCE 847 again become critical for Great Britain. She was bereft of her strong- est allies, while the action of the Northern Powers threatened not only to exclude her from profitable markets, but to cut off her main source of supply for naval stores and for much of her wheat. This fact, com- bined with another bad harvest, sent the price of the latter commodity up to 156 shillings the quarter. However, the British fleet was still the strongest on the seas, and was successfully blockading the French and Spanish in all their principal ports. On 14 January, 1801, the Government placed an embargo on the ships of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, and prepared to send a fleet to the Baltic. It sailed for Copenhagen, 12 March, under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson second in command. When the Danes refused to accede to the British de- mands, the fleet attacked their capital. 1 Exposed to a fierce bombard- ment, the city must soon have surrendered. Suddenly, however, the news arrived that Paul had been murdered in the night of 23 March. His successor, Alexander I, was willing to compromise. It was agreed that blockades by proclamation should be given up, and the right of search was more accurately defined, but the League broke up without gaining its other demands. The French forces left behind in Egypt after a series of defeats were forced to abandon the country in September. As an offset to these triumphs, the French scored several diplomatic gains, following the Peace of Luneville. Spain ceded back Louisiana, 21 March, 1801, and agreed to make war on Portugal, which was obliged to contract alliances with both France and Spain and to close her ports against Great Britain. The King of the Two Sicilies was forced, 28 March, to agree to the same conditions, while, in July, the Pope consented to a concordat regulating the status of the Church in France. Both Great Britain and France were ready for peace ; indeed negotiations were opened in March, though since each side hoped to gain better terms by further conquests, the fight- ing continued till autumn. The Addington Ministry, 1801-1804. The Peace of Amiens, 25 March, 1802. Pitt on his resignation in the previous February was succeeded by Addington, a dull though well-meaning man, in such close agreement with the King that George regarded conversation with him as " thinking aloud." Pitt, according to a promise which he had made, began by supporting the new Administration. Grenville and Canning were in opposition from the start. The latter, destined to become one of England's most brilliant Prime Ministers, was unweary- ing in his attacks on the new Premier. In a famous couplet he de- clared : Pitt is to Addington As London is to Paddington. 2 1 There is a familiar story that at the beginning of the attack Parker, finding the defense stronger than he had expected, gave the order to cease firing, whereupon Nelson placed his telescope to his blind eye and declared that he could not see the signal. Recent authorities have cast doubt on this story. 2 Then a rural suburb. 848 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Only the least able of the old Cabinet stayed on. Pitt's friends urged him to return to office, and he himself wanted to do this, both because he loved power and because he felt that the country needed him. After he had given his promise, not to raise the Catholic question again the way seemed clear ; but Addingtpn refused to resign, and Pitt, who had been his friend since childhood, would take no steps to force him out. The peace negotiations were finally concluded at Amiens, 25 March, 1802. The treaty was signed by Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic. 1 Great Britain gave up all her conquests from France, together with all those from French allies except Trinidad and Ceylon, which had been taken from the Spanish and the Dutch, respectively. The Cape of Good Hope, also a conquest from the Dutch, was to be a free port, Egypt was to be handed back to Turkey, while Malta was to be restored to the Knights of St. John. Its independence was to be guaranteed by Great Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, and was to be defended by a Neapolitan garrison until the Order was strong enough to undertake the task. Such were the main terms of the peace of which Sheridan said: " All men are glad of, but no man can be proud of." Yet it was carried in the English Parliament by a large majority, and though a few foresaw that Napoleon could not be trusted, there was general rejoicing throughout the country. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See ch. XLVII below. 1 The Sultan of Turkey was admitted as an accessory. CHAPTER XLVII THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON: FROM AMIENS TO WATERLOO (1802-1815) The Resumption of War, 1803. The Peace of Amiens proved to be a mere breathing time. Indeed, Napoleon admitted frankly that : " A renewal of war was necessary for his existence." Even while negotiations were pending, he had made himself President of the Cisalpine, now called the Italian Republic ; and before many months it was evident that he was bent on destroying utterly the European balance of power. He annexed Piedmont ; he formed a new constitu- tion for Switzerland ; he kept an army in Holland ; and he sent spies to Ireland. His colonial projects were equally disquieting ; he planned to recover Egypt and stirred up disaffection in India. In one direc- tion his designs miscarried. He had aimed to establish a great empire in North America ; but a revolt in San Domingo, started by the negro leader Toussaint L'Ouverture, cost him so many troops that he gave up his project in disgust and sold Louisiana to the United States in the spring of 1803. Yet, in spite of all that he did and all that he schemed, he had in no way violated the letter of the Treaty of Amiens. On the other hand, he had long resented the attacks made upon him in papers conducted by French exiles in London. Jean Peltier, editor of L'Ambigu, who was particularly ferocious, was convicted of libel, though numbers of Englishmen were outspoken against the sentence, and the Government declined either to expel the emigres or to suppress their papers. Moreover, Great Britain would not evacuate Malta, on the ground of Russia's refusal to guarantee the independence of the Island, 1 and she persisted in holding on to the French towns in India. On 13 March, 1803, Napoleon, in a burst of petulance, accused the English ambassador of representing a nation which was bent on war and which did not respect treaties. While his manner was almost insulting, he was technically correct in asserting that Great Britain had not carried out the terms agreed upon at Amiens, although he was the real disturber of Europe. His anger soon subsided, and negotia- tions for settling the points at issue were resumed ; but it was evident that Great Britain could not keep peace with safety and honor, so, 1 8 May, she declared war. The situation was absolutely changed since the beginning of the conflict ten years before. It was no longer 1 In view of the resumption of Napoleon's designs against Egypt, Turkey, and India, it was felt to be unsafe to allow the Island to fall again into his hands. 3 1 849 850 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND a question of the preservation of monarchy, aristocracy, and property against the spread of Republicanism, now it was a struggle for existence on the part of Great Britain and the continental countries against Napoleonic aggrandizement. Pitt's Second Ministry, May, 1804, to January, 1806. The Third Coalition. Pitt, in view of the crisis, made up his mind to resume office as Prime Minister. He was able to make Addington yield the Premiership ; but great difficulties arose in getting him and his fol- lowers to resign from the Cabinet. Finally, Addington lost his major- ity in a discussion raised by Pitt on the question of the state of the army and navy, and resigned, 29 April, 1804. The wits remarked that the new Ministry consisted of "William and Pitt." It was greatly weakened from the fact that Grenville refused to come in without Fox for the two sections of the Whig party had again united whom George III declared that he would never admit even if civil war resulted. Also, Pitt was greatly broken in health. On 1 8 May, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of the French and was crowned, 2 December, or rather crowned himself, though the Pope had been brought from Rome to Paris to perform the act. In May of the following year, he was crowned King of Italy in the Milan cathe- dral. Before the close of 1805, Pitt managed to complete a Third Coalition, consisting of Russia and Austria, in addition to Great Britain. Trafalgar, 21 October, 1805, Austerlitz, 2 December. End of the Third Coalition. Napoleon desired to undertake again the invasion of England which he had been once obliged to give up. To this end he gathered an army at Boulogne which was to be conveyed across the Channel in flatbottom boats under cover of the Brest and Toulon fleets. In order to shake off Nelson, who had been watching the Mediterranean for two years, Villeneuve sailed with the Toulon squadron to the West Indies. Nelson, however, followed him over and back, and finally engaged him, off Cape Trafalgar, 21 October, 1805. The French admiral, who had picked up the Spanish fleet, had thirty-three ships of the line, while Nelson had only twenty-seven. But the British were superior in equipment and discipline and infused with the spirit of their commander, who, as he went into action, flew from his flagship the signal : " England expects every man to do his duty." Nelson, mortally wounded in the action, lived long enough to learn that he had won a great triumph. 1 Again, as in 1797, England had been saved by her navy. Already some weeks before, Napoleon, despairing of any help from Villeneuve, had marched across the Rhine with his " Army of England." He entered Vienna, 13 November, whence he marched forth, and at Austerlitz gained a decisive victory, 2 December, over the Austrians and a contingent of Russians. By the Peace of Pressburg, concluded on the 26th, the Austrian Emperor was *At Trafalgar was exhibited in its perfection the famous "Nelson touch," i.e. his method of breaking the line. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 851 obliged once more to withdraw from the war. The break-up of the Coalition was too much for Pitt, whose constitution was already under- mined by drink and overwork ; though in his last speech he showed that invincible faith which had animated him from the beginning of the struggle by the memorable words : " England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example." He died 23 January, 1806. l The Ministry of " All the Talents," February, i8o6-March, 1807. - Unable to get anybody else of note to carry on the Administration, George III finally turned to Grenville, and with a sour grace agreed to admit Fox as Foreign Secretary. Thus was formed the Ministry of " All the Talents," which survived scarcely more than a year. Though the combined Whigs were in the majority, there were two Tories, Addington, now Lord Sidmouth 2 and the Chief Justice, Lord Ellen- borough. 3 Fox, only surviving his great rival by a few months, died 13 September. Though he failed in his dearest hope of bringing about a peace, he crowned his career of single-hearted devotion to the cause of the oppressed humanity by preparing the measure which led to the abolition of the African slave trade. 4 The break-up of the Third Coalition marked the end of attempts on the part of the British Govern- ment to wage war against Napoleon by means of such dynastic com- binations. Fox had long declaimed against them, and Pitt before his death had come to recognize their futility. Under Castlereagh, Canning, and Wellington a new policy was soon developed of aiding national risings against Napoleonic aggression a policy which led ultimately to glorious results. Meantime, Napoleon was remaking Germany and the neighboring states. By the Peace of Pressburg he forced Austria to recognize Bavaria and Wiirtemburg as kingdoms. In June, 1806, he transformed the Batavian Republic into the kingdom of Holland under the rule of his brother Louis. In July, he set up the Confederation of the Rhine, and, 6 August, Francis II, who had as- sumed the style of Emperor of Austria, renounced his old title, and the Holy Roman Empire 5 ceased to exist. Frederick William III had been bribed by the gift of the Kingdom of Hanover to join the French side and to close her ports to British ships. Unable, however, to endure the constant humiliation which Napoleon heaped upon him for example, regardless of his recent concession, the Dictator offered to restore Hanover to Great Britain the Prussian King was 1 It was not on his deathbed, but shortly after Austerlitz that he uttered the remarkable prophecy : "Roll up that map (of Europe), it will not be wanted these ten years." 2 Canning once said that Sidmouth was very like the measles, everybody had him once. 3 His was the last case when the holder of that office ever sat in the Cabinet. 4 It passed, 25 March, 1807. 6 It had begun with Charlemagne a thousand years before. Since 1438 members of the Hapsburg House had been elected without a break. Voltaire once said that it was neither "holy," nor "Roman," nor an "Empire." 852 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND obliged to declare war. Without a single ally to help him, his armies were crushed at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt, 14 October, 1806. The Grenville Ministry fell in March, 1807, in a vain attempt to extend to Roman Catholics the right to hold commissions in the army and navy. The Treaty of Tilsit, 7 July, 1807, and the British Seizure of the Danish Fleet. The Duke of Portland was selected to be the figure- head of the new Administration, but its real leader was Spencer Per- ceval. Russia, in the meanwhile, had managed, 8 February, 1807, to administer the first check to Napoleon's victorious career in the drawn battle of Eylau. The British Government failed to profit by the oppor- tunity to send troops or even adequate subsidies, and, assisted only by the feeble support of Prussia, the Russians were overwhelmed at Friedland, 14 June, 1807. The Tsar Alexander, incensed at Great Britain's neglect, desirous of conquering the Turks who had declared war on him, and full of vague dreams for the reconstruction of Europe, thereupon gave ear to Napoleon's enticing proposal for dividing be- tween them the empire of the East and West. The two held an in- terview on a raft in the river Niemen, which resulted in the Treaty of Tilsit, 7 July, 1807, to which Prussia was forced to accede. She was shorn of her territories between the Rhine and the Elbe, which Napo- leon proceeded to incorporate into his new Kingdom of Westphalia, 1 over which he placed his brother Jerome. Russia agreed to join France in coercing Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal into adopting Napoleon's "Continental System," by which the European markets were to be closed to British trade. By a secret article, the Tsar even agreed to join in a war against Great Britain in case she did not make peace before i November, while the French Emperor agreed to render like assistance to Alexander against the Turks and the Poles. To forestall the danger in the north, Great Britain promptly sent a naval armament to Denmark, offering an alliance to which the condition was attached that the Danes lend their navy to the British Government. On their refusal, Copenhagen was bombarded and the Danish fleet taken to England as a prize of war. This high-handed act, which caused a great outcry even among the English, was justified on the ground of military necessity. The " Continental System." The Imperial Decrees and the Orders in Council. The Prussian proclamation closing her ports to the British had been issued, 28 March, 1806. The British had replied by laying an embargo on all Prussian vessels in the harbors of Great Britain, and declaring a blockade of the coast of Europe from Brest to the Elbe. This was followed by an Order in Council, 2 declaring the seizure of all vessels sailing under Prussian colors. On 2 1 November, 1 Her Polish possessions were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. 2 Orders issued usually in emergencies by the sovereign nominally, with the advice of his Privy Council ; but really of selected Cabinet ministers who happen to be members. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 853 Napoleon issued his celebrated Berlin Decree, which proclaimed a blockade of the British Isles ; prohibited all commerce between them and France, including the states dependent on her; and announced the confiscation of British merchandise in the harbors of such countries. On 7 January, 1807, new Orders in Council forbade neutrals, under penalty of forfeiting ships and cargo, to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or between ports of nations which should observe the Berlin Decree. Thus the trade war was well under way before the Treaty of Tilsit. Napoleon's Milan Decree of December, 1807, and other restrictive measures, were followed by more Orders in Council, till neutral trade was in theory absolutely destroyed. By the close of 1808 every country of Europe, except Sweden and Turkey, had been brought into the System. Neither side, however, could en- force completely its policy of commercial exclusiveness. Not only was there much smuggling, but both the Emperor and the British Government were obliged to issue licenses authorizing evasion in speci- fied cases. Napoleon's plan was to reduce Great Britain to subjec- tion by a policy of absolute isolation; but the English had an over- whelming advantage in their method of Warfare. England controlled the seas, she was able to exercise a far more effective right of search than the French, and, with her powerful navy, she was able to inflict irreparable damage on the merchant marine of those whom Napoleon sought to combine against her. Moreover, he needed commodities which she alone could supply, such as cloth, machinery, and certain raw materials; indeed, on one occasion, he procured 50,000 British overcoats for his troops. Finally, inadequately as it was enforced, his Continental System caused serious hardship and suffering to the countries involved, and contributed perhaps as much as his territorial aggressions toward the growth of that combined national opposition which subsequently overthrew him. The Beginning of the National Revolt in Spain and the Opening of the Peninsula War, 1808. Spain set the example. As a step in enforcing his Continental System, Napoleon determined to secure control of the Peninsula ; to close its vast stretch of sea coast to British shipping ; to break up the alliance which had connected England and Portugal for over a century, and to possess himself of Portugal's rich and extensive colonies. To that end he deluded the Spanish Minister Godoy into making a treaty whereby the House of Braganza l was to be driven from the throne, and the Kingdom partitioned between Spain and France. Having established an army for the ostensible purpose of conquering Portugal, he took advantage of a revolt against the worthless Charles IV during which his still more worthless son Ferdinand was proclaimed in his stead to force both of them to retire on a pension and to set up his brother Joseph 2 as King of Spain. This was in May, 1808. The original rising of the Spanish had been 1 The Royal House of Portugal. 2 He was transferred from Naples, where he had been King since February, 1806. 854 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND prompted by fear of French subjugation, and the movement now spread swiftly throughout the land. Already in the latter part of 1807, the royal family of Braganza had fled to Brazil ; but the Por- tuguese, counting on British support, also rose in rebellion, and forced Junot, the commander of the French invading army, to shut himself up in Lisbon. On 13 August, 1808, Sir Arthur Wellesley landed near Oporto with a force of 12,000 men. He was instructed to afford " the Spanish and Portuguese nations every possible aid in throwing off the yoke of France." Thus began the Peninsular War. After a terrific struggle lasting six years, the British army, which largely through the efforts of Castlereagh l had been reorganized into an effective fighting force, finally succeeded in driving the French across the Pyrenees. Vimeiro and the Convention of Cintra, 1808. The Retreat and Death of Sir John Moore, 1808-1809. Castlereagh had designed Wellesley for the supreme command in Portugal; but the latter's efforts were hampered for a time by the fact that two ineffective seniors were placed over him in succession. He routed the French, 21 August, 1808, at Vimeiro, and had he" been allowed to follow up his victory he might have cut them off from Lisbon. By the " Convention of Cintra," condemned alike by the British public and by Napoleon, Junot's army was allowed to evacuate Portugal. Wellesley, who was summoned home, with his Commander-in-Chief, to stand trial, was later exonerated. In October, Sir John Moore was given the command with orders to cooperate with the Spanish against the French forces in Spain, south of the Ebro. Owing to delays, to inadequate equip- ment, and the ineffective support of the native levies, he was obliged to turn and flee before Napoleon, who had recently come to the coun- try and occupied Madrid. Receiving news of approaching trouble with Austria, Napoleon was obliged to abandon the pursuit to Soult. In the teeth of all manner of obstacles Moore conducted a masterly retreat. He reached Corufia, 16 January, 1809, where he made a deter- mined stand; he managed to repulse his pursuers and to cover the embarkation of his troops, though he himself was mortally wounded. 2 His allies had lured him on to a hopeless enterprise by willfully mis- representing the true state of affairs. Yet the campaign was not wholly without result ; for by keeping the French occupied in the north and west it enabled the Spanish to gain ground in the south. Napo- leon had recently declared in a speech to the citizens of Madrid that : " The Bourbons can no longer reign in Europe," 3 and " No power under the influence of England can exist on the Continent." He failed to realize the power of a people, however incapable and undisciplined, once roused to defend their native land against foreign aggression. 1 As Secretary for War, 1807-1809. 2 The incident inspired Wolfe's famous poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore." 3 They had been driven from three thrones in succession from those of France, the Two Sicilies, and Spain. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 855 The boastfulness of the Spanish far exceeded their achievements; often they embarrassed the British by their untrustworthiness and insubordination ; but by their relentless hostility to the invader and their persistent guerilla warfare they contributed, in no small degree, toward the final success of their ally in liberating their country. Wagram, Walcheren, and Talavera, 1809. The Spanish example encouraged Austria once more to enter the lists ; but Napoleon hurried an army across Europe, and, by a series of victories culminating in the bloody battle of Wagram, 6 July, 1809, forced her to sign a peace at Vienna which put her out of the fighting for four years. The British, 28 July, sent a tremendous armament to attack Antwerp, to close the Scheldt, and to reduce the island of Walcheren. The admiral, Sir Richard Strachan, was a capable commander ; but he was hope- lessly hampered by the leader of the land forces, the Earl of Chatham, who had inherited his father's title without any of his talents. The expedition returned ingloriously home, 27 December, having accom- plished almost nothing. The men and money thus wasted could have been employed to advantage by Wellesley, who, 2 April, 1809, had finally been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British armies in the Peninsula. Before leaving England he submitted to the Govern- ment a plan for the conduct of the war, to which he adhered stead- fastly in his subsequent campaigns. This was to make Portugal the center of his operations. With the sea on the west and the mountains on the east, he had a base which could be readily supplied by the British navy and which could be easily defended against the French. Shortly after his arrival he advanced into Spain in the direction of Madrid with a combined force of British and Spanish. On 27 and 28 July, in a stubborn contest in which his own troops bore the brunt of the fighting, he defeated the French who had rashly ventured out from a strong position at Talavera, where they had collected to bar his progress. The battle brought Wellington the title of Viscount Well- ington, it restored the prestige of British arms, and it taught Welling- ton the valuable lesson, which he might have learned from Moore's experience, that it was hopeless to attempt to act in conjunction with the Spanish contingents. Otherwise the victory was a barren one. The diverting of men and supplies for the fruitless Walcheren expedi- tion threw him on his own resources and exposed him to great depriva- tion, just when Napoleon's victorious Austrian campaign freed thousands of French troops who overran Spain. So Wellington retired to Portugal to wait for better times. The Beginning of the Regency, 1811. Toward the close of this discouraging year, 1809, Portland resigned on the pretext of ill health, though his retirement was doubtless hastened by a quarrel between Canning and Castlereagh, 1 culminating in a duel. Spencer Perceval became Prime Minister. The only gleams of light in the prevailing 1 The former was Foreign Secretary, the latter War Secretary. 856 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND gloom were the continued successes of the British navy in the West Indies, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean. In November, 1810, George III, after six years of failing eyesight, became blind, his insanity came on again as well, and he passed the last ten years of his life in complete mental and physical darkness. In 1811 the Prince of Wales was made permanent Regent. Contrary to the hopes of the Whigs, his advent brought no change in the party situation ; for the overtures which he chose to make were not such as they could ac- cept. On ii May, 1812, Perceval was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by one Bellingham, a demented creature who had a fancied grievance against the Government. Lord Liverpool was chosen to head the Cabinet, most of the ministers were retained, and the Tory ascendancy continued unbroken for fifteen years. Industrial Disturbances in England, 1811-1812. The Luddites. While the country was straining all its resources to carry on the struggle with Napoleon, the industrial disturbances were so acute as to produce risings among the people. The trouble was due to a complication of causes. One was the Continental System, which restricted the Euro- pean markets and led to a trade war with the United States. Another resulted from the invention of spinning and weaving machinery, which the lower classes regarded as the chief cause of their misery. During the autumn and winter of 1811 they started on a career of machine breaking, 1 accompanied by violence and even murder. The Government, which feared that revolutionary designs were back of this unrest, passed an act, in 1812, making machine breaking a capital offense ; troops were called out ; magistrates were intrusted with new powers to search for arms to. suppress tumultuous assemblies ; and several Luddites were convicted and put to death. By such means disaffection in the manufacturing districts was held in check till the close of the war. The condition of the agricultural laborers was al- most as bad, though discontent was less openly manifested. In 1812 wheat was 130 shillings the quarter, in 1813 it fell to 75. Fluctuations in other commodities were equally violent. It was thus impossible to adjust wages on any stable basis, while poverty was fostered rather than diminished by the baneful system of indiscriminate outdoor poor relief. Finally, after much discussion, a bill was passed admitting foreign corn free of duty when the price reached 80 shillings. 2 The Peninsular Campaign, 1810-1812. The Turn of the Tide, 1812. For months Wellington was occupied in constructing the famous lines of Torres Vedras. There were three in all, running in parallel direction from the river Tagus to the sea, and were about twenty-five miles north of Lisbon. The French, after a vain attempt to penetrate these impregnable defenses, retired, much spent by the campaign 1 They were known as "Luddites," from a half-witted man named Ludd, who had destroyed two stocking frames years before. 2 It was admitted from British North America when the price reached 67. Until these prices were reached no foreign wheat could he admitted. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 857 (November, i8io-March, 1811). The following year was marked by bloody battles along the Spanish border and by harassing guerrilla warfare conducted by the natives. Owing to Napoleon's withdrawal of 60,000 of his best troops to assist in the invasion of Russia, Welling- ton made notable gains early in 1812. In January he captured Ciudad Rodrigo and, in April, Badajoz, the respective keys of the northern and southern roads between Spain and Portugal. Leaving Soult in undisturbed occupation of Estramadura and Andalusia, he marched north against Marmont, whom he defeated at Salamanca, 22 July. This battle was the most decisive yet fought in the Penin- sular War: it forced Joseph to abandon Madrid and established Wellington's reputation as a general. With inadequate supplies and equipment he pressed on after the remnant of the beaten army, to the great peril of his recently acquired strongholds of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. Thus endangered, and suffering from lack of food, his troops, becoming utterly demoralized, broke loose from all restraints. It required all his iron will to restore discipline ; but it proved to be the last crisis he had to weather. The Liverpool Ministry, backed by popular sentiment, had come to appreciate his achievements and from now on gave him enthusiastic support, while the French, weakened by the loss of their best troops and worn down by the incessant at- tacks of the natives, steadily lost ground. Moreover, Wellington, who was at this time made Commander-in- Chief of the Spanish forces, was able by thoroughgoing reforms to organize them into more effective allies. Wellington brings the Peninsular Campaign to a Victorious Close, April, 1814. He opened the campaign of 1813 with the fixed inten- tion of driving the French out of Spain. His army, recruited and supplied in Portugal, 1 advanced northeast, driving the enemy before them. At Vitoria he fought, 21 June, the greatest battle of the war. The French had with them the spoils of their five years' occupation of Spain art treasures, and other valuables, including $5,500,000 in specie, besides arrears of pay for two years and a half which Napo- leon had recently sent. The long line of baggage trains choked the only roads by which they could retreat with their possessions. They were nearly surrounded by Wellington's army, and only finally saved themselves by headlong flight. The victors were almost demoralized by the temptation to plunder ; indeed, the camp followers and soldiers secured most of what was left behind except munitions of war. Napo- leon, directly he heard the news, sent Soult to take command. In spite of his efforts, Wellington forced the passage of the. Pyrenees in October. Soult next made a manful but vain attempt to hold Bayonne, whence he retreated to Bordeaux ; but the news that Napoleon was on the verge of being overthrown led to a strong royalist reaction, and that city declared for the old Bourbon line. With such troops as 1 It is said that when he crossed the frontier 22 May, he waved his hand and said: "Good-by, Portugal." 858 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND stood by him Soult finally took refuge in Toulouse. There, 12 April, 1814, Wellington forced him to surrender, though the capture of the city cost the British more troops than the French. The Peninsular War was over. Wellington, while he made many mistakes in tactics and strategy, deserves the utmost credit for realizing the significance of the liberation of Portugal and Spain as a decisive factor in the struggle against Napoleon, and for sticking to his work in the teeth of all manner of discouragements and hardships until he brought it to a glorious conclusion. The Russian Campaign, 1812. Meantime, Napoleon's annexations and his rigid enforcement of the Continental System had prepared the way for a breach with Russia. In January, 1811, the Tsar asserted himself by opening his ports to neutrals and imposing a duty upon French commodities. Napoleon, for a second time disregarding the irresistible power of popular national hostility, took the fatal step of invading Russia. Since the Tsar did not feel strong enough to fight beyond his frontiers, the King of Prussia was forced to make a treaty, 24 February, 1812, by which he allowed the French free passage through his territory and supplied his mortal enemy with 20,000 troops. Austria agreed, 16 March, in return for a promise of grants of territory, to provide 30,000 men to guard the flanks of the invading army on the southwest frontier. Both monarchs were unwilling allies, prepared to change sides at the earliest opportunity. The Tsar, on his part, at the price of some concessions, made peace with Turkey and allied himself with Sweden and Great Britain. On 24 June, Napoleon entered Russia with a vast army of over 300,000 men, exclusive of the Prussian and Austrian contingents. He marched to certain destruc- tion, through a barren country, vast in extent, teeming with a popula- tion who viewed him with sullen hatred, and driving before him an army ready to turn and pounce upon him when his forces were suffi- ciently exhausted. The bloody but indecisive battle of Borodino, 7 September, cost the French 30,000 men and the Russians 40,000. Kutuzov, the Russian commander, retreated to Moscow, but departed with all the military stores and the bulk of the inhabitants on the approach of Napoleon. On the i4th, when the French entered the city, a destructive fire broke out which raged for six days. Failing to bring Alexander to terms, Napoleon was obliged to evacuate Moscow and retrace his steps with Kutuzov hanging on his rear. Worn down by the frequent attacks of his pursuers, and by the hardships of a terrible winter, a miserable remnant of not more than 60,000 dragged themselves out of the country. The Russians were too exhausted to deal a crushing blow, and the other Powers did not at once realize the magnitude of the disaster which had befallen the hitherto victorious despot. The War of Liberation, 1813-1814. Napoleon's Abdication. Napo- leon, with unquenchable energy and resource, was able by a drastic conscription to gather a new army and resume the offensive in the fol- THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 859 lowing year. But Prussia, Austria, and Sweden had at length roused themselves and combined forces with Russia. Although Great Britain sent no troops to Germany, where the conflict centered, she supported Austria with subsidies. This was all and more than could be expected of her, since she was bearing the burden of the Peninsula Campaign and had a war with the United States as well. The Russians opened the memorable campaign of 1813 by resuming their pursuit of the retreating French through northern Germany. Frederick William, in spite of his alliance with Napoleon, had issued stirring appeals to his people to join the War of Liberation, and declared war against France, 17 March. In April, Napoleon brought an army of 200,000 into the field ; but they were young and raw recruits, for he had lost the bulk of his seasoned veterans in Russia. His plan was to crush Russia and Prussia, and then to concentrate his whole strength on Austria, who clung for a time to a policy of mediation. His plans came to naught, for Austria declared war, 12 August. On the 26th and 27th of the same month Napoleon won at Dresden his last decisive victory. In the " Battle of the Nations " at Leipzig, 16, 18, 19 October, he received a crushing defeat, losing 50,000 of a force which he had at length raised to 250,000. In those three bloody days Prussia showed the fruits of a wonderful administrative and military reorganization which her patriotic statesmen and generals had been slowly perfecting during the recent years of her humiliation, and her Landwehr, or national levy, aided by Russian and Austrian allies, gloriously revenged the past. National risings against the French domination spread throughout Europe. Holland rose in revolt in November and Switzerland in December. Napoleon's troops were forced to abandon everything beyond the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and to take refuge behind their own borders. The Allies moved on France with three great armies, and, 31 March, 1814, occupied Paris and proclaimed the restoration of the Bourbon line in the person of Louis XVIII. 1 Napoleon, after a vain attempt to recover the capital, was forced to consent to an unconditional abdica- tion, ii April, 1814. The Allies, however, allowed him the island of Elba as an independent principality, where he arrived 4 May. The War of 1812 with the United States : its Causes. Great Britain was now free to devote her energies to the war with the United States which had broken out nearly two years before. It was a direct result of the Continental System. During the first years of the French war the United States drove a thriving neutral trade. All was changed when Napoleon and the British Government, by Imperial Decrees and Orders in Council, proclaimed a state of blockade, and, particu- larly, when the two contending Powers, in order to force the United 1 He was a younger brother of Louis XVI, whose son, nominally Louis XVII, died a prisoner of the Revolutionary Government, 8 June, 1795. There is appar- ently little doubt that the little Dauphin died, though many pretenders appeared later to impersonate him. 860 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND States into an alliance, began to seize her ships accused of trading with the prohibited ports. President Jefferson and the Republican party sought to avoid war, but the Federalists, hoping to secure greater commercial privileges from the mistress of the seas, favored Great Britain. The British, however, aroused increasing animosity by the rigid exercise of the right which they claimed of searching American vessels and impressing such of the crews as were British born. Ac- cording to the British law no subject could forsake his allegiance with- out the consent of the Government, 1 while, according to the United States, any foreigner could become an American citizen after residing in the country for a specified term of years, and fulfilling certain legal requirements. The friction was accentuated by the British contention that the Americans encouraged desertion by offers of higher pay. Jefferson, in 1806, caused an act to be passed prohibiting the import of a number of British commodities. This measure, which remained in force only six weeks, was followed by another, 22 December, 1807, laying an embargo on all foreign vessels in American ports and pro- hibiting all trade with European countries. Owing to the fact that this restriction hurt the Americans as much as those against whom it was aimed, a Non-intercourse Act was substituted, i March, 1809, which applied only to Great Britain, France, and their dependencies. It expired in May, 1810, with the provision that it might be revived against either Power which repealed its Orders or Decrees. Madison, who became President in 1809, having been led to believe that Napo- leon had canceled his Decrees, revived the Non-intercourse Act against Great Britain, in February, 1811. Directly the Liverpool Ministry took office it withdrew the Orders in Council ; but it was too late, for the United States declared war 18 June, 1812. The Course of the War, 1812-1814. The Treaty of Ghent, 24 December, 1814. Neither side was in a position to be very effective. While Great Britain was involved in the Peninsular War, the United States was ill-prepared with money, supplies, and troops. It was a great disappointment to the Americans that the Canadians remained loyal ; the Indians, too, were on the British side, and the campaigns on the Canadian border proved generally ineffective. The failures in that direction, however, were redeemed by a series of brilliant victories at sea. Contrary to the prevailing traditions of the past two centuries, the fighting consisted of engagements between individ- ual ships instead of fleets. The British had a number of small, swift cruisers in American waters to watch for deserters and contraband of war and to protect their West India commerce. The American ships, though fewer in number, were superior in every way to those of the enemy : they were larger and better built 2 ; they carried more and heavier guns ; their crews were larger ; they included a greater 1 This remained the case till 1870. 2 Though they were referred to in the British Press as "bundles of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting." THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 861 proportion of able seamen, and their gunners were more accurate marksmen. For reasons of economy the British Government had made the fatal mistake of neglecting gun practice. While defeats in single engagements were far less disastrous than those in which whole squadrons were involved, they had the effect of lowering the maritime prestige which the British had so long enjoyed. The success of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, in 1813, was another asset on the American side. As the war progressed they gained fewer victories at sea. Profiting by experience, the British avoided ships likely to out- class them, and improved their gunnery. Moreover, they maintained a more effective blockade in American waters. While the Americans were the more destructive of commerce, they suffered severely from the cutting off of their own trade. After the overthrow of Napoleon, 14,000 British regulars were sent over ; but, owing to ineffective gen- eralship, they accomplished far less than had been expected. One force, however, succeeded in capturing Washington, in 1814, and during an occupation of less than a week they burned all the public buildings. This regrettable action has been defended on the ground that the Americans had set the example in two small towns on the Canadian border. Toward the close of the year another army of Peninsular veterans was ' dispatched across the Atlantic, but was defeated at New Orleans by General Andrew Jackson, 8 January, 1815. It was a needless sacrifice of life ; for peace had already been signed at Ghent, 24 December. The Treaty provided for a mutual restoration of conquests and for the appointment of commissioners to settle out- standing differences, notably those relating to boundaries. Strangely enough, the issues which led to the conflict were not mentioned. The Orders in Council had been withdrawn before the opening of hostilities. With the fall of Napoleon the encroachments on neutral trade ceased. Yet, as a result of this otherwise futile war, Great Britain tacitly dropped her claim to the right of search. The First Treaty of Paris, 30 May, 1814, and the Opening of the Congress of Vienna. After the entry of the Allies into Paris the Tsar and the King of Prussia accepted an invitation to visit England. The Emperor of Austria declined. Less than seven years before, one of the august guests, now so enthusiastically welcomed, had entered into an agreement to divide Europe with the exile at Elba, while the other, partly by force and partly by the grant of George's Hanoverian posses- sions, had closed Prussian ports to British trade. By a treaty, signed at Paris, 30 May, 1814, between the new French monarch and the four allied Powers of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia the bound- aries of France were reduced to those of 1792, and the independence of various states subjugated by Napoleon was recognized. In order to readjust the disturbed European situation and to make the necessary arrangements for carrying out the terms of the Treaty, a Congress was appointed to meet at Vienna. It assembled in September and contin- ued till June, 1815. The four leading Powers intended to dominate 862 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the Congress, but owing to the supreme diplomatic skill of Talley- rand l France secured a voice. He insisted that the existing Bourbon Government had opposed the Republic and Napoleon as decidedly as any of the other dynasties concerned. Castlereagh represented Great Britain till February when Wellington came to take his place. The Duke, 2 however, was soon called away by the startling news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and had landed at Cannes, i March. The Return of Napoleon from Elba, i March. Although Napoleon's return had not been wholly unexpected, no proper precautions had been taken to meet it. He came with only four hundred of his guards, but thousands flocked to join him as he passed through France. The bulk of the soldiers and the lower classes had been sorely disappointed by the reactionary measures of the Bourbons, who, it is said, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Many, too, were drawn to his side by the sole magnetism of his presence. Ney, one of his old marshals, who had sworn to bring him back in an iron cage, deserted to him with his whole army. Thereupon, Louis XVIII, who had made strenuous efforts to defend the Kingdom, fled to Ghent. On 20 March, Napoleon was once more in possession of Paris. The brief period of his suprem- acy is known as the " Hundred Days." United by pressing danger, the Powers who had been wrangling at Vienna acted with energy. The four great Powers voted to bring more than 700,000 men into the field. 3 With all possible speed the allied troops were massed on the frontier from the Low Countries to the Upper Rhine. To Wellington was assigned the command of the British, Hanoverian, and Netherland contingents, amounting all together to about 80,000 men, while the forces on the Lower Rhine, numbering not far from 120,000, were placed under the Prussian general Blucher. Wellington took up his headquarters at Brussels. Blucher posted his main force at Namur with a line of defense stretching eastward almost to the town of Ligny. Napoleon started from Paris, 7 June. His plan was to make a rapid dash into the Netherlands, to push between two forces opposed to him, to crush Blucher, and then to fall upon Wellington before reinforcements could reach him. Partly through his own fault, but more especially owing to the mistakes of his marshals, his plan mis- carried. His total force amounted to 125,000 men, including 20,000 veterans of the Imperial Guard. The Waterloo Campaign, Ligny, and Quatre Bras, 16 June, 1815. The Waterloo campaign, extending from 16 to 18 June inclusive, con- sisted of the double battle of Ligny and Quatre Bras, fought on the 1 6th, and of the main battle of Waterloo and a skirmish at Wavre on the 1 Formerly Bishop of Autun. He had taken a prominent part in the various Revolutionary Governments ; but quarreled with Napoleon. He played a leading r61e in the restoration of the Bourbons and was made Minister of Foreign Affairs by Louis XVIII. 2 Wellington had been created a duke at the close of the Peninsular War. 3 With contingents of the smaller states a grand total of over a million was promised. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 863 i8th. Wellington, who had expected Napoleon to advance on Brus- sels, remained there until well into the night of the i5th with the bulk of his army. He had a smaller force at Quatre Bras, sixteen miles to the south. At half-past two on the afternoon of the i6th, Napoleon attacked Bliicher, who had advanced the main body of his army to meet him at Ligny, situated six miles to the southeast of Quatre Bras. In a hot fight, which raged till evening, the Prussians were over- whelmed, but retreated in good order to Wavre, some miles north- ward. On the same day, Ney was engaged in a furious battle with the Allies at Quatre Bras. He made two mistakes which had an important effect on the ultimate issue. For one thing, he did not observe Napo- leon's orders to hold himself merely on the defensive. He could safely have done this, since, early in the day, he was opposed only by an inferior force of Dutch and Belgians under the Prince of Orange. Following such tactics he would have been in a position to send a corps against the right and rear of the Prussians at Ligny. Thus he might have blocked Bliicher 's retreat, destroyed his army, and prevented him from reenforcing Wellington on the i8th. Failing to furnish the sup- port on which Napoleon counted, Ney's other mistake was in delaying his attack until Wellington had time to hurry sufficient troops from Brussels to repulse him. 1 With all day before him for the British reinforcements did not arrive till the evening of the i6th Ney lost a golden opportunity of destroying the Prince of Orange's weak con- tingent. One corps of the French army, that of D'Erlon, confused by contradictory orders from Ney and Napoleon, rendered no service at either battle, when they might have turned the tide for the French at Quatre Bras or have struck a decisive blow at Bliicher. Wellington, who, after repulsing Ney, learned of the Prussian retreat from Ligny, drew off his own troops toward Brussels. Napoleon himself was re- sponsible for two costly blunders. He should have hastened on the 1 7th to join Ney and overwhelm Wellington before Bliicher could recover sufficiently to come to the assistance of the British commander. He not only failed to do so, but he also allowed himself to be deceived as to Bliicher's line of retreat. Calculating that he would retire to his base of supplies at Namur, he sent Marshal Grouchy eastward, while the Prussians were hurrying straight north. With the comfort- able but erroneous hope that he had checkmated Bliicher, Napoleon rested a whole day before attacking Wellington, who had taken a position just to the south of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo, 18 June, 1815. Having detached a force of 17,000 to guard the approach to Brussels, Wellington was left 1 Wellington only heard of Ney's advance toward Quatre Bras on the night of the 1 5th, just before the opening of a famous ball given by the Duchess of Rich- mond, where he put in an appearance before starting for the front. This ball has been a notable theme for poets and novelists. It inspired Byron's oft-quoted lines in ChUde Harold, beginning "On with the dance, let joy be unconfined." There are famous accounts in Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley. 864 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND with only 67,000, of whom less than 24,000 were British, to face 71,000 Frenchmen, most of them veterans of the Grand Army. His opponents were superior in cavalry and artillery as well, though their advantages were offset by the fact that they were scantily sup- plied with food. Napoleon opened the battle : at half past eleven on the morning of the i8th with an attack on the allied right, which was strongly posted in the chateau and enclosures of Hougomont. While the French were wasting their left in this way, their right was, under cover of a tremendous artillery fire, thrown against the allied left distributed in the farms of Papelotte and La Haye and in an ad- joining hamlet. The Dutch and Belgians had to give way; but a furious charge of British horsemen, though routed in the end, saved a disaster in this quarter. Meantime, the French center had gone into action. At one o'clock, in the thick of the fight, a force of Prussians appeared on the French right. Napoleon, believing that Grouchy was close behind them, ordered him to attack them in the rear. At the same time, feeling that his best chance lay in breaking Wellington's line before the arrival of the main body of Prus- sian reinforcements, he hurled his cavalry in charge after charge against the immovable squares composed mainly of the British infantry. At length Ney succeeded in carrying the farm of La Haye Sainte 2 where the British center was posted. With the key to the allied position in his hands, Napoleon nerved himself for a su- preme effort. Leading the Imperial Guard to the front, he gave them over to the command of Ney. They made a glorious but unsuccessful charge, and were thrown back and scattered. Meanwhile, Bliicher arrived. Grouchy, on finding that he had not gone to Namur, had made a long detour to Wavre, which he reached to find only a remnant of the Prussians still there. He proceeded to engage them ; but on learning of Napoleon's defeat, he withdrew and later fled to France. Aided by Bliicher's reinforcements, the Allies, charging against the broken columns of the French, drove them from the field. The retreat became a rout, but the troops who had borne the heat and burden of the day left the pursuit to the Prussians, who never stopped until they had chased the fleeing Frenchmen across the Sambre. The battle cost the Allies 20,000 lives, and the French 37,000. With all Europe arming against him, the ultimate triumph of Napoleon would doubtless have been impossible, even had he won at Waterloo ; but he might have prolonged the contest for some time longer. His defeat rendered immediate overthrow certain and was followed by forty years of peace. He abdicated for a second time, 22 June, while, in July, the Allies once more occupied Paris. Napoleon, after a vain effort to escape, surrendered on board the British ship Bellerophon. In agreement with the other allied Powers the British Government 1 There is a stirring account of the battle in Victor Hugo's remarkable novel, Les Miserables. 2 Not to be confused with La Haye which lay farther eastward. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST NAPOLEON 865 sent him to the island of St. Helena, where he remained a prisoner till his death in 1821. The British and the Congress of Vienna. The Quadruple Alliance zo November, 1815. The work of the Congress of Vienna in settling the general European situation was completed in June, but the bound- daries of France were not definitely defined till the second treaty of Paris, 20 November, 1815.* Great Britain's territorial gains, though they excited the contempt of Napoleon, were considerable. They in- cluded Malta, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and Heligoland. The latter was ceded to Germany in 1890. Great Britain also obtained the protectorate over the Ionian Islands, which she exercised till they were handed on to the Greeks in 1864. She labored to secure from the Congress some regulation of the slave trade. All she gained on this point, however, was a decla- ration that it was " repugnant to the principles, of civilization and of universal morality." The Tsar got Austria and Prussia to sign, 26 Sep- tember, a so-called Holy Alliance, which was a fantastic scheme for uniting all European rulers in bonds of Christian brotherhood and pledging them to mutual service for the preservation of the peace. All the continental rulers, except the Pope and the Sultan, either joined or gave their approval to this " sonorous nothing," as Metternich, the Austrian minister, described it. Since the leading British states- men either had no sympathy with it 2 or positively distrusted it, Great Britain refused to become a party. It has sometimes been held re- sponsible for the policy of repression which, under the guidance of Metternich, stifled all attempts at liberalism and nationalism in Europe for a number of years to come. That policy, however, was due really to the Quadruple Alliance, signed by Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, 20 November, 1815, by which they pledged themselves to intervene in case another revolution or usurpation threatened the tranquillity of any of the States. They also arranged for frequent congresses which should consider such measures as might be neces- sary " for the maintenance of the peace of Europe." ADDITIONAL READING FOR CHAPTERS XLV, XLVI, XLVII Narrative. Hunt, Political History, chs. XIV-XX. Brodrick and Fothering- ham, Political History of England, 1801-1837 (JQ ^), chs. I-VII. Robertson, Eng- land under the Hanoverians, pt. II, chs. Ill, V, VI. Sir H. Maxwell, A Century of Em- pire (vol. 1, 1909) ; a Conservative history of the nineteenth century ; vol. I covers the period 1801-1832. Cambridge Modern History, VI, ch. XIII; VIII, ch. X. Lecky, 1 The boundaries of France, which by the treaty of 1814 were reduced to those of 1792, were now still further reduced to the limits of 1790. France was also forced to pay the Allies an indemnity of 700,000,000 francs. 2 Castlereagh pronounced it a "piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense." 3 One commendable provision of the Congress of Vienna was carried out in 1816 by Great Britain. Lord Exmouth was sent to the Mediterranean against the Bar- bary States, and forced them to put an end to piracy and the enslaving of Christians. 3K 866 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Eighteenth Century, V, chs. XV, XVI ; VI ; VII, ch. XX, to 1793. Bright, History of England, III, 1132-1346. J. H. Rose, William Pitt and the Great War (191 1) ; the standard work on the younger Pitt and a notable contribution to the general history of the period; very favorable to Pitt. For further authorities dealing with the years 1784-1815 see Hunt, 459-469; Brodrick and Fotheringham, 443-450; Robertson, $i7-$i,2,a.n.dCambridge Modern History, VI, 902-912, and VIII, 791 ff., dealing with the French Revolution in general, and IX, 773 ff., dealing primarily with the Napoleonic wars. India. Bright, III, 1 1 13-1 134, contains a good survey of India from 1600 to 1 784. See also Seeley, Expansion of England, pt. II. A. D. Innes, A Short History of the British in India (1902). A. C. Lyall, The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India (5th ed., 1910). The best apology for Warren Hastings is to be found in G. W. Hastings, Vindication of Warren Hastings (1909), and should be contrasted with Macaulay's famous essay on Hastings. For further references on India see Cambridge Modern History, VI, 925-932; Robertson, 523, 530; Hunt, 468; Brod- rick and Fotheringham, 449. Ireland. O'Connor Morris, Ireland, 1494-1905 (26. ed., R. Dunlap, 1909). Lecky, Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, I-V. Froude, The English in Ireland. T. D. Ingram, Critical Examination of Irish History (2 vols., 1900), and History of the Irish Union (1887) ; an attempt to justify the English methods. For further refer- ences see Cambridge Modern History, VI, 913-924; VIII, 878-882; Hunt, 468; Robertson, 521-522. French Revolution. Lecky, VI, ch. XVIII. J. H. Rose, The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era (1901). H. M. Stephens, European History, 1789-1815 (1900). For further references see Cambridge Modern History, VIII, 791 ff., especially 791- 793. For the Napoleonic Era. J. R. Rose, Napoleon (2 vols., 1902, i vol., ed. 1907). Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, I (Eng. tr., 4 vols., 1871-1879) ; incomplete, very hos- tile to Napoleon. H. A. L. Fisher, Napoleon (1912); an admirable sketch. For fur- ther references see Cambridge Modern History, IX, 773 ff., especially 773-786. Military and naval. Fortescue, British Army, III-VI, to 1809. Sir W. Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula (6 vols., 1834-1840). C. Oman, History of the Peninsular War (vols. I-IV, to 1811, 1902-1911), and Wellington's Army, 1809-1814 (1913). J. C. Ropes, The Campaign of Waterloo (1892-1893). Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution (2 vols., 1893) ; Life of Nelson (2 vols., 1897) ; and Sea Power in its Relation to the War of 1812 (2 vols., 1905). Biographies and special works. G. Pellew, Life and Correspondence of Lord Sidmouth (Addington) (3 vols., 1847). Rosebery, William Pitt (1891). W. Sichel, Sheridan (2 vols., 1909). R. and S. Wilberforce, Life of William Wilberforce (5 vols., 1839). A. G. Stapleton, The Political Life of George Canning (3 vols., 1831); George Canning and His Friends (ed. J. F. Bagot, 2 vols., 1909). Good short Lives are those by H. W. V. Temperley (1905) and J. A. R. Marriott (1903). Sir H. Maxwell, The Life of Wellington (2 vols., 1899). W. T. Laprade, England and the French Revolution^ 1909) . Fortescue, British Statesmen of the Great War, 1793-1814 (1911); marked by strong prejudices. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 256-259. Robertson, Select Statutes, pt. I, nos. XXXVIII-XLIII ; pt. II, nos. XXII-XXIV. CHAPTER XLVIII FROM THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON TO THE EVE OF THE GREAT REFORM BILL. THE LAST YEARS OF GEORGE III, AND THE REIGN OF GEORGE IV (181&-1830) Characteristics of the Period from 1815 to 1830. The close of the war was hailed in England with general rejoicing. The dominant Tory party nourished the comfortable assurance that their aristocratic privileges, which the French had threatened to subvert, were now secure. With the cessation of the drain of heavy war taxes and the end of the Continental System, which had disturbed trade and manufactures and checked the import of foreign corn, the masses hoped for a return of prosperity and contentment. Instead, the peace, which only the farmers had dreaded, was marked, during its first few years, by dis- content, agitation, violence, and repression. Happily, this grievous state of affairs did not last very long ; for economic conditions began to improve, manifestations of popular unrest ceased for a time, and far-reaching reforms were undertaken which changed profoundly the industrial, social, religious, and political system. While the humbler folk gained something by these changes which tended to break down the exclusive privileges and power of the land-owning aristocracy, they represented, in a large degree, a triumph of the middle classes. The Industrial Revolution, beginning in the previous century, had produced a great body of wealthy merchants, manufacturers, and traders who were bound to demand an increasing share in the control of public affairs. Moreover, the principle of equality promulgated by the French Revolution acted as an inevitable stimulus, so soon as the danger from France had been overcome and the unrest in England had been quieted. The period from the close of the Great War to the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, which resulted in a sweeping change in the balance of political power, has been divided into four well-marked stages, (i) During the years from 1815 to 1822 the middle class, fearing the violence produced by the widespread distress, united with the governing aristocracy to preserve the existing order.- (2) From 1822 to 1827 a group of Liberal Tories, representing the interests of the middle class to which they belonged, was in control and passed a number of progressive measures. (3) The years from 1828 to 1830 witnessed a vain attempt upon the part of reactionary leaders of the party to resist inevitable changes; but they were obliged to consent to the repeal of the acts excluding Dissenters 867 868 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND from office and to carry a liberal measure for Roman Catholic relief. (4) Finally, the years from 1830 to 1832 were occupied in an exciting struggle which led to a notable extension of the franchise. The Political Situation at the Close of the War. Lord Liverpool, who had been Prime Minister since 1812 and who continued in office until 1827, was only nominal head of the Government, occupied chiefly in trying to induce his ministers to work in harmony. The real directors of the Cabinet policy during the half dozen years following the close of the Great War were Viscount Castlereagh, Foreign Secre- tary and leader of the House of Commons, and Lord Chancellor Eldon. 1 In accordance with their aim of resisting all innovation, the term of their regime was marked by a legislative stagnation and the repression of all popular demands. The Whig Opposition was torn by internal divisions between the conservatives and the Radicals 2 and discredited by the hot zeal of the latter. Nevertheless, they manfully raised their voice against the dominant oligarchy, and cried for " peace, retrench- ment, and reform." They accused the Government of designing to maintain an expensive establishment in order to aid continental sover- eigns in the suppression of popular rights, and of reckless extravagance in other respects. The first charge was, to some degree, justified by the aims of the Quadruple Alliance to which Great Britain was a party ; the second was even more well-founded. The war had fostered a spirit of wastefulness which the example of the Regent, who regarded himself as the " first gentleman in Europe," further encouraged. The public debt had climbed to over 840,000,000, bearing an annual interest of more than 32,000,000, while George every year spent more than twice the 800,000 allotted to him in the Civil List. In Henry Brougham the Whigs possessed a tower of strength. Vain and erratic almost to the point of madness, his knowledge, his industry, and zeal seemed boundless. When he succeeded in defeating the Government project of retaining half the 10 per cent income tax which had been imposed as a war measure, the Cabinet, instead of resigning, went further, and, as a concession to the country gentry, abolished the war duty of two shillings a bushel on malt. Castlereagh declared that these reductions of the revenue made no difference, since a large loan would have to be raised anyway. Industrial Depression and Distress among the People. The thriftlessness of the Government and the upper classes was all the more indefensible since, in the place of the expected prosperity, the country had to face a period of acute distress. During the war, British manu- factures and commerce had thriven, owing to the successful evasion of trade restrictions, and to the effective protection rendered by the British navy and to the enormous demand for clothes, food, and muni- tions of war to support the armies and the fleets. The pressure of 1 A wit of the period remarked that he wished he had done as much good as El- don had prevented. 2 This group got its name from its advocacy of "radical reform." AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 869 military necessity and the dangers involved in the. traffic had forced prices up to dizzy heights. With the advent of peace, inflated prices dropped to their normal level. Continental countries, so long de- vastated by war, bought as little as possible and sought to build up their own shattered industries. Moreover, the reduction of the army and navy to a peace footing flooded the country with men seeking employment. Owing to the increasing use of labor-saving machinery there was little or no opportunity in the industries, while a bad har- vest in 1816 threw numbers of agricultural laborers out of work. The universal distress led to alarming outbursts of violence to renewed rick burning and machine breaking. The authorities, who attributed all this to revolutionary spirit rather than to misery, resorted to coer- cive legislation and repression instead of seeking remedies to alleviate the causes of discontent. The only excuse for their attitude was the fact that political agitators were busy inflaming the mob in addresses and pamphlets. The Radicals were of all grades : some were " visionary and sincere," some were " unprincipled and self-seeking," some were socialists, others looked merely toward political reform. The man who exercised perhaps the greatest influence was William Cobbett (1762^1835) through the medium of his Weekly Political Register, and he was not in favor of violence at all. One of his demands universal suffrage has since been practically conceded ; another annually elected parliaments has generally been regarded as im- practicable, while most of the rest such as the withdrawal of paper money from circulation, the canceling of interest on the National Debt, and the destruction of British commerce in order to bring labor back to the land were wild in the extreme. The hidebound Tories in the Ministry lumped the Radicals, violent and peaceful, frenzied and sensible, without discrimination, as revolutionists. Many, even of the Whigs, sought to clear their skirts of contamination by violent denunciation of those who held more advanced views than themselves. 1 Pitt had at least this justification for repression, that he had to deal with revolutionary agitators looking for aid to the men and arms of France. Now there was no such danger; not Jacobin theories, but economic and social facts were the real causes of the dis- turbances which filled the winter of 1816-1817. The Disturbances of 1816-1817. The Repressive Policy of the Government. Plans were made for a great demonstration, 2 Decem- ber, 1816, in Spa Fields, with an address by " Orator " Hunt, a windy demagogue who was the tool of bolder spirits. Hunt did not appear, while the mob, after doing some damage and causing some bloodshed, was easily dispersed. In February, 1817, the Regent's carriage was attacked on his return from the opening of Parliament. As a result, a secret parliamentary committee was appointed, who reported that a 1 "The Radicals," wrote Brougham, "have made themselves so odious that a number, even of our own way of thinking, would be well pleased to see them and their vile press put down at all hazards." 870 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND design existed on the part of the Radicals to subvert existing institu- tions and to distribute or destroy all private property. Thereupon, a series of repressive measures were devised. A new Seditious Meet- ings Bill was passed l ; the Habeas Corpus Act was again suspended, for the first time since 1801 2 ; and Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secre- tary, sent a circular letter to the Lords Lieutenants directing them to order the magistrates to seize all persons charged with publishing or writing seditious or blasphemous literature. Early in March, a body of men started from Manchester to lay their grievances before the Prince Regent in person. This is known as the " March of the Blanketeers " because every man carried a blanket to keep himself warm on the road. The Blanketeers never reached their destination. Far more serious was the " Derbyshire Insurrection," in which armed rioters, forcing the more peacefully inclined to join their ranks, terror- ized the neighborhood. The magnitude and danger of this and other outbreaks was greatly exaggerated by a Government agent, known as " Oliver the Spy." Doubtless, too, he helped to stir up risings for his own purposes, though it is not true, as some believed at the time, that the Government encouraged him in this sort of thing. Sidmouth, however, was all too ready to see evidences of organized conspiracy in isolated outbreaks. Furthermore, the Government went alto- gether too far, in most instances, in charging the accused with treason. The juries were with the people ; so that, except in the case of the Der- byshire rioters, three of whom were sentenced to death and several to transportation, no convictions were secured. Even the ringleaders in the Spa Fields demonstration escaped. All this tended to bring the authorities into contempt, though Cobbett found it advisable to withdraw to America for a time. On the other hand, the manifesta- tions of 1816-1817 proved very disastrous to the Whig party. Those who sided with the repressive policy lost their influence with the masses, while those who showed popular sympathy were shunned by moderate men as dangerous radicals. The only remedial measure of the Govern- ment was to vote 1,000,000 for new churches, on the ground that the prevailing disquiet was due to inadequate religious instruction. The " Peterloo," or Manchester Massacre, 1819. Owing to a temporary return of better times, comparative quiet prevailed in 1818 ; but in 1819 another bad harvest, together with renewed industrial depression, brought fresh trouble. The agitation for parliamentary reform reached a fever heat. In Manchester, which did not enjoy the privilege of sending members to Parliament, an enormous meeting was planned for 16 August to choose a " legislative representative." Although the magistrates declined to authorize the proposed meeting, 50,000 people assembled in St. Peter's Fields, bearing banners with : " Equal representation or death," and similar inscriptions. In an 1 The measure of 1 795 had been limited in duration. 2 The suspension lasted till 1818. Since that date the suspension has never been repeated in England. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 871 attempt to arrest " Orator " Hunt, who was to address the meeting, the magistrates, losing their heads, ordered the mounted soldiery to charge the crowd. Five or six were killed and about fifty wounded. Rumor, however, greatly exaggerated the number, and popular senti- ment was bitter. The slaughter was quite unnecessary ; for the meet- ing might have been prevented, or Hunt might have been arrested beforehand. The affair is known to history as the " Manchester " or " Peterloo Massacre." The Ministry, without waiting to learn where the real blame lay, very unwisely sent a letter, signed by the Prince Regent, approving the action of the magistrates. The Six Acts. Parliament, directly it met, passed a series of measures, known as the " Six Acts," reviving and extending the tem- porary legislation of 1817. The first two, empowering the magistrates to seize arms and to prevent military training for unlawful purposes, as well as the third, designed to secure speedy trials, were justifiable. The fourth, providing for the punishment of publishers of seditious libels and the seizure of their works, was not long enforced and was repealed in 1830. The fifth, aimed at publications like Cobbett's " Two-penny Trash," r imposed a stamp duty on small pamphlets. 2 The sixth act was the most burdensome of all. It prohibited meet- ings in corporate towns and counties unless summoned by the Mayor and the Lord Lieutenant respectively. It fell with peculiar heaviness on towns like Manchester, which, since they were unrepresented in Parliament, were thus practically deprived of their only means of voicing grievances. Happily, the duration of the Acts was limited to five years. Once more economic conditions improved, and there was little manifestation of popular discontent for some time to come. The End of the Regency, 1820. The Accession of George IV. It was regarded as a national calamity when the Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent, died in 1817. She was very popular, and her marriage to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg had been hailed with joy, since it seemed to insure the prospect of a happy succession. In 1818 three of the Regent's brothers married. The following year a daughter was born to the Duke of Kent, the most highly respected of them all. The child was destined to become Queen Victoria, and to enjoy the longest and one of the most wonderful reigns in English history. George III died, 29 January, 1820, after lingering on for a decade as a blind and imbecile wreck. George IV, as his suc- cessor now came to be called, had reached his fifty-eighth year. Ex- cept that he had broken with the Whig connections of his youth, he was much the same as Regent and King as he had been as Prince. Though lazy, he was clever and versatile, with a taste for finery, music, and building. When he chose, he could be gracious and winning, and was a master of that artificial code of politeness known as " de- 1 His Register, which sold for 2 d. 2 A similar tax on newspapers had been in force since Queen Anne's time. 872 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND portment." l But he never acquired any stability of character, and he never shook off those vices for which he was so notorious in his youth. He remained to the end " a dissolute and drunken fop, a spendthrift and a gamester." His word could never be trusted; he was mean and treacherous to his father, to his wife, to his daughter, and to his subjects. More wicked kings have reigned over England, but none who was more contemptible. One service only the country owes him, just because he was despicable, the growth of the personal power of the sovereign, which his father had done so much to revive, received a decided check. The Cato Street Conspiracy, February, 1820. On 23 February, 1820, less than a month after the reign began, one of the Government agents exposed a horrid plot for destroying the whole Ministry at a Cabinet dinner. It was devised by Thistlewood, the wildest of the Radicals, with the help of a band of desperate followers. The Cato Street Conspiracy, as it was called, got its name from the fact that the plotters held their meetings in a stable-loft on that street. Lord Holland, nephew of Charles James Fox, whose house was the social center of the leading Whigs, voiced the sentiments of the Opposition party when he declared that such conspiracies were the natural re- sult of the suppression of public discussion. Nevertheless, the re- pressive policy of the Government did something to quell popular agitation. Queen Caroline and her History, 1795-1820. In this same year George and his ministers had to face a crisis growing out of the King's relations with his unfortunate Queen, Caroline. Caroline, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick, had been forced into this ill-starred marriage against her will, 8 April, 1795, while the Prince had consented 2 solely because it was the only condition on which Parliament would vote to pay his debts. He disliked her from the first day he saw her. Her good qualities he could not appreciate, and her frivolity, her indiscre- tions, and lack of breeding shocked his fastidious nature. They sepa- rated in 1796, though she continued to live in the neighborhood of Lon- don, receiving as guests some of the leading men of the time. She was carefully watched, and an investigation into her conduct was made in 1806; but no evidence of real immorality was discovered. In 1814 she went abroad, where she spent some years traveling, chiefly in Italy and about the Mediterranean. Her manner of life was at least ques- tionable, and, in 1818, the Regent sent over a secret committee to secure evidence for a divorce. It was the Queen herself, however, who finally forced the issue. Already smarting from the humiliation of receiving no official recognition at foreign courts, she was stung to fury when her name was omitted from the new Prayer Book issued at 1 Dickens caricatured him as "Mr. Turveydrop " in Bleak House. 2 His alliance with Mrs. Fitzherbert was regarded as illegal because contrary to the provisions of the Royal Marriage Act. She was ultimately awarded a pension and lived till 1837. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 873 the accession of her royal consort. 1 So she started for England to appeal to the people and to plead her cause in person. Landing at Dover, in June, 1820, she journeyed to London amid a storm of en- thusiasm. Public chivalry was aroused in the cause of a woman who, whatever her faults, had been despitefully treated by one who was a notorious evil liver. The Whig politicians rallied to her support as a means of striking both at the King who had deserted them and the Ministry in power. The Struggle over her Divorce, 1820. The royal advisers, though they agreed to an investigation in the House of Lords, sought to ar- range terms with the Queen through her counsel, of whom Brougham was the chief. After Caroline had refused any concession on the two essential points her formal recognition at foreign courts and the insertion of her name in the Prayer Book Lord Liverpool introduced a bill of pains and penalties, 8 July, to deprive her of her title and to divorce her from King George. In the face of a steadily dwindling majority, which amounted only to nine at the third reading, 12 Novem- ber, the Prime Minister withdrew the measure. To have pushed it further might have jeopardized the throne. The news was hailed with tumults of joy, and London was illuminated for three nights. Thus encouraged, Caroline continued the fight. She succeeded in obtaining a parliamentary grant of 50,000 a year, though she failed to get her name in the Prayer Book. Further, she failed in a frantic effort to have herself crowned with the King, and committed the fatal blunder of making an undignified attempt to force her way into West- minster Abbey on coronation day, 19 July, 1821. This alienated the people, who showed no resentment at her being turned away. She did not long survive her disappointment ; for she died, 7 August, much to the relief of King George. After brief visits to Ireland and Scot- land, in 1821 and 1822, respectively, he withdrew more and more from the public view, only emerging once or twice toward the close of his reign in futile efforts to block the cause of progress. The Advent of the Liberal Tories, 1822. While Liverpool's Tory Ministry hung on till 1827, its character was profoundly modified in 1822. Napoleon, disturber of the peace of Europe, was dead, popular outbreaks had ceased, and the middle class, relieved from fear of invasion or revolution, were prepared to demand more freedom of commerce, a greater voice in public affairs, and, in general, a resumption of the work of reform in which Pitt had been so rudely interrupted. The Queen's cause had served as a means of focusing and manifesting their strength, and had made it clear to the tyrannical clique who had thus far clung so stoutly to the existing system, that at least some degree of concession was necessary. In consequence they took the momentous step of admitting into the Cabinet four liberal Tories. The new Ministers all sprung from 1 It is customary to insert a prayer for the King and Queen by name. 874 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the middle class and voicing its aspirations while they were not in favor of parliamentary reform, nor, at the outset, of Catholic relief, at once set on foot a series of legislative and administrative changes which opened a new era. Robert Peel. In January, 1822, Robert Peel (1788-1850) re- placed Sidmouth as Home Secretary. Peel, who was the son of a rich manufacturer, had already been a member of Parliament for more than ten years. He was destined to be twice Prime Minister, to form a new Conservative party, and to be the author of epoch-making liberal measures. On 12 August Castlereagh 1 committed suicide. Masterful, courageous, and absolutely indifferent to public opinion he was intensely unpopular, except with the reactionaries who fol- lowed his leadership. His energetic part in putting down the Rebel- lion of 1798 and his share in the questionable methods by which the subsequent Union was brought about had embittered the majority of his own countrymen against him. On the other hand, he had rendered signal service to Great Britain and to Europe. Largely owing to his efforts, the British army was effectively reorganized and the Peninsular War undertaken, he selected and supported Wellington, and led the combination of the Powers that finally overcame Napoleon. Moreover, he played a leading r61e in the subsequent settlement of the European situation. While that settlement and his share in it is open to the serious criticism of disregarding liberty and nationality, it had, at least, the merit of averting another European conflict for forty years. Canning and Huskisson. George Canning (1770-1827) suc- ceeded Castlereagh as Foreign Secretary and leader of the House of Commons. Since his quarrel with his' predecessor in 1809 he had held no important Cabinet office. George IV, who hated him because of his sympathy with the late Queen Caroline, had only sanctioned his appointment with the greatest reluctance. Brilliant and versatile 2 and possessed of unusual literary power, Canning was doubtless one of the most eloquent orators and one of the most skillful debaters and parlia- mentary managers of the century. Many, however, distrusted his sincerity and his judgment. Directly on entering office he assumed " even in the presence of Lord Liverpool the tone and authority of Premier." He proceeded to surround himself with men after his own heart. Robinson, " prosperity Robinson," as he came to be known, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but the most notable appointment was that of William Huskisson (1770-1830) as President of the Board of Trade. Huskisson was the greatest authority of his time in finance, trade, and commerce, though his abilities were only slowly recognized, partly because of his reserved, awkward manner 1 He had succeeded his father as Marquis of Londonderry in 1821. 2 It was said that he could dictate to two amanuenses at the same time, on such complicated and totally different questions as in relations with Greece and South America. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 875 and partly because he was distrusted as a free trader. Canning, burdened with the double weight of the home and foreign, policy of his country, depended much upon his new colleagues for initial sug- gestions and the working out of details in domestic reforms. The New Era of Remedial Legislation. Peel as a Law Reformer. The remedial legislation which they undertook covered all sorts of fields legal, judicial, social, colonial, commercial, and industrial. While great strides were made during the next few years, much re- mained for later generations to perfect and complete. Already, in 1819, Peel had, as chairman of a committee of finance, introduced bills providing that, by May, 1823, the Bank of England should, on demand, redeem all notes in legal coin. As a matter of fact, i May, 1821, marked the complete resumption of the specie payments. The meas- ure, based on the ideas of the famous economist Ricardo, caused some temporary difficulty by raising prices, but was an honest return to a sound policy. As Home Secretary, Peel, in consultation with Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, and Jeremy Bentham, was particularly active in law reforms. The Beginning of Huskisson's Reforms. His Colonial Policy. In 1823, Huskisson substantially modified the operation of the Naviga- tion Laws, though they were not actually repealed till 1849. By- a Reciprocity of Duties Bill, European countries were allowed a share in the British colonial trade, subject to certain restrictions, provided they would extend equal privileges to Great Britain. 1 Contrary to the prevailing notion that the British colonial system was a monop- oly belonging to the Mother Country because of the protection and defense which she rendered, Huskisson declared that the trade interests of the Colonies deserved consideration and that they were insepa- rably bound up with those of England. The home trader continued to receive a certain preference in tariffs ; but colonial commerce and immigration were systematically fostered. One abuse persisted. Colonial patronage was still lavishly bestowed upon those who were often as incompetent as they were importunate. A deaf and dumb peer received a large salary as Governor of the Barbadoes ; the clerk of the Privy Council drew 3000 a year as nominal Governor of Jamaica, though he never visited the island ; while a peeress received 1000 for an equally glaring sinecure in Trinidad. Nevertheless, Huskisson's wise and generous policy aroused a sentiment of loyalty in the Colonies hitherto unequaled. In this same year, 1823, Great Britain was finally relieved of that old incubus, the Sinking Fund. The measure, carried out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was doubtless suggested by Huskisson. Henceforth, it was provided that no additions were to be made to the Sinking Fund except from the surplus for the year. His Tariff and Taxation Reforms. Huskisson proceeded, in 1824, to grapple with the whole existing system of tariffs and taxation. 1 The United States had secured similar concessions in 1814. 876 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Much as Pitt had done to unravel the tangle, hosts of anomalies re- mained. Furthermore, many new taxes had been imposed in a more or less random fashion to meet the needs of a war revenue. There were bounties to assist old and decrepit industries, while those that were young and growing received no support. Many of the productions propped up by bounties were in turn weighed down by a heavy excise. Trade and manufactures were hampered by vexatious duties, chief among them those on the import of raw and spun silk and on both the import and export of raw wool. Finished silks were excluded alto- gether. Huskisson was in principle a free trader; he thought that bounties and prohibitive restrictions fostered unprofitable industries and discouraged invention and progress. So he abolished as many as he could, and provided for the gradual doing away with many more. At the same time, he swept away various unproductive taxes, revising others or distributing them more equally. In remodeling the tariff he followed the plan of leaving a slight duty to protect the manufacturer, as well as further to assist him by making raw materials as free as possible. The old duties ranged from 1 8 to 40 per cent, those which Huskisson substituted, from 15 to 30. Among the commodi- ties affected were silk, cotton, woolens, sugar, paper, and glass. The development which followed was striking. Shipping, which had increased 10 per cent in the nineteen years preceding, increased 45 in the twenty-one following. Exports, which, so near as can be estimated, had fallen from 45,000,000 in 1814 to 38,000,000 in 1820, had risen again in 1824 to 49,000,000. The loss of revenue due to reduction in taxes was, to a large degree, offset by this increase of trade, as well as by the future suppression of smuggling which the old duties had encouraged. Much, however, as Huskisson's measures contributed to this increased prosperity, other causes were, to a still greater degree, operative. The Spanish-American colonies threw off the yoke of Spain and opened their trade freely to the world. The Portuguese possession of Brazil, which became an independent empire in 1822, did the like. Moreover, commercial relations with the United States steadily improved after the War of 1812. And, finally, the recovery of the European Continent from its exhaustion affected Eng- land as a buyer, seller, and as a distributing agent. His Combination Laws, 1824-1825. Huskisson was also respon- sible for various measures regulating and improving the condition of the working classes and their relations with the capitalists. Laws forbidding the exportation of machinery and the emigration of laborers, which it had always been difficult to enforce, were abolished. In 1824 he passed an act allowing peaceful workingmen to meet without penalty, and, indeed, legalizing every sort of a combination. This step, however, had to be partially retraced the. following year ; for, owing to a temporary return of hard times, a number of disturbances and riots broke out. In consequence, a new act was passed in 1825 forbidding certain kinds of meetings, and empowering the magistrates AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 877 to deal in a summary fashion with both employers or workmen who resorted to threats or intimidation. The Financial Crisis of 1825. The year 1825 was marked by a sharp but temporary financial crisis. The recent prosperity had resulted in a considerable increase of capital, which tempted many to seek for promising fields of investment. The new South American republics seemed to offer the chief attractions, and a frenzy of specula- tive fever set in which recalled the days of the South Sea Bubble. All kinds of visionary and fantastic schemes were afloat. One for the shipment of warming pans and skates to the tropics is doubtless an invention ; but it is stated as a fact that " Scotch dairy maids emigrated to Buenos Ayres for the purpose of milking wild cows and churning butter for a people who preferred oil." Speculation was stimulated by excessive note issues, chiefly by the country banks. By the spring of 1825 prices had reached a height whence they were bound to topple. Then came a rumor that the South American republics were going to repudiate their debts. At the same time, the Bank of England, which had been drained of specie on account of heavy loans to .France, contracted its note issue. Money became tight at once. Many, either from fright or because of the necessity of meeting outstanding obligations, began to sell their stocks at tremendous sacrifices. Numbers of the leading banks in London suspended payment, causing the failure of still greater numbers of country banks dependent on them. By the opening of 1826 over seventy had fallen with a crash. Only the wise measures of the min- isters in power, backed by the more solid element of the mercantile community, averted complete disaster. The Government prohibited the Bank pf England from suspending cash payments. At the same time, the supply of small notes was increased and more coin was hurried from the mint. One hundred and fifty thousand sovereigns a day were struck off, and the accidental discovery in the vaults of the Bank of a chest containing seven hundred thousand one-pound notes proved a godsend. Furthermore, the Bank of England was allowed to es- tablish branches in certain provincial towns, and to make advances up to 3,000,000 on merchants' goods. Further issues of smaller notes by the country banks were forbidden. Confidence slowly re- turned, and the country at length weathered the crisis. The Question of the Corn Laws, 1826. In 1826 a sharp struggle arose between the commercial and the landed interests over the Corn Laws. The Act of 1815 had been passed, partly to encourage the farmers to retain a large area of corn land in order that the country might be more self-sufficing in the event of another war, and partly for the purpose of protecting them from the fall in prices which would come from the free admission of foreign-grown wheat. However, the steadily increasing body of artisans, and the agricultural laborers who owned no land and worked for hire, clamored for cheaper food. The influential merchants and manufacturers naturally supported 878 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND them because low prices for bread meant keeping wages down. In 1826 an insufficient harvest, and the misery which it involved, prompted the Government to place on sale a large supply of foreign corn which was being held in bond until the price should reach the rate of 80 shillings. Not only was the action sustained in Parliament, but a motion was introduced to import a further supply to relieve the existing distress. Although the landed interests were in the majority and although their profits had shrunk since the peace, they did not defeat the motion, partly because on the eve of a general elec- tion they were reluctant to defy public opinion, and partly because the measure was designed to meet a temporary emergency. Their opponents, however, interpreted their action to be a virtual admission that the protection which they enjoyed was at the cost of the consumer. Indeed, Canning and Huskisson were on the point of introducing an amendment to the existing Corn Laws when, 17 February, 1827, Lord Liverpool was suddenly striken with paralysis. Canning's Ministry, April-August, 1827. The two factions in the Cabinet had nothing in common except opposition to parliamentary reform, and nothing but the tact of the Prime Minister had held them together. Now a split was inevitable. The progressive section led by Canning, which stood for national independence abroad, and for the extension of free trade and for Catholic emancipation at home, had a majority in the Commons. The chief strength of the old Eldonian Tories was in the House of Lords. Canning was the logical successor as Premier ; but he was broken in health, and bitterly opposed by the King. Wellington, who was offered the post, declared that he would be worse than mad to accept it. After the Government had been six weeks without a head, George finally gave in. Canning, during the few months that he survived, had to fight against tremendous odds. Six of the leading members of the Liverpool Cabinet, chief among them Wellington, Peel, and Eldon, refused to serve. Indeed, Huskis- son was the only man of parts who remained. Most of the new men, however, were destined to make their mark in later times. Lord Palmerston 1 and William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne) subse- quently became Prime Ministers, while Lord Lyndhurst, the Chan- cellor, was destined to hold that office in two more cabinets and to decline a fourth term. Owing to a dearth of liberal Tories, Canning was obliged to admit several Whigs to minor positions. The chief event in his short-lived administration was the struggle over the new Corn Law which he had already introduced, i March, 1827, and which he carried easily through the Commons. It provided for the admission of foreign corn, after the price reached 60 shillings, on a sliding scale of duties which went down as the price went up, and vice versa. Wellington blocked it in the Lords by an amendment which, the Prime Minister declared, wrecked the whole principle. Though it was not 1 In the Irish peerage. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 879 commented on at the time, the action of the Lords was unconstitu- tional ; for it had long been recognized that they could not amend a money bill. Canning died, 8 August, 1827, in the Duke of Devon- shire's villa at Chiswick in the very room where Charles James Fox had died twenty years before. The Goderich Ministry, August, 1827, to January, 1828. Robin- son, recently created Viscount Goderich, who was chosen to succeed Canning, was a kindly man who had shown some ability as a financier ; but he was too weak and. irresolute to manage a Cabinet. When a dispute arose over a chairmanship of a finance committee, all he could do was to burst into tears and resign. This " transient and em- barrassed phantom," or " Goody Goderich," as Cobbett named him, was the only Prime Minister who never faced a Parliament. Wellington becomes Prime Minister, 1828. The Roman Catholic Question. The Duke of Wellington, backed by the landed interest and the rigid Protestants, next became Prime Minister on the under- standing that Roman Catholic relief was not to be made a Cabinet question. Nevertheless, before another year was over he had carried a Catholic Emancipation Bill, with the consequence that he sharply divided and ultimately wrecked his Government. Roman Catholics labored under serious political disabilities. By the acts of 1562 and 1678 they were excluded from both Houses of Parliament ; by the Test Act all public offices, civil and military, were closed to them, and by an act of William and Mary they were even deprived of the right to vote. In addition, they were subject to penal laws so harsh, oppressive, and ingeniously cruel that they can hardly be justified by the circum- stances that called them forth, and which, if enforced, would have rendered their position wellnigh intolerable. It should be said, however, that as the danger from papal aggression and Jacobitism disappeared and as rationalism and religious indifference began to spread, they became practically a dead letter even before any of them were removed from the statute book. The act of 1778, and a subse- quent act of 1791, put an end to these " ferocious threats " ; but the political disabilities remained. The situation was much the same in Ireland, 1 although, there, five sevenths of the population were affected, whereas the English Roman Catholics did not number more than 70,000. The Struggle for Catholic Emancipation. Daniel O'Connell. Pitt, as has been seen, failed to secure further measures of Catholic relief in fulfillment of the pledges given to carry the Union. Grenville and Fox were equally unsuccessful in the measures which they advo- cated. Grattan, the Irish patriot, 2 led a vain struggle, year after year, in the English Parliament. On his death, in 1820, Plunket took 1 The Irish, however, could vote after 1793. 2 As a Protestant he was entitled to sit. Many of the Irish leaders, beginning with Burke, who was the pioneer in the Catholic cause from 1760 to 1793, were Protestants. 88o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND his place as champion of the Catholic claims. Although Canning, together with a number of Whigs and liberal Tories, lent their support to the cause, the only fruit of years of struggle was the Military and Naval Officers' Oath Bill of 1817, opening all ranks in the service to Roman Catholics. 1 At the same time, the agitation was being actively carried on in Ireland. ,The old agrarian difficulties ab- senteeism, rack-renting, 2 and tithes still lay at the root of the dis- content of the lesser folk ; but their leaders pushed to the front the question of the political disabilities exclusion from office and Parliament. Their most skilful organizer and agitator was Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847), a Roman Catholic barrister who had entered actively into politics in 1805. His gay and boisterous temperament, his wit, his eloquence, his knowledge of his countrymen, and his fervid enthusiasm made him a popular idol. Organized societies and mass meetings were molded by his masterly hand into perfect and respon- sive instruments, and no one did more than he to arouse a truly na- tional feeling. Although often coarse, unguarded, and violent in his language, he always opposed the use of force, declaring on one occa- sion that " no political change is worth a drop of human blood." In 1823, he founded the Catholic Association for peaceful and public agitation of grievances. In order to include even the poorest, the contribution was fixed at a penny a week or a shilling a year. The success of the Association was so great that the Government in alarm passed a bill aiming to declare illegal not only this, but all societies for similar objects. The resourceful O'Connell founded forthwith a new association which evaded the terms of the act. Indeed, more than once he was able to circumvent the English authorities by such ingenuity. The Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The Clare Election, 1828. In 1828, Lord John Russell, a younger son of the Duke of Bedford, destined to become one of the Whig leaders, carried through Parliament a measure for repealing the provisions in the Test and Cor- poration Acts, requiring the taking of the sacrament according to the Anglican form, as a qualification for office. Thus the Protestant Dissenters were admitted to privileges which they had enjoyed hitherto only by an ungracious indemnity. Catholics were still excluded by the necessity of taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and a declaration against transubstantiation, 3 but their victory was not far off . Owing to disagreements which culminated in a quarrel over the dis- 1 In England military and naval officers who did not take the statutory oaths had been protected by an annual indemnity since 1745. 2 The practice of setting tenants to bid against one another. Since land was scarce, a man, in order to win in the competition, often had to agree to a sum which it was beyond his power to pay. 3 By the act of 1828 a new declaration for the protection of the Church of Eng- land was required from all holders of any office, employment, or place of trust. Since it had to be affirmed "upon the true faith of a Christian," Jews were excluded, not only from office but from Parliament. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 88 1 posal of the seats of two rotten boroughs disfranchised at this time, the Duke got rid of Huskisson. Palmerston, Lamb, and others resigned in quick succession until there was not a Canningite left in the Well- ington ministry. Vesey Fitzgerald, a popular landowner in the county of Clare, was chosen President of the Board of Trade and, in accordance with the Act of 1705, stood for reelection. O'Connell ran against him to the amazement of everybody; for, even if elected, he was dis- qualified from sitting. In a five days' contest, in which he and the priests took care that the proceedings should be absolutely peaceful, he won a complete triumph. It was clear that the forty-shilling freeholder could not longer be trusted to obey blindly the Govern- ment agents. The most significant result of the Clare election, however, was to convince Wellington that political equality could no longer be withheld from the Roman Catholics except at the risk of civil war. Ever since 1827 the majority of the Commons had favored the desired concessions ; but they could make no head against the Lords 1 and the King. The press and the mass of the English people were also stoutly opposed to any change. The Passage of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill, 1829. Any other Prime Minister but Wellington would have resigned. By re- maining in office and bending all his energies to carry the measure he was pledged to oppose, he was furiously denounced by the old-line Tories as a betrayer of their principles. He was, no doubt, the fore- most man in England, and his courage and honesty were above ques- tion. However, he failed to understand the English party system. His political tactics were those of the general to hold a position as long as possible and then to yield. Moreover, he had a sense of public duty that was superior to party allegiance. Convinced that delay was fatal, he realized that no one in the country was as likely as him- self to overcome the obstinacy of the King. Peel, who shared in the denunciation heaped upon his chief, hesitated for a time as to what course to pursue. He finally concluded to support the Duke. He did, however, feel it his duty to resign his seat as a member from Oxford. When that citadel of conservatism refused to reelect him, he was returned from Westbury. After notice had already been given that the Bill would be introduced, George sought to interpose an obstacle by declaring that he would consent to no alteration in the Oath of Supremacy. Wellington, Peel, and Lyndhurst at once re- signed ; and, finding it impossible to form another Ministry, he was obliged to give way. Poor old Eldon, though he shed tears and fore- told the ruin of the British Empire, failed to induce the majority of the Tory peers to vote against the Duke. As a last resource, he tried to induce the King to refuse his assent. George, who had once declared " that there was no person in the whole world that he hated so much," was so affected that he threw his arms around the neck of the 1 George's brother, the Duke of York, who died in January, 1827, had (according to Eldon) done "more to quiet this matter than everything else put together." 31 882 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND aged ex-Chancellor. Indeed, the King's whole behavior was petty and childish. He threatened even to return to Hanover. While he eventually signed the measure, he vented his spite by treating its supporters with premeditated rudeness and by showering favors upon those who had opposed it. The Terms of the Act. The Act, in its final form, conceded full political and civil rights to Roman Catholics, with specified exceptions and under certain conditions devised as safeguards. The Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy, and Abjuration were done away with, as well as the renunciation of belief in transubstantiation, invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. Instead, members of Parliament and officeholders had to take a new oath swearing allegiance to the Sover- eign, renouncing the temporal supremacy of the Pope within the realm and pledging support to the Protestant settlement of Church and State. Roman Catholics were excluded from the offices of Sovereign, Lord Chancellor of England or Ireland, and Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land. Further, they could hold no positions in the ecclesiastical courts nor in the universities, and their priests could not sit in Parliament. 1 Their bishops could not assume diocesan titles already held by bishops of the Church of England, a provision which was destined, a few years later, to cause serious trouble. A few disabilities still remained; for example, marriages celebrated by Catholic priests were not recog- nized by law till 1838. The Act of 1829, a tardy measure of justice carried, it should be borne in mind, by the unreformed Parliament against the prevailing popular sentiment did not have the hoped- for effect in quieting the Irish discontent; indeed, the opinion has been advanced that, had the consequences been foreseen, the majority of those who helped carry the Bill would have voted for its rejection. Wellington's frank admission in the House of Lords, that he had only acted from dread of civil war, encouraged the use of force in time to come. Two reasons help to explain the dissatisfaction of the Irish. In the first place, the forty-shilling freeholders were disfranchised, and the qualification for voting raised to ten pounds. O'Connell, who had " solemnly vowed to perish on the field or on the scaffold rather than submit," yielded without a protest. Far different was his attitude with regard to the other question. Apparently for the ex- press purpose of excluding him from taking the seat which he had recently secured from the county Clare, the Government had unwisely inserted a clause in the Relief Bill that its provisions should not be retroactive. O'Connell appeared at the bar of the House prepared to take the new oath ; but, though he argued his case with moderation and skill, was turned away. He was easily reflected ; but the sense- less and ungracious trick which had been practiced on him turned him into a fiery advocate of the repeal of the Union. 1 Church of England clergymen had been excluded from the House of Commons since 1801. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 883 The Last Months of the Wellington Ministry, and the Death of George IV. The last months of the Wellington Ministry were gloomy enough. Ireland was seething with disorder, while in England a bad harvest and a severe winter resulted in distress and disquiet. Indus- trial conditions were also affected and led to new outbursts of violence. Although they managed to cut down expenses and remit various taxes, the Duke and his supporters never recovered their popularity. The Tories regarded them as traitors, the King never forgave them for forcing his hand, while the Canningites were hopelessly alienated. Most of them, as a matter of fact, had gone over to the Whigs, who were strongly organized under a trusted leader, John Charles Spencer, Viscount Althorpe 1 (1782-1845). Another factor which told against Wellington was that parliamentary reform, to which he was stoutly opposed, had now become an issue bound to prevail. George IV died, 26 June, 1830, unloved and unregretted. With the accession of his brother William, who was friendly to the Whigs and reform, the Duke's Ministry was doomed. Events abroad, which reached a crisis in 1830, gave great impetus to the popular movement in England. Great Britain and the European Situation at the Close of the Great War. The effect of the French Revolution and of the Napoleonic wars had been, on the one hand, to arouse a spirit of liberty and national independence among the peoples of many continental states ; on the other, to unite most of the European sovereigns in a policy of reaction and repression. The aim of the ruling powers was to maintain peace in accordance with the Congress of Vienna and the second Treaty of Paris. The chief engine for carrying through this work was the Quadruple Alliance which provided for frequent Congresses where all movements which threatened the tranquillity of Europe were dis- cussed and concerted action determined. Prince Metternich, the Austrian Minister, was the leading spirit of the despotic regime. The tenor of the Metternich system is admirably expressed in a circular of the Congress of Laibach, meeting in October, 1821, which declared that : " Useful or necessary changes in legislation and in the adminis- tration of States ought only to emanate from the free will and intelli- gent and well-weighed conviction of those whom God has rendered responsible for power." While the Austrian Minister was opposed to any intervention which might disturb the balance of power, he induced the larger states of Germany to combine under Prussian leadership for the purpose of aiding the lesser to stifle the least signs of revolution ; he stood ready to crush out all evidences of unrest in Italy, where, through the possession of Lombardy and Venice, Aus- 1 " Honest Jack," as he was fondly called, had in his youth been chiefly noted for his interest in sports, his debts, and. his awkward manners. He was drawn into politics by his admiration for Charles James Fox. He had no political ambition and spoke unwillingly and badly ; but by devotion to duty, by his industry in the mastery of public questions, and by sheer force of character he came, in spite of himself, to lead his party in the Commons. 88 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND trian interests were predominant; and he was pledged to maintain the Bourbons of France. Castlereagh, who guided British foreign policy, was a far more decided advocate of non-intervention, while Alexander of Russia represented the opposite policy. The Revolutions of 1820. The year 1820 witnessed a series of revolutions. The first occurred in Spain. Though Alexander was hot for joint intervention, Castlereagh, backed by Metternich, suc- ceeded in frustrating his designs. In the summer, revolts followed in Naples, Sicily, and Portugal. Castlereagh was quite willing to allow Austria to interfere in Italy on the ground that her possessions were endangered ; but he declared against proposals of joint intervention. For that reason, he protested against the Congresses summoned to con- sider the Spanish question and refused to send any official representa- tives when they met. He was really in sympathy with crushing revo- lutionary movements, and seems to have given the European Powers private assurances of support, though, to satisfy British public opinion, he played a double game by openly opposing their efforts. The upshot was that Austria sent an army to Naples which restored the Bourbon Ferdinand and likewise suppressed a revolt in Piedmont. Thus, with the help of Castlereagh, she carried out a policy of inter- vention when it suited her interests, and defeated the Russian projects for joint action, which she regarded with disfavor. The Spanish Situation, 1820-1823. The Spanish revolutionists had forced their worthless King, Ferdinand VII, to restore a constitu- tion which he had accepted at his restoration in 1812, and which he had afterwards ignored. The situation was complicated from the fact that the ultraroyalists, who had secured control in France, fearing the contagion of the Spanish revolutionary principles, insisted upon intervention. Their alarm was accentuated from the fact that the Portuguese King, John VI, on his return, in June, 1821, from a fourteen years' absence in Brazil signed a liberal constitution which his subjects had recently adopted. It was understood that the Spanish question would come up for discussion in a Congress summoned to meet at Verona. A preliminary conference was arranged at Vienna. Cas- tlereagh, who was to represent Great Britain, shot himself 12 August, 1822. However, he had already made up his mind to resist the French as he had previously resisted the Russian proposals of intervention ; and Canning, his successor as Foreign Secretary, adopted the same attitude. Furthermore, he continued Castlereagh's policy of opposi- tion to governing European affairs by Congresses. Where he dif- fered from his predecessor was in his sincere belief that each nation should be left free to choose its own form of government. " Castle- reagh had been suspected of holding the continental doctrine that people exist only for their kings," whereas Canning " based his policy on the modern notion that kings exist only for their people." In spite of the efforts of Wellington, who was sent as plenipotentiary to Verona, the Congress adopted the project of French intervention AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 885 Canning finally agreed not to interfere with the invaders so long as they observed certain conditions: that they should not destroy the independence of Spain ; that France should not possess herself of any Spanish colonies; and that the occupation should not be permanent. A French army entered Spain in April, 1823. Before the close of the year, Ferdinand was restored and absolutism was again triumphant. Canning and the Recognition of the South American Republics, 1823-1825. In three directions, however, Canning contributed to check the designs of the reactionaries in Portugal, in the Spanish colonies in South America, and in Greece. The Portuguese ultra- royalists, led by the army and joined by Miguel, second son of John VI, succeeded in overthrowing the constitution which the King had re- cently granted. By sending a British fleet to the Tagus, Canning managed to prevent the complete triumph of the reactionary party, although the constitution was not restored. Meantime, Pedro, eldest son of John VI, whom his father had left as ruler in Brazil, had, in October, 1822, proclaimed the independence of that country and as- sumed the title of Emperor. His father had authorized him to take this step in case of necessity, and Portugal, in July, 1825, recognized the independence of the new Empire. This was in accordance with the recommendation of a conference in London, composed of British, Austrian, Portuguese and Brazilian representatives. Already, in 1824, Great Britain, following the lead of the United States, had recog- nized the independence of Mexico and of two of the republics in South America, where revolutions against Spain had been going on since 1810. Recognition of others was not long delayed. The possibility of Eu- ropean intervention was deterred by the efforts of Canning and the United States. While the American Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, declined the proposals of the British Foreign Minister for joint action, Monroe, in his famous presidential message of Decem- ber, 1823, declared, in substance, that interference on the part of any European power, with American governments, whose independence had been maintained and recognized by the United States, would be regarded in the light of an unfriendly act. r Thus supported, Canning was able to prevent France from calling in the other Powers to under- take the reconquest of the Spanish colonies. In phrases which have become famous, Canning declared in Parliament : " Contemplating Spain such as our ancesters had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the old." As a matter of fact, he called nothing into existence ; he merely recognized states 1 The sentences in which this view was expressed, as well as those aimed against the designs of Russia on the northwest coast, which announced that : " The American continents . . . are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future coloni- zation by any European power," were written by Adams. The doctrine which they embody has been rightly called the "Monroe Doctrine," in that Monroe assumed the responsibility. It was really the enunciation of a principle as old as Wash- ington. 886 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND that had already accomplished their independence and took the step after the United States had led the way. Moreover, he was deter- mined rather by interests of trade than political equity. Nevertheless, in spite of his boastful exaggeration, the significance of his achievement must not be forgotten. In the face of a great European combination, and of the opposition of King George, backed by a strong party in the Cabinet, he had arrayed his country on the side of revolutionary governments against the forces of reaction. Canning and the Greek Revolution, 1823-1827. In eastern Europe also, where a different problem had to be faced, Canning adopted the cause of an insurgent people. In 1821, the Greeks had risen in revolt against the Turks, to whom they had long been subject. Here, too, Russia was keen for intervention, but this time on the side of the oppressed nationality. Popular sentiment in Great Britain was naturally inclined to favor the Greeks, while Castlereagh opposed the Russian projects on two grounds. He feared the encouragement it might lend to the revolutionary spirit which was spreading through Europe, and he feared still more that defeat of the Turks by Russian arms would lead to Russian supremacy in the Black Sea and in Asia Minor, and to a consequent menace of the British power in the Medi- terranean and in India. While Canning had no sympathy with the first consideration, the question of Russian aggrandizement presented a serious problem in his eyes. He did not hesitate to recognize the Greeks as belligerents, 25 March, 1823 ; but, for some time, he stood out against acknowledging their independence or intervening by force of arms in their behalf, and sought to secure concessions from the Turks by mediation. He was only forced to decided action by the furious devastation and bloodshed of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehemet AH, 1 ruler of Egypt, whom the Porte 2 called in to reduce the Morea. 3 Even yet Canning was opposed to coercing the Turks. Early in 1826, how- ever, he concluded a treaty with the new Tsar Nicholas I, 4 to which France became a party before the close of the year, providing for possible intervention. Popular enthusiasm for the Greek cause in England and elsewhere was tremendous. Volunteers 5 flocked to the scene of action, and money and supplies were joyfully contributed. Canning, who continued his policy of cautious restraint, signed, 6 July, 1827, just before his final illness, the Treaty of London which aimed to secure autonomy for the Greeks, coupled with the payment of tribute to the Sultan. In the event of Turkey's refusal, the allied fleets were to combine in enforcing the terms. 1 He was tributary to the Sultan. 2 Abbreviated from "Sublime Porte," literally "high gate," from the entrance to the palace where justice was administered. The name thus came to be applied to the Turkish Government. 3 The southern part of the Greek peninsula, the ancient Peloponnesus. 4 Alexander I died suddenly during the negotiations, i December, 1825. 5 The most distinguished of them was Lord Byron, who died of fever at Misso- longhi, 19 April, 1824. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 887 The Course of the Struggle, 1827-1829. The reply of the Porte was to order a fleet from Egypt which took its station in the harbor of Navarino under the command of Ibrahim. Thence he landed troops, harried the land, and massacred the inhabitants at will. This was too much for Admiral Codrington, the commander of the allied squadron, who entered the harbor, 20 October, 1827, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon his adversaries. Canning, who might have supported him, was no more ; the feeble Goderich did nothing ; while Wellington, who soon succeeded him, was disinclined to break with Turkey in the interests of the Greeks. Hence Codrington's noble victory was de- scribed in the King's speech of 29 January, 1828, as " a collision wholly unexpected by his Majesty," and " an untoward event," which " his Majesty hoped would not be followed by further hostilities." This declaration, which raised a storm of protest on the part of the friends of Greek freedom, encouraged Turkey to demand satisfaction for the destruction of her fleet. When this insolent demand was refused, she proceeded to defy all Europe, and Russia, in particular, whom she denounced as the prime mover in the revolt of the Greeks. Russia, thereupon, declared war and moved her troops into the Danubian provinces. In vain she urged Great Britain and France to send their fleets through the Dardanelles. Wellington, instead, proposed to France that they should keep their hands off Turkey and confine their energies to preserving order and checking excesses in the area where the Greeks and the Egyptians were actually fighting. Lack of con- cert between the Powers enabled Ibrahim to hold the ports of the Morea for a time, but, at length, the Conference of London, which had resumed its sittings, agreed that the French should undertake his expulsion. Meanwhile, Codrington, who had been recalled, sailed to Alexandria before the order went into effect, and extorted an agree- ment from Mehemet Ali to withdraw the greater part of the Egyptian fleet. This greatly simplified the work of the French, who, by Novem- ber, 1828, succeeded in driving the invaders from the Morean coast. Capodistrias, whom the Greeks had elected President, 14 April, 1827, carried on the war with the greatest vigor, while the Russian General Diebitsch pressed down over the Balkans. It soon became clear, how- ever, that he had got himself into a dangerous position, whereupon the Tsar hastened to make terms. Greek Independence, 1829. Peace was signed at Adrianople, 14 September, 1829. The virtual independence of the two Danubian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia was acknowledged, and the powers friendly to Turkey were allowed to send ships through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Turkey consented to submit to the terms of the Conference of London in the settlement of the Greek question. As a result, it was provided that Greece should be erected into an hereditary principality, independent of the Porte. Wellington, who had favored the restriction of the new state to the Morea as well as the payment of tribute, gave in on both points. The crown was 888 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND first offered to Prince Leopold, husband of the late Princess Charlotte, who accepted, February, 1830 ; but Capodistrias, desiring to retain his presidency, suggested so many difficulties that he changed his mind. Capodistrias conducted a provisional administration which was cut short by his assassination in 1831. The Powers then selected a Bava- rian Prince, who ruled as Otto I from 1832 until he was driven out by a revolution in 1862. He was succeeded the next year by George of Denmark, who was murdered on the fiftieth anniversary of his acces- sion. The Portuguese Problem, 1826-1828. While Turkey and Greece had been storm centers in European politics, the Portuguese and Span- ish questions were passing through acute stages. John VI of Portugal died, 10 March, 1826. The Absolutists, who had hoped that Peter of Brazil would again unite the two crowns, were doomed to grievous disappointment. He proceeded to confer a liberal constitution upon Portugal, providing, among other things, for religious toleration and the taxation of the nobility. Moreover, he signified his intention of abdicating the Portuguese throne in favor of his seven-year-old daugh- ter Mary as soon as two conditions had been fulfilled the establish- ment of the constitution and the marriage of Mary to her uncle Miguel. The proclamation of the constitution in July drove the ultraroyalists to revolt. Making Spain their base of operations, they invaded their country with the aid of Spanish troops. The Constitutionalists at once applied to the British, who were bound by treaty to assist the Portuguese Government in case of invasion. Canning, while advocat- ing the execution of the treaty obligations, insisted that his purpose was not to interfere in domestic concerns, but simply to resist the Spanish aggression. The British forces arrived late in December, 1826. Although they engaged in little active fighting, their support enabled the Government to drive out the invaders. Fresh difficulties arose when Pedro decided to appoint Miguel regent. The Constitutionalists rose against him, while the Absolutists armed in his defense. When the British prematurely withdrew their forces, in March, 1828, Miguel summoned the ancient Cortez, which named him King. Although Pedro stoutly opposed this step, Wellington, now Prime Minister, declined to interfere. The Portuguese and Spanish Pretenders. A new Cabinet, con- stituted in 1830 with Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, reversed this attitude of neutrality. One good reason was the fact that British subjects were shamefully treated under Miguel's regime. Early in May, 1831, a fleet was sent to the Tagus, which extorted an indemnity and an apology from the usurper. Pedro, who, 6 April, had resigned the throne of Brazil in favor of his infant son, at once departed to defend the claims of his daughter to the throne of Portugal. He was allowed to raise troops in England and France, though neither Govern- ment granted him either money or men. Joined by a force recruited from the Azores, he landed in Portugal, in June, 1832. With the as- AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 889 sistance of a British fleet he was able, in less than a year, to recover practically all of the country except the north, where Miguel continued to hold out. Such was the situation when Ferdinand VII of Spain died, 29 September, 1833. Influenced by his wife, Maria Christina, he disregarded the Salic law which hitherto had prevailed in Spain and left the throne by will to his daughter Isabella. His brother Don Carlos, thus excluded, at once combined forces with Miguel. In consequence, Great Britain, Pedro, and the Spanish Queen Dowager formed a triple alliance against the two Pretenders, which was extended to a quadruple alliance by the accession of France, in April, 1834. Miguel soon signed an agreement by which, in return for a pension, he renounced his claims and left Portugal. Carlos, however, refused to yield, and the war dragged on for years. He finally fled from Spain in 1839 and, six years later, renounced his pretensions in favor of his son. Since then Spain has occasionally been troubled by insurrections to restore the Carlist line, a representative of which still survives. The Year of Revolutions, 1830. The Three Days' Rising in Paris, 27-29 July. Meanwhile, the year 1830 had been marked by a series of revolutionary movements in which France, for the second time, led the way. Louis XVIII died in 1824, and was succeeded by his brother Charles X, who, with his ministers, developed a policy of reaction which aroused intense opposition. Affairs reached a crisis when, in conse- quence of a liberal victory at the elections, the Government issued three ordinances 25 July. The first declared the recent elections illegal and dissolved the Assembly. The second arbitrarily changed the election laws in order to restrict the suffrage to the rich land- owners. The third curtailed the liberty of the press by requiring a royal license for the publication of pamphlets and newspapers. The result was a revolt which took the form of a three days' street fight in Paris, 27-29 July. Charles X was driven from the throne, and Louis Philippe was proclaimed King. He was the son of Philippe Egalite, a notorious figure in the French Revolution, and was descended from the Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV. The consequences of the revolution and the change of dynasty, in addition to the example which it set for other European countries, was to transfer the balance of power from the nobles and clergy to the bourgeoisie. Wellington, convinced of the pacific policy of the new " Citizen King," secured his recognition and choked in its inception a hostile combination of Aus- tria, Russia, and Prussia. The Belgian Revolution, 1830. The effect of the French revolu- tionary movement was first manifested in the neighboring Belgium, formerly the Austrian Netherlands. The Belgians had chafed sorely under the rule of the Dutch King William I, who had been set over them by the Congress of Vienna. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, created by the Congress, was composed of two elements hopelessly at variance. The Belgians were French in sympathy, they were Roman Catholics, and chiefly engaged in manufacturing pursuits. 8go A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Dutch, who were the dominant partners in the united Kingdom, were anti-French, stanch Protestants, and mainly commercial in their interests. Furthermore, they controlled the States-General and held a large share of the public offices. In addition, the King alienated his Belgian subjects and roused their resentment by a series of encroach- ments : he suspended the liberty of the press ; he appointed judges, who, by the Constitution, should have been elected ; he took control of education; and proscribed the use of French in public business. Following the revolt in Paris, a popular rising took place in Brussels, 25 August, 1830. Thence it spread through the provinces. At first the insurgents asked only for a separate administration, but national sentiment soon came to demand the abolition of the personal union. Prussia and Russia were insistent that the powers should maintain King William by force of arms. This was opposed by France, where there was a strong popular demand for the reannexation of Belgium, which had been under French rule from 1794 to 1814. Louis was forced to declare that, if the Powers interfered, he would send a French army to occupy the country. In order to avert a general war it was eventu- ally agreed to refer the question to the London Conference, which was still engaged in settling the affairs of Greece, and to invite Russia and Prussia to join in the deliberations. While the Powers were at work discussing boundaries, division of the debt, and the form of govern- ment which the Belgians should adopt, a National Congress had assembled. The Congress proclaimed the independence of Belgium, voted for a constitutional monarchy, and elected as King the Due de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe. In deference to the other four Powers represented at London, the French King was obliged to decline the offer for his son. Thereupon, the crown was tendered to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who accepted in January, 1832. The Dutch, refusing to sanction the arrangement, proceeded to invade Belgium. The new King, with the joint support of France and Great Britain, put an end to the war with Holland before the close of 1833 ; but it was not till 1839 that the Dutch King finally accepted the terms of the London Conference. The Effect of the Revolutionary Movements on England. From France and Belgium the revolutionary movement spread to various German states, to Switzerland, Italy, and Poland. The continental uprisings played an important part in precipitating the demand for reform in England. The restraint which had governed the July Revolution in Paris was of particular significance in demonstrating to the conservative middle classes that results could be accomplished without anarchy and destructive excesses. Accordingly, they led an attack on the aristocratic regime, in which they gained a notable vic- tory in a peaceful, parliamentary way. AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF NAPOLEON 891 FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Brodrick and Fotheringham, Political History, chs. VIII-XII. J. A. R. Marriott, England since Waterloo (1913), bk. I (bibliography, pp. 541-545). Cambridge Modern History, X, chs. XVIII, XIX (bibliography, pp. 856-866) . Sir H. Maxwell, Century of Empire, I, chs. IX-XIV. Sir Spencer Walpole, History of England, 1815-1856 (6 vols., cab. ed., 1907), I, chs. IV, V; II; the most thorough history of the period, moderate Liberal standpoint. Bright, III, 1350-1416. Hariett Martineau, History of England during the Thirty Years 1 Peace, 1816-1846 (4 vols., ed. 1877) ; practically a contemporary work. Parliament and parliamentary reform. See especially, May, Constitutional His- tory (ed. 1907), I, chs. V, VI, and E. Porritt, The Unref armed Rouse of Commons (2 vols., 1902, new ed. 1909). Biographies and special works. For Wellington, Canning, and Sidmouth, see ch. XLVII below. C. M. Atkinson, Life of Jeremy Bentham (1905). E. I. Carlisle, Life of Wm. Cobbett (1904). A. Bain, Life of James Mill (1882). G. Wallas, Life of Francis Place ( 1 89 1 ) . S . Walpole, Life of Earl Russell ( 2 vols. , 1 898) . There are brief lives of Peel by Lord Rosebery (1899), J. B. Thursfield (1891), Justin McCarthy (1892), F. C. Montague (1888), and G. Barnett Smith (1881). The fullest work on Peel is Sir Robert Peel, his Life from his Private Correspondence (3 vols., 1891-1899, ed. C. S. Parker). Political parties. W. Harris, History of the Radical Party in Parliament (1895). C. B. R. Kent, The English Radicals (1899). T. E. Kebbel, History of Toryism (1886). J. A. Roebuck, History of the Whig Party (2 vols., 1852). W. L. Blease, A Short History of English Liberalism (1913). B. Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival, 1781-1803 (1909), and The Eve of Catholic Emancipation, 1803-1829 (3 vols., 1912). Contemporary. Brougham, Memoirs of his Own Times (1871); very biased. C. G. Greville, Journal of the Reigns of George IV and William IV (ed. Henry Reeve, 1888) ; owing to his high family connections and his position as clerk of the Privy Council, Greville had exceptional means of information. Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 260-261. Robertson, Select Statutes, pt. I, nos. XLIV-XLVI; pt. II, nos. XXV-XXVI. CHAPTER XLIX ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL General Features. The period between the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the first Reform Bill was marked by many evidences of progress. Manners and morals improved steadily. There was a growing humanitarian spirit, and, in spite of the preva- lence of laissez-faire, the legislative stagnation during the Great War and the greater part of the ensuing decade was followed by measures for bettering the condition of the subject. In literature, the romantic revolt reached a glorious climax. The results of the transformation in agriculture and industry came to be fully manifest. The bewildering fluctuations in the prices of foodstuffs, and the transition from old to new methods, caused acute suffering to the poor, but, throughout the War, the landlords, the manufacturers, and the merchants enlarged their activities and swelled their fortunes. Manufactures. Some new processes were introduced for exam- ple, Cartwright invented a wool-combing machine which did the work of more than a score of men ; and the introduction of chlorine bleach- ing resulted in a great saving of time as well as space. On the whole, however, this was an age of perfecting existing processes, of extending the factory system and organizing labor, rather than of new inventions in production. The cotton industry felt the effects of the Revolution much more swiftly and effectively than the wool industry. This was due to the fact that the former was less hampered by traditional restric- tion, and that it was concentrated largely in and about Lancashire, instead of being scattered throughout the rural districts of the country. The increased cheapness of processes is as striking as the growing production. In 1815, it cost only eight pence to spin a pound of cotton of a much finer quality than had cost forty-two in 1740. In 1740, about a million and a half pounds of raw cotton were imported for manufacture; in 1789, thirty-two; in 1830, two hundred and forty- seven. The total exports in 1740 were eight millions sterling; in 1815, they had increased to fifty-eight ; while, during the same interval, exports had gone up from six to thirty-two millions. British Shipping. The tonnage of shipping of Great Britain was 619,000 in 1780. With that of Ireland added, it had gone up to 2,201,000 in 1830. The commercial expansion, which had contrib- uted largely to the Industrial Revolution, was in its turn stimulated by the consequent increase in production. The growing dependence ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 8 93 on world markets naturally increased the instability of trade. This was accentuated by the American and French wars, which increased the uncertainty and risk of business, caused violent fluctuations in prices, encouraged speculation, and led to unsteadiness of employment. The Continental System had the particular effect of cutting off some sources of food supply and giving an artificial stimulus to English tillage. But Great Britain, thanks to her command of the sea, and to her improved processes in textile and iron manufacture, was able to increase enormously her carrying trade, and to extend her markets. Napoleon himself was compelled, very reluctantly, to buy her goods, to encourage French and Italian agriculture, and in order to drain his rival of gold, he even allowed the export of foodstuffs to British ports in 181 1. The most serious difficulties arose from the strained relations with the United States during the years preceding and including the War of 1812, when, for a time, an important market for manufactured goods, as well as source of supply for food and raw cotton, was almost wholly cut off. As has been seen, the end of the Great War did not bring the prosperity which had been anticipated. Continental nations were too exhausted to buy much, and it was some years before the peace markets grew to equal those which the artificial demands of the war had created. Road Building. This period marked an epoch in communication and transportation. Thomas Telford (1757-1834) did a notable work in road construction, in building canals and bridges, and in improving harbors. Among his achievements were : the carrying of roads around instead of over hills, the widening and draining of roadbeds and laying a solid substructure of crushed stone, and the substitution of bridges for fords. His bridge across the Menai Straits was the first of any magnitude to be constructed on the suspension principle in England. Much as Telford accomplished as a road builder, the man with whom the modern system is chiefly associated is John McAdam (1756-1836), whose process, adopted throughout the civilized world, is known to-day as " macadamizing." The new roads supplemented, the canals in facilitating transportation and gave a great impetus to traveling. The number of stage coaches, estimated at 1355 in 1812, doubled in the next thirteen years. The old cumbersome vehicles drawn by strong, slow horses were replaced by a lighter type, and an average speed of ten to twelve miles an hour was attained. Remote, isolated towns awoke from their torpor and rubbed off their provincialism. Country gentlemen, who had hitherto traveled on horseback, began to make use of the public coaches, and, by mingling with men in other walks of life, began to discard their prejudices and self-sufficiency. But the real revolution in travel and transportation was wrought by steam. The Steamboat and Railroad. The idea of steam navigation was very old; but no practical results were obtained until after Watt's invention had proved workable. In 1807, Robert Fulton, provided 894 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND with an engine manufactured at Soho, successfully operated his Cler- mont on the Hudson. Henry Bell's Comet began to run on the Clyde in 1813, and very soon steamboat travel became general. Already, tracks, or " trains," as the English called them, had been utilized for transporting coal from mines to canal barges and river vessels. The successful application of steam power to this traction was due to George Stephenson (1781-1848), who began life as a herder of cows, turned collier, and rose to be enginewright at the Killingworth colliery. His first locomotive, tried in 1814, ran at the rate of three miles an hour. Later he became engineer for the first steam railway the Stockdale and Darlington opened in 1825. When he was chosen to undertake the operation of a line from Manchester to Liverpool, he nearly wrecked the project by asserting that trains might be run at the rate of ten miles an hour. However, his Rocket, in competition for a prize which he won, attained a speed of thirty-five. The opening of the road, in 1830, marked the beginning of a new era, not only in trans- portation, but in opportunities for indefinitely increasing the employ- ment of labor and capital. Agriculture. The revolution in agriculture, although it owed much to the factory system, was still further stimulated by the French wars. Up to the close of the eighteenth century the movement was largely confined to the Eastern Counties and to Leicestershire. As late as 1795 there were in Great Britain over twenty-two million acres of waste land, more than six of which were in England. During the reign of George III between five and six millions of acres were inclosed, and more than half the total fell within the years between 1800 and 1820. Special acts and agreements between parties were found too slow and cumbersome, so, beginning in 1801, a series of general acts were passed to facilitate the work. While his predecessors had pointed the way, Arthur Young (1741-1820) did more than any other single man to complete the transformation of agricultural methods. Cu- riously enough, he had himself failed as a practical farmer. In 1767, he began to make tours through Great Britain and France, and has left invaluable information in his graphic reports. Until 1810 he was constantly active in urging consolidation of holdings, reclamation of waste, .granting long leases to large tenants, and the investment of capital in land. He spread the results of the latest experiments in tillage and stock breeding, advocated the use of machinery for mowing, reaping, and threshing, and fostered farmers' clubs and agricultural fairs. Aside from the extinction of the small cultivator, the only evil result of the new development was the fact that the war prices en- couraged many to sink money in unproductive lands which could only be farmed at a loss when prices fell to their normal level. The most striking figure among the capitalist farmers was Thomas Coke of Holkham (1752-1842), created Earl of Leicester in 1837, who, by his progressive methods, increased his rental from 2200 in 1776 to 20,000 in 1816. ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 895 Scientific Progress. The modern era in science was heralded by the researches and discoveries of this period. Much of the notable work was done by continental scholars ; but Englishmen contributed a fair share. Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) succeeded in converting hydrogen and oxygen into water, and proved that it was a compound made up of these two gases. John Dalton (1766-1844) was the first to show that chemical elements are made up of atoms, or ultimate par- ticles each of definite weight. This atomic theory placed the science on a new basis. Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829), in addition to contributions on the mechanical theory of heat and important electro- chemical researches, conferred a priceless boon by his invention of the safety lamp (1815-1816) for miners. By covering the flame with gauze, one of the most dangerous causes of explosions was practically elim- inated. Scientific geology began with James Hutton (1776-1797), who originated the modern view of the earth's crust in his Theory of the Earth, 1795, while Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), in his Principles of Geology, showed that "the great geological changes of the past are not to be explained by catastrophes, followed by successive creations, but as the product of the continuous play of forces still at work." Thus a long step was taken toward the evolutionary theory which was soon to be established by Darwin. Edward Jenner (1749-1823) made the momentous discovery, first published in 1798, that frequent vac- cination with the virus of cowpox rendered human beings practically immune from smallpox, and, in cases where it was contracted, greatly diminished the fatality. In 1853, England took the step, already adopted by many continental countries, of making vaccination com- pulsory. Philosophical and Economic Thinking. In philosophy, a reaction was led by Thomas Reid (1710-1796) and Dugald Stewart (1753- 1828) against the doctrine that external objects had no existence except in man's ideas of them. They insisted that knowledge was intuitive and that the external world was real. William Paley (1743-1805), author of Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785, and Evidences of Christianity, 1794, was a stout opponent of the Deists and a forerunner of the later Utilitarians whose guiding aim was the promotion of the general welfare though they rejected the super- natural sanction which formed an essential element of Paley's system. In general, the period was more notable for its political and economic than for its purely philosophical thinking. The teachings of four men stand out preeminently. Adam Smith's free-trade principles began to gain increasing currency. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was a pioneer in the aim to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number by scientific legislation. Thomas Mai thus (1766-1834), in his Essay on Population, 1798, argued that a chief source of misery was the natural tendency of population to increase more rapidly than means of subsistence, and advocated checking its growth. At the same time, he admitted that disease and poverty operated partially to 896 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND modify his law. Nor was he simply a hard-hearted theorist ; for he enthusiastically supported the improvement of the lot of children by factory legislation. David Ricardo (1772-1823), who published his Principles of Political Economy in 1817, drew his inspiration from Adam Smith. His chief contribution was his new doctrine of rent. Rent, he maintained, is merely the surplus profit which any land yields over the worst in cultivation. It is the produce of the earth paid to the landlord for the use of the soil, and is not to be confused with the interest and profit of capital invested. Thus it follows that the great owners are " monopolists appropriating the surplus products of the soil." The views of these four men profoundly influenced the whole law of thinking of their generation and of that which followed. Heralds of Romantic Revolt in Poetry. The decline in poetry during the second part of the eighteenth century has been attributed to the blighting influence of Pope. A more important factor, however, was the essentially prosaic character of the age. Yet, as has been seen, there were evidences of tendencies to break away from convention, to search back into the romance and mystery of the past, to sound the depths of fundamental human problems, and to appreciate the beauties of external nature. George Crabbe (1754-1832), while he used the conventional couplet and told prosaic tales in verse, marked a sig- nificant departure from the artificial sentimentality " of the Popian tradition." This was clearly manifest in The Village, 1783, a bald picture of the " simple annals of the poor." After years of silence he published other long poems toward the end of his life ; but, in the meantime, the human character of his appeal had been voiced by younger and sweeter singers. William Cowper (1731-1800) uncon- sciously revealed a new attitude in his charming descriptions of rural life, notably in The Task, 1785. He was a gentle soul in whom occa- sional fits of gayety were darkened by long periods of religious melan- cholia. John Gilpin's Ride, 1 783, was a product of one of his rollicking moods. The artist poet and " half-deranged mystic," William Blake (1756-1827), though he exercised no influence in his lifetime, was more truly a harbinger of the coming revolt. His Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, which he illustrated himself, appeared succes- sively in 1789 and 1794. At his best, he produced passages of magical beauty, but his unrestrained imagination often led him into wild and meaningless grotesqueness. Robert Burns (1759-1796), a Scotch farmer boy, was a unique apparition in lyric poetry. During a stormy life, brought to a premature close by his own weakness and folly, he produced a body of verse, ranging from pathos to mirth, which touches the deepest springs of human experience, and which has the spon- taneous melody of the song bird. The Romantic Revolt. The " Lake School." The really epoch- making event in the romantic reaction w r as the publication, in 1798, of the Lyrical Ballads, a little volume which was the joint work of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 897 The collaboration was due to warm personal friendship and a common revulsion against the existing literary traditions. Yet the two were strikingly unlike, both as poets and men. Coleridge's mind was prone to soar away into the regions of the supernatural, of dreamland and mystery, though he never went to the lengths of inartistic unreality, and he clothed his weird fancies in exquisitely melodious verse. His finest achievement, the Ancient Mariner, contributed to the Lyriccl Ballads, Kubla Khan, and Christabel were all written -as early as 1801, though Christabel was not published till 1816. In his later life he shone chiefly as a talker, as a critic, and as an interpreter of German transcendentalist philosophy. Owing to a growing infirmity of will, of which addiction to opium was at once a symptom and a cause, his projects, after early manhood, were greater than his achievements. As to Wordsworth, no poet has shown a greater love of nature, a more sensitive appreciation of her varied aspects and of her subtle influence on those who reverently contemplate her. Nor has any other nature poet reproduced with more fidelity what he has seen and felt. Yet, lacking in humor and desirous to avoid artificial pomp, he sometimes sank to dull and almost ludicrous commonplace. He was appointed. Poet Laureate in 1843, though he had completed his best work thirty years before. The Excursion, his longest, but not his best poem, shows him at his best and worst, for it contains long arid stretches, relieved by oases of lofty beauty. Coleridge and Wordsworth are the leading representatives of the so-called " Lake School," a term, however, which is very misleading, since it meant no more than that a group of writers of widely different traits were drawn by the ties of friendship to take up their residence in the Cumberland Lake district. Robert Southey (1774-1843) was one of the number. Al- though he wrote some admirable verse, among which his little poem on the battle of Blenheim remains a classic, and though he preceded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, his most distinctive work was in prose. His Life of Nelson, for example, is a model of lucid, straightforward English. Scott and Byron. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), by his antiquarian researches into the history and legends of Scotland, as well as by his astonishing productivity in romantic prose and poetry, did more than any other single man to foster the reviving interest in the past. In 1802-1803 appeared three volumes of Border Minstrelsy, a collection of Scottish ballads. The manner and style of his splendid series of original poems, which followed, were suggested, it is said, by Christabel, which he read in manuscript. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in 1805, was followed by Marmion, 1808, The Lady of the Lake, 1810, and the Lord of the Isles, 1815. Owing to the sudden vogue of a new figure in the poetic world Lord Byron he turned to prose. George Gordon (1788-1824), who, in 1798, succeeded to the title and encumbered estates of the barony of Byron, was destined to prove a tempestuous spirit in life and literature. Scott was a Tory 3M A HISTORY OF ENGLAND by temperament and tradition. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, though they all began as enthusiasts for the French Revolution, were driven into the conservative ranks by the excesses which followed. Byron, on the other hand, was a persistent revolutionist against exist- ing institutions, and met his death as a volunteer in the war for Greek Independence. He first manifested his fiery temper in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 1809, a reply to a scathing criticism of his early poems. After a journey to Greece and the Orient he published the first two cantos of Childe Harold, 1812, and the Giaour and the Corsair in 1813 and 1814, respectively. Most of his verse in this period was struck off at a white heat. It is brilliant, but careless, stagey, and lacking in depth of feeling and sureness of imaginative range. His best verse came a little later the remaining cantos of Childe Harold, 1816-1818, and Don Juan, 1818-1824, to mention only the long works. Don Juan was a sardonic satire on the immorality and cant prevailing in the society of the day. Byron was a militant egotist, and taught the dangerous message of individual lawlessness; but his personal beauty and his lameness, which gave it a touch of pathos, his pic- turesque temperament, his wild irregular career and tragic end, all contributed, together with his splendid power of rhetoric and the intensity of his passions, to gain for him a popularity which was followed by an equally strong reaction. This, in its turn, has been succeeded by a more discriminating appreciation of his enduring poetic qualities. Shelley and Keats. There are many points of resemblance between Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Both were poets of revolt against the religious, social, and political institutions of their time, and both led short and stormy lives. Shelley was drowned off the coast of Italy in the thirtieth year of his age. His earliest long poem, Queen Mob, appeared privately in 1813, a crude harbinger of what was to come Alastor, 1816 ; the Revolt of Islam, 1818; the Cenci, 1819; Prometheus Unbound, 1820. These, together with numerous shorter poems, and a considerable body of prose, including translations, were all produced within ten years. He was a generous and impulsive visionary who had a real philosophy of revolu- tion, and who wrote with spiritual fervor and matchless melody. No poet ever surpassed him in his finest lyrical flights ; but the beauties of his thought and expression are unearthly and ethereal in character. John Keats (1795-1821) was a frankly human poet with a love of the beauty of the earth and its people, and, unlike either Byron or Shelley, he bore no message of revolt to mankind. Though dependent upon translations in the case of Greek, he saturated himself with the legends of antiquity, and, with the further aid of Spenser, of the Italian and some of the seventeenth-century poets, he reproduced the spirit of the classic times with wonderful imaginative power. His first volume of verses was published in 1817, Endymion followed in 1818, and, in 1820, came a collection of poems which marks the supreme fruition of his ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 899 genius. Keats had to struggle against the lack of early advantages, and he succumbed to consumption at the age of twenty-five ; but in his brief interval of activity he prepared a heritage which has permanently enriched the English speech. Two other poets are now chiefly remem- bered for their patriotic verses. The fame of Thomas Moore (1779- 1852) rests, not on his Lalla Rookh, 1817, but on his Irish Melodies which voice so beautifully the spirit of his native land. And so, in connection with Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), one thinks, not of the Pleasures of Hope, but of his stirring war songs: Ye Mariners of England, The Battle of the Baltic, and Hohenlinden. Novelists. Novel writing showed a marked development as the century advanced. Beginning with realistic pictures of English life, chiefly on the external side, the scope of prose fiction gradually widened and deepened, as historical study and travel increased the knowledge of past times and other lands, and as men began to study more closely into the psychology of human conduct. William Godwin (1756- 1836), a freethinker and pioneer among political radicals, published Caleb Williams in 1794, a protest against the injustice of the aristocracy toward the poor. Maria Edgeworth (1775-1832) was an Irish woman who wrote a series of novels of which Castle Rackrent, 1800, is the best to depict the wrongs which her country had to suffer from absentee landlords and other evils, and with the broader aim of' preaching to her readers the gospel of simplicity and morality. Her work is chiefly valuable for her pictures of contemporary Irish life. According to Scott's own modest testimony her achievements in this particular suggested to him the plan of his famous Waverley Novels which tell us so much about seventeenth and eighteenth century Scot- land. The success they attained encouraged him to write his equally famous works relating to the Middle Ages. While his facts are not always strictly accurate and while his pictures of medieval life do not always correspond to actual historical conditions, his work is, never- theless, remarkable for its high and varied excellence. Jane Austen (1775-1817) had no moral lessons to expound, and she made no effort to deal with life outside the provincial society of southern England ; but she describes the folk in her own restricted circle with such pene- trating observation, rare humor, and artistic fidelity as to gain for her a place in the first rank of English artists. Pride and Prejudice is her best known, and, all told, her finest book. The Essayists. This period was famous for its essayists, among whom De Quincey and Lamb stand foremost, with Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt not far behind. Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), the friend of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, is perhaps best known for his Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821. His distinction as a stylist rests upon his " impassioned prose " an attempt to revive the long, rhythmical sentences and gorgeous imagery of the pre- Restoration period. Charles Lamb (1775-1834), who, jointly with his sister Mary, did the Tales from Shakespeare, produced his best QOO A HISTORY OF ENGLAND work in the Essays of Elia, 1820-1822. He showed an inimitable art of transforming with literary grace the commonest incidents of London life and weaving about them the spell of romance. Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), beginning as a writer of romantic verse and drama, turned to the classics, both for his subjects and his form of expression. The qualities of his second period are manifested in the Imaginary Conversations and in Pericles and Aspasia. Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), the original of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House, produced charming pieces of critical and miscellaneous prose, and excellent verses as well. His Abou Ben Adhem is a popular classic. William Hazlitt (1778-1830) has been described as " the most accomplished dramatic critic England has produced." His best essays owe their engaging quality to the personal touches he has introduced. Periodical Literature. One of the most notable features of the early nineteenth century was the appearance of two periodicals which contributed much to organize criticism as a distinct branch of English letters, which assumed the position of literary dictators, and became potent influences in politics as well. The Edinburgh Review was projected, in 1802, by Francis Jeffrey, Brougham, and Sidney Smith. Under the able editorship of Jeffrey it dominated the field until 1809, when Scott, an occasional contributor, becoming alienated by its Whig bias, joined Canning in founding the Quarterly Review. Although it attracted many gifted writers, it never attained quite the brilliancy of its older rival. Cobbett's Political Register was the organ of the Radicals. Lamb and De Quincey published their finest work in serial form in the London Magazine; and Blackwood's was started in 1817. The growing importance of periodicals and the rise of women authors, which began with Fanny Burney, are among the most dis- tinctive facts of modern English letters. The Times, the greatest newspaper in the world, took its rise about the time that the daily press was beginning to really count as a factor in politics. It was founded by John Walter in 1785 ; but did not take the present name till three years later. For years it was seriously handicapped ; at the close of the Great War its circulation was only 8000 copies, a figure which could hardly be increased so long as hand presses were employed, while, at the same time, it paid 45,000 a year in stamp duties and an income tax of 10 per cent on its profits, as well as taxes on advertise- ments and the paper on which it was printed. With the introduction of a steam press, in 1814, its possibilities for circulation were indefi- nitely expanded. Painting. While portrait painters of reputation flourished during this period notably Copley, Thomas Lawrence, and Raeburn, the " Scottish Reynolds" none of them ranks with their three famous predecessors. Sir David Wilkie (1785-1845) was a pioneer in picturing humble contemporary life, such as the Fair and the Village Festival; but the significant feature in the history of painting is the slow but steady development of landscape art, from the days when Wilson ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 901 and Reynolds were so little appreciated, to the triumphant achieve- ments of Turner and Constable. Worthy of mention as they are, the intervening names must be passed by. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was the son of a London hairdresser, but, never- theless, had a long and thorough training in his art. Up to 1820 he was mainly occupied in imitating the old masters. Then he struck out for himself, and, for about fifteen years, his chief aim was to produce ideal, poetic creations rather than actual reproductions from nature. The choicest fruit of this period was Ulysses deriding Poly- phemus, 1829, generally regarded as his masterpiece. In the third phase of his artistic career he devoted himself to depicting what he actually saw, though, even then, his gorgeous colorings, particularly his glowing sunsets, mark him as a romantic poet with the brush. This is evident in his famous Fighting Temeraire, 1839. Turner's genius attained its height in his second and third periods, for his later work is uneven and shows signs of decay. John Constable (1776-1837) was the great master of English landscape painting, of the prose as distinguished from the poetic type. It was he who completed the emancipation from all convention, and founded a school with the guiding aim of reproducing natural scenery with the utmost fidelity. While his own countrymen were slow in appreciating his art, the French welcomed it with promptness and enthusiasm, and he exercised a potent influence on Corot, Millet, and the other members of the famous coterie of Barbizon. The stirring times of the Great War naturally offered a great opportunity for caricaturists, of whom the best known are James Gillray (1757-1815) and Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), whose works are invaluable to the student of contemporary manners and politics. Social Effects of the French Revolution. The effects of the French Revolution in checking the progress of reform have already been emphasized. The social effects were as striking as the political. Cut off from making the Grand Tour by reasons of safety and economy alike, people of fashion confined their holiday to trips to English water- ing places. Various causes continued to transform radically the pre- vailing style of costume. Improved processes of woolen and cotton manufacture resulted in a steadily decreasing use of silks, satins, and velvets by both sexes. Then Fox and his set, who had hitherto led the fashion in dandified dress, began to affect republican simplicity. Poverty as well as caprice induced many to follow his example, even to the extent of appearing in Parliament in greatcoats and top-boots, instead of the customary court dress and sword. In consequence of the tax on powder, women ceased to powder their hair. Wigs, except in the case of judges, professional men, and clergy, had been generally discarded early in the reign of George III, and now those of the extremer sort began to wear their hair short. All of which was lamented by Horace Walpole as a leveling of social distinctions. The Prince of Wales, while always elegant in dress, affected the Whig 902 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND colors of blue and buff. In the last decade of the century, buckled knee breeches began to give way to pantaloons and Hessian boots, swallow-tail coats became the fashion, and the cocked hat yielded to the top or " sugar-loaf " hat. These innovations, however, were taken up at first only by the upper classes. The ordinary citizen and the countryman still clung to knee breeches and wide-skirted coats. The French Revolution was also not without effect on morals. Social dissipation and extravagance gave place to greater simplicity and earnestness. Ranelagh was closed in 1803: the Pantheon ceased to hold its promenades, masquerades, and operas, and, in 1812, the building was torn down. Moreover, there was a strong reaction against excessive gambling. In 1796 the Chief Justice threatened certain ladies of rank with the pillory for keeping faro banks in their houses, and, during the next year, three were actually fined. More important than repression, was the fact that stress of events offered food for conversation, and opened avenues of activity in military and political life more engrossing than idle frivolity. In 1800 Wilberforce founded a new Society for the Reformation of Manners ; a new asso- ciation arose for the better observance of the Sabbath ; and the British and Foreign Bible Society was established in 1808. The philanthropic spirit aroused by the evangelical revival was stimulated by the misery engendered by the War and the introduction of ma- chinery. Heavy drinking was still a prevalent vice. Men were not ashamed to appear drunk, even in Parliament, and, unhappily, had a sorry example in the otherwise austere Pitt. However, except in the case of the Prince of Wales and his boon companions, a marked improvement was noticeable among the political leaders during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Dueling was common, and generally approved by society throughout this period. Pitt fought with Tierney in 1798; Castlereagh with Canning in 1809; Daniel O'Connell fatally wounded a Dublin merchant in 1815, though, in consequence, he foreswore dueling for the future ; but Wellington challenged Lord Winchelsea in 1829. Owing, however, to increasing protests, earnest efforts were made to stamp out the practice. In 1830 two judges declared the survivor in a duel guilty of murder. In 1843 a motion was proposed in the House of Commons that dueling ought to be abolished. The following year the amended Articles of War pro- vided that officers should give and accept apologies, and should be cashiered if they fought. In 1845 a Radical member brought a chal- lenge before the House as a breach of privilege. These measures, backed by a gradual change in public opinion, proved effective. The Game Laws. While the country gentry were increasing their rent rolls, the merchants and manufacturers were steadily encroaching upon their old social and political exclusiveness. The change in the game laws was one indication of the breaking down of the old aris- tocratic privileges. Since the seventeenth century no man had been allowed to kill game, even on his own land, unless he possessed a free- ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE REFORM BILL 903 hold estate worth 100 a year or a 150 leasehold. The sale of game was altogether prohibited. The laws were evaded in ingenious ways. Landowners provided shooting for their younger sons or brothers by making them gamekeepers, while, in spite of heavy penalties, poaching and selling game were very common. The in- justice of the existing system was somewhat mitigated by a bill of Lord Al thorp's, in 1832, providing that the killing and selling of game be allowed to any one obtaining a license from the inland revenue department. Laws against Cruelty to Animals. An increasing humanitarian spirit was seen in measures against cruelty to animals. Richard Martin (1754-1834), a wealthy Irish landowner, was a pioneer in this work, which earned him the name of " Humanity Martin." In 1823 he carried a bill to prevent the ill treatment of horses and cattle ; but he was not even allowed to introduce a measure to prohibit bull baiting and dog fighting on the ground that it would interfere with the sports of the poor ! Undaunted by this setback, he founded, in 1824, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the fruit of his efforts was a law, passed ten years later, which did away with bull baiting, ox driving, and cockfighting. The Reform of the Criminal Law. This period marks the first steps in the reform of the barbarous and unreasonable criminal code, which at the beginning of the century included nearly two hundred offenses involving capital punishment. For instance, picking a pocket to the value of twelve pence was punishable by death. To make matters worse there was a low class of informers who throve on rewards offered for convictions, while unscrupulous constables often neglected to bring to task those guilty of misdemeanors, in order that they might be encouraged to commit graver crimes involving a reward. It was estimated that 18,000 was paid in blood money in 1815. What with misery, an ineffective police system, and a high percentage of acquittals, crime increased with startling rapidity. The courts were overcrowded. In 1825, for instance, the King's Bench had eight hundred and fifty untried cases. But signs of improvement were already evident. In 1815 the pillory was done away with for every offense except perjury, and twenty years later it was abolished for that offense as well. The flogging of women was declared illegal in iSi;. 1 Brougham did much to simplify procedure, while Peel, who prepared the way for a better enforcement of the laws by the establishment of the metropolitan police system in i829, 2 greatly improved the criminal code. He abolished benefit of clergy in 1827, and, before he left office, he had reduced the capital penalties to about a dozen. While he deserves much credit, his work would have been impossible but for a change in public opinion to which the persistent efforts of Sir Samuel 1 Public executions were not abolished till 1868. 2 Hence London policemen are vulgarly called "Bobbies" and "Peelers," even to this day. The system was by 1856 adopted throughout the country. 904 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Romilly largely contributed. Peel also attacked the wastefully large number of courts and court officers and broke ground for the reform of Chancery, where costliness and delay in the prosecution of suits had become proverbial. 1 Furthermore, he undertook to unify and simplify the procedure in the courts of Common Law. This work, to which he contributed, has in our own day, after years of slow and painful effort, been crowned with rich results. In 1832 Parliament went a step further in removing the death penalty for house breaking, cattle stealing, counterfeiting, and certain classes of forgery. 2 Altogether, while the great epoch of reform came after 1832, not a little was done in the previous decade to break down old exclusive privileges, and to legislate with a view to promoting the greatest happi- ness of the greatest number. FOR ADDITIONAL READING General conditions. Traill, Social England, VI, ch. XXI. S. Walpole, History of England, I, chs. I-III. Brodrick and Fotheringham, ch. XX. Social and industrial. J. Ashton, Social Life under the Regency (1890). Cambridge Modern History, X, ch. XXIII (bibliography, pp. 883-889). Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, " Modern Times," pt. II, "Laissez-faire." Porter, Progress of the Nation. Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages and Agriculture and Prices. Wm. Cobbett, Rural Rides (new ed. 1886), and Tour in the Northern Counties (1833). R. M. Gamier, History'of the English Landed Gentry (1893) , and Annals of the British Peasantry (1895). J. L. and B. Hammond, The Village Labourer, 1760-1832 (1911). Prothero, English Farming, chs. IX-XIV. S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism (1902). Literature and scholarship. Cambridge Modern History, X. chs. XXII-XXIV (bibliographies, pp. 879-882, 890-892). Moody and Lovett, ch. XIII. Taine, III, bk. IV, ch. I ; IV, bk. IV, ch. II. Saintsbury, Nineteenth Century Literature (1896). O. Elton, A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830 (2 vols., 1913). G. M. C. Brandes, Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature (Eng. tr., V, 1905). L. Stephen, Hours in a Library (3 vols., 1892). H. A. Beers, English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century (1899). E. Dowden, The French Revolution and English Literature (1897). W. J. Courthope, A History of English Poetry (1905) V. 1 The case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, familiar to readers of Dickens' Bleak House, is not an exaggeration. 2 By an Act of the Parliament which was in session when Victoria came to the throne the number of offenses involving the death penalty was reduced to six : high treason, murder, rape, piracy, arson, and robbery attended by murderous vio- lence, CHAPTER L THE EPOCH OF REFORM. WILLIAM IV (1830-1837) William IV, his Early History and Personal Traits. William, Duke of Clarence, had nearly completed his sixty-fifth year when he came to the throne. Born 21 August, 1765, he was the third son of George III. He was educated for the navy ; he saw some service and even commanded a ship ; but he showed no great capacity for the higher duties of the profession and was retired in 1789 with the rank of Rear Admiral. Though he was not allowed to serve in the French and Napoleonic wars, he was steadily promoted till he became an Admiral of the Fleet. In 1818, after the death of Princess Charlotte, he married Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen. By the death of his elder brother, the Duke of York, in 1827, he became heir apparent. For some months, in 1827-1828, he served as Lord High Admiral, and during his brief tenure of office he distinguished himself by meddling and by making long rambling and absurd speeches on the most inappropriate occasions. This latter habit clung to him through- out his life. While naturally kind-hearted, he was full of prejudices and liable to sudden fits of passion. Indeed, his conduct at times was eccentric to. the point of insanity, which led to his nickname of " Silly Billy." 1 At his accession, however, these peculiarities were not gener- ally known, and he proved so good-natured, frank, and simple that he was received with a popular enthusiasm almost unheard of. His manners were the reverse of kingly. He walked about the streets of London with an umbrella under his arm, informally greeting acquaint- ances, and, on one occasion, he pressed a guest at Windsor to wait till the Queen's carriage was ready, saying that she would " drop " him at his home. In spite of his shortcomings and follies, he had right instincts and a rough common sense which proved a great help to his ministers in the first great crisis of his reign. The Causes of the Reform Movement. Catholic Emancipation had been carried in Parliament against the popular will ; parliamentary reform, which was now coming to be the burning issue, owed its pas- sage to the demands of a majority of the English people. With political unions springing up all over the country, and now that the control of the movement had passed from riotous workmen and visionary radicals to the leaders of the sober, prosperous middle class, 1 Greville, author of a famous series of Memoirs covering this period, remarks : "What could be expected from a man with a head shaped like a pineapple ? " 90S 906 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the motions introduced into the House of Commons could no longer be disposed of with the scant consideration accorded to them in the , past. The revolution in public opinion which had recently begun to manifest itself was due to a combination of four causes. The first was the transference of the balance of wealth from the landed aris- tocracy to the great merchants and manufacturers. The second was the shifting of the centers of population from the south and east to the midlands and the north, which made the unequal distribution of representation between the two sections a crying grievance. The third was the fact that the horrors of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic aggression, and, indeed, of the domestic unrest which followed the Great War, were fading from the memory of Englishmen. In fact, a new generation was springing up which knew nothing of these from personal experience, while the recent course of events in Paris was such as to stimulate rather than to retard their ardor. The fourth, and perhaps the most significant cause of all, was the influence of the advanced thinkers and the zeal of the practical states- men who labored to prepare the way during the long and discourag- ing years of reaction. Jeremy Bentham and his Influence. Foremost in influence was the pioneer of the Utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), to whom, it is perhaps not too much to say, " progressive and practical re- formers throughout the world owe more . . . than to any single man." While he ranged over vast fields of speculative thought, his guiding aim was to discover and formulate principles which might be applied to practical problems of reform. When he was about twenty years of age, he adopted as his maxim, " the greatest happiness of the greatest number." The means which he adopted for realizing his end was scientific legislation. Parliamentary reform, the improvement of the law and legal procedure, the amelioration of the criminal code, the increase of humanitarianism, and the remodeling of the colonial system, all felt the impulse of his master mind. In his Fragment on Government, published in 1776, he began his work with an attack on Blackstone's laudation, in the Commentaries, of the perfection of the British Constitution. At that time, however, and for years to come, he advocated moderate and gradual reform. The refusal of the states- men in power to listen to him was responsible for turning him into a Radical, though his conversion was somewhat delayed by his fear of the French Revolution. His Catechism of Parliamentary Reform, in which he outlined his political views, was written in 1809, but was not published till 1817. Assuming that the aim of all government is utility the good of the governed he argued that the existing system was hopelessly at fault, since it was the instrument of the aristocratic minority for the promotion of class interests. Curiously enough, he had a low opinion of mankind. He believed that the governing motive of the individual was the furtherance of his own ends. For that very reason, however, he advocated the extension of THE EPOCH OF REFORM 907 popular government, on the ground that control by the majority would make for the good of the greatest number. But there was a serious defect in his reasoning. It was too mechanical. He failed to realize that, even if all men were selfish, their individual interests were bound to conflict, and that the sum total would not be harmony, but discord. The good of the whole can only be secured by sacrifices on the part of the individual. Nevertheless, his arguments for in- creased parliamentary representation had great force and wide-reach- ing effect. Owing, however, to the diffuseness and obscurity of his style, his views were spread more through his disciples than by his own writings. Foremost of these disciples, who formed the school of philosophic Radicals, was James Mill (1773-1836). Directly or in- directly, Bentham's influence flowed into the world about him through two main channels. On the one hand, he inspired practical statesmen like Brougham, Peel, and Durham, and, on the other, popular agitators like Cobbett, " Orator " Hunt, Francis Burdett, 1 and Francis Place. 2 Movement for Parliamentary Reform. While parliamentary reform did not become an issue in practical politics till the beginning of the reign of William IV, the subject had been discussed at intervals for nearly a century. The first motion is said to have been intro- duced by Sir Francis Dashwood, a profane roisterer, who began his parliamentary life in 1741. Chatham advocated unsuccessfully measures for disfranchising corrupt boroughs and adding their mem- bership to that of the counties. In 1776 John Wilkes "proposed a motion which contained all the leading principles of parliamentary re- form adopted during the next fifty years." During the interval from 1782 to 1785, the younger Pitt brought forward no less than three measures, all of which were thrown out. In 1792 the Society of the Friends of the People was formed for promoting the movement; but sober folk had now come to couple it with revolutionary designs. Burke and Pitt threw the weight of their influence against it, and mo- tions introduced by Charles Grey between 1793 and 1797 were defeated by crushing majorities. The cause was still further prejudiced when the Radical, Burdett, took it up in 1809 and proceeded, during the next few years, to demand, also, universal suffrage, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, and vote by ballot. In 1819, however, Lord John Russell, third son of the Duke of Bedford, by introducing a motion for moderate reform, once more identified the question with the Whig party. Though he gained an increasing body of supporters, he fought an uphill fight for thirteen years. In 1821 he managed to secure the disfranchisement of the corrupt borough of Grampound, 1 Sir Francis Burdett (1770-1844) was an ardent Radical who came to be a Conservative after the passage of the Reform Bill. 2 Francis Place (1771-1854), who was a poor tailor, was a fanatical Radical and an acute political manager. He was the first to employ the electoral caucus in England, and he controlled the borough of Westminster, which Burdett represented for thirty years. 9o8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND though his proposal to transfer the two members to Leeds was de- feated in the Upper House, and they went to Yorkshire instead. The Eve of Triumph. The Whigs win the General Election of 1830. The excitement which followed the defeat, early in 1830, of Russell's proposal to enfranchise Leeds, Birmingham, and Man- chester, served as indication of the strength which the sentiment for reform had gained. The Tories refused to yield an inch. Even the liberal remnant of the Canningites persisted in regarding the existing parliamentary system as the only breakwater against the rising tide of democracy. But the temperate attitude of the Whig leaders had won the confidence of the conservative middle classes. While Russell worked to counteract the influence of Burdett in the Commons, the historian Macaulay and others undertook to combat the political philosophy of the Radicals in the Edinburgh Review. They contended that, while universal suffrage was wild and dangerous, the enfranchise- ment of householders and the transfer of votes from small decayed boroughs to populous towns was not only safe and reasonable, but an imperative recognition of the growing importance of the commercial and industrial classes. There was no hope of change so long as the Wellington Cabinet survived; but its end was not far off. Parlia- ment was dissolved during the summer of 1830, and, in the general election which followed, the doom of the old Tory party was sounded. The growing enthusiasm for reform, stimulated by " the compara- tively bloodless victory of constitutional principles " in the July Revolution, was the decisive factor, though the result was somewhat influenced by the action of a number of borough owners who nominated anti-Ministerialists in order to revenge themselves against Wellington for his change of front in the question of Catholic Relief. 1 The Advent of Grey's Reform Ministry, November, 1830. The King's speech at the opening of Parliament contained no reference on the subject of reform. The disappointment of the Reformers was turned to fury when Wellington, in answering a speech of Earl Grey in the Lords, declared that the existing representative system " possessed the full and entire confidence of the country," and that its chief merit lay in the fact that it secured a " preponderating influence " to property, especially to the landed interest. Insisting further that " no better system could be devised by the wit of man," he announced that not only would he never introduce a Reform Bill himself, but that " he should always feel it his duty to resist such measures when pro- posed by others." While many defended the existing system on the ground that it worked well and that change would be dangerous, few 1 Before Parliament met, death had taken from the Whigs a man whom they could ill spare. Huskisson was run over and killed by a train at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, 15 September. His loss was deeply felt in the department of finance, which he had made his own, and in which the Whigs proved deplorably weak. There is little doubt that, had he lived, free trade would have come much sooner than it did. THE EPOCH OF REFORM 909 would have had the rashness to proclaim that it was theoretically perfect. The effect of the speech was momentous. " I have not said too much, have I? " asked Wellington as he sat down. " You have announced the fall of your Government, that's all," was the reply of a neighboring peer. Apparently the Duke spoke on his own authority ; but the Cabinet stood by him and resigned in November, on an adverse vote on the Civil List, without waiting to face the inevitable question. Thereupon, Earl Grey (1764-1845) consented to form a Ministry on condition that parliamentary reform should be made a Cabinet ques- tion. He had grown old in the service of the Whig party during" the period of its adversity. He had been a friend of Fox, he had been an opponent of the oppressive policy of Pitt, and had championed many liberal measures. Fear of radicalism had caused him for a time to hold aloof from reform ; but he had again taken up the work, and it was fitting that the Nestor of the cause should be chosen Prime Minister on the return of the Whigs to office. It was fortunate, too, that a man of his aristocratic traditions and cautious, unenthusiastic temperament should guide the party in the stormy months which followed. The ministers whom he selected were almost exclusively peers or men of titled connections. It was a remarkable group. Four Melbourne, Palmerston, Stanley (later Lord Derby), and Lord John Russell, who was given a subordinate office without a seat in the Cabinet subsequently became Prime Ministers. Among the other notable members were Brougham, Althorpe, Lord Durham, and Sir James Graham. The task confronting the new Ministry was a tremendous and complicated one. The Unreformed House of Commons. Inequalities of Representa- tion. The existing representative system was both inadequate and corrupt. The franchise was restricted to a few and was unequally distributed. The ten southern counties of England, with a population of 2,900,000, returned 237 members, while the remaining thirty coun- ties in the midlands and the north, with a population of 8,350,000, were allowed only 252. In other words, less than a fourth of the popula- tion had nearly half the representatives. Lancashire, with 1,000,000 inhabitants, had 19 members, Cornwall, with an eighth of this popula- tion, had 1 8. It is easy to explain how these inequalities arose. The evil was manifest chiefly in the cities and boroughs. Originally such had been selected as would be most likely to vote supplies to the Crown. The burgesses and citizens, who looked upon representation as a burden so long as they had little share in legislation, usually, in the Middle Ages, sought to evade their obligations. In consequence, the sovereigns and sheriffs were accustomed to add to the list or omit from it at will. Gradually it came to be recognized that a town which had once sent members was entitled to do so ever after. Then, in the reign of Charles II, it was decided that no new boroughs could be created. The Abuses of the Existing Borough System. While these pro- visions, were some protection against despotic sovereigns, they were A HISTORY OF ENGLAND responsible for the fact that small decayed places continued to send representatives, while new and flourishing centers of industry got none. Old Sarum, for instance, was no longer anything but a green mound with not more than one or two houses in the neighborhood ; Gatton was a gentleman's park; while Dunwich was gradually being covered by the North Sea, so that it was suggested that the voters would soon have to go out in boats to exercise their electoral privileges. Malmesbury contained thirteen electors, none of whom could write. Such deserted, or half-deserted constituencies fell an easy prey to terri- torial magnates, to the agents of the Crown, or to rich speculators who gained control in one way or another, sometimes by buying the borough outright, sometimes by bribing the scanty body of electors. Startling anomalies resulted. " Mr. Canning," said Bagehot, a great authority on the Constitution, " was an eloquent man, but even he could not say that a decaying tree stump was the people." It was estimated on the eve of reform that of 658 members of the House of Commons, 487 were returned by the nomination of 144 peers 1 and 123 commoners, while only 171 were representatives of independent constituencies. Although these figures are based to some extent on conjecture and may exagger- ate, it is probably safe to say that not more than a third of the House was freely chosen, and then only by a very limited body of electors. Types of Boroughs. Qualifications for Voting. There were four types of boroughs : i. There were nomination or pocket boroughs, where the patron or proprietor had the absolute right of returning the candidates. Burke, Sheridan, Canning, and Brougham were among the members who got into Parliament in this way. Since they had patrons who required no pledges, it was argued that poor men of ability who had no money to pay election expenses benefited by the system. But it was very unwholesome for a parliamentary represen- tative to be thus beholden to any one, and few patrons showed the generosity of those in question. 2. Next there were the rotten boroughs, where the electors were controlled by bribery and influence. As late as 1829 the Duke of Newcastle ejected every one of his tenants in the borough of Newark, remarking by way of justification : " Have I not the right to do what I will with my own ? " 2 3. In still another type of borough the body of electors was numerous but restricted. 4. Finally, there were a very few where the right of voting rested on a democratic basis. The qualifications for voting in boroughs were varied and curious. They, again, may be divided into four main groups. The first were based on tenure. In a few towns w r hich had been made counties by charter the county qualification of ownership of a forty- shilling freehold prevailed. More common was the burgage holding, an ancient form of freehold tenement in towns which carried the right of voting. Secondly, there were a number of residence 1 The Duke of Norfolk controlled eleven members, Lord Lonsdale, nine, Lord Darlington, seven, and three other peers six each. 2 Later it was from this borough that Gladstone first entered Parliament. THE EPOCH OF REFORM 911 qualifications. In some cases the "inhabitant householders" could vote. In others, it was those liable to scot and lot certain ancient local taxes, together with local duties, such as serving in municipal offices. In still other cases, those who had a single room where they could cook their own food could vote. This class was known as pot- wallers or potwallopers corruptions of the original term potboiler. In the third class of boroughs the franchise was confined to the freemen of the municipal corporation. This right could be acquired by inher- itance from the original freemen, by marriage to the heiress of a freeman, by admission to a trading company or guild, or by purchase. Finally, there were the close boroughs, where the right to vote was confined to the governing body of the municipality the mayor, aldermen, and councilors. Most of the charters of the Tudors and Stuarts limited the electorate in this fashion. Even in boroughs where a democratic qualification existed, the number of electors was usually so small that they could be easily bribed. 1 Bribery and Corruption in Elections. Bribery first began to be systematic under Charles II and increased with the growing influence of the House of Commons. It reached its height in the reign of George III, when two causes especially fostered its growth. One was the firm determination of the King to reestablish the waning royal ascendancy. The other was the appearance of a class of men, known as nabobs, who, having made fortunes in the East and West Indies, spent their money lavishly to secure parliamentary seats, partly in order to get into society, and partly in the interest of the financial and commercial ventures with which they were identified. Their competition, and that of the steadily increasing class of opulent merchants and manufac- turers in England, sent the prices soaring. 2 Not only were individual electors bribed, but nomination and rotten boroughs were sold out- right ; indeed, seats were advertised openly and shamelessly. In the election of 1768, for example, the corporation of Oxford, which was a close borough, demanded of their two members, as the price of their reelection, that they advance a sum of more than 5000 to pay the bonded debt of the city. The members reported the matter to the Commons, whereupon the mayor and ten aldermen were lodged in Newgate. Undaunted, however, they negotiated in prison a bargain for transferring the seats to two great nobles. Bribery was an offense at Common Law ; an occasional act was passed to remedy the evil ; and a few of the more corrupt cases were exposed. It was all to little purpose, particularly so long as George III actively promoted the system. 3 Moreover, the penalties were light : disfranchisement of 1 It is estimated that the majority of the House of Commons was elected by less than 1 5, poo voters. 2 The average price for a borough went up from 2500 to 5000. One sold for 9000. 3 In 1779, for instance, he wrote to Lord North : "If the Duke of Northumber- land requires some gold pills for the electors, it would be wrong not to satisfy him." 9 i2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the guilty, or the merging of the constituency into one slightly larger. In 1809 an act imposing the penalties of fine and forfeiture of seat achieved little more at first than to make the practice less open. The purchase of seats was no worse than the bribing of electors, and was often the only way in which a man of advanced independent views could gain admission to Parliament. It was justified on this latter ground by Sir Samuel Romilly. 1 The County Franchise. In the counties, although conditions were better, the system was not free from anomalies and abuses. The forty-shilling freehold qualification, created in 1430, insured a fairly wide constituency. On the other hand, copyholders and men who rented broad lands on lease were excluded, while, owing to the im- mense change in money values, forty shillings had shrunk to a very small sum. Many freeholders were merely poor dependents of their great neighbors, and, thanks to the custom of open polling, they were peculiarly subject to corruption and intimidation. The evils were accentuated in county and borough alike by the long period allowed for voting as well as by the drunkenness and turmoil which prevailed during the elections. Some of the county magnates wielded tremendous influence ; for instance, so late as 1780, one of the Yorkshire members was, according to Fox, always elected in Rockingham's dining room. The contest for the other must have been keen ; for in one election 150,000 is said to have been expended. These county elections were often the arena where the political rivalry of the landed magnates was displayed. Yet the voters when aroused could act with independ- ence, as is proved from the fact that, in 1830, out of 82 county members only 20 Tories were returned. Each county was represented by two members, which meant an even distribution throughout the country ; but it put tiny shires like Rutland on the same basis as large and populous ones like Lancashire. Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland conditions were even worse than in England. In a population of over 2,000,000 there were not more than 4000 voters. The borough franchise was vested in town councilors. Edinburgh and Glasgow had only thirty-three electors each. The right to vote in the counties was a peculiar privilege that depended neither upon property nor residence. Argyllshire, with 100,000 inhabitants, had 115 electors, of whom only 31 owned any land in the county. 2 Naturally votes were put up for sale. The great landowners who secured control, instead of fighting on party 1 "This buying of seats," he wrote, "is detestable, and yet it is the only way (almost) in which one in my situation who is resolved to be an independent man can get into Parliament. To come in by a popular election in the present state of the representation is quite impossible ; to be placed there by some great lord, and to vote as he should direct, is to be in a state of complete dependence ; and nothing hardly remains but to owe a seat to the sacrifice of a part of one's fortune." 2 The most notorious case is related of the county of Bute, where, in a popula- tion of 1 4,000, only one out of 21 electors was a resident. In the election of i8,;T he was the only person present except the sheriff and the returning officer. " He THE EPOCH OF REFORM 913 lines, commonly agreed to support the Government in return for patronage and other rewards. One Scotch member declared that : " his invariable rule was never to be present at a debate or absent at a division ; and that he had only once in his long political life ventured to vote according to his conscience ; and that he found ... he had voted wrong." In Ireland the system of borough franchise was bad enough ; but that in the counties was, until 1829, worse. By Irish law forty- shilling freeholders could be created without grant of property. The landed potentates availed themselves eagerly of the opportunity especially after the Union until Daniel O'Connell and the priests managed to tear from their control the men whom they had regarded as their creatures. Bribery and Corruption in Parliament. Until the partial remedy provided by the Grenville Election Act it was practically impossible to exclude candidates belonging to the dominant party, however great the irregularities employed in their election. A natural result of the faulty and corrupt electoral system was the venality and self- seeking of those who secured seats. Most of the members or their patrons expected to be compensated for their outlays to electors or borough-mongers. Inducements were offered to suit all tastes. The rich and ambitious were tempted with peerages, titles of honor, patron- age, and favor ; the poor and mercenary by places, pensions, and bribes. The Place Bill of 1705 had done something to diminish the number of placemen. The incapacity was later extended to pensioners; but grants were continued in secret. An Act of 1742 extended the dis- qualification to many minor places not included in the measure of 1705; but a large number still remained untouched. The Rocking- ham Act of 1782 covered many more, and put an effective check on secret pensions. As a result of these and subsequent measures, the number of placemen sitting in the House of Commons was reduced from 271 in the time of George I to 89 under George IV. 1 Meantime, the practice of directly bribing members grew steadily from the Restoration to the American Revolution. William III resorted to it, though with great reluctance. While evidence is lacking, it is com- monly believed that Walpole reduced it to a system. So far as George III is concerned, the case is clear enough ; but this form of corruption did not survive the Ministry of North. Pitt, as has been seen, was not the man to continue the practice, though he created more peers than any minister before or since. Another and more wasteful means employed by George III to secure supporters in the years of his personal supremacy was through loans and lotteries. The King's " Friends " were accorded the preference in the distribution of shares and tickets. Half of the loan of 12,000,000 raised at the close of . . . took the chair, . . . called over the roll of freeholders, answered to his own name, ... he then moved and seconded his own nomination, put the question as to the vote, and was unanimously returned." 1 That is, exclusive of army and navy officers. 3N 9 i 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the American war was subscribed by members of the House of Com- mons. It paid it per cent. Pitt was also responsible for removing this type of abuse. The Rockingham Act had already excluded con- tractors from the House of Commons in 1782. Counteracting Tendencies. These long-continued abuses were not due solely to the unreformed parliamentary system. The ex- travagance and dissipation of the upper classes, the ignorance and apathy of the masses, and the moral and religious indifference of the age all played a part. Nevertheless, England progressed in many directions and achieved much in the eighteenth century, while her people were freer and her institutions far better than those of any other European country. Many reasons explain why this was so. In the first place, politics attracted the ablest and some of the best men of the age, who, while they advanced their own interests, labored to make their country the leading power in the world. At crises, too, they deferred to public opinion, an opinion in which the sound tradi- tions of the previous century survived, and which was being fed by the new and enlightened ideas of the growing commercial and in- dustrial classes. Moreover, after the Tories again became a factor in politics at the accession of George III, party rivalry played an im- portant role in checking the evils which had developed during the Whig ascendancy. The Whigs soon fell into eclipse for a time : ; but their leaders were active and courageous in denouncing the shortcomings of their political rivals. The press, too, became more and more a means of ventilating abuses and corruption. While many evils had been checked or done away with when the Grey Ministry came to power, the cumbersome, inadequate method of representation which did so much to foster them still remained. 2 The First Reform Bill and its Defeat in the Commons, 19 April, 1831. The two general objects in the work which the Grey Ministry now undertook were to redistribute parliamentary seats on a more equal basis, and to extend the right of voting. The first was carried out more completely than the second, and required far less change in years to come. The King was friendly at the start, the Tories were weak and divided, and the people showed their enthusiasm in public meetings, in political unions, and in floods of petitions. On the other hand, there were tremendous obstacles to overcome. The Whig Ministers were lacking in administrative experience. The King grew timid as the fight became hot. The borough interests, who had so much at stake, roused themselves and were backed by two thirds of the peers, a strong minority in the Commons, and by a not incon- 1 Disraeli later insisted that the Whigs were anxious for reform because their Tory rivals had snatched from them the control of the existing electoral machinery. 2 "Of all injurious instruments of despotism," wrote Sidney Smith, the famous wit of the period, "I most commend a popular assembly, where the majority are paid and hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, make the people believe they are free." THE EPOCH OF REFORM 915 siderable Tory sentiment throughout the country. Moreover, the very fervor of the Radicals was a source of embarrassment to the Whig leaders and to the moderate men on whom they counted for support. The chairman of the committee selected to draft the Reform Bill was Grey's son-in-law, Lord Durham, a man of rather extreme views. His share in the work has been somewhat obscured by that of Lord John Russell, who was very properly chosen to introduce the measure and to explain its terms. The second reading was carried by a ma- jority of one, amidst scenes of wildest joy on the part of the Whigs. Six hundred and three took part in the division, the largest on record up to that time. The Bill, however, was defeated in the committee stage, 19 April, 1831, by an amendment against a provision for reducing the membership of the Commons from 658 to 596. The Lords defeat the Second Reform BUI. The Third Bill and its Final Passage, 1832. The Government thereupon persuaded King William to appeal to the people in another general election, one of the most momentous in English history. The cry throughout the country was : " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." The reformers triumphed, and the second bill passed the new House of Commons, 21 September, 1831, by a majority of 109. Lord John Russell had warned the Tories that " it was impossible for the whisper of a faction to prevail against the voice of a nation " ; but the Lords proved stubborn and threw out the measure on the second reading, 8 October. 1 The leading newspapers appeared in mourning. The Chronicle assured its readers that " the triumph of the wicked cannot endure forever," and the Times declared that it turned from " the appalling sight of a wounded nation to the means already in action for recovery." Since the reverse was not unexpected, the Ministry, sustained by a vote of confidence in the Commons, merely prorogued Parliament and prepared a third bill. Among other changes the clause reducing the membership was dropped. The agitation outside, which, even though intense, had hitherto been peaceful, now became violent. Riots broke out in London and other cities, the most serious of which occurred in Bristol, in the last days of October, when the mob reigned supreme for two days. The political unions, too, became so active and aggressive that a proclamation was issued suppressing certain of them by name. Parliament met again, 6 December, and, 23 March, the Commons sent the new Bill to the Upper House with an increased majority. Fearful of continuing to defy public opinion openly, the Lords voted for the second reading, 14 April, by a majority of 9; but in the committee stage they insisted upon amendments which the Ministry could not accept. Popular excitement became furious in its intensity ; a clamor arose that the Peers be forced into brougham made his most eloquent and theatrical speech on this _ occasion. He ended by throwing himself on his knees and remained so long that his friends, knowing the amount of mulled port he had drunk to stimulate himself, finally went and raised him to his feet. 9i 6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND line ; many political associations refused to pay taxes ; in London a run on the Bank of England was incited by placards which bore the words : " To stop the Duke, go for gold. " With the country trem- bling on the verge of a revolution, Grey was persuaded by his colleagues to advise the King to create a sufficient number of new peers to carry the Bill. Upon William's refusal the Cabinet resigned. Wellington undertook to form a ministry ; but, finding the task was as hopeless as it was dangerous, he counseled the King to recall Earl Grey. Grey resumed office with the assurance that he might carry his measure without altering its essential features. William even went so far as to consent to the creation of new peers, on condition that he might confine himself to the -heirs of existing noblemen ; but by using his influence with the Tory Lords he managed in the end to avoid this extreme step. A hundred peers, led by Wellington, withdrew from the Upper House during the final voting. With the Tory opposition thus weakened, the Bill passed through the commit- tee stage and the third reading, and received the royal assent, 7 July, 1832. The Terms of the Reform Act of 1832. The Act in its final form disfranchised fifty-six nomination and rotten boroughs, each of which had less than 2000 inhabitants and which together returned 1 1 1 mem- bers. Thirty boroughs where the population was less than 4000 were deprived of a single member each, while Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, a double borough, lost two of its four. There were thus 143 seats for redistribution. Twenty-two large towns received two, and twenty-one a single member each. Furthermore, the county member- ship was increased from 94 to 159. The remaining 13 representatives were left for Scotland and Ireland. In addition to redistribution of seats, the Bill undertook a moderate extension and equalization of the franchise. In the boroughs the various, queer, and antiquated fran- chises were abolished, with one exception, 1 and the vote was given to all householders paying a rental of 10 a year. In the counties the forty- shilling freehold qualification was retained in the case of the voter who occupied his estate, or who had acquired it by inheritance, mar- riage, or other specified ways. In other cases, a 10 qualification was established for freeholders, copyholders, as well as leaseholders for terms of sixty years. A qualification of 50 was fixed for leaseholders for shorter terms and for tenants at will. The tenants at will were added by the so-called " Chandos clause," based on a motion of the Marquis of Chandos. While his aim was to increase the power of the landlords, the effect was to extend somewhat the area of enfranchise- ment. Scotland and Ireland. Scotland and Ireland were dealt with in two separate bills. The Scotch representatives were increased from 1 Resident freemen, created before March, 1831, were allowed to retain their vote. The qualification was designed to get rid of hosts qi freemen who had been created to vote against the Reform Bill, THE EPOCH OF REFORM 917 45 to 53, of which, in the redistribution, 30 went to the counties and 23 to the cities and boroughs. In the former, all owners of property worth 10 a year and certain classes of leaseholders were given the right to vote ; in the latter, the 10 householders, and at the same time the old qualifications were abolished. Ireland was given five more representatives. 1 At the time of the Union a number of nomination and rotten boroughs had been swept away. While the remainder were left undisturbed by the Act of 1832, the right to return members of Parliament was taken from the municipal corporations and conferred upon the 10 householders. In 1850 the borough qualification was reduced to 8. The Results of the Reform Bill. The Revolution of 1688 had transferred the chief power from the sovereign to the landed aristoc- racy. The Reform Bill shifted the balance to the commercial and industrial middle class. It was, so far as England was concerned, the " greatest act of the century." The system of Cabinet and party government now became something like a reality; for the ministers henceforth represented a popular majority in the House of Commons, and not one depending upon the manipulation of the sovereign, the ministers, and the landowning magnates. The passage of the measure had demonstrated, too, that at a crisis the House of Lords could not defy the popular will. Furthermore, the triumph was an indication that the principle of change which had been struggling for expression during the past decade was going to prevail. Something had been accomplished by indirect pressure and other imperfect means ; but now a veritable era of reform was about to open. 2 The Reform Bill did not accomplish all that its advocates had predicted. It did not put an end, for instance, to bribery and corruption, though the widening of the electorate tended to further lessen these evils. More- over, while it took a long step in the direction of equality of representa- tion, it left the bulk of the lower classes the majority of the popula- tion without the vote. Nor had the secret ballot, which has proved one of the most effective means of purifying elections, been conceded. In one respect the Bill was reactionary ; for it swept away the demo- cratic franchises of certain boroughs, though the element thus deprived was largely corrupt. There was widespread discontent among the working classes, which, while it was to some extent stirred up by disappointed hopes, was due to real suffering. The First Reformed Parliament, 1832-1833. The class of mem- bers elected to the first reformed House of Commons, in the winter of 1833, was not strikingly different from that of the parliaments 1 Making a total of 105. Two seats were afterwards taken away because of corruption, leaving 103, the present number. 2 Some reformers like Sidney Smith were alarmed at the feverish activity of Parliament during the next few years. "All gradation and caution have been banished," he complained, "since the Reform Bill; rapid high pressure wisdom is the only agent in public affairs." 9i 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND immediately preceding. 1 The counties returned numbers of the landed gentry, while the boroughs, as a rule, chose responsible men of property. Some extreme Tories were defeated ; but so were some of the advanced Radicals. Though Cobbett was elected, " Orator " Hunt was not. If the House ceased to be the " best club in London," it was no assembly of demagogues. Nevertheless, the Whigs and the other anti-Tory elements were in an overwhelming majority. It is estimated that they comprised 486 of the 658 members. They were far from being united, however ; the supporters of the Ministry, who were aristocratic in temper and fearful of democratic excesses, com- manded barely more than half the votes of the House. The remain- der of the party was made up of free lances, Radicals and Irish " Repealers." The Tory minority was also divided, though not so markedly. There was a considerable group of moderate men led by Peel, 2 who had discarded the old party name and who adopted that of " Conservatives." Indeed, it was not long before the terms Whig and Tory were completely superseded by those of Liberal and Con- servative, respectively. The Remedial Legislation of 1833. The distinguishing feature of the new Parliament was its zeal for legislation. It has been said with truth that " no session has been more fruitful in legislative ac- tivity than that of 1833." Among the long list of remedial measures were : the Irish Church Temporalities Bill ; the abolition of slavery in the British colonies; an epoch-making Factory Act; the renewal of the charters of the East India Company, and of the Bank of Eng- land, in each case with important modifications; and the establish- ment of a permanent judicial committee of the Privy Council as the highest court of appeal for colonial and ecclesiastical causes. Another legal reform was the abolition of a number of obsolete and complicated actions relating to real property, and the introduction of new processes whereby land transfers and the barring of entails was greatly simpli- fied. Many cumbersome and worn-out methods still remained, and it required nearly a century of law reform before any considerable results were accomplished. The achievements of the year are all the more remarkable in view of the attention demanded by the troubled situation in Ireland. The Irish Tithe War, 1831-1833. In that country a great " tithe war " had broken out in 1831. In a population of nearly 8,000,000 souls less than 900,000 belonged to the Established Episcopal Church. The other eight ninths, largely agriculturists, whose tiny holdings yielded barely enough to keep them from starvation, and who had to support their own priests, bitterly resented the payment of tithes to 1 Many timid folk, fearing a revolution, had sent their money to Denmark and the United States for investment. The panic of 1837 in the latter country caused numbers to regret the step they had taken. 2 Peel and his followers accepted the results of the Reform Bill, and often voted with the Government against the extremists of their own party. THE EPOCH OF REFORM 919 the hated representatives of an alien faith. Moreover, the method of assessment and collection was irritating and unfair. Grassland where the rich pastured great flocks was exempt, and the chief burden fell on the lesser folk who could ill spare their pigs and their poultry. 1 Yet, pitiable as was the situation of the Irish peasantry, the ferocity with which they tortured and murdered the tithe proctors and abused and intimidated those who obeyed the law was more deplorable. After the Government had safely carried the Reform Bill, it attempted, though with no great success, to relieve the Irish situation. Early in 1832 the Lord Lieutenant was authorized to advance money to the clergy who were suffering from failure to collect the chief source of their income. The Government officials then undertook, with the aid of the military, to collect the arrears ; but their efforts proved as futile as they were expensive. One case is recorded where three com- panies of soldiers and two pieces of artillery were called out for the sale of one cow. In 1833 the attempt was given up, a much larger sum was advanced to the clergy, and a project was set on foot which failed in 1833 and again in 1834 to substitute for the tithes a money land tax. The Coercion Bill and the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, 1833. The use of military force had only aggravated the passions of the Irish. Murders, assaults, and destruction of property increased with alarming rapidity. Secret organizations multiplied, while the courts were hampered by the intimidation of jurors and witnesses. To meet the situation, Stanley, the Irish Secretary, whose policy was a " quick alternation of kicks and kindnesses," presented to the Cabi- net a Peace Preservation Bill and a Church Temporalities Bill. The conciliatory measure was introduced first. It imposed a gradual tax on clerical incomes to relieve the Irish rate payers from the burden of parish expenses, and provided for the reduction of the Irish Episcopate by abolishing two of the four archbishoprics and eight of the eighteen bishoprics, as vacancies should occur. An " appropriation clause," empowering Parliament to apply the money thus saved to such secular purposes as it saw fit, had to be sacrificed, owing to the opposition in the House of Lords. The bill, thus shorn of its most popular feature, became law. Something had been gained by the abolition of the parish cess, as the rates were called; but, once more, Parliament had thrown away the chance of granting a free-handed concession. The bitterness of O'Connell and his followers was accentuated by the drastic character of the accompanying Coercion Bill. It gave the Lord Lieutenant unlimited power of suppressing public meetings, and of declaring any county in a state of disturbance. In such dis- tricts inhabitants were forbidden to be out of doors between sunset 1 Tithes should be distinguished from church rates. The former were paid in kind for the support of the bishops and clergy. The latter were voted by the parish for the up-keep of the church fabric, and, in modern times at least, were paid in money. 920 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and sunrise, trial by martial law was introduced, and the Habeas Corpus Act suspended. The Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies, 1833. Stanley, in view of the hostility which he had excited in Ireland, 1 was transferred to the office of Colonial Secretary. In his new position he carried a measure for which the abolitionists had been struggling ever since the slave trade had been done away with in 1807. Encouraged by an admission of Huskisson that slave labor was more costly than free labor, Thomas Fowell Buxton, a wealthy brewer and philanthropist, had, 15 May, 1823, introduced a resolution for the gradual abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions. Canning succeeded in defeating the measure, but favored steps for improving the lot of those in bondage. In consequence, a circular letter was issued, 24 May, 1824, forbidding the use of the whip in the field, and the flogging of women under any circumstances. In spite of growing popular sentiment, the West India interest was strong enough to prevent anything further from being done until after the reform of Parliament. The planters who were badly off owing to the fall in prices after the Great War, and to their own extravagance and wasteful methods were determined to fight to the last ditch. Notwithstanding their op- position, a bill was passed, 30 August, 1833, providing for a scheme of gradual emancipation. All children under six years of age and all born henceforth were declared free. Others were to serve an ap- prenticeship, giving three fourths of their time to their masters. The term first proposed was twelve years, but it was shortened to seven before the bill became law. Four years of trial proved the apprentice system unworkable, so it was done away with altogether. Originally, too, the planters were to be compensated with a loan of 15,000,000, but in the final act that was altered to a gift of 20,000,000. Happily, Wilberforce, the pioneer in the anti-slavery cause, lived to hear that the measure crowning his life work had passed the second reading. The Factory Act of 1833. In this session a notable act was passed to improve the grievous lot of children employed in factories. Atten- tion had first been called to the question (in 1784) by Dr. Percival of Man Chester who recommended shortening the hours of labor, improving sanitary conditions, and placing the mills under supervision and legis- lative control. The first Factory Act, passed in 1802, included the cotton and woolen industries, but applied, for the most part, only to " apprentices." Further investigations disclosed frightful condi- tions. Children as young as six years of age were worked for thirteen or fourteen hours a day in unhealthy, overheated rooms. Exhausted by long and exacting labor and without opportunities for play, sun- shine, or education, they grew old before their time; but remained stunted in body and mind. Sir Robert Peel, the elder, took up the 1 O'Connell denounced him as "scorpion Stanley," and he was wittily described by another as the "Secretary at War with Ireland." THE EPOCH OF REFORM 921 work, and by his. recommendations an act was passed, in 1819, which went a step further in remedying the existing evils. Peel's efforts were reenforced by those of Michael Sadler and Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury. Sadler had already prepared a new bill when he was defeated in the general election of 1832, so it fell to Ashley to carry on the struggle. He was bitterly opposed by the bulk of manu- facturers, who were, in general, supported by both parties. The Tories were averse to change, and the Whigs were advocates of the laissez-faire policy which aimed to minimize the interference of the State in individual concerns. Nevertheless, he was able to carry, in a slightly modified form, a measure which he introduced in 1833. It prohibited the employment of children under nine years of age; it restricted the labor of children between nine and thirteen to forty-eight hours in a week and to nine in a single day ; that of young persons between thirteen and eighteen to sixty-nine hours a week and to twelve in a single day. It provided for a system of inspection to enforce the provisions of the law, and enacted that children under thirteen should attend school for two hours a day. The regulations of 1833 applied only to the textile industries in factories, and left much to be desired in other respects ; but it was the happy forerunner of later remedial legislation relating to conditions of labor. The " New Poor Law," 1834. In the following year, Parliament carried another measure of supreme importance - the Poor Law Amendment Act, popularly known as the " New Poor Law." The chief fault of the Elizabethan laws was that they imposed the care of the poor on the parish a unit too small to bear the burden in districts where there was an excess of paupers. While no attempt had been made to deal with this obvious defect, another, and the wisest, per- haps, of the Elizabethan provisions namely, that the able-bodied should be made to work in houses of correction, if necessary, and that the sick and helpless should be provided for in almshouses had broken down. In 1795, the Berkshire magistrates began the practice of supplementing inadequate wages by money allowances. This prac- tice of " outdoor relief " soon became general and was sanctioned by Parliament in 1796. It tended to foster pauperism in more ways than one. It discouraged thrift, because many who would never have gone to the poorhouse were quite willing to receive aid in this way. It kept down wages ; for it tempted employers to spare their own pockets at the expense of the rates. Furthermore, it fostered immorality, since women might be given an allowance for every one of their children whether legitimate or not. To make matters worse, iniquitous laws of settlement, beginning with an act of Charles II in 1662, prohibited paupers from leaving the parishes where work was scarce to go to those where there was an abundance. The burden of the rates be- came crushing. In one parish the annual rate rose from 18 to 367 in three years, causing farmers to leave their farms ; in another, there were one hundred and four paupers out of one hundred and thirty-nine 922 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND inhabitants. At length, a seventh of the population came to be de- pendent upon the rates, which reached an annual total of 8,500,000. In the face of this intolerable situation a commission of investigation was appointed. Its report, February, 1834, based on experiments which had proved successful in a number of the districts, contained five recommendations : i . All outdoor relief, except medical aid, should be abolished. 2. Women should support their illegitimate children. 3. The Law of Settlement should be modified in order that the poor might be free to go wherever work was plentiful. 4. Parishes should be grouped into unions, so that the prosperous might help the poorer. 5. A central poor-law board of three commissioners should be created for the supervision and control of the whole local system. In spite of the bitter opposition of the Radicals, a bill based on those recommendations Cobbett denounced it as the " poor man's rob- bery bill" became law in August, 1834. The immediate result was no little suffering and intense discontent, leading even to riots; but the measure, in the long run, proved to be very highly beneficial, even though outdoor relief was never wholly discontinued. The rates fell within a short time to 3,000,000, while the poor steadily improved in self-reliance and industry. The Resignation of Earl Grey, 1834. Before the Poor Law Bill reached its second reading Earl Grey had resigned. For some time, his Government had been declining in popularity. It had offended various special interests by its reform measures, while at the same time it had not gone far enough to content the Radicals. Moreover, the budgets of Althorp failed to satisfy the conflicting claims of the landed and borough representatives. The growing weakness of the Adminis- tration was brought to a head by a hopeless split in the Cabinet over the Irish question. Russell, who was of " the opinion that the revenues of the Church of Ireland were larger " than sufficed for its own needs, sought to revive the recently abandoned " appropriation clause." " Johnny has upset the coach," declared Stanley who was opposed to turning over the surplus funds to secular purposes. He resigned soon after, followed by others of his way of thinking. For the moment, Grey consented very reluctantly to stay on. When, however, Althorp withdrew because the Cabinet refused to sanction an agreement with O'Connell, made without its knowledge, the Premier finally threw up his office, 9 July, 1834. The First Melbourne Ministry, July-November, 1834. Grey was succeeded by Melbourne (1779-1848) who had been Home Secretary since 1830. Unconventional in manner and profane in speech, he was naturally of a serious disposition and scholarly in his tastes. He was an old-fashioned Liberal of the laissez-faire school who was opposed to the restless, innovating spirit of the Radicals. His favorite remark was: " Why can't you let it alone." From these political convictions and from his languid, indolent bearing, largely a pose, he got a reputation for aimlessness and lack of firmness that THE EPOCH OF REFORM 923 was hardly deserved. 1 Contrary to the King's hopes, Melbourne and Peel would not form a coalition, so the Whig Ministry, somewhat reconstituted, was continued. Althorp consented to withdraw his resignation. The Administration was mainly occupied with the Irish difficulties until the autumn prorogation, when two events happened which made a change inevitable. Brougham, during a journey through Scotland, delivered a series of speeches which prompted the King to liken him to an " itinerant mountebank," and which hope- lessly alienated numbers of his party. Then, in November, 1834, Althorp, on the death of his father, Earl Spencer, went to the House of Lords, thus depriving the Whigs of the leader in the House of Com- mons, upon whose " personal weight and influence " they mainly depended. Thereupon, Melbourne wrote to William that it was for his Majesty to consider whether, under the circumstances, the resigna- tion of the Ministry might not be advisable. William eagerly seized this opportunity to form a new Government, because he wanted to get rid of Brougham and because Russell, who had been proposed as Althorp's successor in the leadership of the Commons, was unaccept- able to him on account of his attitude on the appropriation clause. There is no truth in the statement, commonly made, that he dis- missed the Melbourne Ministry, 14 November, 1834, without pre- vious consultation. The point is important ; because if he had acted in the arbitrary fashion attributed to him, he would have assumed an authority which no sovereign, with the exception of George III, had ventured to assert for more than a century. The First Peel Ministry, November, i834-April, 1835. By the advice of Wellington, Peel was selected as Prime Minister. On the receipt of the news, the Conservative leader, who was in Italy, hastened home. He covered the journey from Rome to. Dover in twelve days, which was regarded as a marvelous feat of traveling for those days. During the interval, the Duke carried on the Government, holding all the Secretaryships of State himself. Peel, on his arrival, took the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, .as well as that of First Lord of the Treasury, Wellington became Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Lyndhurst, Lord Chancellor. The rest of the Cabinet was made up of new men, together with a few of Wellington's old followers. Stanley and Sir James Graham, who had broken with their Whig colleagues on the Irish question, refused Peel's offer to enter the Ministry, though they agreed to support him in the Commons. In the general election which followed, the Prime Minister issued an address to his constituents. This " Tamworth Manifesto " is notable 1 He once remarked in a Cabinet meeting : "It does not much matter what we say; but we must all say the same thing." He would often sit blowing a feathei or fondling a sofa cushion while receiving an important deputation, when really he was all attention, and may have sat up all night studying the question to which he appeared so indifferent. His friend Sidney Smith, in a famous satiric passage, declared him an impostor, and "accused" him of "honesty and diligence." 9 2 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND for outlining the principles of the new liberal Conservative party which Peel had been developing since 1832. In it, he announced his accept- ance of the Reform Act as " a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question," and declared that, with due regard for old constitutional principles, he was prepared to proceed with the removal of abuses and the initiation of "judicious reforms." This program, while it attracted the extremists of neither party, made a strong appeal to the moderates. 1 While the Conservatives had gained strength in the recent election, they were still outnumbered by the combined forces of the Whigs, Radicals, and Repealers. True to hi', promise, Peel introduced a number of reforms which drew upon him the charge of purloining the measures of his adversaries, and which, as a matter of fact, were carried by the next Liberal Ministry. He appointed an ecclesiastical commission to inquire into abuses and inequalities existing in the Established Church ; he introduced a bill to relieve Dissenters from the disabilities of the marriage laws then in force, and another to commute the English tithes into money pay- ments. In April, 1835, after an uphill fight, he resigned when Russell carried a motion 1o devote any surplus revenue from the Irish Church " to the general education of all the, classes of the people without religious distinction." He was destined to defeat from the first, and he had further embittered the old-line Tories ; but he had established his reputation at home and abroad as a man of capacity bound in time to return to power. The Second Melbourne Ministry, 1835-1841. Brougham. Since Grey refused to resume office, the King was forced to turn again to Melbourne and to accept Russell as the leader of the Commons. The membership of Melbourne's second Ministry was practically the same as his first, with one striking exception. Brougham was not included. Melbourne declared he would have nothing more to do with him for two reasons : " his whole character and his whole con- duct." Though the ex-Chancellor lived until 1868, to the advanced age of ninety years, his official career was ended. His faults of temper and his indiscretions made him an impossible colleague ; but by his remarkable abilities, and his devotion to the cause of political, social, and legal reform, he was one of the foremost contributors to the progress of the nineteenth century. The Municipal Reform Act, 1835. The most notable achievement of the new Ministry was the reform of the municipal corporations. In 1833 a commission had been appointed to inquire into the state of the municipalities. Its report, presented early in 1835, revealed a situation crying for amendment. The Reform Bill had swept away many of the small rotten boroughs, and had improved the condition 1 Parliament, when it met in February, 1835, was forced to hold its sessions in temporary quarters. On October 16, owing to carelessness in burning an accumula- tion of old Exchequer tallies, a fire had broken out and practically destroyed the old parliamentary buildings, with the exception of Westminster Hall. THE EPOCH OF REFORM 925 of parliamentary representation and qualifications for voting in those that remained. Its scope, however, did not extend to internal organ- ization and administration. The government was very generally in the hands of councils, self-elected, irresponsible, and corrupt. The number of freemen, who in some cases formed the corporation, was usually limited; in Portsmouth, for instance, there were 102 out of 46,000 inhabitants, in Cambridge only 118 out of 20,000. Moreover, these freemen, usually descendants of the original ratepayers, and others arbitrarily added for political purposes, were often poor creatures paupers, indeed, who shared in old charitable endowments and enjoyed exemptions from tolls, as well as from other burdens. The Municipal Corporations Bill, framed on the basis of the report of 1835 and introduced by Russell, provided for drastic changes. All boroughs and cities, with the exception of London, and sixty-seven others omitted because of their small size, were to adopt a uniform plan of government. This was to be vested in a town council, con- sisting of a mayor, aldermen, and councilors. The councilors were to be elected by the ratepayers, together with the freemen who had survived the Reform Bill, and were to hold office for three years. The mayor was to be chosen annually, and the aldermen every six years, by the councilors from their own body. Each borough, too, might, if it chose, have a recorder, nominated by the Crown, for the conduct of its judicial work. Exclusive trading privileges were broken up, and measures were devised to prevent jobbery and thieving. For example, much business, formerly in the hands of small com- mittees, was transferred to the whole council whose meetings were to be public and whose accounts were to be audited annually. The bill was supported by Peel ; but was bitterly opposed by the Tory peers. Newcastle, for example, denounced it as " the latest prod- uct of the arbitrary will of a tyrannical House of Commons." Never- theless, it became law, September, 1835. The Closing Years of William's Reign, 1836-1837. In the fol- lowing year, 1836, a few other reforms were carried. Chief among them was an act converting English tithes in kind into an annual rent charge. 1 Another was a measure authorizing Dissenters to cele- brate marriages in their own chapels, with a system of registration in place of banns. Civil marriages were also allowed ; but the Church of England retained the practice of marrying members with banns or license. The Ecclesiastical Commission did away with many abuses, such as non-residence and pluralities, and performed a notable work in reducing the gross inequalities of episcopal and clerical incomes. Another step in advance was to allow to prisoners on trial for felony the full benefit of counsel. What with the difficulties in Ireland, the active obstructionist tactics of the Conservatives, and the claims of the Radicals for more progressive measures for the ballot and house- 1 Compulsory church rates were abolished in 1868, though voluntary payments still continue. 926 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND hold suffrage, the repeal of the Septennial Act, the abolition of the property qualification of the House of Commons, and the reform of the House of Lords the Ministry had stormy sailing. Such was the situation when William IV died, 20 June, 1837. He had come to the throne late in life, defective in education, and with abilities far from great. Yet, while he was erratic and opinionated and grew more and more timid of innovation, he was honest, well-meaning, and loyal in the support of his ministers. However much or little he con- tributed to the result, his reign was marked by a series of reforms unsurpassed for number and importance during any period of equal length in English history. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Brodrick and Fotheringham, Political History, chs. XIII-XIX. Marriott, England since Waterloo, pt. II, chs. V, VI. Cambridge Modern History, X, chs. XVIII, XX (bibliography, pp. 856-859, 867-870). Maxwell, Century of Empire, I, ch. XIV; II (1910), chs. I-IV; Bright, III, 1418-1472. Martineau, His- tory of England, bks. IV, V. Walpole, History of England, III, chs. XI, XIII; IV, ch.XIV. For parliamentary reform see above, ch. XL VIII. Also G. L. Dickinson The Development of Parliament in the Nineteenth Century (1895). Biographies and special works. E. Ashley, Life of Lord Palmerston (1879), I. C. Buxton, Memoirs of Sir Thomas Powell Buxton (1898). Torrens, Memoirs of Lord, Melbourne (2 vols., 1878). Sir G. O. Trevelyan, Life and Letters of Lord Macau- lay (2 vols., 1876) ; a delightful book. E. Hodder, Life of the Seventh Earl of Shafles- bury (1887). B. L. Hutchins, History of Factory Legislation (1903). Sir G. Nicholls and T. Mackay, History of the English Poor Law (3 vols., 1904). W. Bagehot, Biographical Studies (1880). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 263-265. Robertson, pt. I, nos. XLVII-XLVIII; pt. II, no. XXVI, appendix, pp. 430-438. CHAPTER LI THE EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN AND THE TRIUMPH OF FREE TRADE (1837-1846) The Victorian Age. When Victoria began her reign of sixty-four years, covering an era unique in the progress of civilization, nineteenth- century England had already witnessed a goodly number of reforms. The political and legal disabilities of the Protestant Dissenters and the Roman Catholics had been almost entirely removed ; the most glaring defects and inequalities of the representative system had been swept away ; the exclusive power of the aristocracy had been broken and the middle classes had been admitted to power ; and a new humanitarian spirit had manifested itself in measures for the better- ment of the lot, not only of men, but of dumb animals. The pros- perity of the Colonies had been fostered, and the British Empire had begun to extend in a new direction. Rusty shackles which hampered the growth of trade and industry had been struck off, and new inven- tions and processes were in operation which were to prove revolu- tionary in their results. There was still much misery and suffering among the lower classes ; but before the new reign was half over they began to share in an amazing advance in material prosperity. This was due largely to the adjustment of the masses to the new conditions of industry ; to the removal of the restrictive duties which still rested upon raw materials and foodstuffs ; to enlightened sanitary and labor regulations; and to the wonders achieved by steam and elec-i tricity. Domestic and Foreign Policy. As the Government by the exten- sion of the franchise to the wage-earner came to voice more nearly the popular will, it became decidedly paternal in character utilitarian still, but socialistic. Individualism gave way to collectivism. While distinctions of rank and wealth continued to exist, the State came to intervene for the interest of the masses in all sorts of activities from which it formerly held aloof in popular education, postal savings banks, recognition of trade unions, purchase of lands for the tillers of the soil, regulation of all sorts of relations between the employer and the employed, old-age pensions, and workingmen's insurance. In a word, the Government, as it has grown more representative, has grown more absolute. Among continental countries the early Vic- torian period was marked by great strides in the direction of liberty and nationality. While the Queen and her Consort were generally 927 928 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND on the side of the established dynasties, the ministers who conducted the foreign policy of Great Britain were prevailingly in favor of popular and national aspirations, though disinclined to go to the length of armed intervention. The death, in 1865, of Palmerston, who had dominated British policy during the greater part of the period since 1830, marked an epoch. Colonial Empire came to be the absorbing ideal, and Great Britain sought to disentangle herself as much as possible from European affairs in order to devote her energies to Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Imperial and European interests, however, proved to be too closely interwoven to enable her to hold aloof from the complications of the adjoining continent. Fear of Russian expansion in Asia forced her to take an active part in the affairs of Turkey and the near East, while the amazing development of Germany, particularly since the Franco- Prussian War, has produced a Power whose industrial, colonial, and maritime ambitions have caused Great Britain serious concern, a con- cern which has, of late, influenced profoundly her European policy. Victoria. Her Early Life and Accession. Alexandrina Victoria for such was her full name was born 24 May, 1819. Her father, the Duke of Kent, who had spent most of his life in great pecuniary embarrassment, died when his daughter was only a year old. She was brought up by her mother a princess of the House of Saxe- Coburg in great simplicity and seclusion. Considering the pre- vailing tone of the Court under George IV, this was most fortunate. While the Duchess of Kent wisely resolved to educate the little Vic- toria in England, she surrounded her with German influences, seeking constant council from her brother Leopold, who became King of the Belgians in 1832. If life was dull at Kensington Palace, the training of the child was wholesome and calculated to develop both mind and body. In the gray dawn of a June morning, in 1837, Victoria was awakened from her slumbers, and came in slippers with her hair down her back and a shawl thrown over her dressing gown to learn from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain that she was Queen of England. At eleven o'clock the same morning she appeared before the Privy Council, and read in a sweet, strong voice the speech which Melbourne had prepared for her. She was dressed plainly in black, and, though not five feet tall and in no sense a beauty, her dig- nity and graciousness, together with her high sense of the responsibili- ties of her position, made a profound impression on all those present. She was a striking contrast to her two uncles who had preceded her one an effete voluptuary, the other a genial but gusty and prejudiced mediocrity. In view of her German connections, a reference in her speech to her English education and her love for her " native country " was especially tactful. The Opening of the New Reign. But the play of party politics weakened somewhat the enthusiasm evoked by her personal charm. Peel deplored the accession of an inexperienced maiden in such critical times, and there were unsubstantiated rumors of a Tory plot to put EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 929 one of her uncles, the Duke of Cumberland, on the throne. The Whigs, on the other hand, looked to her to extend them the support which William had in his later years withdrawn. Lord John Russell expressed the hope that she would prove " an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without her weakness." Hanover, on account of the Salic Law which governed the succession, went to the Duke of Cumberland. 1 The separation of the German Kingdom contributed in a measure to detach Great Britain from European complications. Melbourne appointed himself Victoria's political instructor. To a man of the world, verging on sixty, immersed in public business, and fond of devoting his scant leisure to scholarly pursuits, the task must have been far from congenial. With even greater self-denial he as- sumed the office of private secretary when the two parties threatened to come into conflict over the appointment of a candidate. On the whole, he performed his duties cheerfully, and was rewarded with the devotion of the young Queen, though, on occasion, she showed startling evidences of imperiousness and self-will. While she later acquired more self-control, she never, to the end of her life, hesitated to express her views fully and frankly. She generally left her ministers to fol- low their own choice ; but if it went against her own, she was not slow at any time with " private rebuke." Melbourne's Whig influence, exerted for parliamentary sovereignty, ministerial responsibility, and limitation of the prerogative, was somewhat counterbalanced by that of Leopold's trusted friend and former secretary, Baron Stockmar, who warned her against becoming a mere "nodding man- darin." He advised her, wisely enough, to set herself above parties, but he went too far in asserting that she might act as her own minister if her abilities warranted it. The Civil List, 1837. One of the earliest acts of the new Parliament, which assembled in the autumn, was to settle the Civil List. Recent sovereigns had gradually yielded their hereditary revenues, and, in return, various public expenses formerly paid out of the royal in- come had been transferred to the Consolidated Fund. According to the arrangement made by Melbourne, Victoria received an annual grant of 385,000, 10,000 more than her predecessor ; but the old pension and secret service funds amounting to 75,000 and 10,000, respectively, were done away with. The Queen, however, was al- lowed to create pensions to the amount of 1200 annually, over and above her royal income. These grants, which eventually accumulated to about 23,000 a year, were confined to rewards for contributions to art and literature or for other forms of public service not political ; also to assisting meritorious persons in need of help. Efforts on the part of Radicals to reduce the amount appropriated for the Civil List proved unavailing. The revenues from Lancaster and Cornwall, 2 1 Hanover was annexed by Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. 2 The income of the Duchy of Cornwall went to the Prince of Wales, when there was one. 30 930 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the only remaining hereditary revenues, which under William amounted to only 25,000, increased under his successor to 60,000 and 66,000, respectively. The latter went to the Queen's eldest son when he came of age. In addition, the allowance of the Duchess of Kent was increased from 22,000 to 30,000. Subse- quently, more than 200,000 a year was granted in annuities to the Prince Consort and the royal children. Victoria very properly devoted part of her income to the payment of her father's debts, amounting to 50,000. The Canadian Problem, 1791-1837. Although Ireland was very unquiet, the first crisis which Victoria's ministers had to face arose in Canada. The population there consisted of two sharply distinct elements. One was the original French stock Roman Catholic in faith and bound by ancient racial traditions which, under the Quebec Act of 1774, enjoyed freedom of worship and the privilege of trial by French law in civil cases. The other element was made up of British emigrants pushing, progressive, and chiefly Protestants. In 1791 Pitt carried his Quebec Government Bill, which divided the country into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, with the object of separating the British in the west from the French in the older eastern part. This policy was opposed unsuccessfully by Fox, who was in favor of uniting rather than dividing the races. The problem of government, grave enough under any circumstances, was accentuated by the constitution of 1791, which, regardless of French prejudices, set up the same form, on the English model, for each prov- ince. It was composed of a governor, an executive and legislative council of life members, all appointed by the Crown, together with a representative assembly, the members of which were elected every four years. Since the inert French occupied the more desirable situa- tion on the lower St. Lawrence and lay as a barrier between the newer settlements and the sea, the British pressed in to Lower Canada, and succeeded in forcing a number of their candidates into the legisla- tive council. Many of these were professional politicians and agita- tors who fomented discontent. The French resented this intrusion ; moreover, they regarded as a particular grievance the fact that one seventh of all Canadian lands were set apart for the maintenance of the Anglican clergy. 1 The crisis began to develop when, in 1832, the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada refused to grant money for the payment of the councilors whom they regarded as British agents. The Canadian Revolt, 1837. For five years they continued to hold up supplies, while the executive authorities seized, for their salaries and other expenses, such moneys as they could get their hands on. The Assembly insisted on their rights to control the revenue, and the public lands as well, and demanded, further, that the Legisla- tive Council should be made elective. Finally, under the lead of Louis 1 These were the so-called "clergy reserves." In addition, the Crown reserved another seventh, and much more was appropriated by influential jobbers. EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 931 Joseph Papineau, they refused to carry on public business, and were declared dissolved. Stormy meetings of protest followed, and an attempt to arrest the chief malcontents resulted in armed outbreak, in 1837, which was not put down without bloodshed. The disaffection spread to Upper Canada, which was influenced by republican sympa- thizers across the American border. The main causes of discontent in the Upper Province were four : (i) The fact that the Council was not responsible -to the Legislature; (2) that the Government was hi the hands of a few wealthy families ; (3) that lax administration resulted in a debt of 1,000,000; and (4) that their development was ham- pered by their unfavorable geographical position. The trouble here, however, did not attain serious dimensions. Major Head, the Governor-General, a Waterloo veteran, was daring enough to send his regular troops to the seat of fighting, and to rely on the militia and the loyal subjects to keep order in his province. The plan worked well ; but he was so severely criticized at home that he resigned. Sub- sequently, however, he was rewarded with a baronetcy. Lord Durham's Mission, 1838. Russell, now Home Secretary, carried a bill, in 1838, to suspend the constitution of Lower Canada and to send out a Lord High Commissioner " with full powers to deal with the Rebellion, and to remodel the constitutions of both provinces." Lord Durham, chosen for the post, was an advanced reformer, and a man of abilities and energy, but of a fiery and masterful temper, and wholly devoid of tact. His mission saved Canada, but at the cost of his own career. On his arrival, in May, 1838, he at once assumed the position of a dictator. He issued a proclamation in which, while he threatened extreme punishment for the rebellious, he invited the Colonists to cooperate with him in devising a system of govern- ment suited to their needs. In spite of the fact that his original powers had been greatly reduced since his appointment, he next proceeded to launch a series of ordinances, proclaiming " a very liberal amnesty," with striking exceptions. He forbade certain leaders who had escaped, Papineau among the number, to return under pain of death ; furthermore, he exiled to Bermuda others who were in custody. While his method was high-handed, his aim was just and merciful. He wanted to carry on his work of reorganization free from hostile interference. He might have secured the conviction of the dangerous by packed juries, but he scorned to employ such a device. Moreover, trusting in the righteousness of his intentions, he set aside the Council, and selected advisers, chiefly from his own secretaries and other officials. The event' showed that he aimed to use his powers for the establishment of a liberal, constitutional govern- ment; but his dictatorial methods aroused a fury of opposition in Canada and in England. 1 Yielding to a bitter attack in the House of 1 One of the many charges against him related to the gorgeous pomp in which he traveled through the provinces. As a matter of fact, he paid his own personal expenses. The mission cost him 10,000. 932 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Lords, the Cabinet, which at first had approved the Quebec Ordinances, decided to disallow them. When Durham learned of this action, he started for home, first issuing a remarkable proclamation in which he appealed to the Colonists against the Home Government. This led to his formal recall and earned for him the name, " Lord High Seditioner." Durham's Report and its Consequences. Although his mission seemed a failure, it bore enduring fruit in his famous Rep.ort, printed in February, 1839, which " laid the foundations of the political success and social prosperity, not only of Canada, but of all other important colonies." Durham advised that, except in the matters affecting the relations between the Colonies and the Mother Country such as foreign affairs and the regulation of trade the making and execution of the laws should be in the hands of the Colonists themselves. All officials save the Governor and his secretary were to be responsible to the elected legislature. The " Clergy Reserves " were to be abolished. Upper and Lower Canada were to be again united with an assembly representing both provinces. Furthermore, the other British North American colonies might, with the consent of the Canadian Government, be admitted to the union. In short, the Durham report recommended self-government in internal affairs, reunion, and possible federation. In July, 1840, the Canada Govern- ment Bill, embodying the substance of Durham's suggestions, passed through Parliament and was carried into effect the following year. A few days after the measure became law, Durham died at the age of forty-eight. His end was doubtless hastened by the Canadian mission. The constitution which he suggested for Canada became a model for those granted within the next few years to such British possessions as were capable of exercising the privileges in every quarter of the globe. Truly the " individual withers, but the world grows more and more." In 1867, by the British North American Act, the four provinces of Quebec (Lower Canada), Ontario (Upper Canada), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were united into the Dominion of Canada. The executive was vested in the Governor-General appointed by the Crown, who was in turn to choose lieutenant governors for the feder- ated provinces. Also, a federal parliament was set up, consisting of a senate, composed of members appointed for life by the Governor- General, and a representative legislature. Each province was to have its own legislature for local concerns. 1 The Irish Poor Law and Commutation of Tithes, 1838. At the beginning of Victoria's reign O'Connell and his followers were, in general, supporting the Whig Ministry, which favored a conciliatory Irish policy, while the Conservative Opposition was inclined to main- 1 In 1870 Manitoba (made up from the old Hudson Bay territory) joined the federation. British Columbia and Vancouver followed in 1871, Prince Edward Island in 1873. The provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905. Newfoundland, alone, now remains outside the Canadian federation. EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 933 tain the English ascendancy by force. Three questions were pending : poor relief, municipal reform, and the settlement of tithes. In 1838 a Poor Law Bill was passed extending to Ireland the chief features of the English measure. This was bitterly opposed by the Irish contin- gent in the House of Commons on the ground that their poor were too numerous to be provided for in the workhouses. In the same year a bill was passed converting the tithes into a fixed rent charge, amounting to 75 per cent of their nominal value and payable by the landlord. The Government waived its right to collect the advances it had made, and voted a quarter of a million pounds for the extinction of arrears. The measure was only carried through the Upper House by the aban- donment of the attempt to carry the " appropriation clause " (see above, p. 919) which had been a bone of contention since 1833. The Irish municipal corporations were under the control of self-ap- pointed Protestant councils. A measure was introduced, also in 1838, conferring the right of election on persons paying a rental of 5 a year. The Lords amended the qualification to 10, which caused the Ministry to drop the bill. It was carried in 1840 in the form suggested by the Peers. The Irish policy of the Govern- ment Was thus far from successful. The Poor Law was unpopular and ineffective, the two other measures were only carried by funda- mental concessions to the Opposition. The Irish executive was in the hands of liberal-minded men. They saw that the difficulties were social and economic rather than political oppression by land- lords, overpopulation, lack of productive forms of employment. The Protestant landlords' interests, however, insisted that the discontent and disorders were due to the conciliatory attitude of the Administra- tion. A famous phrase of the permanent Under-Secretary Drummond " property has its rights as well as its duties " particularly roused their fury. The Suspension of the Jamaica Constitution, 1839. The Mel- bourne Ministry in this period has been aptly compared to a water- logged wreck into which the enemies from all quarters were pouring broadsides. In the Lords it was exposed to the powerful attacks of Brougham and Lyndhurst. In the Commons it had to run the gauntlet of Peel on the one side and of the Radicals on the other. 1 Outside, the middle classes, disturbed by the prevailing evidences of unrest and by the violent speeches of agitators, were moving toward the Conservative ranks, while the laboring classes were as far removed from the Whigs as ever. Weakened by the trend of events in Canada, in Ireland, and in England, the Cabinet was in no condition to resist a 1 There was a small group of the latter, known as the "philosophical Radicals," who, in addition to demanding more political power for the masses, were contending for free trade, compulsory education, disestablishment of the Irish Church, re- vision of the game laws, abolition of flogging in the army, and many other reforms. Canning had once compared them to "firebrands, when they touch the floor of the House, hiss and expire," nor did they ever succeed in forming a strong permanent party. Nevertheless, most of their program has since been enacted into law. 934 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND West Indian crisis which centered in Jamaica. The planters had been hard hit by the emancipation of their slaves. The freedmen were disinclined to work and were often disorderly. It proved increasingly difficult to meet foreign competition. Within a few years the produc- tion of sugar fell off more than a third, and that of coffee nearly one half. On the other hand, the planters, now that the slaves were no longer their property, abused the apprenticeship system, as long as it lasted, by starving their hands, working them to death in the fields, and having them cruelly flogged in the houses of correction. This started a new wave of sentiment in favor of the blacks, and the Govern- ment was forced to frame measures for the regulation of their treat- ment in prison. The result was to produce such manifestations of dis- affection among the planters that a bill was introduced into Parliament, 9 April, 1839, to suspend the Jamaica Constitution for five years. The bill, in spite of the provocation which prompted it, \vas so drastic and so fraught with dangerous possibilities that it only carried in the Com- mons by a majority of five. Melbourne, realizing that his situation was hopeless, resigned early in May, 1839. The Bedchamber Question, 1839. He was brought back to office again by a curious episode known as the Bedchamber Question ; for which the Queen, Melbourne, and Peel must all share the blame. Victoria had a high sense of public duty ; however, she not only lacked experience, but she was still very much of a child both in her artlessness and her willfulness. 1 The loss of her beloved adviser brought her to tears ; but recovering herself she sent for Wellington. Upon his refusal to form a Ministry, she turned to Peel. Since most of her lady attendants were representatives of the Whig families, he felt the necessity of substituting a few associated with his own party. He had no intention of making a clean sweep ; but merely desired to remove the Mistress of the Robes and two or three of the ladies in waiting. Unfortunately and here was his blunder he did not explain clearly what he wanted to do. Victoria became enraged and refused to make any changes among her lady attendants, declaring that such a step was " contrary to usage " and " repugnant to her feelings." They thought to treat her as a child, she wrote to Peel, but she would show them that she was Queen of England. Peel replied that there must be some misunderstanding, and stubbornly declined to form a Ministry. The Queen was much elated and turned again to Melbourne. With some reluctance he is said to have re- 1 Carlyle noted on the day of her coronation, 28 June, 1838 : "Poor little Queen ! she is at an age at which a girl can hardly be trusted to choose a bonnet for herself ; yet a task is laid upon her from which an archangel might shrink." After the solemn ceremony was over she went home, took off her gorgeous robes of State, and gave her pet spaniel its afternoon bath. Mendelssohn, visiting Buckingham Palace in 1842, has a pretty story of how she got down on her hands and knees to help him pick up some music scattered by the wind, and how she later, after making a formal visit of State, attended by red-coated outriders, sang, with the greatest bashful- ness, a little song for him. EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 935 marked: "Nobody thinks I want to stay, do they?" he was induced to resume office. Whether he was moved by weak good nature or by chivalrous devotion toward his sovereign, he made a mistake. The Queen herself afterwards confessed that she had acted hastily. Peel was quite right in not forming an Administration so long as the wives and other relatives of his political opponents had the ear of a ruler so young and inexperienced, but his lack of tact and exaggerated suspicions alienated many who actually believed that the Ministry had crept back in " behind the petticoats of the ladies in waiting." l The Bedchamber Question never occurred again. The ladies of the household ceased to be drawn from one party; it became the settled practice for the Mistress of the Robes to be changed with each new Government, but the other places were no longer considered political. The old Ministry continued for two years more, while the Tories grew so bitter that the Queen declared : " They do all in their power to make themselves odious to me." The Queen's Marriage, 10 February, 1840. Early in 1840, Vic- toria contracted a marriage with a prince whose wise and sober coun- sels contributed greatly to curb her masterful and impetuous temper. Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was her first cousin. Their Uncle Leopold looked forward to the match from their earliest youth ; but the final choice was really made by the Queen from a list of possible suitors. And the pair felt a devotion for one another almost unex- ampled in alliances of State. The marriage announcement, hailed with joy by many, was condemned by the Tory party leaders. Al- bert's German birth gave them a handle, and, although his family were all Lutheran, the rumor got afloat that he was a " Papist," and Wellington carried a motion in the Lords censuring the Ministers for having failed to make a public declaration of his Protestantism. The Queen intensified the opposition by the demands which she made on his behalf. In the first place she insisted that he be created King Consort. Melbourne was finally driven to declare : " For God's sake, Madam, let's have no more of this ! " Albert was subsequently created Prince Consort by royal letters patent in 1857. A second difficulty arose when she prompted the Ministers to ask that his an- nuity be fixed at 50,000. Though it was no more than the queen con- sorts of recent kings had been receiving, both Tories and Radicals attacked the amount as extravagant and succeeded in reducing it to 30,000. A third cause of friction arose from the Queen's attempt to give him precedence next to herself. When Parliament refused to agree, she sought to accomplish her purpose by a royal warrant. Much to her chagrin, her action was never recognized by foreign Powers. The final difficulty came when he assumed the office of royal private secretary, which Melbourne turned over to him. Prejudice against foreigners and fear of his influence over the Queen enabled his op- 1 The popular toast was : '"The Queen would not let her belles be Peeled." 936 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND ponents, for some time, to limit his activity. Gradually, however, as his prudence and capacity came to be appreciated, he gained an increasing share in public business, he assumed most of the responsi- bilities properly belonging to the Queen, and, in fact, if not in name, became with her the joint ruler of the nation. Yet it is questionable whether Albert became really popular. He had many admirable qualities : he was highly educated and accomplished ; he was public spirited and charitable ; he was a patron of literature, science, and art ; but he had no fondness for English sports or for ordinary society, and was self-absorbed, cold, and formal. Stockdale vs. Hansard, 1839-1840. Meantime, an important con- stitutional issue was being worked out. In 1835 reports and other papers published by Parliament were for the first time placed on sale for the public. In the following year, the inspectors of the prisons in their first report referred to a book, which they found in circulation at Newgate, as disgusting and indecent. Stockdale, the publisher, proceeded to bring a suit against Hansard, the printer of the report. Hansard pleaded, first, that the publication, being authorized by the House of Commons, was privileged, and, second, that the libel was true. The jury found for the defendant on the second issue ; but the Lord Chief Justice declared in his charge that an order of the House of Commons was not sufficient justification " for any bookseller who published a parliamentary report containing a libel against any man." The Commons at once took up the matter and passed a resolution challenging the decision as a breach of parliamentary privilege. This was in 1837. Stockdale, encouraged by the attitude of the court, bought four successive copies of the Prisons Report, and, during the year 1839 and 1840, brought four successive actions against Hansard, re- covering damages in each case. The Commons, insisting on its privi- leges, committed to custody Stockdale, his attorney, the sheriff who col- lected the damages, as well as many others involved in the suit. The Ministry finally found it necessary to intervene, and Russell introduced a bill, which passed in April, 1840, providing that such actions as that of Stockdale vs. Hansard should be stayed on the production of a certifi- cate that matter Complained of was printed by order of either House of Parliament. While the judges did not feel themselves bound by the resolutions of the Lower House, they had to yield to a statute. Penny Postage, 1839-1840. The declining years of the second Melbourne Administration were notable for the introduction of the adhesive stamp and of a uniform penny postage for letters, under half an ounce in weight, sent to any point in the United Kingdom. This reform, which went into effect in January, 1840, revolutionized com- munication. It was due to Rowland Hill, who published a pamphlet on Post Office reform in 1837. Hitherto, rates had not only been exorbitant, but had varied according to the size, weight, and shape of the letter. It cost a shilling from London to Aberdeen or Belfast, and the average price was sixpence. By the abuse of franking, which EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 937 had not been wholly done away with, many persons, who could best afford to pay, were exempt. To evade the extreme charges, an ex- tensive system of smuggling developed, and it is said that five sixths of the letters between London and Manchester were conveyed il- licitly. 1 Rowland Hill, when he set about investigating the subject, came to the conclusion that the cost of sending mail was trifling, that the distance made little difference, and the profit increased with the number of letters sent. One of the chief advantages of his system was the immense amount of labor saved in measuring every letter and calculating the distance it had come. In spite of its merits it had to encounter a storm of opposition. Sidney Smith denounced it as the " nonsensical Penny Post scheme," calculated to fill " reasonable men with alarm." The Postmaster-General attacked it in the House of Lords as the " wildest and most extravagant " plan of which he had ever heard. The number of letters, he predicted, would so increase that : " the walls of the Post Office would burst, the whole area in which the building stands would not be large enough to receive the checks and letters." While the Post Office business has increased to an extent that this dismal prophet never dreamed of, the officials have readily handled it, and Rowland Hill is now recognized as one of the great practical reformers of the nineteenth century. Popular Discontent. Meanwhile, the working classes, who had hoped much from the Reform Bill and the legislation which followed, were grievously disappointed when they realized that the chief result had been merely to shift the balance of power from the landed aristoc- racy to the merchant and manufacturing capitalist. Many causes contributed to accentuate their misery and discontent. A series of bad harvests, beginning in 1837, brought intense suffering, while the high protective tariff prevented any relief from the importation of foodstuffs. Moreover, the lesser folk had not yet adjusted themselves to the vast industrial changes following the introduction of machinery during the past half century. People flocked from the country to the towns, which grew too fast to absorb them. Poverty, over- crowding, and horrible unsanitary conditions prevailed. Families were huddled together in narrow, filthy streets, often in dark and ill- smelling cellars. No provision was made for drainage or ventilation. Men, women, and children worked long hours for the scantiest wages. 2 The laissez-faire doctrines, which dominated political and economic philosophy, favored unrestricted competition, and stoutly opposed State intervention for regulating conditions of industry and helping 1 One device, noted by the poet Coleridge, was very ingenious. He saw a post- man deliver a letter to a woman at a poor cottage. After looking at it, she declared she could not pay the shilling charged. Much against her will, Coleridge paid for it. When the postman had gone, she explained that, by an arrangement between her brother and herself, he sent her a blank sheet every three months to inform her that he was well. 2 Graphic pictures may be found in Disraeli's Sybil, and Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Barton. 938 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the laborer. The Factory Act of 1833 had only made the barest beginning in this direction. Private charity had neither the organiza- tion nor the will to render much aid. The New Poor Law caused much immediate hardship, leaving to the destitute no alternative between starvation and the workhouse. In these institutions men were separated from their wives, and the inmates were subjected to injustice, deprivation, and cruelty of which Dickens's Oliver Twist presents a stirring picture. Conditions were in the making which were to lead to better things. As yet, however, none of them were realities and the prevailing bitterness and discontent were emphasized by the " belief that the young Queen was wholly under the influence of a frivolous and selfish Minister who occupied her with amusements while the people were starving." The Beginnings of the Socialistic Movement. The revolt against the existing situation was manifested in three distinct movements socialism and trade unionism ; chartism ; and the anti-corn law agitation. The pioneer of the socialists was Robert Owen (1771-1858) who from a shop assistant rose to be a rich cotton manufacturer. He established schools for the poor, he labored for improved factory conditions, he advocated cooperative production ; and even made an experiment in communism at New Harmony, Indiana in America. About 1834 the part of his programme which aimed at the control of production by the workingmen began to be enthusiastically agitated. The chief agencies for carrying on the propaganda were the trade unions which had begun to come into being in 1829. These organiza- tions aimed to limit the hours of work and to raise wages, 1 mainly by means of " strikes." The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union, which was started in 1834 and soon numbered half a million members, designed to group together the various local societies and was even extended to the agriculturalists. Owing to the energetic action of the employers, who dismissed their men belonging to the Union and to the hostile attitude of the Government which sentenced half a dozen of the members to transportation, 2 the movement col- lapsed. It was years before trades unionism became an effective force. Chartism. The First Phase, to 1839. Chartism and socialism have sometimes been confused, but their methods were essentially different ; they had nothing in common except a desire to improve the condition of the laboring classes. The Chartist movement may be traced to a Workingman's Association, founded in London in 1836, which developed into an organization for extending the political powers of th.3 people. This was totally at variance with the aims of Owen 1 They aimed, however, to keep them at an equal level, regardless of the apti- tude or industry of the individual workman. 2 A procession of trade unionists, numbering, it has been estimated, about 30,000, marched to Whitehall to protest against this sentence ; but Lord Melbourne refused to receive them. EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 939 and his adherents who did not believe in political remedies. In 1837 the Association embodied its demands in a petition containing six points: (i) manhood suffrage; (2) vote by ballot ; (3) abolition of the property qualification for membership in Parliament ; (4) pay- ment of members; (5) equal electoral districts; and (6) annual parliaments. The movement got its name from this " Charter," as Daniel O'Connell called it. Most of the reforms it contained had been urged by the Radicals since the beginning of the century, and, with the exception of the last in the list, all of them have since been conceded. 1 The Chartist agitation, as such, however, after an inter- mittent and stormy history, collapsed. Yet for a time it was very active and soon reached a violent stage. Chief among its leaders was Feargus O'Connor (1794-1855) whose father and uncle had been involved in the Rebellion of 1798. Unbalanced from the first and extremely intemperate, he ultimately lost his mind altogether. Since 1835 he had been busy in the northern and midland counties preach- ing Radical ideas and working for the repeal of the Poor Law. In 1837 he founded at Leeds the Northern Star, which became the main organ of the party. Owing to his egotism and the incoherence of his ideas, he soon quarreled with the other leaders ; but he long retained his hold on the rank and file. The Charter was published in May, 1838. Organi- zations were formed in various parts of the country, and huge meetings were held to further the work. The Birmingham Political Union, es- tablished in the days of the Reform Bill agitation, was revived by Attwood, its founder, who suggested a national convention and a national petition to Parliament. The Convention was organized and met in London in February, 1839. Unfortunately, the movement passed beyond the control of the Workingman's Association, which had framed the original programme. The moderates withdrew, and the violent or physical force party became supreme. For reasons of safety the Convention moved to Birmingham, where an attempt of the police to interfere with a meeting provoked a riot. This, and the rejection of the Chartist petition, which was presented to Parliament a few days later, led to a series of insurrections. In November an attempt to seize the town of Newport, in Wales, was frustrated by the military after considerable bloodshed. John Frost, the leader, with two companions, was convicted of high treason and sentenced to transportation for life. This put an end to the Chartist agitation for some years. The lack of any controlling mind was largely re- sponsible for what had happened. The division in the ranks between the peaceful and the violent elements proved fatal. Perhaps even more decisive was the fact that the leading Chartists opposed the Anti-Corn Law movement which was in the hands of sober, earnest men of the middle classes. The majority preferred cheap bread to the 1 A possible exception is the right to vote ; but Great Britain practically has uni- versal manhood suffrage. 940 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND vague possibilities of a political millennium promised by extremists and visionaries. The Anti-Corn Law Movement, 1838-1841. The center of the agitation for free trade was the manufacturing district in and about Manchester. Although the movement against the Corn Laws actually began in London it made little progress there. The Manchester School of politicians saw that it was for their advantage to have not only cheap raw materials but also cheap food for those whom they employed. A period of stagnation, resulting in scarcity of work and reduction of wages, gave the impetus. In 1838 the Anti-Corn Law League was organized in Lancashire with Manchester as the head- quarters. 1 Large amounts of money were subscribed, hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were issued, and lecturers were sent all over the country to bring the question before the people. For years Charles Villiers (1802-1898), a member of one of the most aristocratic families in England, had been introducing into Parliament annual motions for the repeal of the Corn Laws, and is entitled to much credit. But the real' leaders of the movement were Richard Cobden (1804- 1865) and John Bright (1811-1889). I n T &35 Cobden became ac- quainted with Bright, and later induced him to join in the work on which he had set his heart. Both were manufacturers sprung from middle-class stock. The older man by his gift of persuasive reasonable- ness and the younger by his powers of fervid oratory, unequaled in his generation, formed a combination that proved irresistible on the platform and in the House of Commons. But they had a long uphill struggle against vested interests and ingrained prejudice. 2 It was a tariff question which finally overthrew the decrepit Melbourne Ministry, which had been staggering along since 1839 with a steadily growing deficit. In 1841 the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to reduce the differential duty 3 on foreign sugar from 63 to 36 shillings the hun- dredweight, while Russell announced a plan to substitute a fixed duty of 8 shillings the quarter on wheat in place of the existing sliding scale. While the Ministry was mainly actuated by the hope of obtaining more revenue by encouraging consumption, it is not unlikely that they were influenced also by the growing agitation for cheaper food. The Chancellor's motion was defeated in the Commons, 7 May, 1841. Instead of resigning, the Government proceeded to introduce Russell's resolution and was again beaten. An appeal to the country resulted in a Tory victory at the polls. When, in the new Parliament, Peel, 1 Free Trade Hall was built on the site of the Manchester Massacre of 1819. 2 Melbourne declared in the course of a debate in 1839: "To leave the whole agricultural interest without protection, I declare before God that I think it the wildest and maddest scheme that has ever entered into the imagination of man- kind to conceive." Lord Essex said of the League that it was "the most cunning, unscrupulous, knavish, pestilent body of men that ever plagued this or any other country." 3 This was a duty for the protection of the Colonies against foreign competition. Their duty of 245. was to remain unchanged. EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 941 28 August, carried a vote of censure Lord Melbourne at length laid down his office. The Second Ministry of Peel, 1841-1846. The Budget of 1842. - Peel's Ministry contained many men of tried ability and a number of young men of promise. Chief among the latter was Gladstone, who was Vice-President of the Board of Trade. The deficit was the most pressing problem confronting the new Prime Minister. He pro- ceeded to deal with it in 1842. In the first place, he modified the slid- ing scale of 1828, aiming, by a slight readjustment and modification of duties, to encourage the importation of foreign corn. Secondly, out of 1 200 dutiable articles he reduced the tariff on 750. The articles were grouped in three classes : raw. materials which were to pay 5 per cent ; partly manufactured goods, 1 2 per cent ; and completed prod- ucts, 20 per cent. In addition, the duties were lowered on provisions and timber. Thirdly, in order to provide against possible loss of revenue and to meet the deficit, he revived the Income Tax, 1 abolished at the close of the Great War. In 1843 the import and export duties on wool were swept away entirely. Peel had been put into office pledged to protection, and while he had not yet abandoned protectionist prin- ciples, he had taken such a long step in the direction of free trade that his followers began to ask : " Whither will he lead us? " 2 The Bank Charter Act of 1844. Peel's Bank Charter Act of 1844, though it has not escaped criticism, was a notable achievement, de- signed to meet a real danger. From 1834 to 1836 joint stock banks had increased from fifty-five to a hundred, and went on growing, though less rapidly, as well as putting forth many branches. While they were issuing great quantities of paper money, vast amounts of gold were being shipped to the United States to meet the demands of an abnormal growth of business and speculation. During the three years from January, 1834, to January, 1837, the bullion in the Bank of England was reduced from 10, 000,000 to 4,000,000, while, at the same time, 29,000,000 of notes were in circulation. Meantime, a financial reaction had set in. By the close of 1836 England was on the verge of a crisis. She passed it safely ; but at the expense of a shrinkage in business which led to misery and discontent, manifesting itself in riots, Chartism, and Anti-Corn Law agitation. In the United States the panic ran its full course : every bank in the country stopped payment, while 180 failed completely. Peel undertook a banking reform for two reasons. As a politician he was opposed to a policy which led to commercial depression and popular unrest. As a finan- cier he disapproved of a system which permitted an indefinite increase of paper money that did not rest on an adequate basis of bullion. 1 ^d. was imposed in every 100 on all incomes over 150. At varying rates, the income tax has proved a main source of British revenue ever since. 2 They had before their eyes, as Lord Stanhope expressed it : " the strange and lamentable spectacle of the vessel of State, navigated by the Conservatives and bearing the Conservative flag, steering a Whig course." 942 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND By the Act of 1844 he provided for a separation of the department of the Bank of England which issued notes, from that conducting or- dinary banking business. Henceforth, too, the issues of the Bank were to be covered by bullion, three fourths in gold, except for 14,- 000,000 covered by Government securities. Peel wished also to pro- hibit the note issues of the country banks, but went no further than prohibiting the new ones from issuing notes, limiting the old ones to the existing amounts, and requiring weekly reports. The Second Free Trade Budget, 1845. By retaining the Income Tax Peel was able in 1845 to abolish more duties and to further reduce others. Export duties were done away with altogether, likewise the duty on cotton, and the excise on glass. Stanley, who was now in the House of Lords, reported that " our men look sulky." In the Commons, the protectionist contingent found a champion in Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881). He came of a Jewish family who had em- braced the Christian faith, and he had first come into prominence as a dandy and a writer of novels. In 1837 he entered Parliament as a radical Tory. His first speech, while in a way a failure, marked him to the discerning as an unusual man. Gradually he gathered about him a group known as the Young England party, w r hich did not long survive. Its guiding aim was a union of the sovereign and the nobility with the masses against the middle-class capitalists. He soon began to dazzle the Commons by his brilliancy ; but it required persist- ent effort before he could win their confidence. When Peel formed his Ministry Disraeli asked him for office, a fact which he afterwards unscrupulously denied. However, he refrained from attacking his leader until the latter began to depart from protectionist principles. Then he turned on him all his marvelous powers of ready and biting invective. He denounced the Conservative Government as an " organized hypocrisy." The Prime Minister, he declared, had caught the Whigs bathing and had run away with their clothes. The analogy was more clever than correct. It was the liberal Tories, Huskisson and Canning, who had made the first move in the direction of free trade, while the Whigs as a party had not as yet shown any enthusiasm for the policy. Meantime, the Anti-Corn Law League had become a great fact. Subscriptions which had begun at 5000, in 1839, had in- creased, in 1844, to nearly 90,000. The growing conviction of Peel is significantly illustrated by the story that when, 13 March, 1845, Cobden had finished a convincing speech, the Prime Minister crumpled the notes he had been taking, and, turning to Sidney Herbert, one of his younger ministers, said : " You must answer this, for I cannot." The victory of free trade was not far off. Meantime, laudable steps were taken to improve conditions of labor in mines and factories. Regulation of Labor in Mines and Factories, 1842-1844. The leader in this movement was Lord Ashley who had carried the Factory Act of 1833. His efforts met determined resistance from many quarters. The laissez-faire politicians and economists were opposed EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 943 to any interference with free competition. Employers wanted long hours and cheap labor. Parents, failing to realize that employment of women and children kept down the level of wages, were desirous to have every possible member of the family at work. Peel expressed the opinion that further labor restrictions would drive capitalists out of England. The Manchester School took the same attitude. But the growing humanitarian sentiment prevailed, Ashley secured the appointment of a commission to inquire into conditions in mines and collieries. Its report, published in 1842, was an " awful document " which called forth a feeling of " shame, terror, and indignation." In some places children of four years were found at work. The mines were often stifling and dripping with wet. Women and children had to crawl on their hands and knees along passages from two to three feet high, dragging heavy carts by chains passing between their legs and fastened by girdles around their waists. Frequently, they were forced to toil on alternate days from sixteen to twenty hours out of the twenty-four. The moral effect of such degrading labor, without education or recreation, can be imagined. Ashley managed to carry a bill, in 1842, excluding women from the mines altogether. He proposed to exclude boys under thirteen as well, but had to submit to an amendment of the House of Lords admitting those over ten for three days a week. He then returned to the factory question, and with the help of Peel and the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, a bill was passed in 1844 which limited the hours of women to twelve. The hours of children under thirteen were reduced from nine to six and a half. Peel, who had come to see the light, only secured the passage of the measure by threatening to resign. An attempt to cut down the hours of young persons between the ages of thirteen and eighteen from twelve hours to ten failed. The ten hour 1 day for women and young persons was not secured till 1850. O'Connell and Repeal. The Young Ireland Party. The fall of the Whigs had thrown O'Connell into violent opposition. He began to form new Associations and to resume the agitation for repeal. Announcing that 1843 would be the repeal year, he went up and down Ireland addressing large assemblies. While he had no intention of resorting to force, he talked so violently and attracted such immense numbers to his cause, that the English Government became alarmed. Ships and troops were dispatched across the Channel and fortifica- tions were strengthened. A monster meeting, advertised to take place at Clontarf, 5 October, 1843, was forbidden. O'Connell acquiesced. Compelled to show his hand, he had made it clear that he was prepared to submit rather than to appeal to arms. As a result, the spell of his influence was broken. The bolder spirits among his followers lost all faith in him. A few days after the Clontarf fiasco he was arrested, 1 Really the working day was from six to six, with an hour and a half for meals. That meant ten hours and a half ; but the result was reached by stopping work at two o'clock on Saturdays. 944 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND together with some of his leading adherents, on a charge of conspiracy. After a most unfair, trial he was sentenced by a packed jury to be fined and imprisoned. 1 The sentence was reversed by the House of Lords on appeal. O'Connell, who was verging on seventy and in declining health, never recovered the ascendancy which he had lost. He died at Genoa in 1847. Meantime, the leadership had passed to the Young Ireland Party which began with a group of youthful journalists, chief among them Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy. They founded the Nation newspaper in 1842, in which they published prose and poetry breathing all the fervor of the patriots of antiquity. After disposing of O'Connell, Peel and his Cabinet tried conciliation. A measure of Stanley's for improving the conditions of the Irish tenantry was defeated. In spite of furious outcries, Peel did, however, increase and establish on a permanent basis the annual grant of Maynooth College, 2 which had dragged on an impoverished existence since its foundation in 1795. Moreover, another act was carried to establish three nonsectarian institutions, known as Queen's Colleges, at Belfast, Cork, and Galway, respectively. The Roman Catholics opposed this latter measure, and so did the extremists among the Protestants, one of whom denounced it as a " gigantic scheme of godless education." The Potato Famine and Peel's Conversion to Free Trade, 1845. In the autumn of this year the failure of the potato crop brought about a crisis in English history. A disease first noticed in the Isle of Wight spread rapidly over England and Ireland. The Irish crop was ruined, and since potatoes constituted almost the sole food of the population, famine impended, unless prompt measures were taken for their relief. Peel, who was already inclining to the view of Cobden and Bright, was convinced by the necessity of supplying the Irish sufferers with cheap bread from abroad that the time had come for removing the duty on foreign corn. He had already gone so far as to admit the principle of free trade. He believed that prices should be low for the sake of the consumer rather than high for the sake of the producers ; but he had clung to a moderate duty on corn in order to encourage its production, that Great Britain might be self-sufficing in time of war. Moreover, he was the Prime Minister of a party pledged to protect the agricultural interests. But his reduction of duties in 1842 had resulted in increased prosperity, and he had made up his mind that free trade was " in the interest of the country and politically inevi- table." The only question was whether he should undertake the task or leave it to the Whigs; for their leader, Russell, had also reached the 1 Lord Denman, the Chief Justice, referred to the proceeding as "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare," apparently the origin of this well-known phrase. 2 It was denounced as "high treason to Heaven to apply the revenue of a Prot- estant people to the education of a Popish priesthood." A few years later a well- known man declared the Irish famine of 1845-1846 to be "a dispensation of Provi- dence in return for the Maynooth grant." EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 945 point of discarding the principles of protection. Peel discussed the question with his Cabinet in a series of meetings during October and November, but only three of his colleagues Aberdeen, Graham, and Sidney Herbert would support his views. A proposal which he made to suspend temporarily the restriction on the importation of corn and to call a parliament to consider the whole subject of repeal, was rejected. While the Cabinet was thus at odds, Russell, 22 Novem- ber, threw a bombshell by publishing a famous document, known to history as the " Edinburgh Letter " in which he declared for free trade. " Let us unite," he wrote, " to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people." He urged a concerted popular movement to furnish to the Government the only excuse which, in his opinion, they needed, for action. Bright assured the Whig leader that his letter had made " the total and immediate repeal of the Corn Laws inevitable." Peel, spurred on by Russell's pronounce- ment, strove to induce his Cabinet to forestall the Whigs by framing a repeal measure and summoning Parliament to vote upon it. 1 Meet- ing another refusal, he resigned, 5 December. Russell was called upon to form a Government. He soon gave up the task on the pretext that Palmerston would take nothing but the Foreign Office, an arrange- ment to which some of the party leaders whom he wanted would not consent. Apparently, however, he was not anxious to fish in the troubled waters which he had stirred up. 2 Accordingly Peel came back, 20 December. The Repeal of the Corn Laws, June, 1846. Parliament met 22 January, 1846. Peel began the fight by proposing a further re- duction of the duties provided for in the budgets of 1842 and 1845, from 20 to 10 per cent on manufactured goods, to 5 per cent on those partly manufactured, and for the total removal of all imposts on raw materials. This he followed by a proposal for modifying the existing sliding scale on corn, with duties ranging from 4 to 10 per cent. This was to remain in force three years. On the i February, 1849, the scale was to be abolished, leaving only a nominal duty of one shilling a bushel. Immediately a large section of the Conservatives arose in revolt. Their real leader was Disraeli. Realizing, however, the magic of a noble name and powerful family connections in managing the Tory aristocracy, he chose as nominal chief Lord George Bentinck, a son of the Duke of Portland. Hitherto, Bentinck had been known 1 The proposal was published in the Times, 4 December, though Cabinet pro- ceedings were supposed to be secret. It was formerly believed that the informa- tion was extorted from Sidney Herbert by Mrs. Norton, granddaughter of Sheridan and a famous beauty, commonly regarded as the heroine of George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways. It is now known that the story was given out by Lord Aberdeen. 2 Usually he had been ready, as Sidney Smith put it, to undertake anything from commanding the Channel fleet to operating for stone. 94 6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND only as a racing man ; his education had been defective and he spoke with " dignified diffidence " ; but he showed an unbending courage, a power of hard work, and a dogged persistence which made up for limitations and neglected opportunities. Disraeli delighted his sup- porters and confounded his opponents by his sarcasm, his brilliant rhetoric, and his audacious party tactics. He denounced Peel " as a man who never originates an idea ; a man who takes his observations, and when he finds the wind in a particular quarter trims his sails to suit it," as " a trader on other people's intelligence ; a political burglar of other men's ideas." He led in the furious outcry that the Prime Minister had betrayed the Conservative party, and sought to obstruct his measures at every stage of their progress. The Protectionists were willing to accept a temporary suspension of the corn duties which Peel had framed as a special measure for meeting the Irish distress ; but they contended that there was no reason for a drastic free trade policy at the same time. " Never," asserted Bentinck, " was there a change of so extensive a character proposed on so slender a basis, and with so little cause shown." There was some hostility, on the part of special interests, to the proposals relating to raw materials and manufactures ; but Peel was able to show that every decrease of the duty had been followed by increase of business and employment. To the landed gentry, who were fighting so desperately against the repeal of the Corn Laws, his argument was that the welfare of the country and the very existence of the poor demanded cheap food and steady prices. After two months of struggle, both the Corn Bill and the Customs Bill passed the Commons, 15 May. Thanks to Welling- ton, who again showed his common sense in foreseeing the inevitable, the Lords yielded, 25 June. The Fall of Peel. Estimate of his Work. On the very same day " the Ministry which had carried to success the greatest piece of legisla- tion . . . since Lord Grey's Reform Bill," was overthrown. The distress in Ireland had so accentuated the unrest that a new coercion bill the eighteenth since the Union was introduced into the House of Lords in March. It passed the Upper House, but Disraeli, with the help of the Irish and Radical members, succeeded in defeating it in the Commons. Peel, in the speech announcing his resignation, 29 June, paid a generous tribute to Cobden 1 as the man to whom, more than any other, the removal of the duty on corn was due. The ex- tension of the free trade policy was fortunate in coming in on a wave of great material prosperity for England, and protection was soon abandoned as a political issue. A marvelous development followed. In addition to the recent legislation, many causes were operative, such as the final adjustment of the laborer to the factory system, wonderful improvements in machinery, and the phenomenal development of 1 Cobden worked and voted against the Coercion Bill, thus, by a curious irony of fate, contributing to overthrow the Prime Minister who had made possible the triumph of the cause to which he had devoted his life. EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 947 railway and steam traffic and the introduction of electricity. How- ever much Peel's measures may have contributed to the new era, he certainly understood and represented the commercial interests of the country better than any other Englishman of the century. He never came back to office ; but during the rest of his life headed an opposition band consisting of a few devoted followers known as the " Peelites." He died 2 July, 1850, as the result of a fall from his horse a few days before. For forty years he had been a member of the House of Com- mons, and for half that period he had led his party in office and in opposition. The son of a rich manufacturer, he had been educated in stanch Tory traditions at Harrow and at Oxford. He had an inexhaustible capacity for work. Though nervously or- ganized, fiery and sensitive by nature, he masked his natural disposi- tion under a cold reserve which made him seem artificial and pompous. While he could, with his few intimates, be humorous and genial, his power in the Cabinet and in Parliament was due to his mastery of detail and the weight of his reasoning rather than to any fervor of oratory. His public policy, if it exposed him at times to the charge of inconsistency, had a fundamental unity; namely, to preserve the existing Constitution so far as possible, yet, at the same time, to im- prove the condition of the country by progressive legislation. Bound by conservative tradition and lacking in imaginative foresight, he was open to new ideas, which on occasion led him to depart abruptly from his party allegiance, and resulted finally in producing a split in the Conservative ranks. But, both in 1829 and in 1845, he resigned, and only resumed office when the Opposition had failed to form a Government to carry the measures which he regarded as indispen- sable. He was always ready to sacrifice himself and his party to the public good. His monument endures in the revival of the specie pay- ments of 1819 ; the reform of the criminal code, 1823 ; Roman Catholic emancipation, 1829; the improvement of the banking system, 1844; the reduction of the tariff in 1842 and 1846, and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Judged both by his work and his character, he ranks as the foremost statesman of his generation. Foreign Affairs. The Opium War, 1840-1842. Under Grey and Melbourne the control of foreign affairs was in the hands of Palmers- ton. His policy was marked by an aggressive sympathy with liberal and national movements against despotism. The more con- ciliatory Aberdeen, who succeeded to the Foreign Office under Peel, inherited wars with Afghanistan and China, disputes with the United States, and strained relations with France. The war with China is one of the most discreditable in British history ; for, however great the provocation which led Great Britain to assume the offensive, the trouble really had its root in her attempt to force the opium trade upon the Chinese against the protestations of their Government and of such public opinion as there was in the Empire. ^ Palmerston 948 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tried to obscure the moral issue by insisting that the question was one of protecting the native-grown poppy and of preventing the export of bullion. Whatever their motives, the Chinese had absolutely prohibited the importation of the drug. Their general policy at this time was to exclude all foreign commerce so far as possible. Certain foreign merchants, however, from their headquarters in the island of Hong-Kong had been allowed to engage in a very restricted business with the neighboring city of Canton. In addition to this licensed trade considerable smuggling of opium had developed. Up to 1834 the monopoly of the China trade had been in the hands of the East India Company, which had kept both the recognized and the illicit traffic under reasonable control. With the cessation of the Company's exclusive privileges conditions got so bad that the British Government appointed officials to supervise the licensed commerce and to check the smuggling. But the Chinese refused to recognize these superin- tendents and treated them in a very high-handed fashion. This dis- cord gave the smugglers increased opportunities, from which they were not slow to profit. The Chinese, taking matters into their own hands, seized and destroyed some 20,000 chests of opium in the Canton River. Other causes of friction followed, and a British fleet was sent to the scene of action in 1840. The Chinese were finally brought to terms. By the treaty of Nankin, 26 August, 1842: (i) five ports, in- cluding Canton and Shanghai, were opened to British trade; (2) Hong- Kong was ceded outright ; and (3) 21,000,000 dollars was paid for the opium destroyed, for debts due to British merchants, and for a war indemnity. The Chinese, however, still refused to legalize the opium trade. Unhappily, owing to the fact that the growth and sale of the drug formed a chief source of the Indian revenue, the British Govern- ment would take no steps to stop the traffic, which went on for years unchecked. In other respects the commercial results of the treaty proved an advantage for both sides. Boundary Disputes with the United States Adjusted, 1842 and 1846. Chief among the outstanding disputes with the United States were those relating to the northeast and northwest boundaries. Lord Ashburton, sent on a special mission, was unable to settle the Oregon boundary, but managed to adjust the limits of northern Maine, which had been a subject of controversy since 1783. By the Ashburton Treaty a compromise was arranged. The United States accepted a line in northern Maine south of that which they had originally claimed ; but, by way of compensation, they received a clear title to Rouse's Point on Lake Champlain where they had built a fort, on the supposi- tion that it was within the limits of the United States, though a later and more accurate survey had shown that it was really in British territory. The question of the boundary west of the Rockies was not settled till 1846. Each country had conflicting claims based on discovery, exploration, and settlement. In 1818, they agreed to occupy the disputed territory jointly, and the northern boundary of the United EARLY YEARS OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 949 States was fixed at 49, between the Lake of the Woods and the Stony (Rocky) Mountains. 1 By the Florida Treaty of 1819 the United States acquired such claims as the Spanish had north of 42. In 1824, Russia gave up all claims south of 54 40'. The Anglo-American joint occupancy proved unsatisfactory, and by the Oregon Treaty as finally concluded, the boundary of 49 was extended from the Rockies as far as Vancouver Sound, and thence along the middle of the channel to the sea. The British thus secured the whole of Vancouver Island. The navigation of the Columbia River was to be free to both countries. Relations with France. The Spanish Marriages, 1846. Aber- deen, Peel's conciliatory Foreign Secretary, made an earnest effort to reestablish cordial relations with France, which had been severely strained by the Palmerstonian policy. 2 Louis Philippe, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert were all anxious to assist him. In spite of minor points of friction and hostile public feeling, which the press on both sides of the Channel strove to inflame, the two countries seemed on the road to a cordial understanding when the French King took a step which resulted in new and increased estrangement. It was well known that he was anxious to extend his influence over the Spanish peninsula, and the rumor arose that he was designing to marry his fourth son, the Due d'Aumale to the young Queen Isabella. In 1843 he denied this, but admitted that his fifth son, the Due de Montpensier was to marry her sister. The British Government agreed to this plan, in view of his promise that the wedding should not take place until Isabella had been married and had produced an heir. The Spanish Queen Mother, Maria Christina, who acted as Regent, desired to have her elder daughter marry Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a cousin of Prince Albert. After Leopold's family, not without some reluctance, had discountenanced the plan, Palmerston, who on the fall of Peel had returned to the Foreign Office, wrote a dispatch press- ing Isabella to marry without delay. Among the three suitors whom he mentioned was Leopold. This unauthorized proceeding alarmed Louis Philippe, who without more ado arranged a match between the Spanish Queen and her kinsman the Duke of Cadiz, and provided that the Due de Montpensier should marry her sister the very same day. This was announced to the British Government, 2 September, 1846. In spite of all protests the Spanish marriages were celebrated 10 October. The action of Louis Philippe, though not wholly without excuse, was contrary to his promise. The British loudly accused him of bad faith, and never trusted him again during the two years that he remained on the throne. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See ch. LIII below. *The boundary to the Mississippi had been fixed by the treaty of 1783. In the interval between that date and 1818 the United States had acquired Louisiana. 2 Especially in the adjustment of a treaty between the Sultan of Turkey and Mehemet Ali of Egypt who had recently been at war. CHAPTER LII THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE AND THE BEGIN- NING OF A NEW PERIOD OF WAR (1846-1856) The First Russell Ministry, 1846-1852. Temporary Measures for Irish Relief. Although Russell, who succeeded Peel, came to office with only a minority party at his back, the Conservatives were so divided between the Peelites and the Protectionists that he was able to get a footing and to hold on for nearly six years. His first pressing problem was to relieve the destitution and to deal with the disturbances in Ireland. The misery was accentuated by a second potato blight in 1846. Father Mathew records that, on a journey from Dublin to Cork early in August, he : " beheld with sorrow one wild waste of putrefying vegetation. Stupor and despair fell upon the people. In many places the wretched men were seated on the fences of their decaying gardens wringing their hands, and wailing bitterly at the destruction which had left them foodless." Peel had hurried a supply of Indian corn to the stricken country and had ad- vanced, on the part of the Government, a considerable sum for em- ploying the people on public works. The debt was to be assumed partly by the State and partly by the localities. The terms of the loan proved so easy that the landlords took advantage of them to improve their estates, and Peel's plan was soon abandoned. Russell started a new system of public works, providing that the money should be repaid by the localities within ten years at 3^ per cent. His system, too, proved ineffective and extravagant. The employment selected was usually the building of roads which led nowhere : light work and certain wages attracted men from necessary employments, and the numbers, swelling from 100,000 in October, 1846, to 734,000 in March, 1847, became so unmanageable that this system also had to be given up. Furthermore, in accordance with the prevailing laissez- faire policy of the Government, food depots were not opened while food could be sold at a reasonable price. Consequently, speculators throve and the people starved. After something had been done by volunteer committees, Russell, early -in 1847, provided a system for the free dispensation of food, supplied partly from Government funds and partly from local rates. This system, which proved effective, was continued till the harvest season of 1847. In addition the Corn Laws and the Navigation Laws were temporarily suspended, during 1846 and 1847. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 951 Permanent Measures. These devices, necessary as they were, tended to pauperize the Irish. Consequently, the Government under- took to frame more permanent measures for stimulating enterprise and developing the country as well as assisting the needy. The evils resulting from unrestricted competition in rents, tenure-at-will, and arbitrary evictions were left untouched. Also, a proposal for reclaiming waste lands and selling them in small lots was defeated. Bentinck proposed a Government appropriation of 16,000,000 for railways, from which companies were to receive an advance of 200 for every 100 expended. It was questionable, however, whether such a large sum could be employed to the best advantage in this way in a country that was mainly agricultural rather than commercial. However that may be, only 620,000 was appropriated. Considerable sums, however, were advanced for draining and improv- ing estates. Also, the Poor Law was altered by a provision that, when the poorhouses were full, outside relief should be given and paid for from a rate levied on the landlords and tenants. The Lords re- jected one essential clause providing that, when the rates exceeded 25. 6d. in any district, the excess would be charged to the union in which the districts were grouped. The evil result followed that the needy in the overburdened areas were evicted to get rid of them. The Encumbered Estates Act of 1848, equally well meant, was equally unfortunate in its results. The object was to enable impoverished landlords to sell out to those who were financially able to work the estates. As a rule, the tenants suffered from the change ; since most of the new proprietors were greedy capitalists seeking to wring the utmost farthing from their investment. While the progress of starvation was gradually checked, the effects of the famine ran their course. The mortality due to fever and suffering was dreadful. Murder and violence increased so alarmingly that the Liberals, who in opposition had helped to defeat Peel's Coercion Bill, were reduced to passing one of their own, December, 1847. Conditions were ripe for revolt when a series of revolutions on the Continent precipitated an abortive Irish rising. A Year of European Revolutions, 1848. As in 1789 and in 1830 the movement started in Paris. It resulted in the expulsion of Louis Philippe from the throne and the establishment of a short-lived republic. Revolutions followed in Germany, in Italy, and in Austro- Hungary. Liberalism or nationality, in some cases both, furnished the guiding aim. The Pope, driven from Rome, was restored by French troops who remained in occupation of the city from 1849 to 1870. The object was to counteract the Austrians, who possessed Lombardy and Venetia and dominated Italy. The northern Italians made a vain effort to drive out their masters, and had to struggle for nearly a quarter of a century before they attained their hope of a united and independent country. Nor were the attempts in the direction of German unity successful at this time, although constitu- 952 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tional gains were made in some of the separate states. Palmers ton favored the Italians in their struggle to recover Lombardy and Venetia from the Austrians. It was largely through his advice that the Austrian Emperor, Ferdinand, abdicated, 2 December, 1848, in favor of his eighteen year old nephew, Francis Joseph. The Young Ireland Rising, 1848. The French example and the hope of French assistance converted the Young Ireland party into a body of rebellious conspirators. They had chosen as their leader William Smith O'Brien, a Protestant of wealth and ancient lineage, who originally supported O'ConnelFs policy of peaceful agitation. He was honest, courageous, and patriotic, but lacked the decision and the personal magnetism necessary to head a successful revolt. He failed in a mission to Paris where he went for aid, and in the spring of 1848 was arrested, together with several other conspirators, including Meagher and Mitchell. In the trial that followed, Mitchell, editor of The United Irishmen, and the most violent of the Young Ireland party, was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. O'Brien and Meagher were acquitted. Thereupon, they and the other leaders planned a rising in August. Before they had completely organized their forces they were scattered by the police, 29 July, in an engagement known as the " Widow McCormack's potato patch." After a period of hiding, O'Brien reappeared. Together with Meagher and a few of the other ringleaders he was sentenced to death for high treason, a sentence afterwards committed to exile. Danger of revolution ceased for the time being; but the misery and discontent which had fo- mented it remained. The Collapse of the Chartists, 1848. Aside from the abortive Irish rising, the only other effect of the rebellions of 1848 which the British Government had to face was a revival of Chartism, and that was to some extent due to a threatened financial crisis of the pre- vious year which drove many out of employment. The movement had been moribund for many years, in spite of the busy agitation of Feargus O'Connor. Early in 1848, meetings began to be held in the large towns, and a petition was circulated which received thousands of signatures. On 4 April, a convention was opened in London. A plan was adopted to assemble at Kensington Common on the loth, to march in procession to Parliament, and present the monster petition. The Duke of Wellington, commissioned by the Government to guard against insurrection, caused 170,000 constables 1 to be sworn in and held the regular troops in readiness. In view of these preparations, O'Connor, losing his courage, gave up the procession and urged his followers to disperse. The petition was sent in three cabs. Pur- porting to contain 5,000,000 names, less than half that number were found by actual count. Many, too, were fictitious ; among the most 1 Among those who volunteered was the nephew of Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, then in exile, who was destined soon to become President and later Emperor of the French. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 953 numerous were those of Victoria and Wellington, while the names of characters in popular novels appeared frequently. Led by visionaries, distracted by conflicting aims, discredited by the violence of the extremists, and rendered ridiculous by a final futile demonstration, the Chartist movement at length collapsed. Nevertheless, it was fos- tered by real distress, it was joined by many honest workmen, and most of its demands have since become the law of the land. The " Papal Aggression," 1850. Owing to the generally prosper- ous condition of the country and the divisions in the opposing ranks, the Russell Ministry had comparatively smooth sailing until 1850. Then crises began to develop, and though the Ministry hung on for two more years, the latter end of its term was but labor and heaviness. The trouble started with the so-called " Papal Aggression." Im- pressed by the fact that a few men of note had gone over to Rome in consequence of the Oxford Movement, 1 the Pope and the Vatican had hopes that the time was ripe for the conversion of England. To that end, a papal bull was issued, in 1850, setting up a hierarchy of bishops in England who should derive their titles from English sees created by the bull. Hitherto, Roman Catholic bishops sent to that country had been known as bishops in partibus infidelium. Deriving their titles from extinct dioceses in Asia Minor, they had been regarded as missionaries dwelling in a land of unbelievers. Cardinal Wiseman was made head of the new hierarchy, which was to consist of twelve associates or suffragans. While to many it was a matter of indiffer- ence whether the new prelates had English or Asiatic titles, numbers of good people, who had viewed with apprehension the Romeward tendency of the high Anglican party, were convinced that Pius LX was seizing the opportunity to attempt to extend the spiritual arm of the Church of Rome over the whole of Great Britain. Wiseman fed the excitement by an injudicious pastoral letter addressed to the English people, 7 October, 1850, in which he said, among other things, that: " Catholic England has been restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament from which its light had long vanished." Then Russell added fuel to the flames by a famous letter to the Bishop of Durham denouncing the Pope's assumption of authority as " inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as asserted even in the Roman Catholic times." He declared, further, that " the danger within the gates from unworthy sons of the Church of England herself " was more alarming than anything to be apprehended from Rome. He scored what he was pleased to call their " mummeries of superstition," which, he declared, the mass of the people looked on with contempt, " scorning the laborious endeavors which are now making to confine the intellect and enslave the soul." In spite of his assur- ances that he was referring to the extreme Anglicans, the Roman 1 For the Oxford Movement, see below, p. 1040. 954 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Catholics resented this denunciation as directed against their own faith and ceremonial. The day after the letter appeared was Guy Fawkes's Day, which furnished the occasion for parading effigies of the Pope and Wiseman, for bonfires and other wild demonstrations in London and elsewhere. Resolutions from tumultuous meetings and floods of petitions addressed to the Queen and the Ministers called for urgent action. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 1851. Curiously enough, the Prime Minister who had done so much to stir the popular prejudice was one of the leading advocates of religious freedom in his generation. After all, neither he nor his colleagues after calling attention to the threatened danger, wanted to undertake repressive legislation. In order, however, to allay the excitement and possibly to discourage further papal activity in England, Russell, early in 1851, introduced the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. 1 It forbade, under penalty; the assump- tion by Roman Catholics of titles taken from any territory or place within the United Kingdom, and pronounced void anything done under such titles. This measure was denounced by both parties, by the one be- cause it went too far, by the other because it did not go far enough. A prominent Radical described it as : " one of the meanest, pettiest, and most futile measures that ever disgraced bigotry itself." Owing to the difficulty of applying it to Ireland, 2 and finding it impossible to carry a bill which treated that country differently from England, the Ministry was obliged to modify the original measure until it amounted to no more than a " mere declaration against the assumption of unlawful titles." During the discussion, the Government was defeated by a snap vote on a motion relating to an extension of the borough franchise to the counties. Russell resigned, but returned to office after both the Conservatives and the Peelites proved unable to form a Cabinet. After the secession of some seventy Irish members he introduced certain clauses into the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill that were more stringent than those he had just withdrawn. So it finally passed, but it remained a dead letter, and was repealed in 1871, after all interest in the matter had ceased. The Great Exhibition, 1851. During the year 1851 attention was drawn from politics toward a remarkable undertaking for which Prince Albert was chiefly responsible. This was an exhibition of the industries of all nations the first of along series to follow, which have done so much to bring peoples of different nations together, to widen their horizon by travel and mutual acquaintance, 3 and to further in- dustrial and artistic progress. The Great Exhibition was held in 1 Punch had a cartoon representing Russell as a small boy chalking "No Popery" on the wall of a public building, and running away. 2 There the Roman Catholic prelates had native titles. 3 One of the many curious objections urged against the plan was that it would bring an influx of foreigners who would inundate the country with "Popery" and immorality. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 955 Hyde Park from May i to 15 October, during which period it was attended by over 6,000,000 visitors. One of the most picturesque features was the Crystal Palace, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, which is still standing at Sydenham, whither it was subsequently removed. Contrary to expectation, considerable profits accrued from the venture, and the funds were employed in building the South Kensington Mu- seum. In one respect hopes aroused were disappointed. Victoria referred to the Exhibition as " the greatest triumph of peace the world has ever seen," and it was predicted confidently that it would mark an era in the cause of international peace. Nevertheless, the first con- tinental war in forty years soon broke out, and was followed by a long and frequent series of European conflicts. The Palmerstonian Policy. The irrepressible Palmerston had a remarkable gift for sensing and voicing English public opinion in foreign affairs ; but by his jaunty aggressiveness, his habit of scolding other governments and meddling in their affairs and by his ten- dency to follow his own bent, he was constantly stirring up trouble abroad and embarrassing the Queen and the Cabinet. The situation was complicated from the fact that Prince Albert was peculiarly interested in foreign policy to which he devoted much attention, while Palmerston treated his views with open contempt when he did not ignore them altogether. The Prince and the Queen, though they accepted the constitutional system in England and would not have objected to seeing it adopted voluntarily by European sovereigns, were firm supporters of existing dynasties particularly those of Germany with which they had close family connections and shud- dered at violent attacks on them. Palmerston's attitude was hope- lessly at variance with theirs. He was a strenuous advocate of liberal and national movements abroad and went to the point of encouraging, or at least condoning revolution. He favored Italian unity and had little sympathy for the reigning Houses, either of Austria or Germany. Not only his policy but his manner of proceeding was intolerable to his sovereign and her consort. In 1848, without consulting them, he 'sent a mandate to the Spanish Government to liberalize its institu- tions, a proceeding which led to the recall of the British ambassador. The Don Pacifico Case, 1847-1850. His action in the celebrated Don Pacifico ease brought Great Britain for the third time since the beginning of the reign to the verge of war with France, and for a mo- ment even threatened a general European conflict. 1 A keen party struggle resulted in England from which Palmerston emerged trium- phant and with the reputation of being one of the most effective de- baters in the House of Commons. Don Pacifico was a Jew of Portu- 1 The first danger arose in 1840-1841 when Great Britain was supporting Tur- key in a struggle with Mehemet Ali of Egypt who was backed by France. Palm- erston concluded an alliance with Austria, Russia, and Prussia to the exclusion of France. The latter country was forced to submit and to desert the Viceroy of Egypt. The second difficulty was that relating to the Spanish Marriages. 956 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND guese extraction who had moved to Athens from Gibraltar where he had lived as a British subject. In an Easter demonstration, in 1847, his house had been sacked by an Athenian mob. Instead of appealing to the Greek law courts, he claimed the protection of the British Government. Palmerston had a feeling that Russia and France, who were joined by treaty with Great Britain for guarding the independence of Greece, were in league, through their ambassadors, against British interests. Certainly, in more than one instance, the Greeks had dis- regarded the rights of British subjects. So, without consulting his allies, he sent a fleet to the Piraeus which seized such Greek vessels as came within reach. Nevertheless, the French Government pro- ceeded to friendly intervention ; but, while the French and British representatives were arranging one set of terms in London, the British minister at Athens forced another upon the Greeks, extorting much harder concessions. In the House of Lords, the Opposition led by Stanley introduced a resolution which amounted to a vote of censure. This was followed by a counter-resolution in the Commons asserting that the principles of the Government's foreign policy were " such as were calculated to maintain the honor and dignity of the country." Palmers ton's speech on the motion was a general defense of his whole foreign policy. Occupying five hours and delivered without a single note, it was a remarkable achievement. With regard to Don Pacifico, he declared that he had acted on the principle that any one who bore the name of Englishman was entitled to protection. Working up to a passionate climax, he left the House to decide " whether, as the Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say civis Romanus sum, so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong." It was a telling appeal to British pride. It mattered little that Don Pacifico claimed damages that were ridiculously exorbitant. He did not get all he asked, though he recovered probably more than he had lost. The Queen's Memorandum to Palmerston, 12 August, 1850. Another source of friction in the British foreign relations was due to the fact that many continental sovereigns, thinking that the Queen was all-powerful, addressed their correspondence directly to her. When she conscientiously referred such communications as were of importance to Palmerston she usually received advice so inconsiderate and unconciliatory as to cause her pain. When Russell remonstrated with him for this, and for his tendency to act without consultation, he answered that the Queen showed " groundless uneasiness." The Prime Minister could not press him too far, since Palmerston 's popularity was the main support of the Government. After some delay and hesitation, Victoria, 12 August, 1850, sent the Foreign Secre- tary a memorial which should govern his conduct in the future. " She requires," it stated, " First, that the Foreign Secretary will dis- REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 957 tinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she has given her royal sanction. Second, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failure in sincerity toward the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign ministers before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse ; to receive foreign dispatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with the contents before they must be sent oft'." This request was reenforced by a further expression of the royal grievances and commands in an interview which Prince Albert held with Palmerston. The latter expressed seeming surprise that he had offended, made assuring promises for the future, but went on in his old way. It was not long before he gave the Queen an opportunity to dismiss him. His Resignation, 19 December, 1851. The Fall of the Russell Ministry, 21 February, 1852. On the 2 December, 1851, Louis Napoleon, the President of the French Republic, by a celebrated coup d'etat overthrew his opponents and made himself absolute head of the State. Although Palmerston was in general opposed to despotism, he hated the late Orleanist dynasty and had great confi- dence in Louis Napoleon. So, without consulting the Queen or his colleagues, he first expressed in a private conversation with Count Walewski, the French ambassador in London, his approval of what had been done and, 16 December, repeated his approval in an official dispatch to the British ambassador at Paris. Russell, on the other hand, announced a policy of neutrality, and asked for Palmers ton's resignation. The joy of Victoria and Albert proved as premature as it was unbounded. Russell practically killed his Ministry by the dismissal of Palmerston ; for the public believed with the latter that it was a " weak truckling to the hostile intrigues of the Orleanist family " and its supporters on the Continent. Indeed, unbearable as his conduct had been, it is at least an open question whether the demands of the Queen were not an encroachment on the recognized doctrine of ministerial responsibility. Within two months Palmers- ton succeeded in defeating the Government on the details of a militia bill. Writing to his brother he announced gleefully : " I have had my tit for tat with John Russell, and I turned him out on Friday last." Beyond throwing open the markets to foreign as well as colonial sugar and repealing the Navigation Acts, in 1849, the Russell Ministry had achieved little or nothing. The First Derby Ministry, February to December, 1852. Stanley, who on his father's death, in 1851, had become Earl of Derby, suc- ceeded to power for a few months. Since the Peelites refused to join him, he was obliged to pick mostly new men for his ministers. Disraeli 958 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND was rewarded with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leader- ship of the Commons. As a party leader he was unsurpassed, as a financial administrator he was brilliant and picturesque rather than solid. However, he was shrewd enough to realize that the country was too prosperous under freedom of trade to admit of the further re- tention of the doctrine of protection. So he abandoned it as a political issue. 1 In his budget, however, he sought to placate the farmers by reducing the assessment on their rentals and by cutting down the malt tax. At the same time, in the interests of the consumer, he proposed to lower the duty on tea, making good the deficit by an increase of the income tax. But his budget was defeated and the Government was forced to resign in December. On 14 September, 1852, the death of Wellington, at the age of eighty- three, removed from public life Great Britain's foremost subject, and broke one of the few remaining links with the past century. Except for the brief storm of opposition directed against him for his share in Catholic emancipation and his attitude on the Reform Bill, his popularity and influence with the Crown 2 and people alike were unique in English history. The Aberdeen or Coalition Ministry, 1852-1855. Russell was am- bitious to resume office as Prime Minister ; but was persuaded to see that it was impossible. At length, a combination of Whigs and Peelites was patched together under the leadership of Aberdeen. While the Peelites commanded only thirty votes in the Commons, the eminence and the ability of their leaders secured for them places in the Ministry out of all proportion to their numbers. Besides Aber- deen himself, Graham, Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle, and Sidney Herbert were all Peelites. The leading Whigs in the Ministry were Palmerston, Home Secretary, and Russell who became Foreign Secretary, 3 and leader of the House of Commons. Disraeli on the eve of his resignation had declared : " This I know, that England does not love coalitions." He proved a true prophet, but before the crisis came which manifested once more the weakness of such a galaxy of stars from different parties, the Aberdeen Ministry carried several good measures. Among them was the provision, 1853, that, except in cases where the sentence was fourteen years and over, penal servitude should be substituted for transportation. The practice had begun in 1717, and came to be regarded as a great grievance by the American Colonies. In 1787, criminals were first shipped to Botany Bay in New 1 Brougham wrote a little later: "We have lived to see the day when a real, genuine, uncompromising Protectionist could only find his proper place in one of our museums, among the relics of the ancient world or the specimens of extinct animals." 2 The Queen wrote in her diary: "One cannot think of this country without 'the Duke," our immortal hero. The Crown never possessed and I fear never will so devoted, loyal, and faithful a subject, so stanch a supporter. To us . . . his loss is irreparable, for his readiness to aid and advise." 8 He was soon succeeded in this office by Lord Clarendon. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 959 South Wales, afterwards many other parts of Australia and other islands in the South Pacific were also employed as penal settlements. They, too, protested, and an inquiry into the system proved that it was bad from almost every point of view. It was finally done away with altogether in 1857. Another step forward was the opening of the civil service to public competition. More important still, Glad- stone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced the first of a series of marvellous budgets which established his reputation as perhaps the ablest financier of the century. 1 He abolished duties on 124 articles and reduced those on 133 more, including tea. He extended the legacy duties ; but proposed to reduce the income tax as a preliminary step toward its total abolition. Before many months, however, Great. Britain was plunged into a European war which ruined all his calcula- tions. The Causes of the Crimean War. The Crimean War, which broke out in the spring of 1854, may be traced to three main causes: (i) the ambition of Louis Napoleon, who aimed to unite the French people in some great foreign enterprise ; (2) the designs of Nicholas I, who wanted to extend the Russian protectorate over the Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and to secure the outlet from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, which was under Turkish con- trol ; and (3) the necessity felt by Great Britain -to maintain the integrity of Turkey as a means of checking the Russian advance toward India. The trouble began with a quarrel over the question as to whether the Greek or the Latin churches should control the Holy Places in Palestine. By a treaty made with the Porte, in 1740, France had obtained for the Latin Church possession of all the sacred places then in Turkish hands. 2 Owing to the negligence of the French the Greek Christians, who were assiduous in pilgrimages and in the maintenance of the sacred shrines, gradually usurped the protectorate and secured their position by special permits from the Ottoman Government. The religious revival of the nineteenth century which followed the indifference and skepticism of the eighteenth, resulted in a desire on the part of many Frenchmen to enforce their treaty rights and to recover what they had lost. Louis Napoleon, in order to secure the support of this class, composed mostly of his political opponents, took up their cause. The Sultan in his desire to satisfy France without estranging Russia, who stood back of the Greek Christians, proceeded to define the powers of the two Churches in a different way to each of the States involved. The friction thus generated was increased by the contempt and aversion which Nicholas manifested for Louis's new title of Emperor of the French, assumed l lt was said that "he brought to his budget speeches an eloquence that brightened the driest details, and made the wilderness of figures to blossom like the rose." 2 They included the Great Church in Bethlehem, the Sanctuary of the Nativity, and portions of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 960 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in December, 1852. Instead of addressing him in the accustomed form, Monsier mon frere, he referred to him always as Mon cher ami. Such was the situation when Nicholas began to unveil his views about the future of Turkey. Already in June, 1844, he had, in a conversation with Aberdeen, referred to the Porte as a dying man and suggested that, in case of a break-up, Great Britain and Russia should be in agreement as to what policy to pursue. Now, in January, 1853, he renewed the subject with the British ambassador at St. Petersburg; but received no encouragement whatsoever. Great Britain Drawn into the War. Thus far Great Britain had not become involved in the quarrel, and Aberdeen was anxious to preserve peace. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, sent as British repre- sentative to Constantinople, was chiefly responsible for dragging his country into the war as a principal. He was a veteran in eastern di- plomacy, but such a declared opponent of Russian ambition that the Emperor had once refused to receive him as ambassador. Prince Menshikov, whom Nicholas chose as his agent in the Turkish nego- tiations, was a rough soldier who was equally uncompromising. He not only required a satisfactory settlement of the question of the cus- tody of the Holy Places, but demanded also that Russia should have a protectorate over all the Greek Christians in the Turkish dominions. Lord Stratford succeeded in separating the two questions ; and the first, which was the original point at issue, was quickly and successfully adjusted. The second demand Menshikov finally presented in the form of an ultimatum. In a sense it was very natural and reasonable ; the difficulty arose from the fact that the Greek Christians numbered fourteen millions, or a majority of the Sultan's subjects. As their protector the Tsar might easily become the dominant factor in Otto- man affairs. For that reason Turkey, acting under the advice of Lord Stratford, rejected the demand. Nicholas thereupon withdrew his ambassador, and though he did not at once declare war, he sent his troops to occupy the Danubian Principalities. The intervention of the British representative at Constantinople had brought matters to this acute stage. Aberdeen was still bent on conciliating Russia, though a powerful element in his Cabinet, headed by Russell, Palmers- ton and Newcastle, were in favor of forcing concessions, even by war if necessary. An attempt on the part of Great Britain, France, Austria, and Prussia to mediate proved unavailing. Russia insisted on the protectorate which could not be arranged in a way to satisfy the Turkish ideas of independence. At length, 24 October, 1853, the Turkish commander on the Danube threatened the Russians with war unless they evacuated the Principalities within fifteen days. Receiving an unsatisfactory reply, the Turks crossed the river and fighting began. On 30 November, the Russian fleet from Sebastopol attacked and destroyed a Turkish fleet at Sinope. Although hostili- ties had already opened, this so-called " massacre of Sinope " aroused great indignation among the majority of Englishmen. Events REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 961 moved rapidly. The French and British fleets entered the Black Sea. The Russian squadron refused to return to Sebastopol, and Nicholas replied to a letter from Louis Napoleon with the proud boast : " Russia will prove herself in 1854 what she was in 1812." An alliance was signed between Great Britain and France, 12 March, 1854, which was followed by a declaration of war on the 28th. Just as in 1739, a genera- tion ignorant of the horrors of war began with rejoicing in a combat which a pacific Prime Minister had striven to avert. The Opening of the Conflict. Gladstone, who had denounced Pitt's policy of providing for war by loans, 1 at once doubled the in- come tax and increased the duties on spirits, sugar, and malt. A joint French and British fleet was dispatched to the Baltic under Sir Charles Napier; but, in view of his boastful promises, the results were lamentably small. Neither he, nor his successor, Admiral Dundas, in the following year, succeeded in capturing their objective point, Cronstadt, the port of St. Petersburg and the great Russian naval sta- tion on the Baltic. An expedition sent, in August, 1854, against the seaport of Kamschatka in the north Pacific was equally unsuccessful. All this was most humiliating for England, the acknowledged sea power of the age. In this same month of August, 1854, Russia, owing to the effective resistance of the Turks and to the fact that Austria had moved a large force to the frontier, was obliged to withdraw her troops from the Principalities. It was an earlier refusal to do this which had brought on the war. Peace might now have been arranged ; but the British public would not hear of it until they had gained some notable victory over their adversary. Moreover, they feared that until Russia had been taught her lesson she was likely at any time to renew her demands against Turkey. The Opening of the Siege of Sebastopol, October, 1854. The great objective was Sebastopol, situated near the southwestern end of the Crimean peninsula. As the chief naval station and arsenal of the Russians, it was regarded as a dangerous menace to Turkey. The suggestion to attack it with a joint Anglo-French force may have come from Louis Napoleon, but it was enthusiastically welcomed by the British and approved by the Cabinet, 28 June, 1854.2 The in- vading army, which had been supporting the Turks on the northern frontier since May, did not land in the Crimea till 14 September. Already weakened by cholera, they were sent against a strong fortress at the verge of the winter season without adequate, supplies and with an insufficient siege train. Proceeding southward toward Sebastopol they were confronted by a Russian force under Menshikov drawn up along 1 "The system of raising funds necessary for wars by loans," he declared, " prac- tices wholesale, systematic, and continued deception on the people. The people do not really know what they are doing. The consequences are adjourned into a far future." 2 Kinglake, the great authority on the war, says that most of the Ministers were asleep when the final decision was taken ; but the question had been under discus- sion for some weeks. 3Q 962 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the southern bank of the river Alma across their line of march. They succeeded in forcing a passage on the 2oth, and in brushing aside their adversaries. Instead of pressing directly on Sebastopol they made the mistake of veering off toward the southeast. Thus the defenders had time to block the harbor with sunken men-of-war and to strengthen the town with new earthworks. The British established their base at Balaclava Bay, while the French took a position not far off. The siege opened 17 October. On the 25th, Menshikov was defeated in an attempt to secure control of the bay. The battle of Balaclava is fa- mous for the charge of the Light Brigade, 1 an heroic but fruitless under- taking based on a confusion of orders. Again, 5 November, the Rus- sians were defeated in an attack on Mount Inkerman. The Sufferings in the Crimea and the Fall of Aberdeen, 1854-1855. The British commander, Lord Raglan, decided to winter in the Crimea. On 14 November a heavy storm wrecked the transports which were bringing medicine, clothing, and food for the men, with hay for the horses as well. The roads from the bay to the camp were rendered impassable by snow and mud. The horses died from starva- tion, and transportation became impossible. Owing to these adverse conditions and to the clumsy and short-sighted policy of the British Administration, the troops dragged through a winter of misery and suffering. It was no new thing for armies to be subjected to such pri- vations ; but for the first time in history the horrible conditions were promptly reported to a sympathizing and indignant public at home. Sir William Howard Russell (1821-1907) of the London Times was the first of the special correspondents who have come to play such a part in modern warfare. Also, the conditions of the hos- pitals at Scutari, opposite Constantinople, were deplorable. Much of the blame has been laid at the door of the medical staff which would not inform the British representative of its needs. The dawn of happier times began with the arrival of Florence Nightingale (1820- 1910) as a hospital nurse. She was soon put in full charge of affairs. Although handicapped for some time by delays in transporting medi- cine and supplies, she introduced notable reforms. In March, 1855, the establishment of a new Sanitary Commission did wonders. The death rate fell from 31 to 14 per cent in two weeks, and by June was no more than 2. 2 Meantime, on the opening of Parliament in January, the Aberdeen Ministry was sharply attacked, and a motion was carried for the appointment of a committee : " to inquire into the condition of our army before Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those depart- ments of the Government whose duty it has been to minister to the 1 "C'est magnifique, mats ce n'est pas la guerre," was the comment of the French General Bosquet. Tennyson has immortalized the incident in his famous poem. 2 Miss Nightingale during her long life rendered incomparable service in hospital management, in the training of nurses, and improving conditions of camp life. Another notable advance was the foundation of the Red Cross Society to carry out the ideals of the Geneva Convention of 1864. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE 963 wants of that army." This led first to the retirement of Russell, and, shortly after, to that of the whole Cabinet. Aberdeen was too kindly a soul for such stirring times, and lacked the force necessary to make his divided colleagues act in harmony. After trying all other possibilities in vain, the Queen was at length obliged to turn to her old enemy Palmerston. The First Palmerston Ministry, February, 1855, to February, 1858. The findings of the commission of inquiry did not constitute a very serious indictment against the late Administration. The worst it could say was that " no provision had been made for a winter cam- paign," and that the Crimean expedition had been " planned and undertaken without sufficient information and conducted without suffi- cient care or foresight." It was felt that the existing system was too cumbersome ; in consequence, the Secretary at War and the Board of Ordnance were abolished, while the civil and military administra- tion were concentrated in the Secretary for War 1 and the Commander- in-Chief, respectively. In January the Franco-British alliance was strengthened by the adhesion of Piedmont. The end of the war was hastened by the death of Nicholas I, 2 March, 1855. He had counted much on the hardships of a Russian winter or, as he expressed it, on the two generals " January and February " to fight for him. The failure of his hopes apparently broke his heart. Shortly after the accession of his son, Alexander II, the Russians agreed to join in a congress with France, Great Britain, and Austria, which was opened at Vienna, 1 5 March. It came to nothing, owing to Russia's refusal to give up her preponderance in the Black Sea, and to renounce her claim to a protectorate over the Greek Christians. There was nothing for it but to reduce her to a conformable attitude. The Fall of Sebastopol, n September, 1855. Great Britain's ex- penditures swelled so enormously she had to join France in con- tributing a subsidy to Piedmont and in guaranteeing a loan to Turkey that she had to resort to a loan and to exchequer bills. Operations before Sebastopol were pushed with vigor, but for a time with no great success. The British, in an attack on the defense known as the Redan, were thrown back, June, 1855. Lord Raglan, who had borne with stoical calm the fire of criticism directed against the blunders and mishaps of his army as well as the sufferings to which it had been sub- jected, was greatly cast down by this reverse, and succumbed to cholera on the 28th. He was succeeded by General Simpson. Shortly before, the French got their first capable commander General Pelissier. After investing Sebastopol all summer the Allies made a supreme effort, 8 September. In an assault that was preceded by a three days' cannonade the British captured the Redan only to lose it again. The French, however, were successful in securing the Malakoff Tower 1 The Secretary at War was not one of the principal Secretaries of State. He was a sort of superfluous official who acted as a channel of communication between the War Office and the Ministry. 964 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND which commanded all the surrounding works. Realizing that further resistance was hopeless, the Russian commander destroyed the re- maining fortifications and retreated. Sebastopol had held out for nearly a year. In spite of the draining of their resources and the loss of their chief arsenal, the Russians were still able to maintain armies in the field, while they even gained a slight compensating advantage when the fortress of Kars in Asia Minor surrendered to their arms after a sustained and heroic defense. Moreover, Napoleon III, realizing that his subjects were regarding with growing disfavor a war waged in alliance with the British, once more lent an ear to Austria who was anxious to arrange terms of peace. The British public were anxious to continue fighting in the hope of gaining a signal victory that would wipe out the memory of the bungling and reverses of their troops. Nevertheless, the Government agreed to participate in a peace congress which met at Paris in February, 1856. The Peace of Paris, 30 March, 1856. Lord Clarendon, Great Britain's leading representative, was disgusted with Napoleon's pliant attitude. " The Emperor of Russia," he declared, " must be overflowing with generosity and self-abnegation if he offers good terms to a people so ready to take bad ones as the French." But he struggled hard, and, backed by Austria, he secured better terms for the Allies than Napoleon would have stood out for. On 30 March, 1856, the Treaty of Peace was signed by Russia, Great Britain, Turkey, Austria, and Prussia, the latter power having been admitted to the Conference after it was already under way. The chief terms were as follows : (i) Russia and Turkey agreed to a mutual restoration of territories. (a) The independence and integrity of Turkey were guaranteed, together with her recognized place among European powers. (3) A charter recently issued by the Sultan providing for the protection of his Christian subjects, with the proviso that European nations should not interfere, was confirmed. (4) The Black Sea and the Dardanelles were neutralized and closed to ships of war, while both Russia and Turkey were prohibited from maintaining arsenals along the coast. (5) The navigation of the Danube was placed under an international commission and the Russian boundaries were read- justed to exclude her from its banks. (6) The Principalities of Wal- lachia, Moldavia, 1 and Servia were to have an independent adminis- tration under the suzerainty of the Sultan, guaranteed by the Powers collectively. The Conference also subscribed to the " Declaration of Paris " which marks an epoch in the progress of international law. It provided that : (i) privateering should be abolished ; (2) a neutral flag should cover an enemy's goods except contraband of war ; (3) neutral goods, except contraband of war, even under an enemy's flag, should be exempt from capture ; (4) blockades to be binding must be effective. The United States did not come into this agreement because 1 Later united to form the Kingdom of Rumania. they refused to abolish privateering, unless all private property, other than contraband of war, should be free from capture. As to the Peace itself, there was, according to one of the French negotiators, " nothing to show which was the conqueror and which the conquered." Lord Derby stated that he accepted it " without opposition and without enthusiasm." The immediate occasion of the war, the custody of the Holy Places, had been settled before the outbreak of hostilities. While the designs of Russia on the integrity of Turkey were checked for some years to come, Great Britain got very little for all the lives she had sacrificed 1 and for the 77,000,000 which she had spent. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See ch. LIII below. 1 It is estimated that the war cost at least 600,000 lives, to which the British contributed 20,000 at the lowest estimate. The Queen in June, 1856, instituted the Victoria Cross to be given to soldiers and sailors of conspicuous valor. In 1896 she founded the Royal Victorian Order to be conferred on those who had rendered signal public services to her and her heirs. CHAPTER LIII THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME AND THE END OF AN EPOCH (1857-1865) British Relations with India. Wellesley's Annexations, 1798-1805. - The Peace of Paris was followed by difficulties with the United States over the enlistment of American citizens in the British army during the Crimean War, but timely concessions prevented a rupture. Also, Great Britain had to face a Persian advance against Afghanistan. This movement, which was regarded as a part of Russian intrigue, with India as the ultimate goal, was successfully repulsed in the spring of 1857. A war with China which began in the same year was not concluded until i860, 1 largely owing to mutiny in India, which threat- ened the very existence of the British Indian Empire. Since the pas- sage of Pitt's India Bill, in 1784, the British rule had been extended throughout the whole peninsula. Many reforms had been effected, though consequent encroachments upon native independence and native prejudice had been bitterly resented. Ill feeling was accen- tuated by various causes. Having once intervened, Great Britain and the East India Company were constantly obliged, often against their will, to conquer new territories in order to secure those which they already held. Moreover, the British administrators, while in general men of the best intentions, were often overbearing and maladroit. Lord Mornington, later Marquis of Wellesley, who went out as Governor-General in 1798, has been called the " second father of the Indian Empire." 2 By his orders, Mysore was divided up and placed 1 It was occasioned by the fact that the Chinese authorities had, in October, 1856, seized for piracy the lorcha Arrow sailing under a British flag. While the vessel had no claim to British protection, Palmerston took the matter up and forced the Chinese to yield. Then a new complication arose, owing to the refusal of the Chinese Governor of .Canton to admit British merchants to that port, ac- cording to the terms of the Treaty of 1842. The British, aided by the French, bombarded and captured the city, but the authorities at Peking remained blandly indifferent. It was necessary to capture twice the forts guarding the Peiho River, which leads to the Imperial capital, and to pillage and burn the Emperor's wonder- ful summer palace before the Allies obtained the ratification of the Treaty of Peking, 24 October, 1860. While the Chinese were not to blame in the first instance, they were guilty of wrong-headedness and treachery in the conflict that followed. They were forced to pay an indemnity of 300,000 taels, to admit British consuls to the treaty ports, as well as a British representative at Peking. Also, the emigration of Chinese coolies was placed on a recognized footing, a proceeding which opened up grave problems for the future. 2 Clive is known as the father of the Indian Empire. 966 THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 967 under a British protectorate, and he annexed the Carnatic and other districts, thus extending the British rule practically over the whole coast from the southeast to the southwest. He forced the Nizam of Haida- rabad to cede vast territories and he secured from the Nawab Wazir of Oudh the whole frontier of that state as the price of protection from the Afghans and the Marathas. Next, he took up the cause of the Peshwa of Poonah, who was at feud with various Maratha chieftains who were the terror of central India. In the course of the struggle the British took Delhi and assumed the guardianship of the Mogul Empire, as well as obtaining large cessions of territory at the close of the war. Welles- ley resigned in 1805, when the Home Government ceased to support him against the Company. The Reforms of Bentinck, 1828-1835. Neither the Government nor the Company were in favor of further territorial expansion ; but the logic of events and the ambition of governors resulted in annexa- tions, protectorates, and subsidiary treaties at more or less regular inter- vals. Following Wellesley's example, Lord Moira (I8I3-I823) 1 was particularly active in this work. Though he disregarded the rights of native rulers, his acquisitions have been justified on the ground that they were aimed to check disorder and oppression. Under his suc- cessor, Amherst, occurred the first Burmese war (1824-1826), with the consequent annexation of a considerable district east of Bengal. The rule of Lord William Bentinck 2 (1828-1835) was marked by great reforms. He abolished the sati (suttee), or the practice of burning Hindu widows on the funeral piles of their husbands. Also, he sup- pressed the Thagi, or thugs, a secret society of robbers and murderers. In addition, he greatly increased the Indian revenue, chiefly by a reassessment of rent in the northwest provinces and by a license duty on opium growers, while at the same time reducing the expenses of the administration. He made English the official language of the country and sought to foster the education of the natives in English ways. The Anglo-Indians resented his revision of the " batta," or official allowances, as well as his extension of the recently established custom of employing natives in the public service. On the whole, however, his rule was peaceful and prosperous. Meantime, the func- tions of the Company had been greatly curtailed. In 1813 its trading monopoly was confined to China, and in 1833 even that was taken away. All that remained to the Company was such political and admin- istrative powers as had been provided for in the act of 1784. About this time the ease of communication with Great Britain was greatly facilitated by substituting in place of the old sea route around the Cape of Good Hope a new one by way of the Mediterranean to Alexandria, thence overland to Suez and thence by the Red Sea. Steamships were introduced in 1845, and the Suez Canal was cut in 1869. These various changes have shortened the trip from four months to three weeks. 1 Created Marquis of Hastings in 1816. 2 Uncle of the protectionist leader. 9 68 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Auckland's Fatal Expedition to Afghanistan, 1838-1842. Under Lord Auckland (1835-1844) the British met with a great humiliation. Russia was thus early seeking to extend her influence in Afghanistan, and Persia was assisting her advance. Auckland suspected Dost Muhammad, the Afghan emir at Kabul, of complicity. So, in Octo- ber, 1 83 8, he proclaimed his deposition and set up in his place the repre- sentative of a rival line whom he supported by a British army. The natives submitted for a time ; but late in 1841 they rose in revolt. General Elphinstone, in January, 1842, signed a humiliating treaty and agreed to evacuate Kabul. The retreat proved one of the most disastrous in British annals. Subjected to increasing attacks, only one man survived out of a force of 4500 fighting men and 10,000 fol- lowers. Auckland was recalled, and when, in November, 1841, Lord Ellenborough started to India as his successor, only three garrisons one of which subsequently surrendered were holding out in Afghan- istan. Sir George Pollock succeeded in relieving them. Then, having persuaded Ellenborough, who had ordered him to withdraw, to allow him full discretion, he marched on Kabul. He took the city, 16 Sep- tember, 1842, recovered the surviving women and children, and mar- ried officers who by special exemption had not joined in the retreat, and returned to India in triumph. The rule of the boastful and irrepressible Ellenborough was also notable for the annexation in 1843 of Sind the country in the valley of the lower Indus. This was an act of aggression due to victories of General Napier, who described it as a " very advantageous, useful, and humane piece of rascality." The Sikh Wars and the Aggressive Policy of Dalhousie. Under Ellenborough's successor, Sir Henry (later Viscount) Hardinge (1844- 1848), occurred the first war with the Sikhs, a military and religious sect the Puritans among the Hindus who had developed a great confederacy in the Upper Punjab, northeast of Sind. The Sikhs proved to be the most redoubtable foes which Great Britain ever encountered in India. As a result of the first war (1845-1846), although they were by no means conquered, they agreed " to modify their warlike organization " and to receive a British resident in their capital of Lahore. In the second war, which came during the adminis- tration of the Earl (later Marquis) of Dalhousie (1848-1856), the Sikhs were crushed after making a strong fight, and the Punjab was annexed. Curiously enough, these warlike enthusiasts soon grew to be Great Brit- ain's most loyal and devoted subjects. Dalhousie vastly extended the area of British rule by a series of notable annexations. An able, ener- getic ruler, his only defect was lack of imagination. Convinced that the British system was infinitely more enlightened and efficient than that of the natives, he failed to realize how it might run counter to their sentiments and prejudices. In 1852, as a result of the second Burmese war, he incorporated Lower Burma. Perhaps his most mo- mentous step was the annexation of Oudh, in February, 1856. Here, it V$&3r%&> o c INDIA IN 1857 Sr/fwA Dominions 1 < Protected States \ I Independent States I I /renc/i I 1 Portuguese I 1 ENGLISH MILES | THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 969 should be said, he followed the Company's wishes rather than his own. The native government was ineffective, oppressive, and corrupt. On the other hand, the transaction was not only badly managed, but in- volved the revocation of Wellesley's treaty of 1801 with a wazir whose successors had always been loyal to Great Britain. It aroused an apprehension among the other native princes which was increased by the Governor-General's announcement that the British would take possession of all states where the ruler was without natural heirs. This was a new policy, quite at odds with a well-established Indian law and practice of adopting successors. Following the proclamation several of the Maratha states were taken over, and Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the ex-Peshwa, was deprived of his pension, a proceed- ing for which he later took a fiendish revenge. Also, the Mogul at Delhi was informed that he could not hand on the titles and revenues which his degenerate line had long enjoyed. All this contributed to prepare the way for the Indian Mutiny, which came as a sudden shock to the British people just after they had finished celebrating the centenary of Plassey, 23 June, 1857. The Causes of the Indian Mutiny, 1857. The causes of the Mutiny were many and complex " a combination of military griev- ances, national hatred, and religious fanaticism" which culminated suddenly against the English occupation of India. There w r ere all sorts of elements of discontent inflamed by busy agents of sedition. The exiled agent of Oudh was at Calcutta, and more than two thirds of the Sepoys, or native soldiers, who made up the Bengal army were of his province. The claimant of the Peshwa was nursing his grievances at Bithoor. The innovations, reforms, and inventions of more than two decades had aroused the superstitious fears of the people, es- pecially of the Brahmins, who cherished their caste system and their other traditions with peculiar jealousy. Owing to the activity of the missionaries, and the sympathy accorded them, perhaps too zealously, by many of the officials and soldiers, the belief got abroad that Chris- tianity was to be imposed by force or trickery on the reluctant country. Then the time seemed peculiarly ripe. The miscarriages in Afghanis- tan had encouraged the disaffected to believe that their masters were not invulnerable. Moreover, the Crimean War had been a heavy drain on British resources, while the conflict with China began to draw to a head before terms of peace had been concluded with Persia, whose Shah was united in a close religious bond with the Mohammedan Mogul at Delhi. Owing to these various wars successive contingents had been withdrawn till only 45,000 Europeans remained in the Indian army, while the native troops aggregated nearly 300,000, a dispropor- tion of numbers well calculated to encourage disaffection. Nev.erthe- less, it has never been determined whether the Sepoy revolt, which began the outbreak, was a spontaneous movement or whether it was the result of a long and carefully organized conspiracy. InFebruary, 1856, the masterful Dalhousie was succeeded by Viscount 970 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Canning, 1 a man of a most conciliatory attitude. His arrival, however, instead of averting the trouble, was followed by a series of measures which brought it to a head. The land system in Oudh was approximated to the English model, and many of the native Zamindars, who farmed the taxes of whole villages, were removed. Sepoy recruits from the province spread the disquieting news. The army was a hot-bed of discontent. More and more the natives had been excluded from the chance of promotion. The discontent was greatest in the Bengal army, where the privates, who were Brahmins or other high-caste Hindus, hated to render obedience to officers whom they regarded as inferiors. Formerly, they had been privileged over the Bombay and Madras armies made up of more miscellaneous elements by exemption from service beyond the seas. Canning, however, i Sep- tember, 1856, issued a " general service order " which deprived them of this exemption. Since the Brahmins might not cook upon the " black water," this meant, if they were sent across to Burma, they would have to subsist on parched grain. The order was further resented as another blow at the caste system. But the spark which finally caused the explosion resulted from the introduction of the Enfield rifle in place of the old musket. The new weapon was loaded with greased cartridges which had to be torn with the teeth before they were in- serted in the gun barrel. Rumor declared that the grease was com- posed of cow's fat and pig's lard. This infuriated both the Moham- medans, to whom the pig was an unclean beast, and the Hindus, who worshiped the cow as sacred. In vain the Government offered assurances that the rumor was untrue. Many, however, have re- garded the greased cartridges as a godsend, because they precipi- tated a revolt which might have been better organized if it had been given more time to ripen. Early in 1857 chupattis, or flat cakes of flour, were sent from village to village in northern India, some think merely as a sign of general discontent, according to others, as a signal of revolt. The Outbreak of the Mutiny, 10 May, 1857. In spite of mutinous outbreaks in more than one station during the spring of 1857, the authorities, from the Governor-General to the officers of the native troops, were slow to take alarm or to prepare for a crisis. A little more activity at the start might have prevented the mutiny from gaining dangerous headway. Unfortunately, most of the officers in command were elderly men, incapable of prompt decision. The first serious rising occurred at Meerut, about forty miles northeast of Delhi, where on Sunday, 10 May, 1857, a body of Sepoys forcibly rescued a group of their comrades who had been locked up for refusing to use the greased cartridges. After a night of slaughter they marched off to Delhi. The ancient imperial capital became the center to which body after body of Sepoys flocked after they had risen in arms. The 1 He was the third son of the former Prime Minister. THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 971 rebels proclaimed the Mogul, a man over eighty years old, as Emperor, and proceeded to massacre all the English, men, women, and children, within their reach. The Mutiny had become a revolution. The disaffected regions were Oudh, Bengal, the northwest provinces, and parts of central India. Southern India was not disturbed. The Pun- jab, which occupied a very important strategic position in relation to the northwest provinces, was saved by the energy of two remarkable men, Robert Montgomery and John Lawrence. The breathless in- terest of the Mutiny centered about Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow ; but the fighting ranged over a vast area from the lower Ganges to the Punjab, not to speak of central India. Canning, once the danger was fully manifest, acted with the greatest promptness and energy. He caused troops to be hurried to the scene of action from every available point, from England, from the Persian frontier, and he even inter- cepted a force on its way to China. However, he declared that he would not " govern in anger," and showed such mercy to the muti- neers as to earn him the name of " Clemency " Canning. The Massacre at Cawnpore, and the Siege of Lucknow. The first efforts were directed toward the relief of Delhi. The approach from Calcutta was slow, because there was only one short piece of railway, one hundred and twenty miles in length, running from the city, while the roads were bad besides. One general sent from Ambola, somewhat to the north of Delhi, died on the way. Another had to fight a force of 30,000 rebels before he reached the danger center. Since it was defended by Sepoys trained in English fighting methods, who had a number of heavy cannon and were protected by strong thick walls, the brave little army, too weak to attempt an attack, encamped out- side to wait for reenf or cements and were besieged in their turn by another native force. Meanwhile, the danger was spreading rapidly. At Cawnpore, General Wheeler, an old man of seventy-four years, had been forced to take refuge in the English residency. It was in an untenable position, and after holding out as long as he could in the withering heat against the shot of his assailants, he made a treaty, 27 June, 1857, with Nana Sahib, who had arrived on the scene of action. Though he posed as the friend of the English, he had been nursing his grievances secretly and betrayed the English confidence by ferocious treachery. Having granted the garrison a safe-conduct to proceed down the Ganges to a place of security, he ordered them to be fired on just as they were setting off in boats. The men who survived this cold-blooded slaughter, except four who escaped, were taken back to Cawnpore and shot. The women were thrust into a small building where they endured frightful suffering for two weeks ; when, on the night of 15 July, a relief force appeared, the infuriated Nana sent in a body of men who butchered all they could and threw all the rest, some of whom were still alive, into an adjoining well. Another storm center was Lucknow, the capital of the recently annexed province of Oudh. The commandant, Sir Henry Lawrence, brother of John, had fore- 972 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND seen the danger and prepared for it. He conducted an heroic defense ; but, about a month after the beginning of the attack, he was hit by a shell and survived only a few days. He had " tried to do his duty '' was the only record of his achievement that he asked. For nearly three months, less than 1000 Europeans and 700 faithful natives held out against a body of assailants estimated at 60,000. The First Relief of Lucknow, September, 1857. The force which had arrived at Cawnpore in July consisted of some 1 500 men, of whom not more than 1200 were Europeans. It was led by Henry Havelock, who, after forty-two years of faithful service, had been intrusted with his first independent command. Leaving Calcutta in June, he pressed on in spite of the burning heat. While unable to forestall the massacre, he defeated the rebels and put some of their number to death, though Nana Sahib escaped. On 20 July Havelock started for Lucknow, less than a hundred miles away. His little band, however, was so weakened by sunstroke, cholera, and dysentery, that he made slow progress, and about the beginning of September he was obliged to send a message to the besieged that he could not bring them the assist- ance he had promised. Two weeks after, Sir James Outram, the general who had brought the Persian war to a victorious conclusion, arrived with reinforcements. He had been appointed chief commis- sioner of Oudh in succession to Henry Lawrence and also had orders to supersede Havelock, whose heroism had been quite ignored by the authorities. Outram, however, with uncommon generosity, insisted that Havelock should remain in command until the relief of Lucknow was accomplished, and served under him as a volunteer. On 23 Sep- tember the combined forces reached the outskirts of Lucknow, and after two days of hard fighting forced their way in. They were not strong enough to raise the siege, but, thanks to their welcome re- enforcements, the garrison was able to hold out until Sir Colin Camp- bell finally drove off the enemy in November. The Recovery of Delhi, September, 1857. Meantime, Delhi, which the contingent from Ambola had not been strong enough to assault, was recovered, largely through the efforts of forces sent by John Lawrence, Governor of the Punjab. Risking the possible dangers of a Sikh rising or an Afghan invasion, he had sent a relief expedition three days after the outbreak at Meerut. Marching at the rate of twenty-five miles a day for three weeks, it reached the beleaguered city, 9 June. Another reenforcement, which arrived 14 August under General Nicholson, celebrated for prodigies of valor in the Sikh w r ars, brought the numbers up to 8,000 men in condition to fight, less than half of them Europeans. A general assault began 14 September; but it required days of hard fighting before the last gate of Delhi was taken. More than 1 100 men and officers, including the gallant Nichol- son, had fallen. The Emperor was spared to drag on the five re- maining years of his existence in exile. His sons were put to death to save them, so it was alleged, from being recovered by a Mohammedan THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 973 mob. The month of September, notable for the relief of Lucknow and the taking of Delhi, marked the flood tide of the Indian Mutiny. Nevertheless, it took months before the rebels were driven from Lucknow and before the various disaffected districts were finally re- duced. Sir Colin Campbell, a veteran, who had served in the Crimean War, had arrived, 17 August, as Commander-in-Chief. Henceforth, he directed the military operations of the reinforcements, which by autumn had begun to pour rapidly into the country. Havelock sur- vived just long enough to witness Sir Colin's completion of the relief of Lucknow. Final Suppression of the Mutiny, 1858. Partly owing to the overcaution of Sir Colin, 1 the conquest of Oudh occupied nearly all the year 1858. His method was by means of converging columns to drive the rebels to the northern frontier, where they were obliged to surrender or else flee to the mountains and jungles. In the other disaffected areas the most serious resistance came from a Maratha princess, the Rani of Jhanai, " the best man on the Indian side." After the armies of Bombay and Madras had cleared the rebels out of central India, this valiant amazon was finally defeated and slain, 17 June, 1858. Before the beginning of 1859 the last vestiges of the Mutiny had been stamped out. The Powers of the East India Company Transferred to the Crown, 1858. Meantime, more than a year earlier, the remaining powers of the East India, or " John Company," as it was popularly called, had been transferred to the Crown. Early in 1858 the question of the government of India had come up for discussion in Parliament. The existing system was loudly criticized on two grounds : divided authority, and the anomaly of allowing a mercantile company to share in the control of the Empire. The directors framed a petition against taking away the remaining powers and patronage of the Company. The document, written by John Stuart Mill, then in the India office, was a remarkable defense. It declared that the acts of aggression which contributed to the Mutiny were a contradiction to the Com- pany's traditional policy, and argued that if the Government took over the patronage as well as the remaining political powers of the Company, the whole administration of India would become the football of poli- tics. However, the dual system of control was needlessly complicated, and Palmerston framed a measure for putting an end to it, but was driven out of office before his bill became law. Under his successor, Lord Derby, " India Bill No. 2 " was introduced. Many of its 1 In spite of his cautious methods order might have been sooner restored in the province but for the unfortunate wording of a proclamation of Canning's, issued 20 March, 1858. It declared that, with certain exceptions, "the whole proprietory right in the soil of the province" was confiscated by the British Government, al- though the lives and honor of those who had submitted at once should be safe. Although the Governor-General had no intention of depriving any innocent men of their property, he unfortunately failed to make his meaning clear, with the re- sult that many landholders were driven into revolt. 974 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND provisions, due to the whimsical notions of Ellenborough, were so fantastic as to preclude all hope of its passage. Since it was impera- tive that the government of India should be settled at once, and since it was inadvisable to defeat a Ministry which had just come in, Russell proposed that the Commons should, in a series of resolutions, formulate the principles for governing India on which the majority agreed. A bill based on these nonpartisan resolutions was passed 3 August and was proclaimed in India in November. The sovereignty of the Queen was to be represented in England by a Secretary of State for India assisted by a Council of fifteen, seven of whom were to be elected by the directors from their own body, and eight nominated by the Crown. Vacancies were to be filled alternately by the Crown and the Council. By a later alteration of the law the Crown was empowered to fill all vacancies. Appointments to the civil service and to the engineer and artillery corps were thrown open to competitive exami- nation. The title of the Governor- General, who resided in India, was changed to that of Viceroy. By the India Act of 1858 a population of 200,000,000 souls and a territory of 800,000 square miles were added to the British dominions. The Divorce Bill of 1857. Meantime, the previous year, an impor- tant act had been passed regulating the law of divorce. Hitherto, jurisdiction over matrimonial causes had been vested to a large degree in the ecclesiastical courts, which could only grant separation without the right to marry again. Those desiring an absolute divorce had to apply for a private act of Parliament a very costly proceeding. By a measure carried by Palmerston in the face of determined opposition, a new court was constituted which curiously combined the functions of probate, divorce, and admiralty. It was empowered to grant divorces in certain cases upon due cause shown, and to allow even the guilty parties to marry again. In spite of the law, the Anglican clergy, as a rule, refused to marry divorced persons. The Fall of Palmerston, February, 1858. Early in February, 1858, Palmerston was overthrown, strangely enough on the ground of truck- ling to the demands of a foreign power. On 14 January, a band of conspirators led by an Italian, Orsini, had attempted to assassinate the French Emperor and Empress in Paris. The intended victims escaped, though ten persons were killed and one hundred and fifty wounded by the bombs thrown at the Imperial carriage. Orsini was tried and put to death. In the course of the investigation it came out that the plot had been hatched in London, and that the bombs had been manufactured in Birmingham. Walewski, now French Minister of Foreign Affairs, demanded, in a peremptory dispatch, that England should cease to offer any asylum for political refugees and should make her law of conspiracy more effective. Moreover, the French officers filled their addresses congratulating the Emperor on his escape with insulting reflections and menaces against England. In con- sequence, Palmerston introduced a Conspiracies to Murder Bill which THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 975 made the crime, hitherto a misdemeanor, a felony punishable with penal servitude for life. His action created a furious outcry, his bill was defeated, and he resigned. The Second Derby Ministry, February, 1858, to June, 1859. Jewish Relief. Derby came in for another brief ad interim ministry. The French difficulty was speedily adjusted. Walewski disavowed the language of the officers and apologized for his own curtness. In the session of 1858 Derby, with a minority in the Commons, not only carried the India Bill but succeeded in practically putting an end to the disabilities excluding Jews from Parliament. Baron Rothschild, the head of a famous English banking firm, and Alderman Salomans, elected from the City of London within an interval of a few years, had both made vain efforts to take their seats in spite of the restrictions of 1828, requiring them to take a qualifying oath on the true faith of a Christian. In 1858 the Lords, after they had rejected a bill which Russell had carried through the Commons to do away with the dis- abling oath, agreed to a compromise allowing each House to frame its own test. Thereupon, the Commons drew up an oath which Jews could take and perpetuated it by a standing order. In 1866 an act, intended primarily to relieve Roman Catholics from pledging them- selves that they had no intention of subverting the Church of England by law established, resulted in a new oath which Jews could conscien- tiously take. Only atheists remained disabled from sitting in Parlia- ment, and they won admission after a hard fight some years later. The year 1858 was also notable for the abolition of the property qualifica- tion of members, a restriction which had long been evaded by trans- parent fictions. Payment of members, which had ceased since Eliza- beth's time, was not restored till 1911. The Franco-Austrian War, 1859, and the Achievement of Italian Unity, 1861-1870. The Derby Ministry was defeated in June, 1859, by the passage of an amendment to an address from the Throne. The amendment was directed chiefly against the Government's alleged friendliness to France in a war which had just arisen over the situation in northern Italy. The Orsini Conspiracy had contributed indirectly to revive aspirations, which Napoleon III had once cherished, of liberat- ing Italy from Austrian control. The conspirators had begged him to undertake the task. Either because he feared that a refusal might lead to new attempts upon his life, or because they had succeeded in arousing ideals which had long slumbered in his bosom, he set to work. Cavour, who years before had begun to shape plans and who had raised the Italian question at the recent Congress of Paris, was just the man to lead him along the road on which he had once started. On the invitation of Napoleon the two held a momentous interview at Plombieres, a watering place in the Vosges district. Much beyond Cavour's hopes, the French Emperor agreed to assist the Kingdom of Sardinia in the expulsion of Austria from Lombardy and Venetia tf a just cause for war could be found. Cavour, in his turn, promised 976 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND to hand over Savoy and Nice to France. Napoleon counted on the help of Russia, who had been alienated by the Austrian attitude toward her in the Crimean .War, on the neutrality of Prussia, who was Austria's rival in Germany, and on the good will of the English people, inclined to sympathize with liberal and national aspirations. He brought the matter to a head in a manner worthy of his famous uncle. At his New Year's reception in 1859, with great abruptness, he expressed his regret to the Austrian ambassador that the relations between the two countries were not so good as they had once been. Austria, foreseeing the approach of a crisis, sent an ultimatum to Sar- dinia, ordering her to disarm. Meeting with a refusal, the war began. Queen Victoria and the Derby ministry, who favored the Austrians, made a vain attempt to mediate. When the time came to take a decisive step, Napoleon hesitated ; but finding events had gone beyond his control, he finally led a French army in person to the aid of the Sardinian King, Victor Emmanuel. On 4 and 24 June, the Austrians were successively defeated at the two decisive battles of Magenta and Solferino. On n July, Francis Joseph accepted the preliminaries of Villafranca, which formed the basis for the Peace of Zurich, 10 November, 1859. It provided that : Austria should cede the bulk of Lombardy to Napoleon III, who was to hand it over to Victor Emmanuel ; Italy was to form a confederacy under the head- ship of the Pope ; and Tuscany, Modena, and other states which had expelled their absolutist sovereigns were to reinstate them. But the Treaty was unable to check the inevitable logic of events. The various states of central Italy, refusing to submit to their old rulers, were united to the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel. In the spring and summer of 1860 Garibaldi in a dashing campaign secured Sicily and Naples. With the help of the royal Sardinian army other conquests followed, and, 17 March, 1861, Victor Emmanuel was crowned King of a united Italy, which included the whole of the peninsula, except Venice and the Papal States. They were incorporated in 1866 and 1870 respectively. The Beginning of the Second Palmerston Ministry, June, 1859. Meantime, at the very opening of the Franco-Austrian War, Palmer- ston, whose sympathies were altogether with the Italians, had again come to power. Gladstone joined the Ministry, thus putting an end to the last hope which the Conservatives had cherished of recovering the Peelites. Yet, so far as home politics were concerned, Palmerston was far from being a Liberal. The chief interest of his Ministry centered in foreign politics, and while the period was not absolutely barren of progress in domestic affairs, such steps in advance were usually carried in spite of him rather than by his aid. When, in 1860, Cobden, through a private audience with Napoleon III, negotiated a commercial treaty with France by which some duties were reduced and others abolished altogether, it was Gladstone who warmly backed the plan, while Palmerston only grudgingly acquiesced. Indeed, THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 977 Gladstone's whole financial policy was far more liberal than that of his chief. He proposed in his budget of 1860 to reduce the number of articles on the tariff from 419 to 48, and, what aroused the stoutest opposition, to repeal the paper duty. This meant cheaper news- papers, and was in line with the policy by which the stamp duties had been reduced from 4^. to id. in 1836, and taken off altogether in 1855. Palmerston, who shared in the view that the result would be the spread of popular and social discontent, stood put against the meas- ure in the Cabinet, after which he wrote to the Queen that if the House of Lords should be encouraged by his attitude to assert itself, it would " perform a good public service." This was a distinct breach of the principle of Cabinet solidarity, and all that can be said for the Prime Minister is that he made no attempt to conceal his action. The Lords rejected the bill in which the proposed repeal was embodied. Glad- stone declared that such action in reference to a money bill was a " gigantic innovation." It was well recognized that the Lords could not amend a money bill ; but their right of rejection, though not often exercised, could not be questioned. Gladstone and the Commons carried their point in 1861 by making the Paper Duty Repeal Bill a part of the budget. Confronted with the two possibilities of passing or re- jecting all the appropriations for the year, the Lords chose the former. The Outbreak of Civil War in the United States, 1861. The Civil War in the United States, which broke out in the spring of 1861, brought Great Britain face to face with serious problems, both foreign and domestic. There was a twofold issue involved, the question of the extension of slavery and that of secession. This twofold aspect of the conflict contributed to confuse the attitude of British public sentiment. While the nation as- a whole was opposed to the institution of slavery, the general tendency was to minimize that issue and to look for the chief cause of the war in the attempt of the North to hold the South in the Union against her will. Differences of opinion in England were based on social rather than on party lines. The upper classes supported the land-owning gentry of the South as against the merchants, traders, and small farmers of the North. Many of them argued that the slaves were kindly treated, and that there were not enough abuses in the system to justify interference with vested property interests and the " sovereign rights of States." The middle and lower classes in the midlands stood by the North. This was much to their credit, since the mills which furnished, directly or indirectly, the livelihood of vast numbers of them depended on the cotton supplies of the Southern States. The leading ministers of the Liberal party, then in power, Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, were at one with the Conservative aristocracy as against those who furnished their main constituency. Gladstone went so far as to de- clare in a public speech : Jefferson Davis " had made an army, had made a navy, and, what is more, had made a nation." Yet, in spite of its manifest sympathies, the Government decided to assume a posi- 3* 978 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND tion of strict neutrality. On 14 May, 1861, a proclamation to that effect was issued. Englishmen were prohibited from enlisting, from supplying privateers, and from lending any other form of aid to either party. Great Britain thus went to the point of recognizing the Confederate States as a belligerent, though she never acknowledged the independence of the Confederacy. Relations, however, were strained during the whole period of the war. The South was aggrieved that the. British would not espouse her cause more ac- tively, while the North resented the unfriendly attitude of the Government, and also the fact that the policy of neutrality was not enforced. The Trent Affair, 1861. Almost at the start, an unfortunate inci- dent brought Great Britain and the United States to the brink of war. In November, 1861, Mason and Slidell, two commissioners of the Confederacy, embarked at Havana in the British mail steamer Trent to seek aid from Great Britain and France. The vessel was boarded on the high seas by Captain Wilkes, of the United States ship San Jacinto, and Mason and Slidell were taken off as prisoners. The news aroused a storm of indignation in England. Palmerston and Russell started to handle the question in their customary precipitate and arrogant manner. Fortunately the Queen, acting under the sage advice of the Prince Consort, was able to find a way out of the diffi- culty. In place of the apology at first demanded, the British Govern- ment expressed itself satisfied with the release of the prisoners and the assurance that Captain Wilkes had acted without instructions. This was the last important work of Prince Albert, who died of typhoid fever, 14 December. The loss was serious enough for the nation ; for Victoria, whose life centered about her husband, it was a blow from which she never recovered. While she devoted herself with increasing conscientiousness to business of State, she practically withdrew from all social activities for twenty years. Blockade Runners and Privateers. While the sealing up of the Southern ports crippled the cotton industry in Lancashire to an alarm- ing extent, the operatives did not waver in their allegiance to the Unionist cause, and the Government insisted on recognizing the efficacy of the blockade. Nevertheless, British speculators made enormous profits from blockade running. Much as the United States resented this, its chief grievance was the active share which British ship- builders took in fitting out privateers for the Confederacy to prey on neutral commerce. Of the seven cruisers which were really formidable five were British built. Of these, the Alabama was the most notorious and destructive. She was constructed at Liverpool, and, although the attention of the British Government was repeatedly called to the purpose for which she was designed, no steps were taken to detain her until it was too late. For two years she continued her dreaded course until she was sunk by the Kearsarge under Captain Winslow, 19 June, 1864. Her favorite device was to lure unsuspecting merchant- THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 979 men by flying the British flag, only hoisting the Confederate colors when they got within range. Generally, too, she burned her prizes, often, in this way, securing other captures from vessels which came to the rescue. The Cotton Famine in Great Britain. The final surrender of the Confederacy in April, 1865, put an end to a situation which was growing steadily more embarrassing for Great Britain. The operatives in the western midlands maintained their loyalty to the Northern cause in spite of the severest deprivation. In 1860 British manufac- turers had imported 1,500,000,000 pounds of cotton from the Southern States. By July, 1862, the supply had fallen to 500,000,000. Un- happily, the shortage was accentuated by the greed of some of the Lancashire owners, who sold their reserve stocks for high prices abroad. Palmerston sought to relieve the situation by importations from India and Africa ; but it required time to develop the new traffic, and the fiber of the oriental cotton was not adapted to the British machinery. The distress became so acute that the Government had to devise special measures of poor relief. Great assistance was rendered by voluntary subscriptions of food, clothing, and money. The colonies contributed as well, and, all together, about 2,000,000 was raised. Those who could get any sort of work proudly refused charity, while many who had savings-bank accounts exhausted them before they would seek aid. In spite of the intense suffering, only a single riot is recorded. Conditions were at their worst during the autumn and winter of 1862 ; then they began to improve, owing to the increasing supply of cotton from the East, to the absorption of the unemployed in other industries, and by emigration. In some ways Great Britain prof- ited from the war. The destruction of Northern commerce by the Confederate cruisers worked in favor of British carrying trade and opened the way to new markets, while the high price of cotton was a source of profit to certain speculators. Gladstone's remarkable administration of the Exchequer contributed to steady the financial situation. The Mexican Schemes of Napoleon III. Far more serious to the United States than the unfriendly attitude of Great Britain were the designs of Napoleon III. In 1862 he suggested to Russell that Eng- land combine with Russia and France in a joint attempt at mediation, a proposal which the British Foreign Minister rejected forthwith. It is rumored, even, that in private conversation he urged the British to unite with him in recognizing Southern independence. He had another wild scheme from which Great Britain also held aloof. In the autumn of 1860 she had joined with France and Spain in sending an expedition to Mexico, also plunged in civil war. The original object was to protect European subjects, and to enforce payment on loans advanced to the Mexicans. Great Britain and Spain, having obtained satisfaction on these points, withdrew their forces, refusing to support Napoleon in a vast plan which he unfolded of occupying the Mexican 980 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND capital and setting up a new empire in the Latin-American world. In May, 1862, he succeeded in inducing Maximilian, brother of Francis Joseph of Austria, to accept the imperial title. After considerable fighting, the Mexicans again restored a stable republic, and the un- fortunate Maximilian was court-martialed and shot, 20 June, 1867. The Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1863-1864. The temperate counsels of the Prince Consort were missed sorely enough in the troubled Anglo-American relations from 1861 to 1865, but even more in the complicated Schleswig-Holstein question, in which Great Britain became involved in 1863. Indeed, as the Prime Minister once re- marked, Prince Albert was one of the three men who had ever under- stood it, another was a Danish statesman who had lost his mind, and the third was Palmerston himself, who had forgotten it. The trouble arose over the conflicting claims advanced by Denmark and the Germanic Confederation to the Duchies of Schleswig and Hoi- stein, which lay at the base of the Danish Peninsula. In 1852 a conference at London had arranged a compromise, according to which they were held by Denmark, subject to the supervision of the Confeder- ation. In 1863 the Danish King, Frederick VII, died. On the eve of his death he had just begun to assert certain claims on the Duchies, which were taken up with vigor by his successor, Christian IX. Aside from the possible effect on the European balance of power, the British were interested on dynastic grounds. Alexandra, the daughter of Christian IX, had just married the Prince of Wales, while Victoria, the Queen's eldest daughter, had, in 1858, become the wife of Frederick, heir to the throne of Prussia, the country which, under the energetic minister Bismarck, led the aggressive wing of the German party. Owing to Bismarck, the Prussian Government had recently entered into an agreement with Austria to drive the Danes out of the Duchies and hold them jointly. 'On the other hand, the smaller German states, supported by a liberal minority in Prussia, aimed to make the terri- tories an independent member of the German Confederation ; for they feared their absorption by the growing power of Prussia. So they backed Duke Frederick of Augustenburg, who had an hereditary claim on the Duchies. His father had been bought off by the Danes in 1852, but he declined to be bound by the agreement. Here was another family complication for poor Victoria, since Frederick was the hus- band of her half sister. The sympathies of the British Queen were with the Germans as against the Danes, and with the Prussians as against the Augustenburg party. Not only did she feel that Great Britain was bound by the treaty of 1852, in which the Augustenburg claim had been annulled, but she wanted to see Prussia grow strong in Germany. Her Cabinet and her people, on the contrary, were strong for the Danes. This was due to the popularity of Princess Alexandra and to the feeling that Denmark was a weak state oppressed by a strong and bullying com- bination. Palmerston and Russell talked loudly of intervention in THE PALMERSTONIAN REGIME 981 the Danish behalf. While Queen Victoria took no pains to conceal her strong German sympathies, she strove, though in vain, to avert a war. After the Danes had been defeated by the joint forces of the Prussians and Austrians, she arranged, in 1864, a conference at London, which, however, came to nothing. When Palmerston and Russell continued to talk of intervention in behalf of the Danes, she insisted upon neutrality, and even threatened to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people if the Ministers continued their belligerent course. She had her way, and Great Britain kept her hands off when Prussia and Austria, after the failure of the conference, proceeded to secure their hold on the Duchies. Palmerston had led on the Danes in their futile resistance by holding out hopes which he could not realize, and he and the Foreign Secretary had made themselves ridiculous in Europe by what Derby very effectively termed their policy of " meddle and muddle." Yet it was not their fault that they had to back down. It was due to the Queen and to the French Emperor, on whose support they had counted. Napoleon III, however, owing to the fact that Great Britain had refused to give him anything more than moral support, had recently been forced to submit to a contemptuous rebuff from the Russians when he had ventured to remonstrate with them for their treatment of the Poles, who had been driven to rebellion in January, 1863-. Consequently, he declined to take any decided step unless the British Government bound itself to go to war if necessary. The Lords succeeded in carrying a vote of censure against the Adminis- tration. A like measure was only defeated in the Commons by Palm- erston's personal popularity, which he had to bolster up by telling references to Gladstone's splendid achievements, to the commercial treaty with France, and to other measures which he had either op- posed, or to which he had given a reluctant consent. The Death of Palmerston and the End of an Epoch, 1865. The death of Palmerston, 18 October, 1865, when he was within two days of eighty-one, ended an epoch. In domestic politics he was an old- fashioned Whig who with his tremendous prestige succeeded, so long as he lived, in blocking grave problems of social and political reform that were pressing for solution. He would hear of no further exten- sion of the franchise, and his attitude toward the suffering peasantry in Ireland may be summed up in his famous phrase : " Tenant right is landlord's wrong." Conservative as he was in home politics, 1 he was hated by European governments as a " patron of revolution " and a " disturber of the relations between subjects and their sover- eigns." In some oft-quoted lines it was declared: "If the Devil had a son he must be surely Palmerston." In his handling of foreign } Disraeli aptly characterized him as "the Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet . . . with no domestic policy, he is obliged to divert the attention of the people from the consideration of their own affairs to the distraction of foreign politics . . . his external system is turbulent and aggressive that his rule at home may be tranquil and unassailed." 982 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND questions he had often embarrassed the Queen, he had made many blunders, and he was too prone to consider more the " honor of Great Britain than the merits of the question involved." His political integ- rity was not always beyond reproach, he was wanting in the qualities of constructive statesmanship, he was irrepressible, overbearing, and flippant. Nevertheless, he was the friend of national, liberal aspiration, he was courageous, industrious, witty and good natured, and very popular because he was the embodiment of ideals which the average Englishman could understand. The country, however, was now ready for new men and new measures. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. S. Low and L. C. Sanders, Political History of England (1907), list of authorities, pp. 491-508. Marriott, England Since Waterloo, bk. II, chs. V-XVII. Cambridge Modern History,^, ch. XX; XI, chs. XI, XII (bibliography, pp. 867-873). Maxwell, Century of Empire, II. Bright, History of England, IV, pp. 1-410. Wai- pole, History of England, IV- VI, chs. XV ff. and The History of Twenty-five Yeans (1904), I. Martineau, History of England, bks. V ff. (to 1846). J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times (vols. I-III, 1880), is a "popular" work and a very read- able account. Herbert Paul, History of Modern England (5 vols., 1904-1906), I, II, journalistic and partisan, Liberal standpoint. Biography. S. Lee, Queen Victoria, a Biography (1902), chs. I-XXXI, an excellent brief sketch. Sir T. Martin, Life of the Prince Consort (5 vols., 1875-1880). J. Morley, The Life of W. E. Gladstone (3 vols., 1903), the standard life of Gladstone. Monypenny, Life of Disraeli (not complete, promises to be the standard work, vols. I and II go to 1846). T. P. O'Connor, Lord Beaconsfield (6th ed. 1884), hostile estimate. G. Brandes (Eng. tr. 1880), "an elaborate sketch," very favorable. J. Hitchman, Public Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield (2 vols., 1875). T. E. Kebble, Lord Beaconsfield and other Tory Memoirs (1907). G. B. Hill, Life of Rowland Hill (2 vols., 1880). J. Morley, Richard Cobden (2 vols., 1881) and G. N. Trevelyan, John Bright (1913), the standard biographies of Cobden and Bright. W. M. Torrens, Memoirs of Lord Melbourne (2 vols., 1878). G. Saintsbury, Life of the Earl of Derby (1892). S. J. Reid, Life of Lord John Russell (1886). J. B. Atlay, Victorian Chancel- lors (2 vols., 1908). For Russell, Peel, and Palmerston, see above chs. XL VIII, L. Special Works. T. Carlyle, Chartism (1839). R. G. Gammage, History of Chartism (1854, revised in expanded form 1894). W. Lovett and J. Collins, Chartism (1840). E. C. K. Conner, "Early History of Chartism," English Historical Review, October, 1889. For the Crimean War. Cambridge Modern History, XI, pp. 869-870. The most exhaustive work is that of A. W. Kinglake, The Invasion of Crimea (8 vols., 1863-1887). For Canada. Cambridge Modern History, ch. XX (bibliography, pp. 871-878). Ireland, ibid., XI (bibliography, pp. 868, 871). Low and Sanders, p. 497. India, ibid., "XI, ch. XXVI (bibliography, pp. 965-967). Low and Sanders, pp. 497 -499. The Colonies in general. Ibid., XI, ch. XXVII (bibliography, pp. 968-980). Low and Sanders, pp 499-502. Contemporary. The Greville Memoirs, pt. II (3 vols., 1885), pt. Ill (2 vols., 1887). B. Disraeli, Bcntinck, a Political Biography (1852). Papers of Lord Melbourne, (ed. L. C. Sanders, 1889). Baron Stockmar, Memoirs (tr. M. Miiller, 2 vols., 1872). Queen Victoria Letters (eds. A. C. Benson and Viscount Esher, 3 vols., 1907) to 1861, throw a flood of light on early Victorian statesmen and politics. Esher, The Girl- hood of Queen Elizabeth, 1836-1840 (1912), selections from her diary. John, Earl Russell, Recollections and Suggestions (1875). Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 266-267 ; Robertson, pt. II, nos. XXVII-XXVIII, app., p. 438. CHAPTER LIV A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY. THE POLITICAL RIVALRY OF GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI (1865-1880) The Second Russell Ministry, November, 1865- June, 1866. While the death of Palmerston removed the chief obstacle to progress in domestic legislation, some years were yet to elapse before either of the two men who were to dominate the political situation for the next generation came to head a Cabinet. Lord John Russell (created Earl Russell in 1861) succeeded Palmerston, with whom, except for occasional intervals of rivalry, he had worked for more than thirty years. But Russell was seventy-three years old, and Gladstone, who became leader of the House of Commons, was already recognized as the future chief of the Liberal party. Disraeli, who for some years had led the Conservatives in the Commons, was in the same way looked upon as Lord Derby's successor. The Russell Administration was confronted with many acute problems. On the Continent a war, involving tremendous issues, was brewing between Prussia and Austria. Home politics were gravely troubled by a devastating cattle plague, by a sharp commercial crisis, and by an insurrection in Jamaica. The commercial crisis, though it involved many failures and much suffering, was safely tided over, thanks to the flourishing condition of trade and the authority granted to the Bank of England to exceed the limitation of its note issue imposed by the charter of 1844. The cattle scourge was stayed by the slaughter of great numbers of infected animals, with compensation to the owners. The calamity did not prove an unmixed evil, for it served to call attention to the unsanitary con- ditions in the cattle and dairy industries and resulted in new and improved methods. The Jamaica insurrection was suppressed by the Governor, John Eyre, with energy and promptness; but the cruel punishments which he allowed to continue long after the danger was passed, as well as the callousness of the officers engaged in the work, aroused a fury of indignation in England. After an official inquiry the Governor was retired on a pension, but no attempt was made to punish either him or the officers concerned. Thereupon, a committee was organized by John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and other eminent men to prosecute them in the courts. Not only did they fail to secure any convictions, but Parliament, in 1872, voted Eyre a grant to help pay the expenses of his trial. His most notable champion was Thomas Carlyle. 984 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The State of the Franchise in 1865-1866. In addition to these various difficulties, new disorders had broken out in Ireland ; but the chief energies of Parliament, which opened in February, 1866, were devoted to the question of a further extension of the franchise. Since the passage of the celebrated Act of 1832, numerous reform bills had been introduced; but none of them had even succeeded in passing the Commons. In 1859, during the second Derby Administration, Disraeli, as a means of forestalling the Liberals, had introduced a bill for equalizing the county and borough qualification, giving the vote to those who possessed a specified amount of personal property, to graduates of universities, clergymen, lawyers, doctors, and school- masters. These latter concessions, contemptuously labeled " fancy franchises " by John Bright, would have done little to extend the electorate. The measure was defeated in the second reading, the Government appealed to the country in a general election, but was overthrown at the very opening of the new Parliament. In 1852, in 1854, and again in 1860 Russell, because of pledges which he had given, had, in a perfunctory way, introduced reform bills, all of which he had subsequently withdrawn. 1 By 1866, however, he had come to realize that a further extension of the franchise and a further redis- tribution of seats was inevitable. The right of voting was still much restricted and the representation unevenly distributed. In 1865, out of 5,300,000 adult males, there were only 900,000 voters. Thus only one man in six was entitled to vote, and the working classes were practically excluded. .Many anomalies in the representation, left untouched in 1832, had been greatly accentuated by the amazing growth of the industrial population during the past thirty-five years. The borough of Totnes, with 4000 inhabitants, returned as many members as Liverpool with a population of 443,000, and the thinly populated county of Cornwall, containing only 350,000 souls, had a larger representation than the populous Middlesex. The Awakening of Democracy. Russell's Reform Bill of 1866 and its Defeat. While the majority of both Houses was still opposed to change and the public seemed indifferent according to the Prince Consort the abortive Act of 1860 excited scarcely " as much interest as a Turnpike Trust Bill " such inequalities could not go on forever. Moreover, the country was on the eve of a great democratic awakening. The old laissez-faire principles were destined to give way to a new spirit of collectivism. The people were going to insist more and more that it was the proper function of the State to educate them, to provide for the public health, and to regulate their relations with their employers. Yet if the powers of the Government were to be thus enlarged, it fol- lowed that those whose interests were at stake should have a larger voice in public affairs. This progress toward democracy was greatly stimulated by the outcome of the American Civil War. The victory 1 He was sometimes known as "Finality Jack," because he had once declared that the terms of the bill of 1832 were to be final. A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 985 of the North was a triumph for democracy over an aristocratic oli- garchy. It added greatly to the prestige of the midland operatives that they had been wiser than the conservative upper classes in fore- seeing the outcome, while the patience with which they had suffered for their principles gained for them not only sympathy but great respect throughout the country. Thus strength was given to an ar- gument which began to be advanced, that they could not be denied the vote which was to be conceded to the negroes in the United States. Nevertheless, the bill which Russell introduced in 1866 was defeated. The primary cause was a revolt of a section of the Liberal party which came to be known as the " Adullamites " from John Bright's com- parison of them to Saul's discontented subjects who took refuge with David in the cave of Adullam. Moreover, the measure was not calculated to arouse great popular enthusiasm, since its provisions would not have increased the electorate by more than 400,000, while the question of the redistribution of seats was postponed altogether for the moment. The victory of the Opposition drove Russell from office in June. 1 Curiously enough, it was now the fate of the Conserv- atives to carry a bill so radical as virtually to transfer the balance of power from the middle classes to the workingman. The Third Derby Ministry, June, 1866, February, 1868. The Awakening of the People. For the third time Lord Derby became Prime Minister with the support of only a minority of the House of Commons. After overtures to the Adullamites had failed he was obliged to form a purely Conservative Government. The most notable of the new men in the Cabinet was Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranborne (1830-1903), who succeeded to the title of Marquis of Salisbury in 1868. Noted at the beginning of his career mainly for audacious sarcasm and his uncompromising Toryism, his forceful personality, his profound knowledge, his grasp of domestic and foreign politics, his brilliancy and courage, won for him a steadily increasing weight in the councils of his party. During the interval between the resignation of Russell and the meeting of Parliament, in February of 1867, a sentiment for reform, as irresistible as it was sudden, de- veloped among the working classes. The rejection of Russell's bill had furnished the impulse. The discontent aroused by the finan- 1 Though he lived till 1878, his public life came practically to an end with his resig- nation in 1866. He had made many blunders in his long career, notably in the Bed- chamber Question when he supported Melbourne, the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and the Schleswig-Holstein question, and many regarded his resignation in 1855 as a desertion of his colleagues, though he had this justification, that his views had not been carried out. In public he had a freezing manner that diminished his influence, and in his speeches it was only rarely that " languid Johnny turned to glorious John." He had, too, an over-weening self-confidence. After all has been said, however, "his existence flowed at a very high level of thought and feeling," he spent his life in the public service and was a stanch advocate of measures making, for progress and the good of the people. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the Reform Bill of 1832 owe much to his persistent efforts, and he gave a great impulse to the repeal of the Corn Laws. 986 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND cial crisis, together with stirring speeches by Bright and Gladstone, did the rest. The latter had revealed to them in his telling way, as early as the previous Easter, that with five twelfths of the aggregate income of the country they had only a seventh of the electoral power. On 23 July, after the authorities had forbidden a meeting in Hyde Park and closed the gates, the mob tore up the iron railings and streamed in through the breach. This demonstration made a pro- found impression. Even more significant, perhaps, were the organiza- tions which were formed to advance the cause, the street processions, the crowded meetings, and the eloquent arguments of the chief speakers. Disraeli, once more leader of the House of Commons, was just the man to take advantage of the situation, and to do what he had de- nounced Peel for doing twenty years before. The Reform Bill of 1867. Declaring that " parliamentary reform should no longer be a question which should decide the fate of minis- tries " and that his aim was to " work for the public good, instead of bringing forward mock measures to be defeated by the spirit of party," Disraeli at first sought to secure the support of both Liberals and Conservatives for a series of resolutions on the subject. They contained a number of commonplaces; but their main purport was to take away with one hand what they gave with the other by checking the concessions made to the laboring classes with a complicated system of " fancy franchises " and dual voting. These resolutions aroused the combined opposition of both factions of the Liberal party and were withdrawn. In devising further measures, Disraeli was opposed by members of his own Cabinet, and it was only after three, including Lord Cranborne, had resigned that he introduced the scheme which formed the basis of the bill that subsequently became law. It conceded so much to the Liberal leaders that Cranborne described it as an adoption of the " principles of Bright at the dictation of Glad- stone." Indeed, Disraeli and his colleagues admitted that " if the country would have reform," they " might as well keep in office and give it to them." All the securities designed to comfort the Tories had to be thrown overboard, for example, " fancy franchises," based on educational qualifications or the holding of a certain amount of personal property, which would entitle a man to cast a vote in addi- tion to the one which he might have as a householder. 1 Another con- cession, which involved a hard fight, related to the so-called " com- pound householders." Certain small householders, instead of paying the public rates directly, " compounded " with the landlords, or in- cluded their share in their rents. The Derby Ministry intended to exclude this class altogether by making the franchise dependent upon a personal payment of the rates. Even Gladstone did not desire to go so far as to admit all the compound householders. But both he 1 This did not affect a form of plural voting already existing, and which still continues, whereby a man can vote in more than one place, provided that he pos- sesses the requisite borough and county qualifications. A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 987 and the Conservatives had to give way to a determined section of Liberals known as the Tea Room Party. 1 As a result, the compounding system was practically abolished, and even small householders were assessed directly. John Stuart Mill roused the ire of some and the amusement of others by proposing " votes for women," a question which has since become a burning issue. The qualifications for voting, as finally fixed in the bill of 1867, were : in boroughs, all householders who paid the poor rates and all lodgers of one year's residence whose annual rent was 10 ; in the counties, all owners of land of 5 annual value and all occupying tenants whose rental was 12. With regard to redistribution of seats, certain readjustments were made without altering the size of the House of Commons. The right of sending two members was taken from all boroughs of less than 10,000 inhab- itants, while four large towns Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds were given a third member, two others received a second member ; nine new boroughs were created, and twenty-five additional members went to the counties. Scotland gained a few seats also; but the Irish membership was left unchanged. The Significance of the Act of 1867. A long step had been taken in the direction of democracy. Following the example of Wellington and Peel, a Tory leader had once again out-liberaled the Liberals. Derby and Disraeli had carried through a much needed measure of reform, and they had " dished the Whigs " ; but they had done it by shamelessly violating their pledges and sacrificing the principles of the Conservatives who had put them into office. " It is not a party they have destroyed," wrote an anonymous contributor to the Times, " it is a creed they have annihilated." Cranborne called it a " politi- cal betrayal which has no parallel in our annals." It should be said, however, that it was in line with Disraeli's political philosophy to combine the nobility and the working man against the great middle class. He declared boldly that he was " educating his party." Lowe's grim comment was : " We must now educate our masters." To Derby, though the phrase was not original, the momentous step was a " leap in the dark," while, in more picturesque words, Carlyle described it as " shooting Niagara." The results, however, were far from cataclysmic. The Conservative party, instead of being rent in twain, grew to be stronger than it had ever been since 1832. More- over, while a new era of progressive legislation followed, the newly enfranchised class proved far from revolutionary in its demands. The Austro-Prussian War, 1866. While England was involved in the struggle over the extension of the franchise, Prussia had over- whelmed the Austrians in a seven weeks' war which broke out in June, 1866. The battle of Koniggratz or Sadowa, fought 3 July, decided the issue. By the Peace of Prague, 23 August, Prussia realized two great ambitions which had guided her policy for years. One was the 1 So called from the fact that they held their meetings in the tea room of the House of Commons. 988 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND organization of the North German Confederation under Prussian presidency ; the other was the rounding out of her dominions and the welding together of her scattered territories by the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein, Electoral Hesse, and various other states. By the Treaty of Vienna, 3 October, the Austrians were forced to cede Venice to Victor Emmanuel, who had fought on the Prussian side, and to recognize the Kingdom of Italy. The North German Con- federation held its first diet in 1867, Bismarck was made Chancellor of the Confederation, and a long step was taken in the unification of Ger- many, completed four years later. In March of 1866, the Queen had sought to avert the conflict by mediation ; but her offers had been brusquely .repulsed by Bismarck. The British Government was in no position to insist ; for the policy of Palmerston had left the country in a position of isolation, estranged from the United States, from Russia, and from France. Thenceforth, Great Britain held aloof and sought to maintain a policy of the strictest neutrality. Her attitude was explained by Disraeli in a speech notable from the fact that it fore- shadows the new idea of Imperialism which was soon to gain such a hold on the popular imagination and to become the dominant factor in British foreign policy. " England," he declared, " had outgrown the European continent . . . her position is no longer that of a mere European Power. England is the metropolis of a great maritime Empire extending to the boundaries of the farthest ocean . . . she is as ready, and as willing as ever, to interfere as in the old days when the necessity of her position requires it. There is no power indeed which interferes more than England. She interferes in Asia because she is really more of an Asiatic than a European power." Although circumstances prevented Great Britain from holding absolutely aloof from European affairs, her interest in colonial problems became steadily more marked. The Abyssinian Expedition, 1867-1868. An evidence of the assertion of the British power even in remote countries was the Abys- sinian expedition sent in the winter of 1867-1868 under Sir Robert Napier to demand from Theodore King of the fabled land of Prester John l satisfaction for the treatment of British residents and mis- sionaries. When, in April, the punitive force reached the stronghold of Magdala after an admirably timed march through the mountains, Theodore was found to be dead. The British had reached out their arms to protect their mistreated subjects at the cost of 8,000,000. However, Disraeli's ornate commentary that : " the standard of St. George had been hoisted on the mountains of Rasselas " became the joke of the day. The End of the Derby Ministry, February, 1868. In February, 1868, Lord Derby, who had accepted office reluctantly, resigned 1 Really "presbyter," or priest, a fabulous Christian monarch of the twelfth century, supposed to have been ordained in Egypt, and who, according to some accounts, is said to have conquered Abyssinia. A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 989 the Premiership on account of failing health. He lived just long enough to oppose unsuccessfully the abolition of compulsory church rates and the disestablishment of the Irish Church. He died, 23 Octo- ber, 1869, at the age of seventy. Starting as a Liberal he had gone over to the Conservative party in the struggle over the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church. He split with Peel on the repeal of the Corn Laws, and became the nominal head of the Protec- tionist party. He was an able man of business, a classical scholar, and a sportsman. In politics he was brilliant rather than -constructive, a good fighter, who fell short of being a great statesman and party leader, partly because of his lack of settled convictions. Greville, a keen though caustic observer, complained that he went into politics as he went into racing, for the excitement and the chance of winning. He was known as the " Prince Rupert of debate," and was regarded as one of the most effective debaters of his day, though he often gave offense by his levity and by his aloofness from those below him in social rank. His great achievements were his abolition of colonial slavery and his work as head of the relief committee at the time of the cotton famine. The First Disraeli Ministry, February to November, 1868. Derby was succeeded by Disraeli, who was now sixty-four years of age. For thirty years he had been a member of the House of Commons, and for half that period had been the recognized leader of his party, posing all the while as a man of fashion, and at intervals publishing novels. At the very entrance of his public life he had expressed to Lord Melbourne a " wild ambition " to become some day Prime Minis- ter. He started with a theory of the Constitution which should em- phasize the power of the monarchy and the masses as against the Whig commercial aristocracy, in other words, as a sort of democratic Tory, 1 and, for a time, led a band of youthful followers known as the Young England party. He ended as an Imperialist of the most pronounced type. Surveying his political life as a whole, many inconsistencies may be noted, but that is a peculiarity which he shares with the great- est English statesmen from the two Pitts to Peel and Gladstone. Throughout his career he was prone to utterances that were sparkling and sonorous rather than definite and specific. He first established his position by his brilliant and merciless onslaughts on Peel at the time of the Corn Law agitation. As Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the Commons during the three Derby administrations, while he showed little capacity as a framer of budgets or as a routine administrator, he proved unsurpassed as a party leader, formidable and courageous, resourceful, audacious, and imaginative. He was a remarkable judge of men, and succeeded in gaining the favor arid con- fidence of the Queen to a higher degree than perhaps any statesman of the reign. This was due to his enthusiasm for the monarchical 1 According to his latest biographer, Monypenny, he began his public life as a "political adventurer with unintelligible opinions." 9QO A HISTORY OF ENGLAND principle of government, to his growing faith in the Imperial destiny of England, and, above all, to his courtesy and considerateness and his power of flattery. As he himself boasted, " Gladstone treats the Queen like a public department, I treat her like a woman." One looks in vain for any great measures of progressive legislation which he initiated, with the exception of the purchase of the Suez Canal shares ; but the rescue of the Tory party from the decline which fol- lowed the Peelite schism, and the popularization of the modern Im- perialistic idea are peculiarly his work. Gladstone, His Character and Policy. The Opposition leader, Gladstone (1809-1898), though five years younger than Disraeli, had already been in Parliament five years longer. . While Disraeli had never been even to public school, Gladstone had been educated in the strongholds of aristocratic conservatism Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. The son of a rich Liverpool merchant of Scotch birth, he had the " audacious shrewdness of Lancashire married to the polished grace of Oxford," he was " Oxford on the surface, Liverpool at bottom." His intellectual curiosity, his energy and versatility were prodigious. An old-fashioned Churchman, he was in- tensely devout; and read, thought, and wrote much on theological questions. His knowledge of the classics, especially of Homer, was at once extensive and minute. It was said that he could talk shop like a tenth muse, though his published work has no enduring value either as literature or for the scholar. He spent enough effort in putting on a sound basis the involved estate of his wife's family to have fully occupied an ordinary man a lifetime. All this was aside from his life-long activity in politics. He began as a Tory, seceded with the Peel- ites, and ended his career as a Liberal. His budget of 1853 established his reputation as a financier entitled to rank with Walpole, Pitt, and Peel. His measures of constructive statesmanship cannot be even touched upon except by outlining the last half century of English history. Great as was his superiority to Disraeli in domestic legislation, his rival far outshone him as a foreign minister. Gladstone always raised his voice in behalf of oppressed nationalities, but he was op- posed to the aggressiveness of the extreme Imperialists and to expensive fleets and armies, he gave no continuous attention to external concerns, and left too much to his colleague, Lord Granville. Under the Glad- stone administrations it was generally felt that England suffered abroad both in dignity and power because of vacillating and dilatory methods. His success as a legislator and administrator was enhanced by his fascinating power of expounding the measures which he framed. He was, to be sure, overcapricious and subtle, and surpassed by many in the finest gifts of literary grace ; but, thanks to his telling phrases, his magical, sonorous voice, his flashing eye, his wondrous vitality and earnestness, no orator of his generation, except John Bright, was his superior. Gladstone was never congenial to the Queen. His seces- sion from the Peelites toward democratic liberalism offended her, and A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 991 his reforming zeal with its ruthless disregard of established institu- tions and vested interests excited her apprehension. He never spared her, as, for example, when he sent her twelve closely filled pages on the complicated details of his Irish Church bill. Then the ease with which he changed his mind, and " oiled the joints " of his sudden transitions with words, bewildered her as it did many another. More- over, while naturally considerate, he came, because of his tremendous moral enthusiasm, to regard himself as a chosen vessel, and impressed his opponents and many of his followers as dictatorial. While Dis- raeli achieved little in the way of tangible reform and re-created the Conservatives, Gladstone accomplished much and broke up the Liberal party. Gladstone's First Ministry, 1868-1874. Disraeli held his first premiership less than a year. The Conservatives, with a minority in the Commons, had only managed to hold on because of the split in the Liberal ranks over the question of parliamentary reform. That was no longer an issue, and Gladstone, owing to grave disturbances in Ireland, managed to reunite his party on the question of dis- establishing the Irish Church. In April, he succeeded in carrying a resolution on the subject against the Government. Disraeli offered his resignation, i May, 1868 ; but since the Queen was reluctant to accept it, and since the Liberals objected to appealing to the country until the recent electoral reforms had been carried into effect, he re- mained in office till the conclusion of the autumn elections. The result was a complete Liberal victory at the polls. Thereupon, Disraeli took the wise but novel step of resigning without waiting to face the new Parliament. On 4 December, Gladstone, at the age of fifty-nine, was entrusted with the task of forming the first of his four ministries. For the first time in years there were two united parties confronting one another, each led by a dominant personality. There were pressing problems to be dealt with abolition of privilege, re- duction of expenditure, readjustment of taxation, constructive social legislation, and the perennial Irish question. During his tenure of office, from 1868 to 1874, the new Prime Minister and his Cabinet carried a series of notable measures of which a half a dozen stand out with special prominence; the Irish Church Disestablishment, 1869; the Irish Land Act and the Elementary Education Act of 1870 ; the Army Regulation Act of 1871; the Ballot Act of 1872; and the Supreme Court of Judicature Act of 1873. The Irish problem claimed the first attention ; for the disturbances which Disraeli once tersely attributed to " a starving people, absentee landlords, and an alien Church " had broken out in a new and acute form. The Fenian Movement, 1858-1865. The disturbances were due to the activity of the Fenians. 1 Early in the fifties, Phcenix clubs had 1 The name "Fenians" is derived from an old Irish word meaning "champions of Ireland" and was originally applied to certain tribes who served as the militia of the ancient kings of Erin. 992 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND begun to spring up in Dublin in which young men enrolled for the pur- pose of achieving Irish independence ; but little was accomplished till after the foundation of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The organization spread rapidly through the United States where the immigrants who, since the potato famine, had flocked across the ocean in steadily growing numbers, had accumulated money and political training which made them more capable than their countrymen at home of initiating a serious rebellion. Fenianism had no design of bettering agrarian conditions, it had no great hold on the peasantry, and it was frowned upon by the Roman Catholic priesthood. Its aim was to throw off the British rule by intimidation and force. 1 The movement received a great impetus from the Ameri- can Civil War which furnished a military training for thousands of Irishmen and aroused their martial spirit. Moreover, they were allowed to retain their guns when they were mustered out. Finally, the ill feeling which developed between Great Britain and the United States led them to count on the alliance of the Americans. Many of the Irish Americans began to make their way home, and to extend their organization and to stir up disaffection in England and Ireland. There were active plotters enough, but, in contrast to 1798, no leaders of position and ability. The Fenian Plots and their Suppression, 1865-1866. The out- spokenness of the conspirators and the reports of spies stirred the Government to action. The Brotherhood was shrewdly organized. The chief power and control of plans converged toward an inner ring or center, and the rank and file in the outer circle had little to disclose. However, as the result of treachery, O'Donovan Rossa, the proprietor of the Irish People, was taken prisoner, 15 September, 1865, and various supplies of arms were disclosed and captured. James Stephens, the Head Center, arrested in November, managed to escape, but he made for New York and never attempted to return. In February, 1865, the Russell Ministry passed an act suspending the Habeas Corpus in Ireland and empowering the Lord Lieutenant to arrest and detain suspected persons. One reverse after another followed. On 31 May, an attempted Fenian invasion of Canada failed, largely on account of the determined attitude of the United States. A general rising, pro- jected in Ireland in March, 1867, proved abortive. England wit- nessed at least three disquieting manifestations of Fenian activity. In February, 1867, an attempt to capture Chester Castle, to seize the arms there and to convey them to Ireland was only frustrated by prompt measures on the part of the Government. Later in the same year, at Manchester, two Fenian prisoners were rescued from a prison van, and the sergeant who guarded them was shot through the 1 The aim was declared in the chief Fenian organ, 7mA People, in February, 1865: "The overthrow of the British Empire, that would be grand indeed. The day. Irishmen humble the haughty crest of England, they chain forever the glory of Ireland to the stars; they strike a blow that resounds through eternity." A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 993 keyhole of the locked door. Twenty-six men were tried for this reckless enterprise, of whom five were convicted and three were exe- cuted. These " Manchester martyrs," and those concerned with them in the rescue, at least showed courage, however misguided. An at- tempt to free two other prisoners from Clerkenwell in London, 13 December, by blowing up a portion of the prison wall, was nothing less than a stupid and cowardly outrage.. It caused the death of twelve persons, the injury of one hundred and twenty more, as well as forty premature childbirths, of which twenty resulted fatally. Had the prisoners themselves been in the yard at the time, they,, too, would have been killed. While such performances as this inevitably cast discredit upon the whole movement for Irish independence, never- theless, leading British statesmen became convinced that violence was nothing but the logical outcome of political repression, and that the only way to restore peace and quiet was to offer thoroughgoing measures of conciliation. The Disestablishment of the Irish Church, 1869. Gladstone, who, when called upon to form a Cabinet, had declared : " My mission is to pacify Ireland," thus found his hand greatly strengthened. Neither the disestablishment of the Irish Church, to which he was pledged, nor the improvement of the land tenure, which he regarded as almost equally pressing, had been demanded by the Fenians, but the Prime Minister and his supporters felt that, if these grievances were once removed, the movement springing up from discontent would wither at the roots. Gladstone's plan, laid before the Commons in March, 1869, provided that the Irish Church should cease to be a legal establishment after i January, 1871. Its ecclesiastical juris- diction was to be abolished, and the four Irish bishops were no longer to sit in the House of Lords. The Church's endowments were also to be taken away with compensation for vested interests, while church buildings, episcopal residences, and parsonages were reserved to a new voluntary organization which was to take the place of the old Establish- ment. The Regium Donum which the Government had allotted to the Presbyterians since the time of William of Orange, as well as the Maynooth Grant, were discontinued, but also with compensation. Private endowments made since the Restoration of 1660 were to be left untouched. The tithe rent charge was to be bought in by the landlords for a sum estimated at about 9,000,000. The remaining property of the Irish Church, consisting mainly of land and land rents, was computed to be worth some 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 more. According to Gladstone's plan, almost half this total of 16,000,000 would be employed in providing for the clergy. They were to have the option of continuing in their offices and drawing their revenues for life, or of settling for a lump sum. The surplus remaining was to be devoted to charity. Although the Episcopal clergy in Ireland denounced the bill as " highly offensive to Almighty God " and as " the greatest national sin ever committed," and although they were 994 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND strongly backed by the English Conservatives, who regarded it as a menace to Protestantism and property, it passed the Lower House with little difficulty. The great struggle came in the House of Lords, though the Peers, instead of rejecting it forthwith, strove to defeat its main provisions by hostile amendments. Their attitude set rumors afloat that the creation of new peers might be proposed, and led Bright to remark that by throwing themselves athwart the path of the national will they might " meet with accidents not pleasant for them to think about." All they accomplished, however, was to secure an increased compensation of about 850,000, and an agreement that the disposal of the surplus should be left to Parliament. The Queen was largely re- sponsible for the compromise. Much as she disliked the measure, she feared the consequences in case the Upper House persisted in its obstruction. The Irish Land Act of 1870. Having disestablished the alien Church which had for over three centuries been a grievance to the Irish, Gladstone, in 1870, undertook to deal with the land system. The difficulties were many and complex. In the first place, with comparatively few large industries or thickly populated cities the bulk of the Irish were dependent upon the land. This excess of culti- vators led to keen competition. Moreover, the Encumbered Estates Act of 1848 had transferred nearly one sixth of the soil to a class of land jobbers who were more greedy and exacting than the old absen- tees. Leases and contracts were the exception rather than the rule, so that, in the majority of cases, the tenant could be arbitrarily evicted at six months' notice. The case of the tenant was all the worse since he commonly made the improvements, 1 and after he had thus rendered the holding more valuable, he was liable to an increase of rent and to eviction if he could not pay. It should be borne in mind that some evictions were defensible, to get rid of the thriftless and to consolidate holdings that were too small. In Ulster a better custom known as the Ulster Tenant Right prevailed. There, rents were fixed by a fair valuation instead of by competition ; they were not raised in consequence of improvements made by the tenant, who was entitled to compensation for unexhausted improvements when he left the estate. A tenant might remain in undisturbed occupancy so long as he paid his rent, though he might sell his good will and transfer to any occupant of whom the landlord should approve. Gladstone's bill legalized, in the districts where it already prevailed, so much of the custom as provided compensation for arbitrary disturbance and the right of tenants, whether disturbed or not, to sell their unexhausted improvements. The Bill provided a similar arrangement for the other parts of Ireland where the custom did not exist. By the so- called " Bright Clauses " subsequently added, loans were to be advanced by the Government to tenants who wished to buy their 1 In England the reverse was true. The landlords usually made the improve- ments. A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 995 lands. The Act of 1870 failed to give satisfaction. For one thing, it failed to touch the evil of competitive rents which were in most cases too high. Moreover, .while it hampered the landlord's power of evic- tion, it did not seriously check his exercise of that power. Frequently he found it more profitable when he wanted to raise the rent, for example to pay the compensation than to retain a tenant whom he regarded as undesirable. In a word, while the Irish desired many things, including fair rents and fixity of tenure, they got compensa- tion for disturbance 1 and unexhausted improvements. In spite of Gladstone's well-meant efforts the discontent was so great that a Peace Preservation Act had to be passed, in 1871, giving the author- ities wide powers of dealing with the disturbed districts and with sus- pected persons. Disraeli was exultant over the 'unfortunate results of his rival's policy which he declared had : " legalized confiscation, con- secrated sacrilege, and condoned high treason." 2 The Education Question. In the year 1870, after the Irish Land Act had been carried, W. E. Forster, the Vice-President of the Privy Council, pressed forward an epoch-making education bill. The sub- ject needed attention sadly. The English system, so far as it could be called a system, was incomparably below those prevailing in the United States, in Prussia, and in Switzerland. There were nearly four million children of school age of whom nearly one half were unprovided for. About one million attended schools attached for the most part to the Church of England. They were supported by voluntary sub- scriptions, supplemented by fees and small Government grants, and were under Government inspection. Another million went to schools which received no government grant, were uninspected, and often in a very unsatisfactory state. The grammar schools founded, after the dissolution of the monasteries, by the Crown and by men who profited from the spoil of the monastic lands were largely under Church con- trol and were practically monopolized by the upper and middle classes. Moreover, they did not furnish primary instruction, which was gener- ally provided by private schools and tutors. 3 The working classes were mainly dependent on apprenticeship. When apprenticeship came to be superseded by the factory system, toward the end of the eighteenth century, two men who represented opposing policies undertook to supply the lack of primary instruction. One, Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, who believed in non-sectarian education, was supported by the British and Foreign School Society founded in 1808. The other was Andrew Bell, who advocated a form of instruc- tion based on Church principles. The National Society was founded 1 As a matter of detail, the scale of compensation was far from satisfactory. 2 The two latter charges related to the disestablishment of the Irish Church as a concession to Fenianism. 3 The so-called "public schools" like Eton, Rugby, and Harrow, which prepared for the universities, were not free, and were practically beyond the reach of the poorer classes. 996 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in 1811 to carry out his policy. In 1833 Parliament made its first grant of 20,000, the bulk of which went to the National Society. In 1839 the grant was increased to 30,000 x and a Committee of the Privy Council on Education was created. Inspectors of schools were appointed who had to receive the approval of the two Archbishops. Parliamentary grants increased slowly but steadily from this time, and in 1856 a Vice-President of the Committee on Education was created who was made eligible to sit in the House of Commons, and thus a responsible minister. In 1862 a modified system of " payment by results " was established which provided grants to managers of schools for each child on the basis of a. fair average of attendance and ability to pass an examination in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The framers of the act of 1870 were confronted by two main difficulties : the disinclination of many to pay rates for the education of other men's children, and the question of religious education. The Education Bill of 1870. There were sharply conflicting views among those who agreed that the existing situation should be reformed. Some were for free, compulsory education, divorced altogether from religious control ; others were opposed to free education ; others, again, insisted on some form of religious teaching, either denomina- tional or undenominational. Forster's plan was to retain the volun- tary schools where they were doing good work, and, in districts where they failed to meet the need, to set up schools under the charge of locally elected boards. These Board Schools, as they were called, were to be maintained partly by Government grant, partly by parents' fees, and partly from local rates. Attendance was not to be generally compulsory, the question being left to the discretion of each school board. The question of religious instruction was eventually settled by a compromise which satisfied neither of the extreme parties. The voluntary schools were allowed to continue their religious instruction, but while the Government grants were to be doubled, they were to receive no aid from the local rates. 2 In the Board Schools, all de- nominational religious instruction was prohibited. Reading and ex- plaining the Bible was allowed ; but even that had to come at hours when parents who so desired might withdraw their children. Although the Act was very unpopular, especially among the Nonconformists, it marked a long step in the direction of providing instruction free of cost for all the children of the kingdom. Within twenty years the number of schools had increased from 9,000 to 20,000, accommodating 5,500,000 pupils, and attended on the average by nearly 4,000,000. 3 1 Brougham pointed out that this same year in which 30,000 was reluctantly granted for the education of the people 70,000 was devoted to building the stables of the Queen. 2 Even this aid, however, was allowed in an indirect way. School boards were permitted to pay fees in the denominational schools for the children of parents who, though not paupers, were unable to meet the expense. 3 In 1902 a Conservative Government under Lord Salisbury abolished the special school boards provided for by the Act of 1870, and placed both the Board A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 997 The Civil Service Reform, 1870. Another far-reaching reform in this notable year 1870 was an Order in Council providing that candi- dates for the Civil Service should, at the discretion of the heads of departments, be subjected to competitive examinations. The quali- fication was a concession to the opposition of Lord Clarendon, head of the Foreign Office. For seventeen years, posts in the Indian Civil Service had been filled by competitive examination, while, since 1855, a Civil Service Commission had selected candidates for the Home Service by examination, but only in the case of those nominated to competition. The University Tests Act, 1871. An Act of 1871 opened to all students at Oxford and Cambridge the right to obtain university de- grees, with all the privileges which they conferred, and the right to hold lay offices, both in universities and the colleges without the obligation of subscribing to any religious tests. The progressive legislation following the great Reform Bill of 1832 had left this problem untouched ; although many bills dealing with it had been introduced from time to time. At Oxford, a student was obliged at matriculation to subscribe to the Thirty-nine articles, and again on taking the B.A. and the M.A. At Cambridge no such test was required, though, on taking a degree, a man had to declare that he was a bona fide member of the Church of England, and, since it rested with the college authori- ties to receive him in residence, Nonconformists were for years prac- tically excluded from entrance. In 1854, the university test for matric- ulation was abolished at Oxford, while, in 1856, Cambridge went a step further by throwing open to Nonconformists all ordinary bach- elors' degrees and the nominal title of the M.A. without the privileges attached to it. Even after the Act of 1871 none but members of the Church of England were eligible for clerical fellowships, degrees in divinity, and divinity professorships. Arrny Reform, 1870. Cardwell, Secretary for War, and Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty, were not behindhand in reforms relating to their respective departments, both in reduction of expenses and increase of efficiency. The reduction in the number of the laborers and artisans employed in the dockyards made many enemies for the Ministry. Cardwell cut down the number of British troops in the Colonies from 49,000 in 1868 to less than 21,000 in 1870, thus marking an important step in the application of a principle already recognized, that the oversea possessions should provide for their own defense in time of peace. Then, by an Act of 1870, he made the Commander- and the Church schools under the supervision of the County and Borough Councils, and provided that both types should be supported by Government grants supple- mented by local taxes. At the same time, the actual control of the Church schools was vested in a committee of six, two from the Council and four from the denomina- tion to which the school belongs. Since most of the schools were of the Anglican communion, the Dissenters made vigorous protests, but, owing to the opposition of the Lords, a measure framed by the Liberal Government, in 1906, with a view to taking public education out of denominational hands failed to pass. 998 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in-Chief more subordinate to the Secretary for War than he had been hitherto. By other far-reaching measures, among them shortening the term of enlistment, he practically reorganized the whole British army. The only serious struggle arose over the abolition of the pur- chase of army officers' commissions. It was a grave defect in the existing system that capable men of training could be jumped by mere youths of wealth and influence. On the other hand, it was argued that discipline would suffer if men of inferior station were put in command of their social superiors. Naturally, too, those who had expended large sums in the purchase of commissions were bitterly opposed to the change. As a concession to the latter, it was provided that officers who had paid for their positions might retain them, and 7,000,000 was appropriated to compensate those who wished to withdraw. The bill passed the Commons with some difficulty ; but the Lords, while they did not venture to reject it, sought to shelve it by delaying the second reading till the whole plan of army reorganiza- tion was before them. In consequence, Gladstone induced the Queen to declare the abolition of purchase by royal warrant. While this was perfectly constitutional, the Prime Minister was loudly criticized. Many Liberals deprecated his resorting to the royal prerogative, while Conservatives resented his inducing the Queen to introduce a change with which she was not in sympathy, and, more particularly, his dis- regarding the will of the Peers after he had already submitted the measure to them. Disraeli denounced the step as a " shameful and avowed conspiracy against the Upper House," which was now obliged to pass the Compensation Bill. The Lords took their revenge in 1871 by rejecting a bill providing vote by ballot and more effective checks against corrupt practices in elections ; but they had to give their assent the following year. The Growing Unpopularity of the Gladstone Ministry, 1871. The Ministry, though it survived three years longer, had already drawn upon its head a varied and powerful opposition that was, in the end, to prove overwhelming. The Education Act had alienated the Non- conformists as well as the stanch High Churchmen, the reductions in the dockyards had aroused the workingmen, the abolition of pur- chase had stirred the wrath of the upper classes. A number of bills, had to be withdrawn in 1871. Chief among them was a tax on matches, proposed by Lowe, who suggested with an unfortunate play of wit, that each box should bear the inscription ex luce lucellum a little profit out of light. The manufacturers succeeded in arousing both the workmen in the factories as well as the poor peddlers in the streets and enlisting popular sympathy in their cause. Moreover, the conciliatory attitude of the Government in foreign policy was scornfully branded as too tame and submissive. While the Liberal party was growing steadily weaker, Disraeli was aiming to popularize the Conservatives by exploiting the Imperial idea. The Mother Country and her colonies, he declared, ought to be united in close A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 999 Imperial bonds; there should be an Imperial protective tariff; the ties of mutual military defense should be drawn together, and some form of a representative institution should be set up in London in which the colonies might voice their aspirations and their needs. Of the three features of the Conservative program which he framed " the maintenance of our institutions, the preservation of our Empire, and the improvement of the condition of our people " Imperialism proved the most tangible. In a famous speech at Manchester in 1872 he compared the Ministers to a " range of exhausted volcanoes." The Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873. Such was the situa- tion when, in February, 1873, Gladstone introduced a bill to unite the various colleges of Ireland into a single university to which both Roman Catholics and Protestants should be freely admitted without religious tests. The defeat of the measure by three votes caused the Prime Minister to resign. Since, however, Disraeli did not feel that his party was yet strong enough to take office, the old Government came back. Although in a sadly crippled state, it was able to under- take, during the last few months of its career, one more notable reform a fundamental reorganization of the Law Courts and their procedure which was finally completed within two years. By the Judicature Act of 1873, and the supplementary acts which followed, the three Common Law Courts, together with Chancery and various other tribunals were consolidated into one Supreme Court of Judicature. This was to consist of two primary divisions : (i) the High Court of Justice, made of three subdivisions, (a) Queen's Bench, 1 (b) Chancery, (c) Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty ; (2) the Court of Appeal. From the Court of Appeal the cases went, as a last resort, to the House of Lords, which was strengthened in 1876 by the addition of three Law Lords who held their title for life. A fourth was subsequently added. The End of the First Gladstone Ministry, 1874. In 1874, Glad- stone suddenly appealed to the country in a general election which resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Conservatives. By pro- posing a tax on spirits the vanquished Prime Minister had added to his list a new enemy the liquor dealers who worked so actively against him that he wrote to his brother : " we have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer," doubtless an exaggeration of the in- fluence of this particular factor. Disraeli, in a recent attack, had accused him of having " harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed every class institution and species of property in the country." " It would have been better for us all," he declared on another occasion, " if there had been a little more energy in our foreign policy, and a little less in our domestic legislation." The Ministry had committed some blunders, it had made many enemies, and alienated some of its friends. Aside, however, from those who were actuated by strong religious convictions or insistent upon a more 1 This consolidation was not completed until 1880. iooo A HISTORY OF ENGLAND aggressive policy abroad, most of its opponents were those whose class privileges and vested interests had suffered. It had come to power pledged to carry out a vast program of reform, and its achievements in constructive, progressive legislation had been surpassed by few ministries of the century. Not only that, but it had also reduced expenses materially and left the treasury in a flourishing condition. England and the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871. The two most important features in British foreign relations during the Glad- stonian regime were the attitude of the Government toward the Franco-Prussian War and the adjustment, of the Alabama claims. Clarendon, appointed to the Foreign Office at the beginning of the Ministry, died in 1870. His death was a serious loss; for he was a finished diplomat whose name carried great weight in the councils of Europe. Lord Granville, who had succeeded him, was a man of tact and personal charm but dilatory and yielding. On 19 July, 1870, war broke out between France and Prussia. The causes were many and complicated. The French were jealous of the rising power of Prussia; they burned to recover the old Frankish territories on the left bank of the Rhine, their " natural frontier," while Napoleon III was anxious to unite his discontented subjects in a great war of con- quest. Led on by the adroit diplomacy of Bismarck, who was striving to complete the unification of Germany under Prussian domination, the French rushed headlong and unprepared into the conflict. The result was a Prussian triumph. On i September, 1870, the Emperor, with an entire French army, was surrounded and captured at Sedan. On 19 September the siege of Paris began, and after heroic suffering the city yielded, 28 January, 1871. Ten days before, William, King of Prussia, was crowned German Emperor at Versailles, and by the peace, concluded 3 March, France ceded Alsace and Lorraine and agreed to pay a war indemnity of five milliards of francs. The or- ganization of the new German Empire was completed in 1871. After vain offers of mediation the British Government remained neutral. By his ruthless methods Bismarck was able to prevent English popular sympathy for France from going too far. His most telling stroke was to publish, 25 July, 1870, the draft of a treaty which he had induced the Emperor to submit to him, looking toward a French occupation of Belgium. The Queen, naturally inclined to favor the German cause, nevertheless, in the interests of humanity, tried to prevent the bom- bardment of Paris. This Bismarck resented as " petticoat sentimen- tality," hindering German designs. In order to prevent any possi- bility of Great Britain and Russia combining to intervene in behalf of France, he sought to set the two Powers by the ears. To that end, he prompted Russia to seize the opportunity offered by the disturbed condition of Europe to abrogate the clause in the Treaty of 1856 which excluded Russian ships from the Black Sea. Russia decided to take the step and suddenly announced her intention in a circular letter, issued 31 October, 1870. Great Britain protested stoutly against her A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 1001 proceeding independently of the other parties to the Treaty. Although a conference was assembled at London in December, the result was a foregone conclusion. Russia had her way. The Alabama Claims. The settlement of the Alabama claims was regarded by many as another diplomatic defeat for the Gladstone Ministry. Undoubtedly, however, Russell had been at fault in allow- ing the Alabama, to sail. In 1865, he admitted to Gladstone that " paying twenty millions down would be far preferable to submitting the case to arbitration." The question was complicated by the resent- ment aroused in the United States against the British recognition of the belligerent rights of the South, and by the setting forth of indirect claims amounting to 400,000,000. These were based on the grounds that Great Britain's encouragement prolonged the war, that her attitude was responsible for a large share of the Northern losses at sea, and on the expense incurred by the United States Government in pursuing the various cruisers which had sailed from British ports. After long and arduous negotiations had failed to accomplish anything, the two Governments finally agreed to appoint a joint commission to discuss the questions at issue and decide upon a plan of settlement. By the Treaty of Washington, where the meetings were held in the spring of 1871, it was agreed, among other things, that Great Britain should express her regret at the escape of the Alabama and the other Confederate cruisers, and that the assessment of damages should be referred to an international tribunal. This body, which was to meet at Geneva, was to consist of five members chosen by the rulers of Great Britain, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil. As the result of its findings, announced in September, 1872, the United States was awarded 3,250,000. This Geneva Award marked the first step in international arbitration, and hence a notable advance in the progress of civilization, though the majority of the British people looked upon it in the light of a national humiliation. By the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, making it " an offense to build a ship in circumstances which gave reasonable cause for belief that it would be used against a friendly state engaged in war," Great Britain pro- vided for the future against any difficulties of this nature. The Second Disraeli Ministry, 1874-1880. For the first time since the Peelite schism the Conservatives, in 1874, came to office with a decided majority. Their ranks were greatly strengthened by the accession of numbers from the commercial classes who were alienated from the Liberal party because it was attracting the increasing support of the trade unions and the artisans. A Jew who had achieved his earliest fame as a fop and a novelist, and who had entered public life advocating a union of the nobility and the masses against the capitalistic class, was the leader of a new combination of aristocracy and conservative commercialism. After the mass of legislation pro- duced by the late Ministry, Disraeli's Government proposed to give the country a comparative rest. However, a few bills of note passed. 1002 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND In the teeth of determined obstruction from the Irish representatives, Assheton Cross, the Home Secretary, was able to carry various measures dealing with the welfare of the working classes notably a Public Health Act and an Artisans' Dwelling Act. In 1876 the persistent efforts of Samuel Plimsoll, the " sailors' friend," were rewarded by the passage of the Merchant Shipping Act aiming to prevent the overloading of ships or sending them on voyages in an unseaworthy condition. 1 Early in January, 1875, Gladstone withdrew from the leadership of the Liberal party, though, as it proved, only temporarily. The Marquis of Hartington took his place in the Commons, while Granville continued as leader in the House of Lords. The Purchase of the Suez Canal Shares, 1875. While the Con- servative Ministry passed a few measures which indicate that they too were not indifferent to the welfare of the working classes and sought their support, Disraeli's most notable achievements were in the field of foreign affairs. Perhaps his greatest stroke was the purchase, in November, 1875, of the Egyptian Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal Company. For 5,000,000 he secured nearly half the total stock. The step was made possible by the bankruptcy of the Khedive, Ismail, a colossal spendthrift, who in less than thirteen years had increased the Egyptian debt from 3,000,000 to 91,000,000. Be- cause of its position relative to India, the British interest in Egypt had always been great ; with the building of the Canal, which shortened it nearly six thousand miles, this interest became vital. In 1856, the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps had taken up the project which Napoleon had abandoned. In spite of the opposition of Palmerston, he succeeded in launching a company with a capital of 8,000,000, about half of which was subscribed by French capitalists. The Egyptian Government, which took up the remainder, ultimately sank more than 16,000,000 in the undertaking. The Canal, begun in 1859, was opened 17 November, 1869, with great festivities. 2 It was not till 1872 that the receipts began to exceed expenses, though, from that time, the profits increased by leaps and bounds, although the Egyptians, who had contributed so much, received nothing except the 5,000,000, which was sunk in the yawning gulf of the Khedive's expenses. Prompted by a suggestion from Frederick Greenwood, an English journalist, Disraeli, when he found that Ismail was trying to mortgage his shares in Paris, negotiated the purchase on his own re- sponsibility and got Parliament to ratify the Act. In 1876, owing to the involved condition of Egyptian finances, the European Powers were obliged to step in, and an Anglo-French dual control was es- 1 The abuses of sending ships to sea in an unsafe condition in order to gain the insurance is graphically pictured in Conan Doyle's The Firm of Girdlestone. 2 When the Khedive learned, six weeks before the event, that the French Empress Eugenie desired to visit the pyramids at Giza, he ordered a road seven miles long to be built. It was done in the intense heat by 10,000 peasants who were forced under the lash. A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 1003 tablished. In the following year Major Evelyn Baring (later and better known as Lord Cromer) began, as British Commissioner to the Public Debt, his long and wonderful career in Egypt. Ismail, after regaining his authority for a brief period, was finally deposed, in 1879, by the Sultan, at the instance of Great Britain and France. He died in exile in 1895. He was succeeded as nominal Khedive by his young and inexperienced son, Tewfik Pasha, who fell heir to "a bank- rupt state, an undisciplined army, and a discontented people." A crisis was inevitable, which came to a head in 1881. Victoria, Empress of India, 1876. Another evidence of Disraeli's Imperial imagination was manifested in the Royal Titles Bill of 1876 by which the Queen was declared Empress of India. He sought to allay the opposition based to a large degree on the discredit which the Imperial title had suffered from the blasted careers of Napoleon III and Maximilian by a promise that Victoria would never use it in England. This led to Lord Rosebery's witty comment : " labeled for external use only." The natives of India received the innovation with such enthusiasm that the feeling against it in England soon died away. In August, 1876, Disraeli, now in his seventy-second year, went to the House of Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield. A new Crisis in the Near East, 1875. Meantime, the' old prob- lem of Turkey in Europe had again assumed an acute form. The trouble began in 1875 with a revolt in the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Though egged on by Russia and Austria, they had suf- fered real grievances at the hands of Turkish officials : religious oppres- sion, and financial extortion as well. The provisions of the Treaty of 1856 had been violated in almost every conceivable way : the Porte had not kept its promise of ameliorating the lot of the Christians under its rule, Russia had not been excluded from the Black Sea, and endless other causes of friction existed to invite trouble. The three Powers, of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, were insistent that Turkey should be made to reform her administration by force of arms if necessary. The British Ministers would go no further, however, than to urge reform upon the Sultan. They still believed in the possibility of the regeneration of Turkey, a delusion which their jealousy of Russia contributed to nourish. Depending upon Disraeli's support, the Turks pursued a policy of suave evasion. On 5 May, 1876, a body of Mohammedan fanatics rose at Salonika, and among their victims were the French and German consuls. Although British, French, and German fleets were hurried to the scene of action, the disorders continued. At Constantinople, two sultans were deposed within two months. During the summer of 1876, Servia and Montenegro joined in the war. About the same time an insurrection broke out in Bul- garia, and was suppressed by the Turks with such atrocities as to arouse a fury of indignation in England, especially among the Liberals. Gladstone, emerging from his retirement, published, in September, a pamphlet on the Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, and 1004 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND made speeches of fiery eloquence in behalf of the oppressed. Beacons- field, who had little sympathy for the Christians in the Turkish prov- inces and a consuming dread of Russia, accused his rival of making political capital out of the situation, referring to him as a " designing politician," seeking " to further his own sinister ends." The more conservative Liberals were offended by the extreme utterances of the historian Freeman at a meeting where Gladstone also appeared. " Perish the interests of England," he cried, " perish our dominion in India, rather than she should strike one blow in behalf of Turkey, in behalf of the wrong against the right." A split in the party seemed imminent. The Marquis of Hartington, for example, who carried great weight, was by no means of Gladstone's way of thinking, much less of Freeman's. The Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878. But Beaconsfield dominated the Cabinet, and it was only the opposition of the British Government to the use of force that held Russia back. At length a conference of the Powers was arranged at Constantinople. Lord Salisbury, the British representative at Constantinople, solemnly informed the Sultan that if he failed to observe the warning of the Powers and al- lowed maladministration to continue, the responsibility would rest with the Porte. The effect of these weighty words was counterbalanced by a speech of Beaconsfield's at the Guildhall, 9 November, 1876, in which he declared that : " In a righteous cause and he trusted that England would never embark in war except in a righteous cause England was not a country that would have to inquire whether she would have to enter into a second or third campaign." l The Turks, thus encouraged to count on British support, rejected a protocol framed by the Conference voicing the demands of the Powers. As a consequence, Russia declared war on Turkey, 24 April, 1877. For months the conflict was waged with varying fortunes until, in Decem- ber, the power of the Turkish resistance was broken. In January, 1878, the Russian troops occupied Adrianople ; but, though they were within striking distance of Constantinople, their energies were, for the moment, wellnigh exhausted. There were three parties in England. At one extreme were those who regarded the welfare of the Christian subjects of the Porte as a matter of secondary importance, and in- sisted upon the maintenance of the integrity of Turkey as a necessary barrier against Russian aggrandizement. Opposed to them was the party which felt that the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire in Europe was a disgrace to Christendom and that it must be destroyed at all hazards. Between these extremes was the great mass of men who were ashamed of the Turkish atrocities ; but who, nevertheless, could not 1 The aggressive party who supported him in these views came to be known as the " Jingoists," from a music-hall song of the autumn of 1878 which ran : "We don't want to fight, but by jingo if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money too." A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 1005 bring themselves to support the armed intervention of Russia. There were sharp differences of opinion in the Cabinet as well. The policy of Lord Derby, 1 the Foreign Minister, was to hold aloof without coercing or assisting Turkey, so long as the British interests in the Suez, in Egypt, in the Persian Gulf, or anywhere along the route to India, were not affected. With some difficulty he maintained this policy until the Russians advanced on Constantinople, when, as a counterpoise, a British fleet was sent to the ^Egean. It sailed through the Dardanelles, and took up a position near the Turkish capital. On 3 March, the Russians extorted from their vanquished enemy the Treaty of San Stefano. The Treaty of San Stefano, 1878. The Treaty provided for : (i) the creation of the autonomous vassal principality of Bulgaria extending from the Danube on the north and the Black Sea on the east to the ^Egean on the south, and so big as not only to menace the integrity of Turkey, but practically to swallow up Macedonia, which the Greeks burned to recover ; (2) the independence of Servia, Mon- tenegro, and Rumania 2 with considerable additions of territory, though Russia designed to extend her boundaries at the expense of Rumania; (3) the demolition of the Danubian fortresses; (4) the autonomy of Bosnia and Herzegovina under Christian governors; (5) the guarantee of reforms and protection in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians ; (6) the payment of a war indemnity by Turkey. The plan of a " big Bulgaria " was opposed strenuously both by the Mussulmans and by the Greeks. Great Britain favored their protest, on the ground that it would practically amount to the creation of a Russian province dominating the Balkan peninsula. The British only later came to recognize that the formation of strong and inde- pendent buffer states in the Balkans might prove just as effective a check on the expansion of Russia as would the preservation of the in- tegrity of Turkey. 3 Austria who had received a promise that she might occupy the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina was also dissatisfied. As a result, the Congress of Berlin was arranged, where, owing mainly to the insistence of Great Britain, the whole treaty was reviewed. Although it was unprecedented for a Prime Minister to take such a step, Beaconsfield went in person to Berlin. The Congress of Berlin, 1878. The Congress, which sat from 13 June to 13 July, under the presidency of Bismarck, was a brilliant assemblage of diplomats representing the leading European powers. Its chief work was to alter two provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano. Austria was allowed to occupy and administer Bosnia and Herze- govina. 4 Also the " big Bulgaria " was cut down to a district north 1 The son of the late Prime Minister. 2 Formed by the union of the ancient provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859. 3 Lord Salisbury declared very bluntly, some time after, that Great Britain had "backed the wrong horse." 4 Austria annexed the provinces in 1908, ioo6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of the Balkans. South of the mountains was formed the province of Eastern Rumelia, under the control of the Sultan, but adminis- tered by a Christian Governor- General named by the Porte with the assent of the Powers. Macedonia, too, was excluded from the Bul- garia contemplated by the Russian arrangement, and, in spite of prom- ised reforms, remained groaning under Turkish oppression and con- stantly in revolt until the Balkan War of 1912. Meantime, 4 June, Great Britain, nine days before the opening of the Berlin Congress, had con- cluded a convention with Turkey by which she received the island of Cyprus in return for an agreement to protect the Asiatic provinces of the Porte from Russian attack, on condition that the Sultan " intro- duce necessary reforms therein." Beaconsfield on his return to Eng- land was received with tremendous enthusiasm, and declared compla- cently that he had obtained " peace with honor." But his achieve- ments at Berlin were hardly worth the trouble they cost, and that on which he prided himself most was not destined to survive a decade. He was unable to keep northern and southern Bulgaria apart by giving the latter a new name, and in 1885 his P e t creation of Eastern Roume- lia quietly proclaimed its union with Bulgaria, an arrangement which was sanctioned by Salisbury, the successor of Beaconsfield as head of the Conservative party. Great Britain, however, had accomplished something by strengthening the Austrian power in the Balkan States, and by showing the Russians that they could not presume to adjust the affairs of the near East unopposed ; but even the heirs of Beacons- field's policy came to recognize that there was a more effectual way of holding the Muscovite power in check than by a futile attempt to sustain the integrity of Turkey in Europe. The Situation in India and Afghanistan, 1874-1878. Among the problems facing the Beaconsfield Administration when it came to power was a famine in Bengal ; but concerted measures of relief helped to tide over the crisis until an abundant rainfall and a fruitful harvest brought plenty in the following year. The loyalty of the im- aginative Indians was stimulated by a visit of the Prince of Wales during the winter of 1875-1876 ; by Victoria's assumption of the Im- perial title, together with the creation of " native councillors of the Empress " and the Order of the Indian Empire. Early in 1876, Lord Lytton, son of the famous novelist and himself a minor poet who had served as a diplomatist, hitherto without distinction, went out as Viceroy. Like so many of Beaconsfield's appointees, he showed un- expected qualities for the work before him. In devising measures to meet another famine this time in southern and western India as well as in the whole field of internal administration his regime was marked by vigor and capacity. Unhappily, however, he soon became involved with the Amir of Afghanistan in what was regarded as a necessary policy of intervention for the purpose of checking the for- ward policy of Russia, a policy in which that country was strengthened by the attitude of Great Britain toward the treaty of San Stefano. In A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY 1007 the summer of 1878 it developed that the Russians were treating with the Afghan ruler, and had induced him to accept a Russian mission at Kabul. Instead of trying to force the Russians to withdraw, the British Cabinet followed the advice of Lytton and determined to coerce the Amir into accepting a British resident as well. He had desired British support in money and arms ; but he was stoutly op- posed to a resident British mission on the ground that it would weaken his authority, and that " in the event of an outbreak he would be unable to protect it." Events proved him right. Lord Lawrence, an ex- Viceroy and one of the most notable of Indian administrators, pro- tested against the policy; but Beaconsfield was insistent, and even went so far as to declare in his speech at the Guildhall banquet, in November, 1878, that the object was to establish a " scientific fron- tier " in the northwest, that is, nothing less than territorial aggression for the defense of India. The Afghan War, 1878-1879. The Government had to send a great invading army to enforce its demands. Gladstone uttered a prophetic prayer : " May heaven avert a repetition of the calamity which befell the army in 1841." Sher Ali fled and his son and successor, Yakub Khan, negotiated a treaty providing for a readjustment of the frontier and the admission of a British resident. While the wise fore- saw that the situation was full of danger, the Government nourished the delusion that they had secured a " friendly, and independent and a strong Afghanistan." In September, the British envoy, together with the little force which had been left with him on the withdrawal of the invading army, less than six weeks after his arrival at Kabul, was killed in a vain attempt to defend the Embassy. Yakub Khan, who had all along been encouraging disaffection among his subjects, if he had not instigated the actual rising, at least took no steps to put it down. General Roberts was at once dispatched to Kabul, and oc- cupied the city, 10 October. Yakub Khan abdicated and went into exile. A commission of inquiry sentenced eighty-seven persons to death for participation in the murderous outbreak and the disturbance which followed. Reinforcements were hurried to the assistance of Roberts ; but Lytton, who contemplated a complete subjugation of northern Afghanistan, was superseded on a change of Ministry in 1880. Abdur Rahman Khan, a cousin of the late Sher Ali, was made Amir at Kabul, while Kandahar was placed under a separate ruler. The aggressive policy of Beaconsfield and Lytton had resulted in a tragedy which had been signally avenged. The new arrangements, however, left the situation fraught with uncertainty. Various difficulties have arisen in subsequent years owing to native risings and boundary dis- putes with Russia. At present, however, the storm center of Russian and British rivalry is rather in Persia than in Afghanistan. Elsewhere, the Conservative government showed the same forward policy, notably in South Africa, where, as one consequence, the British were plunged into a serious war with the Zulus, lasting from January to July, 1879. ioo8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Fall of the Beaconsfield Ministry, 1880. The Beaconsfield Ministry had already reached the highwater mark of its popularity at the time of the Prime Minister's return from Berlin in 1878. Agri- cultural depression, 1 decline in trade, strikes, the Afghan and Zulu wars, unsatisfactory budgets, dearth of remedial legislation, together with the policy of systematic obstruction initiated by the new Irish Home Rule party in the Commons, all contributed to prepare the way for its overthrow. In November, 1879, Gladstone, now a veteran of three score and ten, denounced the Government in a remarkable series of speeches delivered to his constituency of Midlothian. He scored the foreign policy, including the burden of expense which it involved, and he scored the domestic administration. Many, however, even of his own party regarded his campaigning with apprehension as a " precedent tending in its results to the degradation of British politics by bringing in a system of perpetual canvass, and removing the politi- cal center of gravity from Parliament to the platform." On 8 March, 1880, Beaconsfield appealed to the country in a general election. The cause of the Liberals was much assisted by the superiority of their political organization based on the model which Mr. Joseph Chamber- lain, destined to become one of the dominant figures of the generation, had introduced from the United States into Birmingham, whence it spread through the country. Another factor in the election was the support which the Irish gave to the Liberals ; " but the main cause of a change of fortune, more startling than any of the party managers had anticipated, was Gladstone's missionary fervor, playing upon popular discontent, the reaction against Imperialism as exemplified in the Zulu and Afghan misadventures, the dislike of the Noncon- formists to Disraeli, and the desire for something fresh." When he learned of the defeat of his party at the polls, Beaconsfield resigned, 18 April, 1880, without waiting to face Parliament. FOR ADDITIONAL READING See Chapter LV below. 1 In 1879 occurred the worst harvest of the century. CHAPTER LV THE TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN (1880-1901) The Second Gladstone Ministry, April, 1880- July, 1885. While Granville in the House of Lords and Hartington in the House of Com- mons were still the leaders of the Liberal party, it was Gladstone who had defeated the Conservatives by his Midlothian campaign speeches. When they found that their old chief would accept no subordinate office, they persuaded the Queen, much against her will, to make him Prime Minister. It was the last Cabinet in which John Bright ever sat, and the first in which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain held office. The latter, together with many of his colleagues, were destined to break from their party on the question of Irish Home Rule. The Bradlaugh Case, 1880-1886. At the opening of the new session, Charles Bradlaugh, elected from Northampton, raised an issue which culminated, after some years of struggle, in the removal of the last religious disability for membership in the House of Com- mons. As an atheist Bradlaugh objected to the required oath which contained the words : " So help me God," and insisted on taking an affirmation instead. After conflicting motions and decisions, an Affirmation Bill was introduced and dropped in 1881, while another was defeated by three votes in 1883. .Meantime, Bradlaugh changed his mind and offered to take the oath. Indeed, he produced a New Testament from his pocket and administered it himself. There were, no doubt, a number of members whose unbelief was as strong as his own ; but, since he was a professed freethinker who had openly declared that the prescribed test meant nothing to him, the House of Commons and the courts denied him the right to do what many who concealed their opinions did without question. The persistent Bradlaugh was involved in no less than eight lawsuits, he was un- seated and reflected many times, and he was even expelled from the House by force. At length, in January, 1886, the Speaker ruled that he should be allowed to take the oath, and, he held his seat till his death in 1891. In 1888 he secured the passage of a bill legalizing the substitution of an affirmation for an oath, both in the Commons and in the Law Courts. Thus the question was settled once and for all. Although his case occupied so much of the session of 1880, various progressive measures were passed. Chief among them was a Burial Act allowing interment in churchyards without religious services, and an Employer's Liability Act, which greatly assisted workmen to 3 T 1009 ioio A HISTORY OF ENGLAND obtain compensation for injuries received while engaged in their occupation. Ireland, however, was again demanding serious atten- tion. The Origin and Rise of the Home Rule Party. In 1871, Isaac Butt, w r ho entered Parliament in that year, launched a new policy for which he invented the name " Home Rule." In contrast to the Fenians, who aimed at an independent republic, it was the purpose of his party to secure a separate legislature for Ireland by peaceful, politi- cal methods. Owing to his genial temper and lack of aggressiveness, the movement made little progress under his direction. The force which he lacked was supplied by Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) who entered Parliament in 1875, and who, two years later, deliberately adopted and systematized a policy already resorted to on occasion. This policy consisted in obstructing, in every way possible, the legis- lative policy of the House of Commons until the demands of the Irish Home Rulers were considered. At first sight it would seem that he was the very last person to lead the Nationalist cause. He had not a drop of Irish blood in his veins, for his ancestors were Englishmen who had settled in the county of Wicklow. Moreover, he was a landowner, a graduate of Cambridge, and a Protestant. However, he had inherited from his mother a daughter of the American Admiral, Charles Stewart, who had fought in the war of 1812 an intense hatred of the English, a hatred still further inflamed when the authorities searched the family home, not sparing even his mother's bedroom, because of her supposed sympathy with Fenianism. The attainment of Home Rule for Ireland grew rapidly to be his consuming ambition. He was a cold, undemonstrative man ; but his force and energy were tremendous, and by sheer will power, with little or no literary training, he grew to be -a powerful, incisive speaker. In 1877, he was elected president of the Home Rule Federation of Great Britain. Though he was opposed to force, he gradually allied himself with the Fenians of various countries, notably with the Clan-na-Gael, which had its center in America and differed from the old Fenians who would have nothing to do with parliamentary agitation. His aim was to unite all organizations, whether constitutional or revolutionary, in the cause to which he devoted his life. However, he repudiated all connection with the dynamiters. In the autumn of 1879, he was elected to the presidency of the National Land League of Ireland, founded for the reduction of unjust rents and for the ultimate transfer of the ownership of land to the occupiers. Late in the same year he embarked for the United States, where he made a short tour, with the twofold design of raising funds and of extending his influence. The Land Act of 1881. Soon after Gladstone came to power, a Peace Preservation Act expired by limitation, and the Government undertook to maintain order by ordinary law. This proved futile, violence continued, Parnell persevered in his obstructionist tactics and became more and more outspoken. He declared that if a tenant TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN ion took a farm from which another had been evicted he "should be isolated from his kind as if he had been a leper of old." Such treat- ment accorded to one Captain Boycott who was overzealous in en- forcing the rights of a Mayo landlord, added a new word to our lan- guage. The situation in Ireland became so disturbing that, in the session of 1881, the Liberals forced through a new series of coercive measures in the teeth of determined opposition from the Irish National- ists. By way of conciliation, however, Gladstone introduced a Land Act designed to remedy the defects of his measure of 1870, by providing the " three F's " demanded by the Irish fair rents, fixity of tenure, and free sale of his interests by the tenant. The Act was to be enforced by a Land Court, which, however, took no action unless voluntarily resorted to by one of the parties, either landlord or tenant. It might fix a " judicial rent " which was to remain in force for fifteen years, during which period the tenant could not be evicted except for non- payment of rent and certain other specified reasons. At the end of the fifteen years the landlord might resume possession with the Court's consent. Meanwhile, if at any time the occupier wished to part with his tenant right, he was allowed, subject to certain restric- tions, to sell it for the best price he could get, though the landlord was to have the first option. In case the tenant wished to buy his holding, the Government was to loan three fourths of the purchase money. Advances were also made for emigration, and for improvements, in- cluding reclamation of waste lands. In spite of its well-meant pro- visions, the Bill found favor with neither the landlords nor the tenants, though Gladstone with his wondrous skill and eloquence was able to secure its enactment. The Kilmainham Treaty and the Phoenix Park Murders, 1882. Once more coercion and conciliation alike proved ineffective. Before the close of the year, Parnell and half a dozen of his followers were sent to Kilmainham prison for inciting Irishmen to defeat the Land Act by intimidating tenants inclined to take advantage of its pro- visions. In the spring of 1882, they were released in accordance with the terms of the " Kilmainham Treaty " arranged with Glad- stone and Mr. Chamberlain, by which they agreed to put an end to boycotting and to cooperate with the Liberal party. The treaty had scarcely been concluded when all England was shocked by the news that, 6 May, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, the Permanent Under-Secre- tary, had been murdered by a band of Fenians in broad daylight in Phcenix Park, Dublin. The murderers escaped; but they were finally discovered and sent to the gallows in 1883. Parnell gained great credit with Gladstone by repudiating all connection with the outrage and offering to resign from the leadership of the Home Rule party ; but the Government passed a Prevention of Crimes Bill which was regarded as one of the strongest coercive measures of the century. In October of 1882, a National League was formed in place of the ioi2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Land League which had been suppressed in the previous autumn. The year was marked by a series of murders in Ireland ; but Parnell brushed aside with cold contempt the charge that he was in any way privy to them. Meantime, he had broken off all connection with the Clan-na-Gael, which, under O'Donovan Rossa, Patrick Ford, and other extremists, was seeking to terrorize the English by dynamiting their public buildings, including the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London. From 1881 to 1884 they spent 100,000 in at- tempts of this sort, all of which ended in failure. In the House of Commons new rules of procedure were adopted against the obstruc- tionists and some notable measures were carried. The Corrupt Practices Act, 1883. One of these was a Corrupt Practices Bill which reduced the cost of general elections from 2,500,- ooo, to 800,000. No candidate, or his agent, might henceforth spend more than a fixed sum for election expenses. Any candidate found guilty of evading in person the terms of the Act, might, varying with the gravity of his offense, be excluded from Parliament alto- gether ; from sitting in the constituency where he secured his election ; or from voting or holding office for seven years. Even if the fault was committed by an agent, the candidate might be prohibited from rep- resenting the constituency in question for seven years. Bribery, treating, and kindred offenses were made punishable by a year's imprisonment and by a fine of 200. The Franchise Bill of 1884. In February, 1884, Gladstone introduced a new franchise bill with the object of extending to the rural classes the same rights of voting as were enjoyed in the boroughs, and for establishing a substantially uniform fran- chise throughout the United Kingdom. The household, rating and lodger franchises were extended to the counties, and a new " service " franchise was added which conferred the franchise on men " not owners or tenants, but who occupy by virtue of an office, service, or employment, a dwelling house in which the employer himself does not reside," and the 10 franchise was applied to land, whether there were buildings on it or not. At the same time, other qualifications, provided for in the acts of 1832 and 1867, were left un- touched. In short, the measure went almost to the length of manhood suffrage ; since domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents, and those who had no fixed abode 1 were the only classes excluded. The Prime Minister's measure provided for an addition of some 2,000,- ooo voters, nearly four times the number added in 1832, and nearly twice the number added in 1867. Not only the Conservatives as a whole, but many Liberals, even in the Cabinet, insisted that it was dangerous to go to such lengths. While the opposition in general felt 1 These latter were excluded by various residence qualifications. On the other hand, a man who owns land in a county may not only vote by virtue of that fact ; but may cast a vote, in addition to that to which he may be entitled on account of a household or other qualification in a borough. TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1013 that the agricultural laborer was too ignorant to vote, the Conserva- tives laid chief emphasis on the fact that Gladstone refused to provide for a redistribution of seats together with extension of the franchise. The Bill passed the House of Commons, with some difficulty, 'but was rejected in the Lords. Its Passage. The Redistribution Act, 1885. The Queen, " who regarded a working harmony between the two Houses of Parliament as essential to the due stability of monarchy," strove, as she had in 1869, to avoid a breach. Before she had gone very far, influential members of the Conservative party had independently come to the conclusion that the measure might safely pass if joined to a satisfactory redis- tribution bill. Gladstone, while he demurred at first, finally yielded, though one of his followers, Mr. (now Viscount) Morley launched a jingle, which became very popular about " mending or ending " the House of Lords. The question was settled by the leaders of the two parties over sundry cups of afternoon tea, in private conference, and the Conservatives were informed of the terms of the redistribution bill which the Prime Minister was prepared to introduce. As a result of these " delicate and novel communications," as Gladstone de- scribed them, the Franchise Bill passed easily during the autumn session of 1884. The Redistribution Bill, which followed close upon its heels, did away with 160 seats, though, by substitutions and the increase of new constituencies, the membership of the House of Commons was increased from 658 to 670. All boroughs with a population of 15,000 and under were merged into the counties, which were divided into one-member constituencies on a basis of population. Those between 15,000 and 50,000, together with the two little counties of Rutland and Hereford, were reduced to single- member constituencies. London was given 37 additional members, though the City proper lost 2 of its 4, Liverpool gained 6, Birmingham and Glasgow 4 each, Yorkshire 16, and Lancashire 15. Except in the City of London, and in boroughs and cities with a population of between 50,000 and 165,000, one-member constituencies became the rule. The bill became law in June, 1885. The Egyptian Problem and the Beginning of the British Occupation, 1881-1882. The foreign policy of the first Gladstone Ministry had aroused widespread dissatisfaction, that of the second stirred the opposition to fury. The Cabinet was criticized for withdrawing from Afghanistan and leaving the Amir to deal unassisted with his native opponents and with the Russians ; it was also denounced for making concessions to the Boers in South Africa after the British forces had received a humiliating defeat at their hands. However, it was events in Egypt that aroused the greatest storm and contributed more than any other cause to drive the Liberals out of office. On the accession of Tewfik Pasha the Anglo-French dual control was revived, and the financial administration seemed established on a satisfactory basis, with due regard for Egyptian creditors. A crisis came in 1881, when ioi4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the Khedive was obliged to dismiss, first his War Minister, and then his whole Cabinet at the demand of a faction of the army who represented, or professed to represent, the anti-Turkish or patriotic Egyptian in- terests. What had begun as a " national " movement degenerated, under their guidance, into an anarchistic outburst against progressive administration, and an anti-Christian crusade. They were led by Arabi, " a colonel of peasant origin," who became War Minister, 5 February, 1882. In spite of a joint note from Great Britain and France, the Khedive was obliged to admit him to office and was threat- ened with death if he removed him. A grievous evidence of what might be expected under the new regime was a Mohammedan massacre of Christians at Alexandria, n June. The European Powers were for intervention through the Porte ; but nothing seemed likely to be done ; indeed Arabi, though he had begun with an anti-Turkish prop- aganda, was evidently receiving secret support from Constantinople. So the British, when they found he was erecting batteries, determined, July n, to bombard Alexandria. The French fleet already there refused to participate and sailed away. Arabi was forced to abandon the city. On 13 September he was defeated at Tel-el-Kebir and put to flight by a British army. The native forces had shown, as Sir Evelyn Baring pithily declared, that they would mutiny but would not fight. Numbers were tried, and Arabi, together with a few others, was exiled to Ceylon. Lord Duff erin, who was sent, in November, from Constantinople, framed and submitted to the British Cabinet a scheme for the reorganization of the Egyptian administration. At the re- quest of the Egyptian Government the dual control came to end, in spite of French protests. Gladstone and his Cabinet disdained all thought of a British protectorate, and proposed to withdraw as soon as conditions warranted the step. But Great Britain, assuming the posi- tion of adviser, with Baring as Agent and Consular General, acted as pro- tector in fact if not in name, and remains in occupation to this day. The Sudan and Gordon at Khartum, 1884. The next crisis in Egyptian affairs was due to the situation in the Sudan (" the country of the blacks "), lying in the upper Nile valley to the south of Egypt. This district had first come under Egyptian control in 1819 during the time of Mehemet All. In 1874, General Gordon was sent there by the Khedive with the design of developing a great Central African Empire. In 1877 he was given the title Governor- General of the Egyptian Sudan with a territory 1300 miles square under his con- trol. Gordon was a religious and moral enthusiast and made dire war on the powerful slave dealers, who speedily resumed their traffic when he withdrew in 1879. In 1881, a man rose up who proclaimed himself the Mahdi the spiritual and temporal ruler to whose com- ing in the last days, Mohammedans looked forward. He declared it his mission to drive the hated Egyptian power from the Sudan, to con- quer their country, to overthrow their Turkish suzerain, and to convert the whole world to his faith, which not only was opposed to TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1015 Christianity, but to orthodox Mohammedanism as well. He gathered about him a body of fanatical enthusiasts against whom the English commander of the Egyptian army was unable to make headway, because of the disorganized state of the Egyptian Government and because the British Foreign Minister, Lord Granville, refused to assume any responsibility in the Sudan. When Baring protested that (since the Sudan was a dependency of the Khedive) it was im- possible to separate Egyptian and Sudanese affairs, the Cabinet de- cided to abandon the country. After vain attempts had been made to relieve and withdraw the loyal garrisons posted there, General Gordon, whose offer to undertake the task had been twice refused by Baring and the Egyptian ministers, was sent out by the British Gov- ernment, again with the title of Governor-General. Considering that the mission was intended to be a peaceful one, the choice was most unhappy; for the class that Gordon had bitterly antagonized were among the Mahdi's stanchest followers. Arriving at Khartum, in February, 1884, his communications with the north were entirely cut off by May. The Failure to Relieve Him, 1885. The Final Conquest of the Sudan, 1898. After months of delay the British Government finally sent a force to relieve him. Against the advice of men on the ground General Wolseley, the commander, chose the long river route instead of the shorter road across the desert. He did at length consent to dispatch a column by way of the desert ; but it was too late to pro- cure camels, or adequate equipment and supplies. When the relieving force arrived within striking distance of Khartum, 27 January, 1885, the Mahdi was in possession and Gordon was dead. In the face of starvation and treachery within, as well as attacks from without, he had held on magnificently for three hundred and seventeen days. The tardy arrival of the relieving force roused a storm of fury in England and proved the " death blow of the Ministry," while the name of Gordon was cherished as that of a martyred hero. Neverthe- less, the Sudan was abandoned. While the Mahdi only survived the taking of Khartum five months, the country was ruled for some years by his successor, an ex-slave dealer, who committed sad havoc and almost depopulated it. Meantime, under the remarkable ad- ministration of Baring, who became Lord Cromer in 1901, Egypt was absolutely transformed. Finances were put on a sound footing, roads were built, irrigation was revolutionized by the Assuan dam begun in 1898. The army, too, was reformed. Its most notable achievement was the recovery of the Sudan in a cam- paign which lasted from 1896 to 1898. Sir Herbert Kitchener, the commander, was also assisted by British forces. The critical engage- ment leading to the recovery of Khartum was fought at Omdurman, 2 September, 1898. About the same time, Major Marchand, entering from the west, occupied Fashoda for the French ; but after delicate diplomatic negotiations he was induced to withdraw. By an agree- ioi6 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND ment, concluded in January, 1899, the government of the Sudan was placed under the sovereignty of Great Britain and the Khedive of Egypt. Military and civil control was vested in a Governor-General recommended by the British and appointed by the Khedive. Under the new regime the Sudan appears to be recovering from Mahdism and to be on the road to civilization and prosperity. Cromer and Modern Egypt. In addition to the financial and army reforms already enumerated, much has been done in Egypt toward improving the administration of justice, the condition of prisons, the state of public health, and the advancement of education. At first, progress in the latter field was painfully slow. According to the census of 1897, no less than 88 per cent of the males and 99^ per cent of the females were unable to read or write. Since then, however, the gain has been rapid. With the improvement of material condi- tions and the spread of education there has been an increasing demand for self-government. This new nationalism first became manifest about 1892 upon the death of Tewfik Pasha. Stimulated by the strained relations between the British agency and the new Khedive and greatly fostered by the press, it was taken up by many young men of the better class, though only among the Mohammedans. While much can be said for the movement from the standpoint of sentiment, unquestionably the country is better off under British than it could hope to be under native rule. As a matter of fact, only one per cent of the natives show enough interest to vote on those questions in which they have a voice. Yet, as they grow ready for it, more and more of the government should be placed in their hands. The French, as they saw their Egyptian investments steadily increasing in value, gradually became reconciled to an indefinite British occupation, and, in 1904, formally agreed' to demand no limit to its continuance. In 1907 Lord Cromer resigned, after nearly a quarter of a century of labors, crowned by unique achievement. The Fall of the Second Gladstone Ministry, 12 June, 1885. In 1884-1885, while the Gladstone Ministry was unwillingly involved in the Sudanese difficulties, Russian encroachments on the frontier of Afghanistan nearly brought on a war. In April, 1885, the Opposition joined loyally in a vote of supply to meet the situation. But Granville, the Foreign Minister, proved so anxious for peace that he was accused by the Conservatives of truckling to Russia, and Salisbury was moved to declare in a public speech that : " the Government go into every danger with a light heart and then they make up for it by escaping with a light foot." It remained for him as Prime Minister to settle the question of the disputed frontier in 1887. Not only was the policy of the second Gladstone Ministry unsuccessful abroad, but its well-meant efforts to deal with the Irish problem had antagonized both the Home Rulers and the Conservatives. Gladstone's peculiar strength was in financial administration and progressive legislation voicing the needs of middle-class Liberalism. His first Administration was notable for TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1017 marked achievement in his peculiar field. In his second, when he was confronted with a different class of problems his prestige suffered dis- tinctly. Finally, he resigned, 12 June, 1885, on the passage of a hostile amendment to his budget. The First Salisbury Ministry, July, 1885, to February, 1886. Salisbury, who had succeeded to the headship of the Conservative party on the death of Beaconsfield, 19 April, 1881, became Prime Minister in place of Gladstone. The Conservatives had always stood for coercion in Ireland; but on the advent of the Salisbury Ministry some of the party leaders entered into an understanding with Parnell that their policy would be reversed in return for the support of the Irish Nationalists. By the Ashbourne Act * of 1885 the Govern- ment advanced 5,000,000 to Irish tenants, who, with loans from this fund, might purchase their holdings and repay the debt by annual instalments of 4 per cent for forty-nine years. The policy of creating a body of peasant proprietors as a cure for Irish discontent, which was initiated by John Bright in 1870, and which formed a feature of the act of 1 88 1, was thus adopted and extended by the Conservatives. Subsequent Land Purchase Acts were passed in 1887, 1891, 1896, and 1 903.2 This form of assistance to the Irish tenantry, together with the concession of increased powers of self-government in local affairs, came to be the main substitutes which the Conservatives offered in place of the Home Rule demanded by the Nationalists. On the other hand, early in 1896, the Liberals identified themselves with the cause of the Home Rulers. Home Rule Adopted by Gladstone, December, 1885. In the general election which took place in December, 1885, Gladstone had evaded committing himself on his future Irish policy. " What- ever demands," he said, " may be made on the-part of Ireland, if they are to be entertained they must be subject to the condition that the unity of the Empire must be preserved." In consequence of this cryptic attitude, worthy of Queen Elizabeth, the Irish refused to sup- port the Liberal party, who, nevertheless, secured 335 members in the new Parliament to 249 Conservatives and 86 Nationalists. Scarcely were the elections over when, 17 December, a newspaper report announced that Gladstone was prepared to support, subject to certain conditions, a Home Rule proposition. While he declared that the statement had been published without his knowledge or authority, it represented his views with substantial accuracy. At any rate, it soon became generally known he was for "a plan of duly guarded Home Rule." Conditions were so disturbed in Ireland that the Government felt obliged to introduce a new coercion bill. On its defeat the Salisbury Ministry resigned, 28 January, 1886. 1 The Act was named from its author, Lord Ashbourne, the Irish Lord Chan- cellor. 2 In 1891, a sum of 30,000,000 was appropriated for this purpose, and in 1903, 100,000,000, of which 5,000 ooo was to be advanced annually. ioi8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Third Gladstone Ministry, February to August, 1886. The First Home Rule Bill. In constructing his third Ministry, Gladstone informed each man whom he asked to take office that it would be the aim of the Government to determine whether or no Ireland should be given an independent legislature. As a result, many of his old associates, including Hartington and Bright, refused to join. Mr. Chamberlain took office only on conditions, and resigned before the end of March. Lord Randolph Churchill achieved the result, which proved big with consequences, of stirring up Ulster to oppose the impending project, 1 and at a meeting in Manchester, 3 March, em- ployed two terms which soon became generally current " Unionist and Separatist." On 8 April, 1886, Gladstone moved for leave to bring in an Irish Government Bill, with the understanding that a new Land Purchase Bill was to follow. His plan aimed at the estab- lishment of a legislative body to sit in Dublin for the purpose of making the laws and controlling the administration of Ireland. It was to be made up of two orders. The first was to consist of 28 representative life peers, together with 75 other members with a property qualifica- tion of 200 a year, elected for ten years by voters qualified with an annual income of 25. The other was to consist of the 103 members already .provided for, plus 101 more elected by the existing constituencies. The two orders were to deliberate together, though they might vote separately. In case of a disagreement, a bill might be held up for three years or until the next dissolution'. The Prime Minister purposed, however, to secure the unity of the Empire, and the rights of the minority, with possibly a separate arrangement for Ulster. Irish members were not to sit in the Parliament at West- minster. While the Irish legislature was to have the power of im- posing taxes, they were not to include customs, or certain excises, which were reserved to the Imperial body, though, after Ireland's share of the common expenses had been provided for, any surplus remaining was to be handed over to the Irish Exchequer. Moreover, certain areas of legislation, relating chiefly to the Crown, the army and the navy, navigation and trade, were also to be dealt with by the British Parliament exclusively. The Lord Lieutenant was still to be appointed by the Crown, but existing religious disabilities were to be removed. It was estimated that Ireland should contribute 1 In the past Ulstermen had been among the leaders in the endeavor to secure an independent government for Ireland. But there was a strong Protestant ele- ment in the district, and there were vast industrial interests centering chiefly in Belfast, and their change of front was due to the fear that their religion and their wealth might be exploited by the poor Roman Catholic element who would dominate the Irish legislature. The argument that the grant of Home Rule would be a betrayal of the Ulster loyalists appealed strongly to the Queen, who, however, opposed the step on other grounds as well. It appeared to her as a breach of her coronation oath and as a concession to the forces of disorder. Moreover, she com- plained that Gladstone had "sprung it" on her and on the country without ade- quate notice. TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1019 one fifteenth of the Imperial expenses. Parnell insisted that one twentieth would be a fairer proportion ; but guaranteed, nevertheless, that the Nationalists would support the Bill. Its main defect, however, and the one most criticized, was the exclusion of the Irish members from Westminster. Gladstone himself admitted that this was an open question. Whatever chances the measure may have had in the House of Commons were ruined by a schism in the Liberal party. The secession movement, known as Liberal Unionism, is said to have come to birth at a meeting held in Her Majesty's Theatre, 14 April. Among the leaders of the revolt were Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The Defeat of the First Home Rule Bill, 1886. During the Easter recess the champions of the opposing parties made speeches throughout the country. Salisbury was particularly bitter in his utterances. Instead of concession he advocated an even stricter government for Ireland. " Apply that recipe, honestly, consistently, and resolutely for twenty years," he declared, " and at the end of that time you will find that Ireland will be fit to receive any gifts in the way of local government or repeal of coercion laws that you may wish to give her." He implied that the Irish were as incapable of self- government as the Hottentots and the Hindus. He even pronounced against appropriating money for the further purchase of tenant hold- ings, insisting that it would be preferable to pay the expenses of 1,000,000 Irish emigrants. In spite of a noble and eloquent speech by Gladstone, the Home Rule Bill was defeated on the second reading by 343 to 313, with 93 Liberals voting on the opposition side. The session ended 25 June, " the shortest, and so far as regards legislation, the most barren Parliament of the reign." Another general election followed. In Ireland it was marked by intense violence, at Belfast even with loss of life, and an inquiry showed that the Orangemen were responsible for beginning the trouble. In England the strife was con- fined to words, though they were heated enough. Randolph Churchill referred to the recent bill as a " farrago of superlative nonsense ... to gratify an old man in a hurry." John Bright had, from the start, actively opposed the Home Rule policy of his close friend and former leader. In writing him on the subject he had stated that, while he would do much to " clear the rebel party from Westminster," he could not give his assent to a measure which he regarded as unjust to Protestant loyal Ulster. His letters during the campaign carried great weight. On the other hand, such was the magic of Gladstone's presence, that, even though he was puzzling and per- suasive rather than convincing, he won converts wherever he went. In the end, however, he was completely defeated. The Second Salisbury Ministry, August, 1886, to August, 1892. Salisbury, who became a second time Prime Minister, offered Harting- ton the leadership of the combined Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in the Commons ; but he refused for two reasons because the Con- 1020 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND servatives, as the larger group, were entitled to a leader from their own ranks, and because he objected to fusing the two parties. The leader- ship of the House and the Chancellorship of the Exchequer was finally offered to the brilliant but audacious and erratic Randolph Churchill, a younger son of the Duke of Marlborough. Contrary to expectation, he filled both offices most acceptably ; but suddenly resigned, 23 December, 1886. Against the idea of his chief and his colleagues he was opposed to huge armaments and to the " spirited foreign policy " inherited from Disraeli, believing, according to his principles of " Tory democracy," that the public money and the energy of the Government should be devoted mainly to improved administration and the popular welfare. He took the final step in the question in the army and navy estimates. In common with many, he thought that Salisbury would have to come round to his way of thinking if he wished to maintain his Government. However, the Prime Minister refused to yield an inch, and, as a matter of fact, Churchill continued to support his party after he left office. Goschen, a Liberal Unionist of tried financial ability, succeeded as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and W. H. Smith took the leadership of the Commons. " Parnellism and Crime," 1887. The Irish problem continued to be the storm center of politics. Parnell introduced a Tenant Relief Bill which was rejected ; but he refused to be responsible for the " plan of Campaign," printed in the United Irishmen, 21 October, 1886, according to which tenants who thought they were overcharged should offer their landlords what they regarded as a fair rent, which, if it were refused, should be turned into the funds of the National League. Early in March, 1887, Salisbury's nephew, Mr. Arthur Balfour, became Chief Secretary for Ireland. Hitherto known chiefly as a young man of languid, elegant tastes and as a writer on deep philo- sophical subjects, he proved to be a vigorous and effective, if somewhat ruthless, administrator. On 28 March, in a striking speech, in which he declared with reference to the National League : " We cannot forget that the League leans in part upon those dark, secret societies who work by dynamite and the dagger, whose object is assassina- tion," he introduced a new Crimes Bill which contained the novel feature that its provisions should be permanent. While it was being enacted into law, intense excitement was aroused by a series of articles in the Times, entitled " Parnellism and Crime," charging the Irish leader and his followers with the employment of violence and intimi- dation to gain their ends, and even with sanctioning murder. On 1 8 April, appeared the facsimile of a letter, purporting to be signed by Parnell and dated 15 May, 1882, in which he was made to declare that he had only condemned the Phoenix Park murders as a matter of policy. Though Parnell forthwith denounced the letter as a forgery, its publication had the effect of facilitating the passage of the Crimes Act. Even at that, the Opposition fought so stoutly that a new method of cutting off discussion had to be adopted the " guillo- TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1021 tine " by which clauses which had not been reached after an allotted period were put without amendment or debate. In July, 1888, Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, one of those against whom charges had been directed in the recent articles, brought suit against the Times for libel. At the trial, the counsel for the newspaper produced new letters alleged to have been written by Parnell. Parnell's Temporary Triumph, 1889. The Irish chieftain was at length roused from the indifference which he had displayed hitherto. On 6 July, he issued in the House of Commons a formal denial of any connection with the letters. Feeling that he would be unlikely to obtain justice from a Middlesex jury, he asked for a select committee to investigate the question of their origin. The Government, refusing his request, took the unprecedented action of appointing a special commission of three judges to inquire into the whole subject of the charges made by the articles on " Par- nellism and Crime." The sessions of the Commission extended over more than a year, from September, 1888, to November, 1889; but before its work was half completed, the author of the letters attributed to Parnell was discovered. He proved to be one Richard Piggott, a broken-down Irish journalist, who had sold them to the Times. Confessing the forgery, he fled across the Channel, and, i March, 1889, he shot himself in Madrid to escape the officers on their way to arrest him. Thus ended the most dramatic feature of the inquiry. The Commission issued its report, 13 February, 1890.' Though many of the charges in the Times against the other Irish leaders were sustained, Parnell was acquitted of all complicity. The proprietors of the news- paper had to pay him 5000 damages and to assume all the costs of the investigation, amounting to 250,000. Final Ruin and Death, 1891. Scarcely had the Irish chieftain won his triumph, which promised much for Home Rule, when he and the cause were overtaken by a crushing reverse. In November, he was involved as co-respondent in a divorce suit brought by Captain O'Shea who had been one of his most devoted followers. The result was to destroy Parnell's credit with the morally strict, and to furnish others with a pretext for repudiating him. Gladstone at first declined to be " a censor and a judge of faith and morals " ; but, owing to the decided attitude of the strong Nonconformist element in his party and to the unmistakable trend of public opinion, 1 he decided, after some hesitation, to throw Parnell over. " The English wolves howl for my destruction " was the bitter comment of the discredited chieftain, who defiantly resisted all efforts -to induce him to resign. The result was to produce a schism among his followers. After a long, hard struggle, forty-four of the Nationalists chose Justin McCarthy as their leader, while a minority of twenty-six stuck to Parnell. During the few remaining months of his life he fought an 1 The Roman Catholic clergy also declared against him. 1022 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND uphill but hopeless fight to regain his lost ascendancy. He came to advocate separation, he bitterly denounced those of the opposing camp who had repudiated him, and had in his turn to submit to scathing personal abuse. 1 He died 6 October, 1891, at the age of forty-six. " The strongest and the strangest of the Irish political leaders ... he had brought Home Rule from the clouds and made it the leading issue in the party conflict." Mr. John Redmond took his place as head of the minority. The Queen's Jubilee and the Growth of Imperialism, 1887. These years, during which the Irish problem was passing through such acute stages, were marked by a striking revival of the popularity of the monarchy, due to the Queen's emergence from the seclusion in which she had remained since the Prince Consort's death and to the growing strength of the Imperialistic sentiment which Disraeli had done so much to promote. In 1886, an Indian and Colonial exhibition had brought home to Englishmen the extent, the wealth, the resources, and the possibilities of their over-sea possessions. The Jubilee of 1887, marking the fiftieth anniversary of Victoria's accession, was at once a mighty manifestation, and a potent factor in the. revival of the royal popularity and of the Imperialistic sentiment which had such an effect in fostering it. The pomp and circumstance, the crowds and pageantry which attended the celebration, together with the simul- taneous outbursts of enthusiasm which the event called forth in the Colonies and in India, were no mere vaporings. " Thenceforth the sovereign was definitely regarded as the living symbol of the unity not merely of the British Nation but of the British Empire." 2 In July was laid the foundation stone of the Imperial Institute, designed as a meeting place for visitors from India and .the Colonies, and for the exhibit of the products of the various parts of the Empire. More important still, representatives of the Mother Country and the Colonies held, during April and May, the first of a series of meetings for the dis- cussion of matters of common concern, such as colonial defense and Imperial penny postage. The Last Years of the Second Salisbury Ministry. 'In 1888, an important act was passed creating elective County Councils for England and Wales which took over many of the adminis- trative functions of the justices of the peace. 3 London was made a 1 One of them, for example, branded him as "an unapproachable trickster, not only a libertine and a liar, but a cowardly sneak," and declared that "any person attempting to patch up the present difference by a compromise on the basis of his leadership should be hunted out of the country with a kettle tied to his tail." 2 The Queen wrote that she was "loth to part with the year in which she had met so much affection and kindness," and, as an indication of her widening interests, she began lessons in Hindustani. 3 The so-called County Courts of 1846 had already deprived them of many of their judicial functions and acted as a link between the Quarter Sessions and the Assizes. Unlike the County Councils the area of their activity did not follow the old county lines. There were many more courts than there were counties. TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1023 separate administrative county, though the ancient rights and privi- leges of the City were left undisturbed. On the death of William Henry Smith, 6 October, 1891, Mr. Arthur Balfour succeeded him as leader of the Commons. During the five years of his secretaryship, while he had governed with a firm hand, he had framed various meas- ures to relieve Ireland's poverty which had been responsible for so much of the discontent and disorder. His last and most important step in this direction was the Land Purchase Act of 1891. The chief weakness of the scheme was that it availed little in the congested districts where the tenants were too poor to purchase their holdings, even with the liberal aid of the Government. In 1892, Parliament was nearing the end of its septennial term, and the two rival parties appealed to the country in a general election. The Conservative Government had a good record behind it. Its financial administra- tion had been effective, and, taking advantage of a surplus in 1891, it had relieved from fees those attending the public elementary schools, thus carrying out the principles of the Act of 1870. Also in 1891, it had passed an act further improving conditions in factories and an act making the landlord responsible for the payment of tithes. These measures were followed, in 1892, by an Act to assist tenants and agri- cultural laborers to purchase small farms. Tendencies toward State socialism and protection were becoming more and more marked. As yet, however, the Liberals were less ready to accept the new situation. They still based their policy mainly upon " the extension of political equality and the abolition of privilege." The Conservatives, on the other hand, just because they were the guardians of privilege and vested interests, preferred to assist the masses rather than to increase their powers. With regard to foreign affairs, the Salisbury Ministry was occupied in various negotiations involving much friction with Germany, France, and Portugal. Since most of their diplomatic business had to do with Africa, it can best be considered in connection with a crisis which developed later on in that country. Both there and elsewhere, however, the Government asserted the claims of the British with dignity and force. The General Election of 1892. While Gladstone made Home Rule the main issue in the campaign of 1892, he aimed to combine the liberal and radical members of his party by advocating a series of reforms known as the Newcastle Programme, from the fact that it was adopted at a convention at Newcastle, in October, 1891. Among the proposals were : the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales, and of the Church of Scotland ; local veto on the sale of liquor ; the abolition of plural voting ; extension of the Employers' Liability Act, and restriction of the hours of labor. This programme alienated a greater number than it attracted. Stanch Churchmen shuddered at the thought of disestablishment, a strong element op- posed any further concessions to labor, and the liquor interests were up in arms at the prospect of local option. The Conservatives, as a 1024 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND substitute for Home Rule, proposed to extend the peasant proprietory by further appropriations for land purchase and to grant the Irish a limited amount of local government by establishing, with some modifi- cations, the English system of County Councils. In England, Gladstone was beaten, but he got enough votes in Wales and Scotland to give him, with the aid of eighty-one Irish Nationalists, a majority of forty for Home Rule. Salisbury remained in office to face the new Parliament, and only resigned when a vote of no confidence was carried, 1 5 August. The Fourth Gladstone Ministry (August, 1892, to March, 1894) and the Second Home Rule Bill. Though many of his own party desired to avoid the issue, Gladstone, 13 February, 1893, introduced his second Home Rule Bill. It differed from the first chiefly in the provision that eighty Irish representatives were to sit in the Parliament at West- minster, but with the privilege of voting only on matters of Irish concern. The chief objection to this provision was that it would make the existing system of Cabinet Government practically impossible, since the tenure of the Government depends upon a majority in the Commons. As was the case in this very Parliament, it might not have a majority without them. In spite, however, of this considera- tion, and in spite of brilliant speeches and determined resistance from the Opposition, the Bill passed the Lower House, i September, by a majority of thirty-four. The " in and out " clause was omitted, which raised the new objection that Ireland' was given a decided advantage over Wales and Scotland ; since the Irish members would have a voice in Welsh and Scotch internal concerns as well as an independent control over their own. In order to prevent obstruction against the passage of the Bill it was again necessary to resort to the " guillotine." The excitement and bitterness was intense ; 27 July, some of the mem- bers went so far as to resort to personal violence, for the first time, it is said, in parliamentary history. It was all in vain, however, for the measure was rejected in the House of Lords on the second reading, by a vote of 419 to 41. Indeed, many members of the Lower House had only voted for the measure because they foresaw this result. Ireland in the Last Decade of Victoria's Reign. It was nearly twenty years after the defeat of Gladstone's Bill of 1893 before a measure of Home Rule again succeeded in passing the Commons. During the interval there was a period of comparative peace in Ireland, and the issue played a relatively small part in practical politics. Many reasons contribute to explain this. For one thing, Mr. John Morley, who was Irish Secretary from 1892 to 1895, ruled with wisdom and sympathy. Then the Conservatives, who were in power from 1895 to 1905, continued their policy of trying to " kill Home Rule by kind- ness." In 1896 and 1903, new Land Purchase Acts were passed, and, in 1893, a Local Government Act extended to Ireland the same degree of local government which the English enjoyed. 1 In the 1 In 1894 a Local Government Bill had been carried in England which supple- mented the Act of 1888 by establishing throughout England and Wales elective district and parish councils. TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1025 previous year, largely through the efforts of Mr. (later Sir) Horace Plunkett, the Irish Agricultural Organization Society was founded, and contributed much to the prosperity of the country by fostering co- operative farming and the development of the dairy and poultry industry ; l at the same time, some forty credit banks had been es- tablished to assist the farmers with loans. In 1899 the work was made more effective by the creation of a new Department for Agriculture, Industries and Technical Instruction, with Mr. Plunkett as Vice-Presi- dent. Although there has been friction with the Government and evictions have not wholly ceased, Ireland has been growing steadily better off, and, during the first ten years of the present century, the de- crease of population has been less than in any decade since the potato famine. Another factor which tended for a number of years to weaken the force of the Home Rule movement was the split in their ranks re- sulting from the disgrace of Parnell. It was not till 1899 that the two sections of the Nationalists were reunited under Mr. J-ohn Redmond. 2 The Home Rule Problem. Many factors have contributed to render the Irish problem so difficult as to be almost insoluble. In the first place, there is the difference of racial temperament which has made it well-nigh impossible for the two peoples to understand one another. Then, too, religious antagonism was for centuries an element of discord, though, since the Disestablishment Act of 1869, that has not been so acute as formerly. Furthermore, the Irish were embittered by their poverty; although this was, to a large degree, due to the unfortunate physical features of the country and to a certain lack of industrial aptitude, it was greatly fostered by misgovernment as well as by absenteeism, middlemen, and rack-renting. While, of late years, the Government has done its best to improve the situation, it has always been handicapped by party differences, by the long tradi- tion of political oppression in the past, and the natural desire of the Irish for independence. How far Home Rule would solve the question it is difficult to predict. Certainly the Irish were far from successful during the years when they had an independent parliament from 1782 to 1800 ; but they did not have a. fair chance during that period, since the control of affairs was in the hands of a small Protestant clique. The Irish Nationalists argue that the Union was brought about by fraud and hence should be repealed ; that Ireland best understands her own needs and hence should govern herself ; and that, though they have a representation in Parliament, their members accomplish 1 This was a happy departure, for the soil of Ireland was in general too wet for tillage, and the improved methods of transportation had made it practically impos- sible for the Irish to withstand American competition in the supply of meat. While poultry and dairy products are more perishable, parts of Ireland suffer still from insufficient railway facilities, giving Denmark an advantage in supplying the Lon- don market. 2 About 1905 the Independent Nationalists became prominent. Their policy is complete abstention from parliamentary activity, a total ignoring of the English, and the development of Irish nationality. 1026 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND little except by obstruction, save at times when the two great parties are so evenly balanced as to give them the balance of power. These arguments have appealed to some Englishmen, others have contended that, right or wrong, the Irish should be listened to, while to others, again, the strongest argument in favor of Home Rule is that a legisla- tive body at Dublin would relieve the pressure on the Imperial Parlia- ment, which is sadly overworked. On the other hand, much has been urged against Home Rule. For one thing, it has been argued that the Irish are unfit to govern themselves. Secondly, that it would not only destroy the integrity of the British Empire but, owing to the position of Ireland, it would be strategically dan- gerous to give her an independent government. Thirdly, since Ireland is not self-sufficing, it would be an impossible task to adjust the financial burdens. Fourthly, it would be unfair to the Ulster Protestants. Finally, none of the schemes yet suggested would be workable either the admission or the exclusion of Irish members at Westminster or the " in and out " arrangement. Apparently, the best solution would be a scheme of " devolution " corresponding to the system in vogue in the United States and Canada, with a federal parliament at Westminster for the whole United Kingdom, and separate bodies for England, Wales, and Scotland, and northern and southern Ireland. Even this, however, would not be wholly without objection, since there is a strong Roman Catholic element in most of the counties of Ulster. The Resignation of Gladstone, March, 1894. Gladstone's patience with the House of Lords was almost exhausted when they defeated his Home Rule Bill. When they suggested various amendments to the Local Government Bill of 1894 he was provoked to declare that : " the differences between the two Chambers disclosed a state of things of which we are compelled to say that, in our judgment, it cannot con- tinue." This hint, thrown out more than once during recent years, that the veto power of the House of Lords must in some way be cur- tailed, later came to be a fundamental principle of the Liberal party, and was finally realized by the Parliament Bill of 1911. Gladstone made it in what proved to be his last speech in the House of Commons. He might have urged various reasons for his resignation his ad- vanced age, his failing eyesight and hearing. Moreover, he had not only failed in his supreme effort to carry Home Rule, but had shattered his party as well. The immediate occasion, however, of his retire- ment, although he made no mention of it in his letter of resignation, was his objection to the increased naval estimates and his inability to bring the majority of the Cabinet to his way of thinking. His final interview with the Queen was cold and formal. She was so opposed to his policy, and so estranged from him personally, that she was relieved to see him go, and did not even consult him as to his successor. The Rosebery Ministry, March, 1894, to June, 1895. The selection of a Premier to conduct the Liberal Government which remained in TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1027 office was a matter of some perplexity. Sir William Harcourt, the natural choice of the majority, was unpopular with certain men of in- fluence because of his anti-imperialistic views. The office was finally given to Lord Rosebery. He is a man of personal charm and of varied interests and attainments. He has an exquisite taste in art, he is widely read, he writes with distinction, and, as an orator, has been exceeded by no one of his generation in grace and felicity of ex- pression. On the other hand, never having sat in the House of Com- mons, he lacked the experience which can only be gained in that body, he was wanting in energy and in the strength of conviction that makes such an appeal to the rank and file of a political party. With regard to Home Rule, for example, to which the followers of Gladstone were committed, he declared that he agreed with Salisbury in holding that before it was granted : " England as the predominant member of the partnership of the three Kingdoms, will have to be convinced of its justice." The most notable piece of legislation of his Ministry was a measure of Harcourt, now leader of the Lower House, which added 4,000,000 to the budget by equalizing the death duties on real and personal property and imposing a graduated assessment of from one to eight per cent, depending upon the value of the estate. At the same time the income tax was decreased. This attempt to relieve the poor at the expense of the rich caused much grumbling, and it was freely predicted that great estates would sink under the burden and ulti- mately be broken up. During the session of 1895, the Government was defeated by a snap vote on an amendment to the army estimates calling attention to " the insufficient provision of small arm ammuni- tion," especially cordite. The Cabinet, which was not making much headway, seized this opportunity to resign, 21 June. Salisbury re- turned to head his third and last Ministry, a Ministry which survived the nineteenth century and the reign of Victoria. The Third Salisbury Ministry, June, 1895, to July, 1902. Salisbury took the post of Foreign Secretary, while his nephew, Mr. Balfour, led the House of Commons as First Lord of the Treasury. Some of the chief Liberal Unionists took office in the new Government, among them Hartington, since 1891 Duke of Devonshire, and Mr. Chamber- lain. The latter had entered public life as a Radical, but in his new position as Colonial Secretary he devoted himself to a zealous ex- ploitation of the policy of Imperialism which he had recently adopted. Regarding the colonies and the dependencies as the real source of Great Britain's wealth and strength, he determined that it should be her guiding aim to develop and consolidate the Empire. The celebration of the Queen's " diamond jubilee," marking the completion of the six- tieth year of her reign, contributed to strengthen the sentiment mani- fested so strikingly ten years before. 1 The Premiers of the self- 1 "The passion of loyalty," says Sir Sidney Lee, Victoria's biographer, "which the Jubilee of 1887 had called forth, reached, at the close of the next decade, a degree of intensity which had no historical precedent." A further reason for tightening 1028 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND governing colonies and the representatives of India and the Crown colo- nies came to join in the festival, and another conference of colonial delegates was held, with especial reference to trade and defense. Al- though no general agreement was reached on either point, the question of colonial preferential tariffs was raised for the first time. A few years later, Mr. Chamberlain made a vain attempt to commit his party to this form of protectionist policy. In 1898 a penny postage was established between England and the greater part of the Empire. Among the most important domestic measures of the Ministry during its first years was the Irish Local Government Act (1898) and an act es- tablishing borough councils in London, 1899. Gladstone died, 19 May, 1898, and, 30 July, Bismarck, the creator of German unity and the most commanding figure in Europe, followed him to the grave. The Venezuela Boundary Dispute, 1895-1899. Toward the close of 1895, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, had nearly brought on a war with Great Britain by a belligerent message sent to Congress, 17 December. He declared that Salisbury's refusal to sub- mit to arbitration her territorial claims in a boundary dispute with Venezuela was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. He asked Con- gress to authorize him to appoint a boundary commission whose findings should be " imposed upon Great Britain by all the resources of the United States." Salisbury's calm and courteous attitude alone averted war. Convinced of the justice of his cause, he submitted it to the commission appointed by Cleveland, and the proposal to enforce its findings was dropped. The commission was made up of two American and two British judges with a Russian jurist as president. In October, 1899, it rendered a unanimous opinion conceding to Great Britain practically all she had claimed. Meantime, Salisbury's good offices in preventing an anti-American coalition of the European Powers when the Spanish War broke out in the spring of 1898, contrib- uted to bring about a friendlier feeling between his country and the United States. Great Britain and Turkey, 1894-1897. Terrible massacres of the Armenians, in which it was estimated that ten thousand perished during the years from 1894 to 1896, again brought the Turkish problem to the center of the European stage. Early in 1895, the Powers presented a joint note to the Porte, demanding reforms, but this time it was Russia who stood out against coercing Turkey. Gladstone, from the retirement in which he was spending his declining years, raised his voice for independent intervention on the part of Gr^at Britain. While the Armenians had to wait till the autumn of 1899 before any reforms were undertaken, Salisbury had long since come to believe that Great Britain had made a mistake in seeking to maintain the integrity of Turkey. In a speech of 19 January, 1897, he made his famous the bonds of colonial union was due to the fact that relations with Germany, France, and the United States had tended to put Great Britain in a state of "splendid isolation." TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1029 declaration with reference to Great Britain's part in the Crimean War : " We put all our money on the wrong horse." In the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 he put his new views into practice. The trouble began with a civil war which broke out between the Christian and Moham- medan inhabitants of the island of Crete in June, 1896. In view of the prevailing sentiment among the Cretans in favor of a union with the Greeks, the Government of the latter country stepped in ; as a result, Turkey declared war and drove the Greek troops from the Island in May, 1897. Thereupon, the Powers, led by Great Britain, intervened and arranged terms by which Crete was accorded an autonomous government with Prince George of Greece as High Com- missioner. Great Britain and China, 1898. In the far East, Great Britain was trying to maintain the policy of the " open door," while Russia, Germany, and France were striving to enrich themselves at the expense of China, though they sought to preserve her integrity against Japanese encroachment. 1 In November, 1897, Germany, having the murder of two missionaries as a pretext, seized the port of Kiao Chau. Following this step, a German fleet was sent to China under Prince Henry, and, in March, 1898, Kiao Chau was " leased " to Germany, Russia secured Port Arthur after her fleet had wintered there, and France, somewhat later, obtained Kwang-Chau Lung. In order to counteract these acquisitions, Great Britain, in May, 1898, secured a lease of the island of Wei-hai-Wei, together with some territory on the mainland opposite Hong Kong. The Hague Conference of 1899. In May, 1899, Great Britain sent representatives to an international conference at the Hague, assembled at the suggestion of the Emperor of Russia "for 'the dis- cussion of schemes of arbitration, disarmament, and the amelioration of the customs of war." While no agreement was reached as to dis- armament, a permanent court of arbitration was established, " largely through the efforts of the British delegate Sir 'Julian Pauncefote." Before the conference closed Great Britain had reached the verge of war with the Boers in South Africa, a war of which the embers still smoldered at the close of Victoria's reign. The British Advance in Africa. For some time the British advance in Africa, north and south, had been steady. She was firmly intrenched in Egypt, with no intention of withdrawing, and, early in 1899, she had extended her sway over the Egyptian Sudan. Already, in June, 1894, in corfsequence of the financial straits of the British East Africa Company, founded in 1888, she had proclaimed a protectorate over Uganda which commanded the Nile basin and which Rosebery re- garded as " the key, perhaps, of central Africa." In 1899 the Niger Company was bought out for 865,000, thus adding to the Empire a territory about one third the size of India. She had secured a foothold 1 In a war with China, 1894-1895, Japan had secured Korea and Formosa, to- gether with other concessions. io 3 o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in South Africa nearly a century before, when she conquered Cape Colony from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. The country was granted a constitution in 1850 and became self-governing in 1872. Natal, settled by the Boers, or descendants of the original Dutch immigrants, was taken over as a British possession and annexed to the Cape Colony in 1843, of which it was made independent in 1856. Directly west of Natal was the Orange Free State, originally settled by immigrants from Cape Colony, annexed by Great Britain in 1848 and recognized as independent in 1854. Meantime, in 1836, Boers from the Cape Colony had made new homes for themselves in the dis- trict known as the Transvaal. After being recognized as independent in 1852 it was later annexed by Great Britain in 1877. The Zulu War, 1879. Sir Bartle Frere, sent out in 1877 to the Cape Colony as Governor and Lord High Commissioner, was in- structed to work for the federation of the various South African states, but a bill to unite the Transvaal, Natal, the Orange River Free State, and Cape Colony in a voluntary federation, although it passed the Lords, was defeated in the Commons, largely by the Radicals and the Irish Nationalists. The Radicals took the ground that the annexa- tion of the Transvaal, completed about the time of Frere's arrival, had aroused discontent in that state, while the Irish were ready for any obstruction. Discontent and disorder were rife enough in South Africa. There were risings of the Kaffirs and other natives, and, worst of all, a formidable war with the Zulus broke out in 1879. The real cause of the latter was the resentment of the Zulu chieftain Cetewayo against the British for taking the Boers, his enemies, under their pro- tection. Among the occasions, however, were the demands of Frere that he surrender certain of his Zulu subjects, who had crossed the border and slain some refugees, and that he accept a British resident. The High Commissioner was responsible for invading Zululand before the Home authorities, occupied with the war in Afghanistan, had de- cided to send reinforcements. This, together with the fact that the commanders on the spot undervalued the fighting qualities of the natives, led to hard fighting from January to July and to a series of British reverses before the Zulus were finally overcome. Frere was censured for his precipitation, but justified himself on the ground of pressing danger, and the colonists supported him with the greatest en- thusiasm and confidence. Cetewayo was captured and taken prisoner to England, while Zululand was divided among a number of chieftains. Owing to the resulting confusion and strife, Cetewayo was reinstated in 1883, but was driven out and died in the following year. Part of his lands were later taken over by the Transvaal, and the remainder came under the British protection in 1897. Meantime, events had developed in the Transvaal leading to a great British humiliation dur- ing Gladstone's second ministry. The Revolt in the Transvaal, 1880-1881. The Conservatives had already selected a successor for Sir Bartle Frere as High Com- TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1031 missioner, and though the new Government planned to retain him as Governor with the hope of carrying through the South African Federation, he was soon removed. Gladstone had encouraged the Boers by his language during the Midlothian campaign ; l but when they found that there was no hope that independence would be granted them they prepared for rebellion. By the end of December, 1880, British detachments had been forced to surrender, and a troop of Boers had invaded Natal. Sir George Colley, the British commander, was hampered by the fact that the Home Office desired to continue negotiations, by the inadequacy of his forces, and by the old British delusion that farmers would not fight. Hence, in an attempt to seize Majuba Hill, 27 February, 1881, he was attacked by the Boers, he lost his life, and his little army was cut to pieces. In the teeth of this disaster, so momentous in spite of the fact that it cost the British no more than three hundred men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, Gladstone insisted on resuming the negotiations as if nothing had happened, and self-government was restored in the Transvaal. Al- though the arrangement continued for nearly a score of years, it satisfied almost no one. The opponents of the Ministry declared that the British had humiliated themselves by making terms with the victorious insurgents, the British supporters in South Africa com- plained that they had been deserted, while the Dutch chafed at the fact that any suzerainty had been reserved to the Queen. Two factors ultimately combined to precipitate a crisis in South Africa. One was the ambition of a very remarkable man to make Great Britain predominant in Africa, the other was the discovery of gold in the Transvaal. The Designs of Cecil Rhodes and the Discovery of Gold in the Transvaal. Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), who was the son of a clergy- man, was educated at Oxford ; but as a young man went for his health to South Africa, where he made a huge fortune, mainly out of the Kimberley diamond mines and the Transvaal gold fields, and rose to be Prime Minister of Cape Colony in 1890. In October, 1888, he secured the mining rights in Matabeleland for the British South Africa Company, which received its charter 29 October, 1899. Under the chairmanship of Rhodes it extended its exploitations into Mashona- land. The territories over which it ruled came to be known as Rho- desia. While Rhodes lacked scruple in the pursuit of his aims, he was not a mere money maker. His dream was to make his country su- preme in Africa, north and south, and to unite the two by a railroad from Cairo to the Cape. Salisbury enthusiastically supported a strong policy in Africa. He refused to recognize the Portuguese 1 For example, in a speech of 25 November, 1879, he declared, the Transvaal "is a country where we have chosen, most unwisely, I am tempted to say insanely, to place ourselves in the strange predicament of the free subjects of a monarchy going to coerce the free subjects of a republic, and to compel them to accept a citi- zenship which they decline and refuse." io 3 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND claim to Matabeleland and Mashonaland, which lay to the west of Portuguese West Africa. In 1890, in return for the cession of Heligo- land in the Baltic, he induced the Germans to abandon their claims to Uganda and the Upper Nile, and to recognize the British protectorate over Zanzibar. France also agreed to this, in return for the British recognition of the French protectorate over Madagascar. The dis- covery of gold in the Transvaal brought in a flood of foreigners, or " Uitlanders," who were bent on developing the country, and on securing a voice in its affairs proportional to their wealth and influence. The Boers, who were mainly an agricultural people, wanted to keep the country to themselves, they had little desire to develop it, and were determined to exclude the Uitlanders from the franchise and from all share in the government. The Jameson Raid, 1895. In the midst of the struggle, the world was startled to learn that, 29 December, 1895, Dr. Leander Jameson, the administrator of Rhodesia, had ridden into the Transvaal with a body of the Chartered Company's troops. It developed from a sub- sequent parliamentary inquiry that Rhodes had, as early as June, formed an agreement with the foreigners interested in the South Africa gold fields to promote a revolution in the city of Johannesburg. He told his story quite frankly before the committee. He pointed out that the position of the Uitlanders, who owned more than half the land, nine tenths of the wealth, and paid nineteen twentieths of the taxes, was intolerable; that the attitude of the Transvaal was notoriously unfriendly to Cape Colony ; and stated that his aim was to secure control of the country in order to incorporate it in a projected South African Republic under Great Britain. His design was to assist the insurgents, or " reformers," with the Company's forces, whereupon the British Government was to intervene and annex the country. The rising came to nothing, owing to dissension among the " reformers," for one faction was opposed to Rhodes's plan of British rule and favored an independent republic. It was after the failure of this projected rising that Jameson undertook his raid, in spite of the efforts of Rhodes and the " reformers." He was met by a force of the Boers, and, after a slight engagement, was overcome, and sur- rendered. Together with the other leading raiders, he was handed over to the British High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, who sent them to England for trial. Jameson was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment, and some of the others to shorter terms. Four of the reform leaders at Johannesburg were sentenced to death ; but the sentence was commuted to a fine of 25,000 each. Forty-two other members of the reform committee had to pay 2000 each. Drifting into War, 1896-1899. In January, 1896, Rhodes resigned as Premier of Cape Colony, and, in June, as managing director of the Chartered Company. He was never tried for his share in the conspiracy and raid, though he returned to England, in 1897, to give his testimony before the parliamentary committee. While the com- TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1033 mittee reported that " whatever justification there may have been for action on the part of the people of Johannesburg, there was none for a person in Mr. Rhodes's position," he was warmly defended in debate by Mr. Chamberlain and other men of influence. The Boers, es- pecially President Kruger of the South African Republic, always suspected that the British Government was privy to Rhodes's scheme. These suspicions were no doubt unfounded, though it is most likely that both he and Jameson fancied that the authorities were not ig- norant of their designs, and would approve of them in case they suc- ceeded. After the attempt to force their land had proved futile, the Boers were more disinclined than ever to grant to the Uitlanders the concessions which they demanded and deserved. Their cause was warmly espoused by the new High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, who sent a strong representation to Mr. Chamberlain urging that the Government must for its own credit assert itself in behalf of " thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the position of helots." As a result, a series of conferences was arranged with Kruger in the early summer of 1899. They came to nothing because the British insisted on a franchise based upon five years' residence, while Kruger would concede nothing less than seven years, and hedged in with various restrictions at that. While the Unionist Government was hot for war, the Liberals opposed what they regarded as an unjust and unnecessary aggression in behalf of Rhodes and the financial interests. At length, 18 August, the Boers went so far as to offer a five years' franchise, but on conditions that the British Government would not accept, namely that they would agree never again to interfere in the affairs of the Republic, and to drop all claims to suzerainty. After further vain negotiations, both sides determined upon the war. The Boers were far better equipped than the British imagined ; for, ever since the raid, they had been quietly buying from Europe arms and ammunition of the most improved type. On 9 October, they sent an ultimatum which the British refused to con- sider, and, two days later, they invaded Natal. In the war which followed it required three years and cost Great Britain over 220,000,000 to subdue a population of 50,000 adult males. Opening of The Boer War, October, 1899. Neither party ex- pected a long conflict. The Boers recalled their easy victory in 1881 ; they counted on their admirable preparation, and the fact that their opponents had so few troops in South Africa. The British proved incapable of profiting by past experiences. They did not dream that a scanty population of farmers would be capable of effective resistance ; they did not realize the extent of their equipment, or how peculiarly adapted they were to the kind of fighting which the nature of the country required. Moreover, their generals, trained in peace or in warfare with savages, proved at first no match for the very competent Boer commanders De Wet, Cronje, and Botha. As early as 12 September, Wolseley had predicted the possibility of " the most 1034 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND serious war England has ever had," but the crisis found the Cabinet unprepared. Their only excuse was that any evidences of armed preparation would imperil the negotiations. When the negotiations failed they took the consequences. For the sake of political effect it was regarded as necessary to defend northern Natal ; but, strategi- cally, it was unwise, since the territory in question, penetrating like a wedge between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, was exposed to attack on both sides. As a result, the British met with several reverses, and Sir George White was shut up in Ladysmith, where he had to withstand a long siege. The arrival of General Buller, as Commander-in-Chief, with reinforcements brought no immediate relief ; indeed, three defeats followed within a week. All this, however, had the effect of consolidating British public opinion in favor of the war, and of calling forth the best efforts not only of the United King- dom but of the whole Empire ; for as Mr. Asquith put it, " the British title to be known as a World Power was now on trial." Volunteers were called for, and the colonies, who had already sent contingents, loyally responded to the request for more. It was not long before the British army, including regulars, militia, volunteers, and contingents from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, exceeded the whole Boer population. While Buller was left to operate in Natal, General Roberts was put in command 1 with General Kitchener as his chief of staff, and ordered to advance into the Transvaal through the Orange River Free State. The End of the First Phase of the War, September, 1900. On 15 February, 1900, Roberts succeeded in relieving Kimberley, which had been besieged for four months. Cronje, retreating toward Bloem- fontein, was compelled to surrender, 27 February, and, 15 March, Roberts occupied the capital of the Orange Free State. He then gave his overspent troops a six weeks' rest ; rather too long a period, since it enabled the Boers to recover from the shock of the blows which he had dealt them. Meantime, Buller, though he was defeated again and again, kept doggedly at his work of trying to break through the Boer lines. However, the operations of Roberts drew a portion of the enemy's forces from Natal, a,nd 28 February, after two weeks of hard fighting, Buller succeeded in a fourth and final attempt to relieve Ladysmith. General White had conducted an heroic defense for one hundred and eighteen days. Nor were the sufferings of his garri- son in vain ; since, by holding out, they had saved southern Natal from being overrun by the Boers. Buller proceeded to fight his way north, and, 12 June, brought his army into the Transvaal. While Lord Roberts's troops had been taking their enforced repose, General De Wet was conducting an active guerrilla warfare in the south and east of the Orange Free State and creating havoc with small British 1 By the end of 1900 he had an army of 250,000, a greater force, it is said, than had ever been intrusted to any single British general. AFRICA IN 1910 200 400 600 800 1000 REFERENCE | | (ierman \ \ Portuguese \ \ Otto [ ] He'trig XOTE: The Coloring shows the possessions of the different European Powers at the present day. The independent African States are uncolored.O TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1035 detachments. 1 Disregarding this diversion Roberts, when he was ready, started, i May, for Pretoria, with General French and General Ian Hamilton accompanying the flanks of his army. Johannesburg was occupied, 31 May, and Pretoria was reached and taken, after slight resistance, 5 June. During the advance, Roberts's army relieved Mafeking on the Transvaal border, where Colonel Baden- Powell 2 had been gallantly holding out for some time. The backbone of the war was now broken ; but De Wet was still unbeaten, and other detachments cooperating with him conducted a harrowing partisan warfare. They constantly threatened Roberts's communications, and, at one time, cut him off wholly from the south. Finally, General Hamilton was able to effect a junction with Buller's army from Natal, and to separate the Boer forces in the Transvaal from those in the Free State. The plan was to crush them in detail. While those in the hill country of the state were gradually overcome, De Wet managed to escape north. Although smaller forces continued to give trouble elsewhere, the conflict was, from the summer of 1900, concentrated mainly in the Transvaal. By September, Roberts regarded the war as practically ended, and Kruger had reached such a pitch of despair that he started for Europe. Yet, although the British commander issued a proclamation annexing the Transvaal, and declaring that he would treat those who still held out as rebels, it was still more than a year and a half before the supremacy of the conquerors was finally recognized. The Second and Concluding Stage of the War, September, 1900, to June, 1902. The second phase of the war, which consisted in the " gradual acquisition and occupation of the country," was left to General Kitchener. He secured his conquests by block houses con- nected " by thousands of miles of barbed wire entanglement." Peace was concluded, i June, 1902, by which the Transvaal and the Orange River Free State were finally incorporated. General Roberts, on his return home the previous autumn, became the nation's hero, and was showered with honors. He was made an earl, received the Order of the Garter, and succeeded as Commander-in-Chief to Lord Wolseley, who was verging on seventy and in feeble health. Alto- gether, while there was much discontent with the existing military organization, with the lack of preparation at the opening of the war, and at the disasters which marked its early stages, there was, neverthe- less, sufficient enthusiasm for what had been accomplished to induce Salisbury to dissolve Parliament in the autumn of 1900, and to try the chance of prolonging his Government. The election in October, known as the " Khaki election " went in his favor. The reorganiza- tion of the War Office, by which the Commander-in-Chief was replaced by a General Staff, followed some time later. 1 However, about this time the Orange River Free State was declared annexed to the British Empire and to be called henceforth the Orange River Colony. 2 Later notable as the founder of the Boy Scouts. 1036 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Boxer Rebellion, 1900. While the Boers were still uncon- quered, Great Britain was occupied with other colonial and foreign complications. In the summer of 1900 a second AshantPwar, 30 September, led to the annexation of that country, over which the British had formerly been exercising a protectorate. In China occurred the rising of the Boxers, a society organized against foreign encroach- ment and favored by the dominating faction of the Chinese court. In June, 1900, they attacked the legations at Peking, and the German Minister was killed. A joint force of British, American, and Japanese troops under the command of a German officer, Count von Waldersee, succeeded in relieving the besieged legations in August. By terms arranged in January, 1901, the Chinese agreed to punish some of the ringleaders, to pay a large war indemnity, and to concede further commercial advantages to the Powers. Russia took occasion to occupy the whole of Manchuria, a step which involved her ere long in war with Japan. Death and Character of the Queen, 1901. The Queen, though she received Lord Roberts early in January after his triumphal return from South Africa, did not live to see the end of the Boer war. She died 22 January, 1901, at Osborne, Isle of Wight, in her eighty-second year, after completing the longest reign in English history, and, with the exception of that of Louis XIV, lasting seventy-one years, the longest of any European sovereign. Doubtless the grief at her death was more widespread and heartfelt than that inspired by any of her predecessors. This was partly due to her personal character. During her last years the feeling against her German husband and against her selfish isolation following his death had been forgotten, and people remembered her virtues her courage, her honesty, her unblemished reputation, and her interest in their welfare which she had come to manifest more and more as time went on. Possessed of no great intellectual power, Victoria was gifted with uncommon will and energy and strength of character. To be sure, she recog- nized the constitutional limitations of the Crown as no previous sovereign had done, and she had the tact to yield to the expressed will of her subjects when the occasion demanded it. 2 Moreover, toward the close of her reign the sovereign lost all control over the army, the pardoning power passed practically to the Home Secretary, and the distribution of titles and honors came to be more and more a function of the ministers. Also, she deliberately excluded herself from the business of Parliament. She ceased to prorogue that body after 1854, she seldom opened it after the death of the Consort, and during the last fifteen years of her reign she was never present in either House. Again, her frequent trips abroad, without leaving a 1 The first had occurred in 1873-1874. 2 This was manifested particularly in her efforts to bring the Lords into harmony with the Commons during the agitation over the Irish Church Disestablishment in 1869 and the Franchise Act in 1884. TWO LAST DECADES OF VICTORIA'S REIGN 1037 regent or lords justices, tended to break the tradition that the sovereign was an essential element in the machinery of government. In spite of her customary high sense of duty, she, on occasion, allowed personal considerations to influence her in ways that conflicted at times with the broadest public interests. Her prolonged indulgence in private grief put a barrier between her and her subjects. Since she was fond of Scotland, she went there, after 1854, for a part of every year, while she visited Ireland only four times during her whole reign, and, from 1861 to 1900, never set foot in the country at all. This discrimination was keenly felt by the sensitive Irish. Her German family connections and her devoted attachment to their dynastic interests influenced, frequently and strongly, her attitude toward many foreign questions, and often aroused irritation and suspicion among the ministers and subjects. Nevertheless, she followed public business and performed her public duties conscientiously and punctiliously. And she pos- sessed an influence out of all proportion to her constitutionally recog- nized powers. Most of the higher appointments were submitted for her consideration, and she was very free in her criticisms, while in the choice of bishops she often asserted herself strongly. Her long experience and her detachment from party passions gave great weight to her views, and she was very frank and honest in expressing them to her ministers. In the robustness of her nature, her simplicity, her charitable interest in the poor, her domestic ideals, her limited appre- ciation of literature and art, 1 as well as in her rather masterful temper, she represented the best type of average English people. While strict in the standards of conduct which she set for those about her, she was very tolerant in matters of religious opinion. True to her feminine nature, she was guided usually by sentiment rather than principles of reason and logic ; but her sentiments were usually whole- some and her instincts were right. The Close of the Reign and its Problems. Yet the cause of Victoria's final popularity was due less to personal qualities than to the fact that she was regarded as the outward and visible sign of the Imperial unity that was the outgrowth largely of the last quarter century of her life. " She and her ministers . . . encouraged the iden- tification of the British sovereignty with the unifying spirit of Imperial- ism, and she thoroughly reciprocated the warmth of feeling for herself and her office, which the spirit engendered in her people at home and abroad." The reign was one of astounding material progress and of great political progress as well ; but her death left many problems pressing for solution the question of preferential tariffs in the, colonies, Imperial federation, the status of Ireland, the relations be- tween the House of Commons and the House of Lords, relations be- tween capital and labor, and of provisions to be made for the poor in the case of old age, sickness, and unemployment. Something has 1 Except for music, of which she was very fond. io 3 8 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND been done during the reigns of her son and grandson to deal with those problems, though many phases of them still await settlement. FOR ADDITIONAL READING Narrative. Low and Sanders, Political History, chs. X-XIX. Marriott, England since Waterloo, bk. Ill, chs. XVIII-XXVI. Cambridge Modern History, XII, ch. Ill (bibliography, pp. 853-855). Bright, History of England, IV, V. Maxwell, Century of Empire, III. Paul, Modern England, III-V (to 1895). Walpole, History of Twenty-five Years, II-IV (to 1880). McCarthy, History of Our Own Times (1880- 1905), V VII. T. H. Ward, Reign of Queen Victoria (2 vols., 1887), a cooperative work. C. A. Whitmore, Six Years of Unionist Government, 1886-1892 (1892). H. Whates, Third Salisbury Administration, 1895-1900 (1901). R. H. Gretton, A Modern History of the English People (1913), I, 1880-1898. G. Slater, The Making of Modern England (1913). Biography. In addition to works cited in chapter LIII above, see H. D. Traill, The Marquis of Salisbury (1890). Lord E. Fitzmaurice, Life of Earl Granville (2 vols., 1905). R. B. O'Brien, Life of Charles Stuart Parnell (3 vols., 1898), very out- spoken. W. Churchill, Life of Lord Randolph Churchill (2 vols., 1906), especially good for the Fourth Party. Rosebery, Lord Randolph Churchill (1896). T. E. Kebbei, Lord Beaconsfield and other Tory Memoirs (1907). J. Bryce, Studies in Contempo- rary Biography (1903). B. Holland, Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of Devon- shire (1911). A. L. Thorold, The Life of Henry Labouchcre (1913). Sir H. Maxwell, The Life and Letters of George Villiers, Fourth Earl of Clarendon (2 vols., 1913). Ireland and Home Rule. Low and Sanders (bibliography, p. 406). Cambridge Modern History, XII, ch. IV (bibliography, pp. 863-868). See also J. E. Morris, Great Britain and Ireland, 14851910 (1914). A. Balfour, Aspects of Home Rule (191 2) , adverse. E. Childers, The Framework of Home Rule (1912). Lord Evcrsley, Gladstone and Ireland (1912). Egypt. Cambridge Modern History, XII, ch. XV (bibliography, pp. 913-914), an excellent brief account. Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt (2 vols., 1908), is the stand- ard authority on the subject. India. Cambidge Modern History, XII, pp. 915-917. For a critical bibliography on the Boer War, see Low and Sanders, p. 501. A good brief popular account of the second war is Sir A. Conan Doyle's The Great Boer War (1902). For a critical bibliography of the successive English ministries from 1865 to 1902, see Low and Sanders, 503-506. For foreign affairs see ibid., pp. 502-503, and Cambridge Modern History, XII, pp. 951-971 passim. Selections from the sources! Adams and Stephens, nos. 267-276; Robertson, pt. II, XXIX-XXXII, app. 439-441. CHAPTER LVI General Features. The period from the First Reform Bill to the beginning of the twentieth century is so complex in character and so teeming with achievement that only the barest outline of its main features can be attempted in a single chapter. In literary production it challenges comparison with any age except the Eliza- bethan. In painting the output has been notable. History has been transformed almost into a new science, while significant work has been done in philosophy and other fields of humanistic scholarship. However, the really epoch-making achievements of the Victorian era have been in the field of pure science and in its practical applications, particularly in transportation and communication. The doctrine of evolution has revolutionized modern thinking, while steam and elec- tricity, by infinitely multiplying means of distribution, have de- veloped the possibilities of production to a point hitherto undreamed of. Moreover, but for steam navigation, the postal service, and the telegraph, the amazing growth of the British Empire and the unity which pervades it would have been impossible. Finally, the democ- ratization of the United Kingdom the triumph of popular majority rule, with the consequent breaking down of class privileges, the growth of State intervention in the interest of the masses, and the increasing humanitarian spirit is a distinctive feature of this wonderful age. The Condition of the Church. The religious and moral enthusiasm inspired by the Wesleyan revival began to spend its force early in the nineteenth century, at least so far as the upper classes were con- cerned, and the Establishment, except for the Evangelicals, hardly warmed by the fervor of the movement, relapsed into its customary state of chilly conservatism. Its bishops were pompous, dignified figures who had secured their high offices through family connection, personal influence, or reputation for learning, who enjoyed ample incomes and extensive powers, and who, with little regard for purely religious work, devoted themselves to politics, to the administration of their estates, to society and scholarly leisure. Among the " high and dry " Anglicans there were two types. The clergy of the better sort were kindly and respectable, but idle and worldly. The less edifying representatives of this party were the " two-bottle orthodox," the hard-drinking, sporting parsons who came from the hunting field 1039 1040 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND with pink coat and top-boots barely covered by a cassock to read a funeral service. More earnest were the few on whom the evangelical revival had left an enduring mark, and who manifested their enthusiasm in practical work, in prison reform, antislavery agitation, and the reformation of manners. As a rule, however, they were limited and narrow in their ideas. The greatest extremes of wealth and poverty existed in the Church. While the bishops and a few favored clergy were in receipt of rich revenues, the rank and file of the country parsons drew only meager stipends. It is estimated that of the ten or eleven thousand livings which constituted the Establishment, more than half were held by non-resident rectors and vicars, usually represented by underpaid curates. Akin to the evil of non-residence, and made pos- sible by it, was the distressing prevalence of pluralities. Furthermore, men of influence, Churchmen and laymen alike, heaped their relatives and supporters with fat benefices. There was already much discontent, when a series of events occurred which threatened to shake the Estab- lishment to its very foundations. In 1828 came the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, followed by the Catholic Relief Bill in 1829. The passage of the Reform Bill, three years later, gave an impulse to a more radical policy in ecclesiastical as -well as political legislation. Lord Grey advised the bishops to " set their houses in order," and, in 1833, came the Irish Church Temporalities Act. The attempt to meet the threatened dangers resulted in the Oxford Movement, so called because it was started largely by a group of young Oxford scholars, and for some years had its center in the University. Its main aim was to emphasize the antiquity and au- thority of the Church, partly for the purpose of asserting its independ- ence of State control, and partly for the purpose of stimulating the imagination and arousing spiritual and moral enthusiasm in its mem- bers. Another powerful stimulus to the Movement was the romantic revival in literature, the glorification of medievalism, which Scott had done so much to foster. The Beginning of the Oxford Movement. John Henry Newman, who came to be the dominating figure in the Oxford group, dated the beginning of the Movement from a sermon on " National Apostasy " preached by John Keble at the opening of the Oxford Assizes, 14 July, 1833, in which he denounced the action of the commissioners appointed under the Irish Church Temporalities Act to administer the surplus revenues. The men who now banded together felt that if the Church of England was to be saved, it must be justified on other grounds than mere expediency and custom. To promulgate their teachings they started a series of Tracts for the Times, in which they sought to revive and emphasize old Catholic beliefs which had been discredited and forgotten, and to assert the continuity of the visible Church from the time of Christ and the apostles. Newman, who was a chief contributor, also exercised a magnetic appeal through his sermons from the pulpit of the University Church. The Movement VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1041 was strengthened about 1834-1835 by the accession of Dr. Pusey, a man of high social position and a scholar of established reputation. The Results of the Movement. It was not long, however, before serious difficulties and divisions arose. The liberals were opposed to the dogmatism of the Movement, the " two-bottle orthodox " were alienated by its asceticism, while both combined with the Evangelicals to resist its growing Romeward tendencies. A crisis was precipitated in 1841 by the appearance of Tract XC, in which Newman sought to prove that the Thirty-nine Articles were not necessarily in contradic- tion with ancient Catholic doctrine. A storm of indignation arose, the Tract was condemned by the Oxford authorities, and, in 1843, Newman resigned his living at St. Mary's and went into retirement at Littlemore. The following year, William George Ward, a zealous follower, responsible for pushing his master to extreme conclusions, published an Ideal of the Christian Church which was Roman rather than Anglican. He was degraded from his degrees, and joined the Roman Catholic communion in September, 1845. Newman, who had been slowly coming to the conclusion that the Church of England was a schismatical offshoot of the true Catholic faith, followed in October. A few other prominent men took the same step, and the Oxford Movement broke up. Although it had failed in its efforts to check the influx of liberalism and to assert the Church's independence of State control, its results were various and far reaching. As a reaction against the attempt to identify Christianity with Roman Catholicism a small but influential body of thinkers, including New- man's own brother, were driven to skepticism. Others, less radical, such as Frederick Denison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, formed the nucleus of a new liberal party the Broad Churchmen which gained strength from the dissensions between the Tractarians, the Evangelicals and the old high and dry Anglicans, though a further impetus toward both skepticism and a more liberal school of Churchmanship came from the scientific develop- ments of the century. Such were the opposing tendencies to which the Oxford Movement gave rise. On the other hand, the unshrinking attitude of those who remained true to Anglicanism stimulated the growth of a new type of High Churchmen, resembling the Laudian divines of the seventeenth century, who emphasized the Catholic, apostolic traditions of the Church of England. Among them were Gladstone, and with this party Keble and Pusey threw in their lot. An indirect result of the Movement was to reawaken a love for beauty and art in religious worship ; to restore ancient ceremonies, and to stimulate an enthusiasm for medieval architecture. Such ritualism has become a usual though not invariable accompaniment of High Churchmanship. It inspires piety and works of charity in those who are best reached through the channels of aesthetic emotion, and it has brought light and color into the drab, unlovely lives of many who have little or no cultural influences outside their religion. 1042 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Later Conflicts in the Church of England. The Gorham case (1847-1850), in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed a decision of the Bishop of Exeter that the views of Gorham on the subject of baptismal regeneration were contrary to the teachings of the Church of England, led to new secessions to Rome. Chief among the seceders was Manning, who rose to be head of the Roman Catholics in England. A new outcry arose when a group of Broad Churchmen issued, in 1860, a volume of Essays and Reviews, manifest- ing views colored by recent German theology and by the results of contemporary scientific research. Again the Privy Council blocked an attempt of the Episcopal authorities to prosecute for unorthodoxy. Still a third time the lay arm asserted its supremacy over the ecclesias- tical when John William Colenso was reinstated in his bishopric of Natal after he had been deposed for writing a work in which he con- tended that the books of the Pentateuch were productions of a late period in Hebrew history. On the other hand, the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874, which authorized the punishment of clergy- men accused of ritualistic innovations by a lay judge appointed for the purpose, accomplished little except to stir up ill feeling. Although several clergymen were imprisoned for resistance, and in spite of bitter opposition from some quarters, ritualism is still strong in the Church of England. Lay Patronage and the Secession from the Church of Scotland. Meantime, the Church of Scotland had been rent by a secession, which, though impelled by different motives, had this in common with the Oxford Movement, that it aimed to free the Church from secular control. An act of 1711 had restored to lay patrons the right, taken from them twenty years before, of presenting candidates to benefices. Although this was opposed by many Presbyterians, and even resulted in the secession of a small body, the crisis leading to the great dis- ruption did not come till 1833. The extension of the political franchise strengthened the party which held that pastors should not be forced on unwilling congregations by a few privileged persons. As a result, the " Veto Act " was carried through the General Assembly in 1834, providing that the dissent of the majority of the male members of a congregation would be sufficient to exclude any minister presented. In a test case, which reached the House of Lords in 1839, the Peers decided in favor of the patrons, while, in another case in 1841, the Assembly deposed seven members of a presbytery who obeyed the courts contrary to the Veto Act. Next, a proposal was made to abolish lay patronage altogether, and, when the Government refused its assent, some four hundred of the clergy seceded, and, choosing as their moderator Dr. Chalmers a man of great eloquence and ability who had been a leader in the ten years' struggle they constituted the Free Church of Scotland. In 1902 the bulk of this body combined with the United Presbyterians an organization, dating from 1847, of various other groups outside the Establishment to form the United VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1043 Free Presbyterian Church. In 1874, lay patronage was abolished in the Church of Scotland, and strong efforts are now being made to bring the two great bodies again into one fold. General Tendencies of Victorian Literature. The reign of Victoria marks a distinct era in literature. At her accession, in 1837, the great figures of the romantic revival were all dead except Wordsworth, who had done his best work long before. While new writers were in the making, the death of Byron, in 1826, and of Scott, in 1832, was followed by an arid interval in poetry and novel writing, when Felicia Hemans set the standard, and elegant " Keepsakes " and "Books of Beauty " were the vogue. The literature to come was profoundly influenced by the growth of democracy, by the new scientific temper, and the growing humanitarian spirit. 1 There was an increased in- tensity of moral earnestness, a desire to appeal to the masses who for the first time in history began to form a considerable circle of readers to form their taste, and to voice the unrest that they were manifesting, by denouncing the evils from which they suffered under the existing political, social, and industrial system. Prose Writers. Macaulay. Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800- 1859), preeminent as an essayist at the beginning of the period, was not one of the apostles of discontent. He was active in public affairs from his entrance in Parliament, in 1830, until within a few years of his death, and both in his speaking and writing, he stoutly championed the dominant Whigism and laissez-faire. Having done his part to- ward securing the extension of the franchise, in 1832, and the reforms which followed, he was content to depict with complacent satisfaction the achievements of his party. He was a man of prodigious industry, and gifted with a phenomenally ready and retentive memory. His essay on Milton, in 1825, was the first of a long and varied series which he contributed to the Edinburgh Review. In 1842-1843, appeared his stirring Lays of Ancient Rome. Meantime, in 1839, he began his History of England, which centers about the Revolution of 1688, and which he left uncompleted. He showed himself to be a master of clear, picturesque narrative, which he enriched by apt illustrations drawn from copious stores of knowledge, and he excelled in graphic portraiture of political situations. On the other hand, he went too far in his attempts to be vivid, he was partisan, and he lacked the ability to delineate complex characters, often presenting little more than bundles of contrasted traits. But he was a forthright, virile figure, who did much to shape the literary tastes and historical views of the general reader of his time and of subsequent generations. Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), essayist, historian, and miscellaneous writer, was in his tempestuous preaching against the materialism, and what he fancied to be shams of the age, a striking 1 An early manifestation of this spirit is to be found in two poems of Thomas Hood (1798-1845), the Bridge of Sighs and the Song of the Shirt, the latter of which appeared in the Christmas number of Punch, in 1843. 1044 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND contrast to Macaulay. He first attracted attention with Sartor Resartus, or the " tailor patched," which appeared in Frazer's Magazine in 1833-1834. To some degree a spiritual autobiography, it is also a scathing jeremiad, lighted by flashes of grim humor and noble prophecy, against hollow pretense and false ideals, against the tend- ency to glorify mechanical progress rather than the things of the spirit. His French Revolution, 1837, is unique in the field of historical literature. The picture is distorted, but it tells the story with a fire and dramatic intensity that leaves an indelible impression on the mind. The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, 1845, is made up of skil- fully selected extracts, interpreted with incisive comments by Carlyle. One-sided as it is, it completely vindicated Cromwell from the charges of hypocrisy which had hung over him for two centuries. The History of Frederick the Great, which occupied the author from 1857-1865, gave him another opportunity to champion a strong man, and to exhibit his rare genius for epic narration. Meantime, in essays and lectures he was constantly preaching on the " eternal verities " and " the government of the best," and railing against unbaked democracy " the universal Morrison's Pill " with which its advocates expected to cure all the ills of society and the body politic. In reply to the accu- sation that he was sponsor for the doctrine that " might makes right," he insisted that the true purport of his teaching was that " right makes might." By virtue of his inimitable style, with its strange words often coined for his purpose his choppy constructions, and wild exclamations, he did succeed in arousing many from their spiritual torpor ; but, as a practical reformer, he had little that was tangible to contribute. Arnold, Ruskin, and Newman. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) be- gan his literary career as a poet. His verses, superb in their classic purity and finish, stand in striking contrast to the glowing romanticism of the previous generation, but are chilled by austere self-restraint. It was as a discriminating literary critic, as an advocate of liberalism in Biblical interpretation, and as an apostle of culture or, to use his own words, of " sweetness and light " to the Philistine middle classes, that he did his most distinctive work. Perhaps the perfection of prose in nineteenth-century England was reached by John Henry Newman (1801-1890), especially in his Idea of a University and in the Apologia pro Vita Sua, the latter of which is one of the most pro- foundly human in the world's literature of spiritual biography. In it he sought to reveal to his countrymen the great visible Church as an infallible guide descended from Christ and the apostles. John Ruskin (1819-1899) marked an epoch in art criticism in his Modern Painters, the first volume of which appeared anonymously in 1843. He began the work in defense of Turner ; but in successive volumes, the fifth and last of which appeared in 1860, he broadened the scope of his task to include a championship of modern painters in general, and to de- velop a philosophy of art. According to the view which he worked VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1045 out, art is a true manifestation of the temper of the artist and a re- flection of the spirit of his age. In the Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849, Ruskin contributed greatly to stimulate a new Gothic revival. On the completion of the Modern Painters he turned toward questions of economic and social reform, problems into which he sought to infuse the breath of idealism. Gifted with an exquisite sense of beauty, with a consuming moral enthusiasm, and a style of singular eloquence and richness, he performed, in spite of his inconsistencies and occa- sional petulance, signal service in elevating artistic criticism from a mere question of professional technique, as well as in unlocking treasures hitherto hidden from the common man. Thus Carlyle, Arnold, Newman, and Ruskin were, each in his peculiar way, preachers to their generation. Victorian Poets. Tennyson and Browning. Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the reigning poet of the Victorian Age, succeeded Words- worth as Poet Laureate in 1850. He began to publish short lyrics as early as 1826 ; but it was years before he showed independence of his youthful models, Byron, Scott, and Moore. Then he produced some pieces of striking individuality and rare beauty. Following these smaller efforts, he launched the longer poems which established his reputation: The Princess, 1847; In Memoriam, 1850; Maud, 1854; and the Idylls of the King, 1858. Tennyson's distinctive merit is his perfection of form. He excelled, too, in voicing the con- ventional thought and ideals of Victorian society. He was the up- holder of well-ordered harmony against individual caprice. Whenever he approached the tragic, it was in a spirit of reposeful melancholy rather than of passionate revolt. This, and his lack of dramatic fire, were due to the natural bent of his mind and to his outwardly calm and prosperous life. His further limitations are manifested in his elaboration of the obvious and the commonplace, and his surfeit of " linked sweetness long drawn out." Almost more than any other poet, he has suffered from the defects of his qualities ; since many of his most ineffective if beautiful poems are most popular. Robert Brown- ing (1812-1889) was his opposite in almost every respect. Though he could write with simplicity and exquisite melody he was, both in phrasing and in the structure of his verse, all too often, crabbed and obscure. On the other hand, he equaled Tennyson in his power of faithfully depicting nature ; he had the dramatic genius which Tenny- son lacked, and is without a rival among the poets in his ability to interpret in verse the spirit of music and painting. He was a student of life in all its aspects, he showed an insatiable curiosity for probing into the farthest recesses of human motives and mastering the com- plexities of the mind and soul. Yet, while never unmindful of sin and folly, he was, throughout his long life, an undaunted optimist. Much in his writing that is difficult at first sight becomes clear to the patient reader, and almost invariably rewards serious effort. Pauline, his first poem, appeared in 1832; and Paracelsus, 1835, first attracted 1046 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the attention of the discerning. Sordello, 1840, is the most inscrutable of his productions. Among his longer works are: Pippa Passes, A Blot on the 'Scutcheon, and A Soul's Tragedy, 1845-1846; and his marvelous Ring and the Book, 1868-1869. In 1846, Browning mar- ried Elizabeth Barrett, the first woman poet of high distinction since Sappho. The Preraphaelites. The Preraphaelite Movement, which be- gan about 1848, was primarily artistic rather than literary in its inception, a protest against the conventionalism bound to result from the following of any master, even Raphael, the " prince of painters." Nevertheless, it owed much to Newman's revival of ecclesiastical and religious symbolism, and had an important influence in stimulating mystical, romantic poetry of a medieval type. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), the guiding spirit of the " Preraphaelite Brotherhood," was a poet as well as an artist and produced verses of haunting beauty, such as the Blessed Damozel. Tennyson, who had no affiliation with the Movement, was possibly influenced by it in undertaking his Idylls of the King. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), a devotee of pagan beauty, showed, particularly in his earlier work, a temper of revolt against convention and propriety which shocked the majority of his contemporaries. Few or none have excelled him in power of word music, or in mastery of the varied forms of poetical technique, and, especially in Atlanta in Calydon, 1865, he showed a rare gift of reproducing the spirit of the Greek drama. However, notwithstanding a few signal achievements, the poetic drama of the Victorian Age never recovered the ascendancy which the novel had begun to usurp in the previous century. The Novelists. Before Scott had closed his labors two novelists had appeared on the scene, who, though they continued to write ac- ceptable works for half a century, were soon overshadowed. Benja- min Disraeli (1804-1881), later Lord Beaconsfield, was the creator of the political novel. Of little excellence as pure literature, his books furnish invaluable pictures of the public men and problems of his time. Beginning in 1826, with Vivian Grey, which created a sensation by its brilliancy and audacity, he concluded with Endymion in 1880. Coningsby, 1844, and Sybil, 1846, in which he attacked the social and political system of the dominant Whigs and advocated his peculiar views of Tory democracy, are perhaps his most important productions. Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873), created Baron Lytton in 1866, also active in political affairs, was an author of unusual versatility. He wrote society, philosophical, scientific, indeed, all sorts of novels, and plays as well. The Last Days of Pompeii, 1834, and the Last of the Barons, 1843, are among the most popular stories, though Pelham and My Novel have more merit. The Lady of Lyons and Richelieu are still produced on the stage. While Lord Lytton made the most of his great talents, he missed the goal which is only attained by genius and sincere conviction. VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1047 Dickens and Thackeray. In 1836, appeared the Sketches by Boz and the first installment of Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). The long series of his novels which followed are familiar in every household, and probably have been more widely read than those of any other writer in the English-speaking world. The hard- ships of his early life ; which brought him into contact with the people, his early training as a journalist, and his love for the stage explain his power of appealing to the masses, his facility, and his dramatic instinct. During the past generation there has been a tendency to belittle his title to fame. His faults are patent enough to the critical reader. His humor is largely obvious and extravagant caricature, dwelling much on " external oddities," his pathos is often " shallow and over- wrought," his situations are frequently artificial and theatrical, he was wanting in penetration, and his characters are, as a rule, merely personified traits. On the other hand, he was a keen observer who could describe vividly what he saw, and tell a story of absorbing interest. He had a genius for depicting the tragic and the terrible, his fun, in spite of all that has been said against it, is wholesome and captivating, and his characters live in the memory. Finally, and who would want to achieve more, his genial optimism has brought joy to millions of human kind. It has been said that Dickens brought good out of evil, and that Thackeray brought evil out of good. Though this is hardly fair to Thackeray, the two great masters were in striking contrast. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), though he began by picturing unscrupulous adventurers, later selected his scenes and characters from high life or from the upper middle classes. He cared little for external nature, and was strong in the analysis and portrayal of character. He dwelt on the faults and weaknesses of society and of individuals ; but, if he was cynical on the surface, he was a generous-minded, big-hearted man, who defined humor as " wit tempered with love," who could appreciate noble traits, and show a wealth of pity and tolerance for even the least edifying of those whom he felt called upon to depict. Less widely popular than Dickens, he has always made a stronger appeal to the thinking reader. Besides his inimitable satiric pictures of a life in his own day, he produced in Henry Esmond, one of the greatest historical novels in the English language; he drew a racy sketch of the four Georges, and, in his English Humorists, he has made the literary world of the eighteenth century live again before our eyes. Bronte and Eliot. Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), the most famous of three gifted sisters, is chiefly known for Jane Eyre, a novel of intense power and passion, but characterized by unrealities of detail due to her limited experience of life. Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), who wrote under the name of George Eliot, was a woman of wide knowledge both of life and books. In her first novels she reproduced with graphic fidelity the scenes and folk of her countryside, and en- livened her serious problems with touches of fine humor. As her work 1048 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND progressed, she overdeveloped her inclination for psychological analy- sis : Adam Bede, the Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner show her at her best. Yet, even in these early productions, she keeps in the fore- ground her great lesson that dire consequences attend disregard of the moral order. Minor Novelists. Among numbers of minor novelists some have produced work well worth reading by subsequent generations. Charles Lever (1806-1872) wrote rollicking tales of Irish and military life during the era of the Napoleonic wars. Captain Marryat (1792- 1848), a naval officer, after his retirement from active service, in 1830, produced a series of breezy sea stories which are not only entertaining, but valuable as a reflection of the author's actual experiences. The Rev. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) was a many-sided man, among other things a Christian socialist and an exponent of muscular Chris- tianity. He began by writing on contemporary problems, turn- ing later to history and historical fiction. Westward Ho, a glorification of the Elizabethan seamen, is perhaps his best novel, while his Water Babies is one of the most famous children's stories in the language. Charles Reade (1814-1884) started out as a dramatist, but came to devote most of his energies to stories exposing social abuses. The Cloister and the Hearth, in which he ventured into historical fiction, almost ranks with Henry Esmond and the best work of Scott. Mrs. Gaskell (1810-1865), in Mary Barton and other works, took up thecause of the poor in the manufacturing districts, but, from the literary stand- point, is remembered chiefly for Cranford, an exquisite picture of life in a secluded English village. Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was amazingly industrious and businesslike, reproducing what he saw with the fidelity of a photographer and with almost equal absence of imagination ; but his realistic descriptions of the clerical life in the cathedral city of " Barchester " are, in their way, distinct achieve- ments. Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) still retains a hold on the lovers of weirdness and mystery. A period which could produce Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, to say nothing of such a long list of writers of second rank, is certainly supreme in the age of the novel. Later Victorian Novelists. While it is too early to estimate the importance of the most recent novelists, three stand out sufficiently to merit attention. George Meredith (1828-1909) published The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, one of his best known novels, as early as 1859, the same year in which Adam Bede saw the light. Yet he should be grouped with the later generation, for he outlived his contem- poraries, he was productive to the end of his life, and, owing to his obscurity and his daring manner of portraying life, he received only belated recognition. His work presents obvious points of criticism, he was incapable of constructing an absorbing coherent plot, and his style is often as perversely difficult as that of Browning. While this latter fault was due in some degree to the complex and baffling human problems with which he chose to deal, it prevented him from making VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1049 the universal appeal reserved for supreme geniuses. On the other hand, few Englishmen have ever equaled him in epigrammatic power ; he had a wonderful gift of subtle analysis, he described nature lovingly and superbly, he delineated the life of the English upper classes with fascinating skill, and, at the same time, equaled Shake- speare and George Eliot in his faculty for creating peasants who could talk in their own tongue. Thomas Hardy (born 1840) resembles Meredith in his love of nature, and he has reproduced with artistic fidelity the scenes and people of his native Wessex ; but his conviction that the irony of circumstance makes sport with human endeavor most often renders him harrowing to read. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), handicapped during much of his life by a malady which killed him prematurely, showed himself a prince of story-tellers and narrated his entrancing tales in a style of exquisite, if rather overconscious, art. He may prove, as some have prophesied, the herald of a new romanticism. 1 Philosophy and History. Among the many philosophical thinkers of the Victorian Era two are perhaps most important from the historical standpoint John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) an d Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Mill, who had a soul above the mechanical training given him by his father, James, was active in many fields. He was the last and greatest economist of the "orthodox" school which developed from Adam Smith, and his Principles of Political Economy, 1848, long remained the standard work on the subject; he wrote a suggestive essay On Liberty, 1859, in which he sought to solve the prob- lem of the relation between the individual and the law,s of Society and the State ; he was a pioneer in the movement for the enfranchisement of women; he was an interpreter of positivism 2 and the science of sociology, both of which originated with the Frenchman August Comte (1798-1867). In his Logic, 1843, Mill marked the greatest advance since Bacon. His main contribution was in reducing scientific thought to definite rules, and providing, what Bacon did not, a philo- sophical method for scientific reasoning. In other words, he taught what was peculiarly valuable in an age of scientific discovery the method of generalizing from the facts and then verifying by deduction from known laws. Spencer published, in 1855, his Principles of Psychology, based upon the evolutionary principle, a very notable fact, since the book appeared four years before Darwin's Origin of Species. In 1860, he issued the prospectus of his System of Synthetic Philosophy, " in which, beginning with the first principles of knowledge, he proposed to trace the progress of evolution in life, mind, society, 1 Richard Blackmore (1825-1900), in Lorna Doone, and Joseph Henry Short- house (1834-1903), in John Inglesant have, amongst other writing, each created a work of enduring merit. Rudyard Kipling (born 1865) has produced verse of striking force and originality, with a strong Imperialistic bent, and has written tales which throw a flood of light on India and the Anglo-Indian military and civil life. 2 The positivist philosophy devotes itself to a description of scientific phenomena. 1050 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND and morality." This he did in a long series of volumes, starting with First Principles in 1862. His great service was to introduce the prin- ciple of evolution into the varied subjects with which he dealt, and though here he was not completely successful to investigate the laws which underlie life and thought, and to group them into a synthetic or unified form. Historical and Classical Scholarship. This period marks an amazing advance in historical method and research, though Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) failed in his effort to construct a philosophy of the subject. The History of Greece, by George Grote (1794-1891), is a monument of learning, which, notwithstanding bias in favor of Athenian democracy, and the fact that it has been superseded in parts by more recent investigations, still remains a classic. There are some, however, who regard the less widely known work of Bishop Thirlwall (1797-1875) as one of greater merit. Most notable, how- ever, has been the progress in the study of English history, especially in the early period. The enthusiasm for freedom manifested in and stimulated by the Reform Bill led to a new interest in the Anglo- Saxon period regarded as a golden age of liberty which Norman absolutism destroyed. While others preceded him, the first signifi- cant pioneer work was John Kemble's, The Saxons in England, 1849. Meantime, scholars had begun to edit and print the original sources and, before long, a body of materials became available which challenge comparison with those of any other country in Europe. Among those who have written on the subject, only the most prominent names can be mentioned Freeman, Stubbs, Maine, Pollock, and Maitland on the medieval period, and Froude, Gardiner, Lecky, and Walpole on the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, respectively. Classical archaeology was greatly fostered by the removal to England of the Parthenon sculptures, which Lord Elgin began to acquire, in 1803, while ambassador to the Porte, and which he sold to the British Government in 1816. While the Victorian Age has produced many learned and elegant classical scholars, none have shown the genius of Bentley, or of Richard Porson (1759-1808), second only to him in achievement, and perhaps superior to him in natural aptitude. Darwinism. In science and its practical applications " the advance made during the reign of Queen Victoria has been greater in many ways than the advance made from the beginning of civilization to that time." Among the landmarks of progress three stand out pre- eminent the establishment of the doctrine of evolution ; the exten- sion of the use of steam, particularly in transportation ; and the applications of electricity. The first has fundamentally trans- formed man's whole attitude toward the origin and growth of life. Evolutionary, as distinguished from creationist, philosophy is as old as the Greeks, while biological evolution, in the general sense of the descent of one species from another, was by no means a new idea. VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1051 Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) had speculated on the doctrine, and it had been advocated by the Frenchman Lamarck (1744-1829) ; but it was only the long and patient experimental studies by Charles Darwin (1809-1882), grandson of Erasmus, which placed it on a sound scientific basis and resulted in its final acceptance. He made clear the causes of biological evolution by showing that different species of plants and animals, " instead of being each separately created," are evolved from lower types by means of " natural selection " in the struggle for existence ; in other words, there is a " survival of the fittest " 1 due to a continuous process of adaptation. In 1837, Darwin began his special investigations, which were first completely set forth in his Origin of Species in 1859. During the previous year, Alfred Russell Wallace (1822-1913) sent a paper from the Malay Islands On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type, anticipating the results to which Darwin had been working for so many years. Happily both men thought more of the advance- ment of human knowledge than self-glorification. Darwin published a preliminary paper, together with Wallace's, and the latter got credit to the full extent for his contribution. Darwin, however, had started first and had based his findings on an incomparably wider and more thorough research. His views were bitterly opposed by the more conservative scientists, and by those who fancied that their theological beliefs were endangered by the conflict between the theory of evolu- tion and the Biblical story of the Creation as popularly understood. Gradually, however, the substance of the Darwinian doctrine has won its way to general acceptance, though certain features of it, such as the inheritance of acquired characteristics, have been modified by later investigators. The final victory was due, in a considerable de- gree, to the championship of Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), who com- bined to an unusual extent the faculty for original research with the gift of popular exposition. Progress in Other Sciences. Not only did the period witness sig- nal progress in most of the older sciences geology, for example, threw much new light on the antiquity of the earth and of plant and animal life but many newer ones, such as palaeontology and anthro- pology, were marked off as distinct fields of investigation. An im- portant stage in development was the founding of the British Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science in 1834. Notable gains were made in medicine and surgery, chiefly through the discovery of anaes- thesia, the germ theory of disease, and antiseptic surgery. In the former, Americans led the way, and the credit for introducing ether is disputed in behalf of two claimants. Apparently Dr. Jackson first discovered its uses, while Dr. Morton was the first to apply it in surgical operations. Shortly afterwards, in 1847, a Scot, (later Sir) James Y. Simpson, brought chloroform into use. John Tyndall 1 This term was coined by Herbert Spencer and adopted by Darwin, who used it interchangeably with "natural selection." io52 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND (1820-1897), a natural philosopher, who devoted much attention to physics, and who exercised an even wider influence than Huxley in the popularization of science, was a pioneer in the germ theory of infection and in recognizing the value of sterilization. Dr. (later Baron) Joseph Lister (1827-1913) did wonders in reducing the fatality of surgical operations by the introduction of antiseptic bandaging. Physics and chemistry made amazing strides, both in pure science and in its practical application. Among the latter, the invention of photog- raphy has an important place ; for it has become an indispensable ally to investigators in the most diverse fields, from astronomy to his- tory. The Frenchman, Daguerre (1789-1851), acting on suggestions from his assistant, Niepce, first perfected, in 1839, the process of ob- taining pictures through the chemical action of sunlight on a metallic plate; but the daguerreotype was soon superseded by the modern photograph, in which William Talbot (1800-1877) ^d the way. His process of taking impressions on sensitized paper has in turn been im- proved upon by the use of the dry plate. Electricity. The discovery, by the Italian, Alessandro Volta, of the voltaic pile, 1 in 1800, followed by his cell, 2 first provided the battery tor producing continuous supplies of electricity. The applications which followed have had an incalculable effect on modem civilization. The next notable step was the discovery of electromagnetism by the Danish physicist Orsted, in 1819, together with the resulting develop- ments by Ampere and Ohm. Michael Faraday (1791-1867), who began his scientific work as the assistant of Sir Humphrey Davy, and who has been described as the " prince of investigators," did so much for pure and applied science that only a special treatise could do him justice. Most significant in connection with the present subject, was his work on magnetic induction which prepared the way for the dynamo the machine now employed for generating elec- tricity in large quantities. His discovery of benzine, in 1825, has led to important commercial results, especially in connection with the preparation of aniline dyes. William Thomson (1824-1907), created Lord Kelvin in 1892, was a remarkable combination of pure scientist and inventor, whose investigations extended over the field of mathe- matics, heat, electricity, and magnetism. Steam Railways and Navigation. The development of railways in Great Britain since the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool railway, in 1830, has been enormous. 3 The tremendous significance 1 So called because it consisted of a series of strips of different metals, such as copper and zinc, placed alternately one upon the other, with cloth or paper between the layers, and moistened with an acid solution. 2 This consists of a cup filled with acidulated water into which plates of copper and zinc are introduced. 3 An idea can be gained from the following figures for 1912 : Miles of line open 23,441 Tons of goods carried . . . . 520,279,128 Passengers 1,294,337,048 VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1053 of this development can only be realized in view of the numbers of men employed for the manufacture of all the vast equipment which goes to make up a railroad, in the structure of the carshops, in the mines for supplying the materials for fuel ; in view of the increased facilities for emigration and for carrying laborers to and fro ; and in view of the creation of new markets and the possibilities of transport- ing food supplies. The development of steam navigation is equally striking. In 1819, the first steamship crossed the Atlantic from Savannah to Liverpool, and, going partly under sail, occupied thirty- two days. It was not till 1838 that the whole distance was covered under steam, when the time was cut to fifteen. 1 Now, the fastest steamers have made a record of less than five, exclusive of the delays in entering and leaving port. At first the ships were side-wheelers built of wood. The first iron steamship was built in 1821 and the first iron screw propeller in 1838 ; but screw propellers and iron construc- tion were not generally adopted till the early sixties. Iron gave place to steel about twenty years later. The invention of the compound, and then of the triple-expansion engine, due to high pressure steam and improved boiler construction, made it possible to build both larger and swifter vessels. All this, added to the employment of artificial refrigeration and cold storage, has added greatly to the comfort of travel. For a long time steam was used only for passenger traffic on the ocean, while fast sailing clippers were employed, especially in the China trade ; but the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, put an end to their supremacy. Nowadays sailing ships are little used except for slow coasting trade. 2 The effect of steam navigation in supplying food and raw materials, opening new markets, stimulating emigration and industry, as well as in consolidating the British Empire has been almost incalculable. Army and Navy. In view of her insular position, Great Britain has not found it necessary to keep so large an army on foot as the continental countries, especially since the self-governing colonies have equipped militia of their own, and has thus far refrained from compulsory service. However, since the advent of the airship and the development of Germany as a sea-power, there has been an earnest agitation, led by the military authorities, to increase the land forces and to make them more effective. On the other hand, Great Britain has long felt the need of maintaining a powerful navy to protect her commerce, her possessions beyond the seas, and to insure against the cutting off of her food supplies in time of war. Yet, during the first half of the century, her naval constructors lagged 1 This was very soon after Dionysius Lardner had declared that "as well might they attempt a voyage to the moon, as to run regularly between England and New York." 2 The total amount of shipping, British and foreign, entering the United King- dom, has increased from 4,657,795 tons in 1840 to 66,660,449 in 1910. The amount clearing has almost exactly corresponded. 1054 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND behind the merchant marine in the introduction of improvements. Indeed, so late as the Crimean War, the French navy was on a more modern footing. Since then, however, the British have forged steadily to the front in iron and steel construction for hulls, in the introduction of armor plate, in the introduction of breech-loading guns worked by machinery, and in the employment of torpedoes and torpedo boats. While keeping fully abreast of other nations in the adoption of im- proved processes, they have endeavored to maintain their fleet at about double the strength of their nearest rival, Germany. 1 Electrical Inventions and Appliances. Only a bewildering array of figures could give an adequate idea of the great development in the iron, cotton, and other manufacturing industries ; but the result has been due not so much to the invention, as to the perfecting and developing of those already described. However, as practical realities, all the epoch-making electrical inventions and appliances date from the Victorian Era. The first attempt to construct an electric tele- graph was made by one Lesage in 1774; but it was more than half a century before a series of lines was actually in operation, and not till 1844 that the first public system in England was installed. It was soon superseded by the system of the American, Morse, invented in 1838, and first employed in 1844 on a line of wires running from Washington to Baltimore. Meantime, experiments in submarine telegraphy had been made. So early as 1839, the banks of the Hooghly River in India had been connected by an insulated wire placed beneath the surface of the stream. A line between Dover and Calais was established in 1851. The first attempt to lay an Atlantic cable was made six years later. After two successive failures, in 1858 and 1865, the momentous task was finally achieved in 1866. Infinite credit is due to Cyrus Field in securing finances, and to the scientific genius of Lord Kelvin. The perfection of wireless telegraphy has been the signal achievement of the Italian, Marconi, who began his experi- ments in 1895, and, in 1899, first succeeded in sending messages across the Channel from Boulogne to Dover. In 1837 Page, an American physicist, prepared the way for the telephone by his discovery that sounds could be transmitted by electricity. Nearly forty years 1 The respective strength of the three leading naval powers in 1912 was: U.K. U.S. GERMANY Built Building Built Building Built Building Battleships . 53 IO 29 6 32 9 Coast defense 9 4 Cruisers . . 108 37 53 6 Torpedo boats am destroyers 301 28 IO 173 17 Submarines . 62 12 18 17 8 2 VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1055 later, in 1876, Graham Bell was finally awarded a patent, although two other men had made application on the very same day as himself. As the result of a long series of experiments by Foucault and Staite, arclights were first made to work successfully in 1849, though Sir Humphrey Davy had discovered the voltaic arc years before. The incandescent lamp, which traces its beginnings to a process devised about 1841 by an Englishman, De Moleyns, only came to be generally employed toward the end of the last century. With the perfecting of the dynamo, within the recent generation, electricity has taken pos- session of the field as a motive force and as a means of communication and illumination, while it bids fair to supersede steam for purposes of . transportation on railways. Agricultural Progress. The period of agricultural distress fol- lowing- the Napoleonic War continued for some years. When prices dropped, the cultivation of poor land ceased to be profitable. Land- lords who had mortgaged their estates to extend their farming opera- tions went under, together with tenants working on borrowed capital. A natural result was misery and discontent on the part of the agricul- tural laborers. Shortly before Victoria's accession conditions began to improve, and, with brief intervals of depression, the improvement continued until about 1876. This renewed prosperity was due to a combination of many causes. For one thing, the revival and growth of manufactures, following the temporary slump during the first years of the peace, created a new demand for food supplies and enhanced their price. Then the Poor Law of 1834 lifted a great burden from the rural taxpayer, while the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 did away with uncertainties, inequalities, and waste, which had worked to the prejudice of the cultivator. Railways and steam navigation made possible the transportation of perishable products, and made new markets accessible. At the same time, the establishment of joint stock banks provided capital for improvements. In these improve- ments science came to the aid of practice. In 1838, the Royal Agri- cultural Society was founded; this was followed by the establishment of the Royal Agricultural College in 1842, and, during the next year, experiments began to be made at the agricultural station recently set up at Rothamsted, Herts. Chemical and geographical knowledge was applied in the treatment of the soil, and artificially prepared fertilizers were adopted with excellent results. Improved methods of draining proved a special boon to farmers in the clay soil districts where lands had been under water during the rainy season and hard- baked during times of drought. Intensive farming, which aimed to get the greatest amount out of land already under cultivation, began to take the place of extensive tillage, which consisted in merely ex- tending the area to be worked. The ambition of wealthy manufac- turers and merchants 'to become landed proprietors had the twofold effect of bringing much capital into agriculture and of raising the price of land. Finally, in this period, great improvements were made 1056 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND in agricultural machinery when new types of plows, harrows, cul- tivators, as well as mowing machines and steam threshing machines, came to be employed. Decline in Agriculture. The repeal of the Corn Laws, in 1846, ushered in a brief interval of depression, due partly to an influx of cheap food, partly to the breaking of the monopoly, and, more es- pecially, to the fear of the British farmer that he could not compete with the over-sea producers. Conditions, however, soon righted themselves. The laborer was helped by the migrations, following upon the potato famine, of large numbers of Irishmen who had hitherto come to Eng- land during the harvest season and had brought down wages by their competition. On the other hand, the influx of money from the dis- covery of gold in California, 1848, and in Australia, 1850-1851, raised prices, and thus aided the landlord and tenant farmer. The third quarter of the century was, on the whole, perhaps the most prosperous period in the annals of British agriculture. About 1875 came a new decline from which the farmer has never recovered. A chief cause was the increasing competition from over-sea, due to the development of the steamship and the invention of refrigerating pro- cesses which have made it possible to convey meat in cold storage from the extreme ends of the world. For a time these foodstuffs were absorbed by the growing population; but a bad harvest in 1875, followed by a worse one in the " Black Year," 1879, led to extra heavy imports of corn and wheat from abroad, to the withdrawal of much land from tillage, and to a consequent rural exodus. Of late, efforts have been made to bring the laborer back to the soil. In 1875 a bill was passed to arrange for compensation to agricultural tenants for unexhausted improvements. Then from 1882 to 1890, a series of Allotment Acts were passed to enable the local authorities to acquire lands to rent in small parcels. This was followed, in 1892, by the Small Holdings Act empowering county councils to obtain lands and advance sums of money to those who desired to purchase holdings of fifty acres or under. But none of these measures proved effective ; for in fifteen years not more than 850 acres were sold. A new Small Holdings and Allotments Act of 1907, authorizing the county councils to take lands at the current price with or without the consent of the large owners, has proved more successsful, and within three years nearly 100,000 acres were allotted to small cultivators. At present, plans are under discussion to improve the housing conditions of the agri- cultural laborer, to raise his wages, to secure deserving tenants against eviction, and to increase still further the number of peasant proprietors. In view, however, of the experience of the eighteenth century and the increasing competition from abroad, it is doubtful whether the small farmer could maintain himself. Decorative Art. Fertile as was the Victorian Age in science and invention, it was, in the early period at least, barren of anything except bad taste in decorative art. Mansard roof houses, furnished with VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1057 glaring carpets, ghastly marble statuary, and ornately carved black walnut are unlovely monuments of this period of Philistine ugliness. Those who strove for better things were for years as voices crying in the wilderness. About the middle of the century Ruskin began to preach the gospel of a revival of Gothic art and ornament. The Pre- raphaelite Brotherhood, not long after its foundation, extended its scope to include architecture, costume, and household decoration, as well as painting and literature. Toward the end of its short life it became an " aesthetic affectation," making for itself a " sort of religion out of wall paper, old teapots, and fans " ; but it began as a healthy plea for simplicity and beauty against conventional unsightliness, and set standards which survived its own organization. Much was due to William Morris (1834-1896), perhaps the most versatile man with brain and hand of any of the century. He painted pictures, he pro- duced large quantities of excellent prose and verse, he went in for print- ing and bookbinding, and, in 1860, he started a firm for supplying stained glass, tapestries, carpets, and household furniture. Every- thing was designed by men of artistic instinct and training, and, so far as possible, fashioned by hand. This wholesome revival of the traditions of the medieval arts and crafts has had an immense in- fluence. Artistic taste has continued to improve, although an inevi- table obstacle to its general diffusion has been the necessity for cheap machine-made goods. Painting and Music. The Preraphaelite Brotherhood was founded by John Everett Millais and Holman Hunt, though Dante Gabriel Rossetti became the great spiritual influence. Among other famous members were Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne- Jones. During the five years of its organized activity it formed the nearest to a native school of painting that England has ever had. Outside the Brotherhood there are many names that might be mentioned. Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) struck out a new path in emphasizing the human qualities in animals ; Clarkson Stanfield was notable as the most realistic of English marine painters ; and George Frederick Watts (1820-1904), during the course of his long life, painted superb portraits of most of the celebrated Englishmen of his time. While it is too early to estimate, the general opinion is that the greatest artists since Constable and Turner have been D. G. Rossetti, Millais, and James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), an American who spent his later life in London. Owing to the influence of Handel, the oratorio has been the form of musical composition which has since appealed most to the mass of Englishmen. Grand opera and sym- phony have, until the present generation, met with no widespread appeal. And if we except Michael Balfe (1808-1870) , whose Bohemian Girl has enjoyed a long and general popularity, the uniquely excellent comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and the fine compositions of Sir Edward Elgar (born 1857), the British have contributed practically nothing in the way of operatic or orchestral productions. 3V 1058 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Industrial and Social Progress. Two striking facts in the material progress of England during the period since the first Reform Bill are the increase of population and the increase of wealth. The number of inhabitants of the United Kingdom has increased from 24,392,485 in 1831 to 45,365,599, the greatest proportional growth being in Eng- land and Wales from 13,896,797 to 36,075,269. The total wealth of the country, estimated on the basis of income, has swelled, during the interval, from about 225,000,000 to 1,011,100,345. In other words, wealth has increased about twice as fast as the population. Unhappily, however, this increase has been most unevenly distributed. From the beginning of the century to 1842 there was a startling growth of poverty and crime, then came a striking change for the better. Curiously enough, machinery was to a large degree responsible, both for the wretchedness and for the prosperity which followed it. Other factors were the repeal of the Corn Laws which steadied and cheapened the price of food ; the legislation regulating conditions of employment, especially in the case of women and children ; and the improvement of sanitary conditions in the populous towns. Although conditions are still deplorable enough, the English laborer, what with better housing, better lighting, better industrial regulations, and better wages, is far better off than his fathers before him. Friendly societies, trades unions, cooperative stores and banks, and building societies are at once indications of and further aids to thrift and progress. At the same time, the growing consumption of meat, tea, sugar, and tobacco indicates a rising standard of comfort. This, together with a steady upward movement of prices, especially during the last decade, has resulted in the acute problem that the incomes of large numbers of the working classes have ceased to be sufficient to meet their expenditures. Hence a serious agitation has developed to secure a minimum wage. Evidences of Progress. Yet, in spite of the resulting crisis, and in spite of panics and unrest, strikes and chronic unemployment, a survey of the period, as a whole, shows encouraging evidences of progress. Parliament, which was primarily occupied " with protecting property against the people " now devotes much of its energy to " protecting the people against property." The old privileges of the favored, and the disabilities of the unfavored classes have been removed one by one. The abolition of sinecures, the curtailing of the exemptions of members of Parliament from arrest, the cessation of compulsory Church rates, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and the destruction of the monopoly of the East India Company, are among the examples of the former, while the concessions to the Roman Catholics, Nonconformists, and aliens are instances of the latter. Although there are still acute differences between labor and capital, the breaking down of the aristocratic barriers has brought the classes closer together: "the arrogance of the aristocracy is less insolent, the bitterness of the democracy is less uninformed and ignorant." Philanthropy has become more general, and educational and social VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1059 settlements have been established in the crowded quarters of large cities. The temperance revival of Father Mathew (1790-1856), though mainly concentrated in Ireland, was not without effect in England, while cheaper tea has contributed, at least in some degree, to check the excessive use of alcohol. The establishment of a system of public education, the introduction of cheap light in the form of petroleum, gas, and electricity, and the spread of the newspaper not an unmixed blessing has done much to develop a more in- telligent and happy body of citizens. Improvement of Prison Conditions. The increase of humanitari- anism may be seen in all directions, in the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, the prohibition of flogging in the army and navy, the discontinuance of the press gang and transportation, the protection of dumb animals, and the improved treatment of debtors and convicts. At the beginning of the century, in spite of the efforts of Howard, prison conditions were still frightful. Yet he had not labored in vain, for his work was taken up by Elizabeth Fry, whose interest and pity awakened by a casual visit to Newgate in 1812; by Fowell Buxton and other worthy persons. As a result of this organized work of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, which they founded, the Gaol Acts of 1823-1824 were passed, providing for improved sanitation and cleanliness and for individual cots or hammocks for prisoners. Also, regular labor, prison chaplains and schoolmasters, as well as matrons for the women, were recommended. Following a parliamentary report of 1835 the principle was established of separate cells in place of the old practice of herding debtors, hardened criminals, and even lunatics promiscuously together. More recently, the custom has been adopted of short terms of solitary confinement, followed by penal servitude or associated labor on public works; followed again by release on ticket of leave or probation. Notwith- standing the increase of population, the convictions for crime have been decreased from 19,927 in 1840 to 11,987 in 1910. Condition of Women. Although much remains to be done, the lot of women has greatly improved since the beginning of the century. Within the memory of those yet living, the, education of girls was largely in the hands of governesses and private schools, with the emphasis on deportment, music, and other accomplishments. Memory was trained at the expense of the reasoning faculties, and teaching was given out of " elegant abridgements." Since the middle of the century, however, their instruction has approximated to that of boys, and higher education has been opened to them. In 1867 women were admitted to examinations at the University of London, in 1881 at Cambridge, and in 1884 at Oxford. Meantime, two colleges for women, Girton and Newnham, had been founded at Cambridge. In 1837, the Ladies' Gallery was opened in the new House of Commons. Six years before, the first petition for votes for women was intro- duced. In 1867 John Stuart Mill made a strong plea for giving them io6o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND the privilege, and in 1912 a bill conceding a restricted suffrage passed a second reading in the Commons. Since then, however, the methods of the militants have given the movement for enfranchisement a setback. Recent Labor Legislation. Since the Reform Bill of 1867 there has been a marked increase in labor legislation. This includes an act of 1878 simplifying, systematizing, and extending all the factory legis- lation of the century, and an act of 1901, which replaced it, and which is still in force. It includes also a series of acts relating to mines and collieries, passed at intervals between 1872 and 1906. More striking, perhaps, are the recent measures providing for social insurance. Bismarck initiated this policy in Germany, between 1881 and 1891, as a supplement to coercion in checking social unrest. In one form or another it has since been adopted by the leading continental countries. In England the Liberal party, which came to power in December, 1905, on the resignation of Mr. Arthur Balfour, has taken notable steps in the same direction. These have been embodied mainly in three great measures The Workingmen's Compensation Act, 1906; the Old Age Pension Act, 1909; and the National In- surance Act, 1911. Formerly employees or workmen could, in case of accident, only recover damages by lawsuit, a long and costly process; and they had to prove, too, that the employer was directly responsible. Beginning in 1880, a series of acts w r as passed shifting the burden of proof on the employer. The first of the series applied only to specified dangerous trades; but the Act of 1906 renders the employer liable for compensation except in cases of " serious and willful misconduct " to all manual laborers, and practically all other employees, including domestic servants, who receive a salary of less than 250 a year. Although not compelled to do so, most em- ployers now carry a special insurance to meet such liabilities. Old Age Pensions and Insurance against Sickness and Unemploy- ment. The Old Age Pension Law of 1909 was the outcome of nearly thirty years of struggle. It provides that every person, male or female, over seventy years of age, who has been a British subject for twenty years and a resident of Great Britain for twelve, shall receive a pension, provided his or her incomers less than 31 los. Even paupers are included, though, as soon as the pension begins, poor relief ceases. It is in no sense an insurance scheme, since the recipients contribute nothing. The Act of 1911 has a twofold aim : " to provide for Insur- ance against loss of Health and for the Prevention and Cure of Sickness, and for Insurance against Unemployment." By the terms of the first part of the Act, all wage earners between sixteen and sixty-five who have less than 26 annual income from property are obliged to insure against sickness. Under the supervision of Government in- surance commissioners the scheme is administered through " approved societies," either existing friendly societies 1 or new bodies specially 1 These are voluntary benefit or "mutual assurance" societies, some of which date back at least to the eighteenth century, and may possibly even trace their descent VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1061 created. The funds are subscribed partly by the workers, partly by the employers, and partly by the State, though if the wage of the former is below a certain minimum, his quota falls on the employer. The benefits include weekly payments during sickness, free medical attendance, and free treatment at hospitals to be supplied by the State. The second part of the Act is in the nature of an experiment for meeting the problem of chronic unemployment. Something was accomplished by the Labor Exchange Act of 1909, according to which England was divided into eleven districts, each including a number of labor ex- changes, which serve to bring employers and laborers together, and, if necessary, advance money to pay the tatter's traveling expenses to the place where work is offered him. So far, the Act of 1911 applies only to two trades the building and the engineering which in- clude nearly 2,500,000 out of a total of 15,000,000 workmen. As in the case of the sickness insurance, the employees, the employers, and the State all contribute. The benefit is limited to a maximum of fifteen weeks, and is withheld in case the unemployment is due to mis- conduct, to strikes, or lockouts. These socialistic features of the Liberal program are due -mainly to Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer since 1908, and are being watched with great interest. The Cooperative Movement. Trade Unionism. The cooperative movement in England, of which Robert Owen was the practical founder, started as an effort to check the evils of competition. His ideas, first of a benevolent cooperation between employers and work- men, and then of State-organized communities in which the employer had no place, came to nothing ; but an indirect result not contemplated by him was the organization of cooperative shops. The first to achieve practical success was started at Rochdale in 1844. Since then many other ventures have been undertaken. While attempts at cooperative production have been, generally speaking, failures, cooperative shops for distribution have had a considerable if not sensational success. In course of time their members formed a national organization, and began to hold annual congresses and to go into the wholesale business. In 1902, there were 850,659 members with a total volume of business of 31,305,910. The trades unions of various trades began to hold annual congresses in 1870, before the acts of iSyi, 1 1875, and 1876 gave from the medieval gilds. While trades unions sometimes have the benefit fea- ture, the friendly societies, as such, are not confined to single trades and are not concerned with strikes. They included about 5,000,000 members in 1908. 1 In 1867, as a consequence of outrages committed against workmen in Sheffield and, to a less degree, in Manchester, a royal commission was appointed to investi- gate the whole subject of the trades unions which were held to be responsible. It was shown that they labored under serious disabilities. Some of the judges, at least, were of the opinion that any combination to raise wages was a "conspiracy and a misdemeanor." Hence the discontent of the unions; but it was found that, while one murder and many cases of intimidation could be traced to their members, only twelve unions out of sixty in Sheffield, and only one of many in Manchester were involved. So, by the Trades Unions Act of 1871, their legality was formally recognized. 1062 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND them legal status. In 1899 a General Federation of Trades Unions, affiliated with kindred organizations on the Continent, was created " to supplement the activities of the Trades Union Congress." In 1901, in the famous Taff Vale Case, the House of Lords struck a blow at trade unionism, by a decision " that the members of the trade union are liable singly and collectively for acts committed under the aus- pices of the Union." This decision, however, was offset, to a large degree, by the Trades Dispute Act of 1906 to which the peers gave a reluctant assent protecting the funds of trade unions. By the Osborne Judgment of 1909 the Lords decided that it was illegal to employ moneys raised by compulsory contributions to pay the salaries of the members representing them in Parliament. This, again, has been offset by a measure of 1911 providing for the payment of all members of the House of Commons at 400 a year. Laborite Political Parties. Meantime, labor had sought to reen- force the work of the trades unions by organizing into political parties. Two labor candidates stood for Parliament in 1868, and, six years later, when the number had risen to thirteen, two were elected. In 1893, the Independent Labor Party was organized for the purpose, not only of demanding State intervention in the interests of labor for procuring an eight-hour day, for example but with the avowed socialistic aim of establishing " collective ownership and control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange." Since these views proved too radical for the rank and file of the British workmen the Trades Union Congress, in 1899, took steps which resulted in the organization of a group in the Commons prepared " to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of labor." In 1906, this organization took the name of the Labor Party, and succeeded in electing twenty- nine out of fifty-one candidates, whereas the Independent Laborites elected seven. Although the number of labor representatives has since declined somewhat, the Liberal party depends upon them, together with the Irish Nationalists, for a majority. Socialism. English socialism was for a long time identified with Robert Owen, who enunciated his views nearly twenty years before the word was coined in 1835. His work, however, had no direct result, and the system owes its development to continental thinkers. About the middle of the century, however, a school of Christian Socialists was founded in England by Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes, and F. D. Maurice as a protest against the prevailing laissez-faire. While Christian Socialism, as a formal movement, had a short life, it planted seeds which have never died. In 1864, an International Working- men's Association was formed in London by the combined efforts of British trade unionists and continental refugees. As a whole, however, the British workmen have never been socialists, though the depressions from 1875 to 1880 have had the effect of accentuating socialistic tendencies, of developing a new unionism more aggressive VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1063 and less individualistic than the old. The Democratic Federation, dating from 1881, and its reconstitution two years later, under the name Social Democratic Federation, marks the modern stage. Yet neither the Federation, nor the Social Democratic party which it formed, has been very successful. In 1911, it numbered only 18,000, while the less extreme Independent Labor Party aggregated not more than 60,000, and as a rule both have been forced to act with the non- socialistic laborites. Recently, however, syndicalism a revolu- tionary trade unionism originating in France about 1906, and aiming to control production and distribution has been a force in general strikes. The Fabian Society, founded in 1883, consists of educated men, including many Liberals, who hold moderate, theoretical social- istic views, and it directs its appeal mainly to the upper and middle classes. While out and out socialism has made little headway, socialistic principles have gained increasingly in both the Con- servative and Liberal parties, and have shown their strength in the legislation outlined above, undertaken by the latter party since 1906. Greater Britain. One of the most significant features of the nineteenth century has been the growth of the British Empire. In 1912, it included an area of 13,663,000 square miles and 426,000,000 inhabitants nearly one quarter of the land surface of the globe and slightly more than a quarter of the world's population. The annual trade of this vast Empire amounts to approximately 1,600,000,000, and its total revenue exceeds 400,000,000. The Imperial dominion comprises possessions in Europe, 1 Asia, 2 Africa, 3 America, 4 and Oceania. 5 They may be grouped under two main heads depending upon their form of government. I. The self-governing colonies, including Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. Although nominally under a Governor-General sent out by the King, they are really governed by ministers responsible to elected assemblies. While the Crown has a veto on all other legis- lation, they can, without interference, impose taxes and duties, and even forbid the immigration of certain classes of British subjects. II. Crown colonies. These may be subdivided into three classes. In the first, there is an approximation to responsible government, for they have a legislative assembly, wholly or partly elected, in addi- tion to an executive council appointed by the Crown or the Governor 1 Notably : the United Kingdom ; the Channel Islands ; Cyprus ; Malta ; and Gibraltar. 2 The Indian Empire ; Ceylon ; the Straits Settlements ; the Federated Malay States ; Hong Kong ; and parts of Borneo. 3 The Union of South Africa, including Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State, Transvaal, and Rhodesia ; British East, West, and Central Africa, including many separate possessions in the interior and along the coast. In addition, Great Britain has many islands off the African shore, and Egypt is under British control. 4 Canada, Newfoundland, and various West India islands. 5 The Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand. io6 4 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND of the colony. The Bahamas, Jamaica, Mauritius, and Malta fall within this group. In the next category, both the legislative and the executive councils are appointed. Ceylon and the Straits Settlements have this forms of government. Finally, there are possessions like Gibraltar and St Helena, where both the executive and legislative powers are vested in the Governor alone. Outside the categories of self-governing and Crown colonies are various possessions or quasi- possessions. India is governed by the King as Emperor, through the Secretary of State for India and his council in England, and through the Viceroy in India. The Viceroy is assisted by an executive and a legislative council, the latter partly elective. Then there are protec- torates for example British Central and East Africa, Uganda, and Nigeria under the control of the Crown in foreign affairs; and spheres of influence, where other foreign countries agree not to acquire territory or control, either by treaty or annexation. These retain their native government under British supervision. Egypt is some- what anomalous. While there is no protectorate, " the administration is supervised and controlled in every detail through the British Consul- General, under whom, again, is the Governor-General, exercising su- preme authority in the British Egyptian Sudan." The Growth of the Empire. With the exception of Canada and portions of India, the greater part of the present Empire was only acquired or settled during the last century. For a generation and more after the loss of the American possessions and the publication of the Wealth of Nations, the view persisted that the monopoly of the colonial market and trade should be in the hands of British manu- facturers and merchants, though the colonies were favored in various ways at the expense of other countries by differential duties and by the exclusive right of supplying the Mother Country with goods not produced by the native British. Aside from the political evil of alien- ating the subjects beyond the seas, this system was attended with two economic disadvantages : it fostered the growth of industries more naturally adapted to other countries, and raised the cost for the consumer. Some attacked the system ; then, after its exclusiveness had been modified in the early twenties, and particularly after the troubles with Jamaica in the succeeding decade, others came to ques- tion the worth of foreign possessions at all. Indeed, this view was held by the leading statesmen of the laissez-faire school, and, so late as 1848, Sir James Graham declared that: "we ought to limit our colonial Empire." Meantime, however, the development of steam navigation began to alter the situation. Emigration was stimulated ; and the value of the colonies came to be realized as refuge for redundant population, as an outlet for superfluous capital, as sources of food and raw materials, and as markets for manufactured goods. The real beginning of the movement dates from 1819 when the Government appropriated 50,000 " to send a few hundred laborers to Cape Town." About 5000 ultimately went. Many would have preferred VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1065 the United States or Canada ; but the Government insisted on South Africa, partly because it did not want to send its subjects to a foreign country, and partly because South Africa lay on the trade route to the east and because its climate was less rigorous than the Canadian. Later, although it advanced further small sums to emigrants, it ceased to dictate. As a result, the majority went to North America. 1 About the middle of the century a preference for the United States became peculiarly marked, and was due to the desire of the Irish, driven from home by the potato famine and the events which followed, to settle outside the British dominions. Meantime, Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862), who had sought a new home in the far-off Pacific where he might live down a reprehensible early career, had " helped to create a new enthusiasm for Empire," among the thinkers and statesmen of his native England. His views were briefly stated in his Letter from Sydney, 1829, and afterwards elaborated in his Art of Colonization. Largely through his efforts, and the men he influenced, a society was formed in 1830 for systematic colonization. Lord Durham, too, in his famous Report wrote an eloquent plea for the development of the colonial possessions, and the establishment of self-governing systems on the Durham model greatly furthered the work. Shortly after the middle of the century, the Imperialistic reaction developed which was first generally manifested in the enthusiasm at Victoria's Jubilee of 1887. The development of India, Canada, and South Africa has been considered in other connections. The origin and growth of a new Britain in the southern hemisphere with an area about equal to the United States can best be taken up separately. The Beginnings of Australia. The Venetian traveler, Marco Polo (1254-1324), refers to a land now generally believed to be Aus- tralia, though the name originated with the Spanish explorer, De Quiros, about 1605. The Dutchman, Abel Tasman, discovered New Zealand about 1642, and visited the island south of Australia which now bears his name, though he called it Van Dieman's Land, after the Governor of Java. Dampier, who sailed in these waters in 1688, and again in 1699, made some explorations along the northwest coast of Australia. Seventy years later, on his second voyage to the Pacific, Captain Cook with the members of an astronomical expedi- tion landed at Poverty Bay, New Zealand, in 1769. After sailing around the islands, he proceeded to Australia, explored the south- eastern coast, and named it New South Wales. The Spanish and the Dutch, who had been first on the ground, made no effort to found settle- ments, and the vast territories fell to the latest comers, the British. In 1787-1788, Commodore Phillip was sent out with a shipload of convicts, and founded a city at Port Jackson which he named Sydney. 1 Between 1819 and 1829, 126,000 migrated to Canada and 72,000 to the United States ; during the next decade 3 20,000 went to Canada and 1 70,000 to the United States. Then, from 1840-1849, 428,000 went to Canada, 912,000 to the United States; from 1850 to 1859 the respective numbers were 250,000 and 1,350,000. io66 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND The mortality among the convicts was frightful during the voyage, and conditions were hard after their arrival ; for the soil was sandy and the convicts ignorant and intractable. The real need was for men of agricultural experience and capital. Tempted " with the promise of land, implements, and food," a few families began to come out. Grants were also made to convicts whose terms had expired, as well as to some of the guards, and the free population increased slowly until New South Wales, as the new state was called, numbered, in 1821, nearly 40,000 inhabitants. But there was a great dispro- portion of men, and drunkenness was a fruitful cause of disorder. Meantime, the sheep raising industry, which was to prove the main source of Australian prosperity, had been introduced, in 1791, by John MacArthur, who soon had a flock of 1000. The numbers multi- plied steadily until, in 1909, there were 46,187,678. During a drought, in 1812-1813, some of the colonists crossed the Blue Mountains where they found a rich, fertile soil. Danger of French rivalry and increase of immigration resulted in extending the area of settlement. In 1826, the Governor of New South Wales received instructions to assert the British claim to the whole of Australia, and to occupy the stations on the western shore. Thus began, in 1829, the settlement of West Australia with the capital at Perth. An attempt to develop the colony was made by private individuals; but the experiment proved a failure. In 1838, there were only 2000 inhabitants, and in 1849, not more than 5000. Meantime, Wakefield published his Letter from Sydney, already referred to, which marks an epoch in Australian colonization. He insisted that lands should be sold to settlers in small lots and at reasonably high prices, and that the proceeds should be used to pay the passage of emigrant laborers and for general government expenses. A company was formed to colonize South Australia on his plan. Settlement began in 1834, and the capital was founded at Adelaide in 1836. Owing to mismanagement and speculation on the part of the members, the Company became so embarrassed that, in 1841, the British Government was forced to advance 155,000. Nevertheless, the colony grew much more rapidly than that of West Australia. Wakefield's system, however, bore hardly on the sheep raisers, who were unable to pay 55. per acre which was the price demanded. So they moved inland and occupied fresh lands for which they paid nothing at all hence the origin of the term " squatter." Eventually a com- promise was arranged by which they were given temporary rights of occupancy at a low rent. In 1835, Van Dieman's Land, or Tasmania, which had been settled as a subordinate penal settlement in 1803, was made a separate colony. In 1851, Victoria was made independent of New South Wales with Melbourne (founded in 1837) as the capital. Queensland, carved out of New South Wales in 1859, was the last of the six Australian colonies. Brisbane (founded in 1824) was made the capital. VICTORIAN AND POSTVICTORIAN ENGLAND 1067 The Commonwealth of Australia. Australia's three great problems have been : the transportation evil ; the subjugation of the natives ; and the establishment of free institutions and self-government. After a long, hard struggle transportation was abolished in 1857, though some convicts were supplied to West Australia till 1867. The Aus- tralian natives were of a very inferior type. Numbers were shot for cattle stealing, more succumbed to drink and other evil habits. While a few survive in Australia proper, they are now quite extinct in Tas- mania. In 1842, a legislative council was established in New South Wales, but, owing to the steady growth in numbers, 1 wealth and in- telligence, there was an increasing demand for a more complete form of self-government. After the example had been set in Canada, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia (under a permissive Imperial act of 1850) drew up constitutions with popularly elected legislatures, which received the sanction of the British Govern- ment in 1855. Queensland received a similar privilege in 1859, and West Australia in 1890. By various extensions of the franchise every adult man and woman has received the right to vote in every one of the six states. Besides being a pioneer in women's suffrage, Australia has taken over the Government ownership of railroads and has made a remarkable contribution in the so-called " Torrens System " of conveyancing. By an act passed first in South Australia at the in- stance of Sir Richard Torrens in 1858, all estates were required to be registered, and the registered owner was considered the real owner in all future transactions. Thus, much confusion formerly arising from disputed titles has been saved. After nearly twenty years of agitation, the various states were federated into the Commonwealth of Australia by a measure sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament in 1900. The inauguration of the new Commonwealth took place at Sydney, i January, 1901, and, in the following May, the first Parliament was opened by the present King George V, then Duke of Cornwall and York. Although Melbourne is the present capital, a new site has been selected at Yass Canberra, in New South Wales, where a model metropolis is now in process of construction. The executive is vested in the Sovereign acting through the Governor-General, assisted by an executive of seven members. There is a federal Parliament, consisting of a senate of thirty-six six from each state and a house of representatives elected on a basis of population. Such powers as are not specially vested in the federal legislature remain in the legislatures of the several states. 2 1 The discovery of copper in 1848, and, more especially of gold, in 1851, led to a considerable influx of settlers. Gold was discovered in West Australia in 1886- 1887, with the result that the population increased to 50,000 in 1891, and to 281,000 in 1910. 2 This arrangement differs from that in Canada where such powers as are not specially delegated to the provincial legislatures are reserved to the Dominion Parliament. The system adopted in South Africa, in 1909-1910, is different from either in not being a federation at all. There it was felt that, with only 1,000,000 io68 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND New Zealand. In the thirties, an association, started by Wake- field, was formed for the colonization of New Zealand, a group of two large and some smaller islands lying about twelve hundred miles east of Australia. The British Government and the missionaries at first opposed the project, fearing that it would cause trouble with the Maoris, a native race of Malay stock, highly intelligent and very war- like. Nevertheless, settlement proceeded apace, and, in 1839, New Zealand was declared subject to the Crown under the governor of New South Wales. In 1840, a Lieutenant Governor was sent out, and the following year a colony was constituted by charter. Auckland, in South Island, was selected as the first capital; but, in 1865, the capital was transferred to Wellington in North Island. 'The Maoris long proved a serious problem, though it must be admitted they had much right on their side. Now, however, they are dying out, and, in 1908, formed only 47,000 out of a population of 1,008,000. In 1852, a self-governing constitution was granted. New Zealand is perhaps the most progressive state in the world. Women were given the vote in 1893. Like Australia it has a State-owned railway system, and, in many other respects, has led in State socialism. The Labor party has been a power since 1891. Under the Labor Ministry, large estates have been broken up partly by heavy taxation, partly by com- pulsory sale ; a State bank has been founded to lend money to small farmers for the purpose of improving their lands ; and very progressive laws have been enacted for regulating factories and conditions of labor. In 1895, a carefully worked out scheme was launched for settling trade disputes and preventing strikes. In the event of a failure to agree between employers and workmen's unions, provision was made for application to a Board of Conciliation, and, in the last instance, to an Arbitration Court under a judge, whose decision shall be final and may be enforced by fine and imprisonment. As a matter of fact, laborers have proved more refractory than employers, and of late the attempt to avert strikes has been unsuccessful. In 1898, ten years before the Mother Country, a system of old age pensions was adopted, with a weekly allowance of los. for all persons over sixty-five. In 1907, New Zealand was proclaimed a Dominion to which various small islands in the Pacific were annexed. The Imperial Problem. Such is the British Empire at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. The problem of adminis- tering this vast extent of territory, scattered over the globe and in- habited by 360,000,000 non-European people of distinct traditions and sentiments, is a complex and formidable one. It has been ren- dered easier from the fact that, in a considerable part of the expansion, extension of commerce and colonization has been a factor as potent as military force. So far as possible, too, Englishmen have been given whites to 4,000,000 blacks, it would be safer to form a single strong government or union than to establish a federation of the four existing states. The former states are now provinces which merely administer their local affairs. VICTORIAN AND POST VICTORIAN ENGLAND 1069 an opportunity to practice self-government in their new homes, and " to train subject peoples for the discharge of similar responsibilities." Where responsible government has been impossible, efforts have been made, in the last half century, to provide for effective administration by civil servants whose merits have been tested by examination. While British statesmen, up to fifty or sixty years ago, expected and even wished for a sundering of the Imperial dominions much to the distress of loyal Canadians and Australians - a great change has taken place, espe- cially in the last generation. The British people, formerly ignorant and indifferent in all that concerned Imperial questions, are now enthusiastic and active. In 1875, the Imperial Federation League was founded " under the auspices of statesmen of both political parties." Con- ferences of colonial ministers, beginning at London during the Jubilee of 1887, have done much to draw the self-governing colonies to the Mother Country. The aid furnished by Canada and Australia in the Sudan in 1885 and in the Boer War was also significant of an enhanced sense of unity. The penny post, the improved steam communica- tions, the cable to Australia, have been additional links. The confer- ences begun in 1887 have now become regular institutions meeting every four years, and have discussed such vital questions as Imperial preferential tariffs and Imperial defense. And, in the intervals of their meeting, a permanent Imperial secretarial staff is in constant session at London under the supervision of the Colonial Secretary to keep the dominions informed of all matters of common concern that may come up at future conferences. The League of the Empire, founded in 1901, is active throughout the British dominion for the furtherance of educa- tion in Imperial concerns. The prospects of federation , widely discussed a few years ago, now seem less bright ; but the bonds of union based on community of interest and policy, are becoming steadily stronger. FOR ADDITIONAL READING General conditions. Traill, Social England, VI, chs. XXII-XXIV (authorities, pp. 341-342 ; 517-518; 933-936) to 1885. J. Ashton, When William IV was King (1896). Brodrick and Fotheringham, ch. XX. Low and Sanders, ch. XX. Wai- pole, History of England, III, ch. XII ; IV, ch. XVII, VI ; conclusion. History of Twenty-five Years, I, ch. I. Constitutional and legal. May, Constitutional History. Maitland, Constitu- tional History, period IV, an excellent brief survey. D. J. Medley, Manual of Eng- lish Constitutional History, a valuable work of reference, not chronological. E. Jenks, Short History of the English Law (1912), especially period IV. Sir W. R. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution (1886-1892). A. V. Dicey, Law and Public Opinion (1905), very suggestive. W. Bagehot, The English Constitution (2d ed. 1872). S. Low, The Governance of England (1904). L. Courtney, The Working Constitution of the United Kingdom (1901). T. F. Moran, The Theory and Practice of the English Government (1903). The two latter are good brief accounts. A. L. Lowell, The Government of England (2 vols., 1912), the standard work on the subject. Social and industrial. Porter's Progress of the Nation (ed. F. W. Hirst, 1912). McCulloch, Dictionary of Commerce and Commercial Navigation (1860-1872). R. H. Palgrave, Dictionary of Political Economy (1894-1899). T. Mackay, History of the A HISTORY OF ENGLAND English Poor Law (1904). S. and B. Webb's Trades Unions (1894) and Industrial Democracy (1897) . G. ].Holyoa.ke's History of Co-operation (2 vols., 1875-1879, revised ed. 1906). j. F. Wilkinson, The Friendly Society Movement (1891). Sir E. W. Brabrook, Provident Societies and Industrial Wtljare (1898). Sir E. F. Du Cane, The Punish- ment and Prevention of Crime (1885). F. A. Ogg, Social Progress in Contemporary Europe (1912), which contains much on England, is an excellent compendium. C. Hayes, British Social Politics (1913), valuable for legislation since 1906. See also Cambridge Modern History, XII, ch. XXIII (bibliography). R. E. Prothero, English Farming, chs. XV ff. S. Smiles, Lives of George and Robert Stephenson (1868). Acworth, The Railways of England (1900). Science and literature. G. J. Romanes Darwin and After Darwin (1892-1897). F. Darwin ed. Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (3 vols., 1887). O. Lodge, Pioneers of Science (1893). A. R. Wallace, The Wonderful Century (1898). R. Garnett, Heroes of Science (1885). G. P. Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (1913). Cambridge Modern History, XI, ch. XIII (bibliography, pp. 934-936), XII, ch. XXVI (bibliography, pp. 972-976). Moody and Lovett, chs. XIV, XV. Taine, English Literature, IV, bk. V. McCarthy, Our Own Times, II, ch. XXIX; IV, ch. LXVII. E. C. Stedman, Victorian Poets (1903). Mrs. Oliphant, A Literary His- tory of England in the Nineteenth Century (1882). W. L. Cross, The Development of the English Novel (1911). J. A. Buckley and W. T. Williams, A Guide to British Historical Fiction (1912). For further references on the novel, see Moody and Lovett, 451. For literature in general, see ch. XLIX above. The Church. Wakeman, ch. XX. F. W. Cornish, The History of English Church (pts. I and II, 1910). Walpole, History of England, V, XXI ; History of Twenty-five Years, IV, XIX. Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864-1865, frequently reprinted). R. W. Church, The Oxford Movement (1891). W. Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival (1893). For further references see Low and Sanders, pp. 506- 507. P. H. Brown, Scotland, III, bk. VII, ch. XL Colonies and Empire. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, An Essay on the Government of the Dependencies (1841, new ed. C. P. Lucas, 1891). 'Egerton, British Colonial Policy. C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies (1888 ff., new ed. 6 vols., 1910-1911). Sir C. W. Dilke, Problems of Great Britain (4th ed. 1890) and British Empire (1899). A. F. Pollard ed. The British Empire: its Past, its Present and its Future (1909). H. E. Egerton, Federations and Unions within the British Empire (1911). W. J. Ashley, British Dominions, their Present Commercial and Industrial Condition (1911). E. G. Hawk, The British Empire and its History (1911). W. H. Woodward, Short History of the Expansion of the British Empire, 15001902 (1902). The two latter are brief popular accounts. The government of the Empire is described briefly in Lowell, The Government of England, II, pt. VI, and Courtney, United Kingdom, pt. III. For a full bibliography on the Colonies and the Empire, see Low and Sanders, pp. 497-502, and Cambridge Modern History, XI, pp. 968-980 ; XII, 927-948. CHAPTER LVII SKETCH OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD VII (1901-1910) AND OF THE EARLY YEARS OF GEORGE V (1910-1914) Edward VII. Accession and Character. Albert Edward, who ascended the throne as Edward VII, 22 January, 1901, was in his sixtieth year. 1 He was a man of unusual social gifts and worldly ex- perience, genial, tactful, and fond of seeking acquaintances from the most diverse walks of life, though he loved splendor, and was punc- tilious in matters of ceremony on state occasions. He spent short terms at the universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge, but the rigid training to which his parents subjected him disinclined him for serious study. Books made little appeal to him, and in later life he rarely read anything but the newspapers. Owing to the isolation in which he was brought up he never acquired any aptitude for ath- letic games, though as a young man he rode to hounds, a pursuit which he afterwards gave up for shooting. He was interested in yachting, in middle life he became a patron of the turf, and toward the end of his days developed a fondness for motoring. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the theater and the opera and the leader of fashion in London. Indeed, his love of pleasure and his Bohemian tastes aroused serious criticism at times on the part of the soberer folk; but the emergence of Queen Victoria from her seclusion, the swelling tide of Imperialistic sentiment, together with his own good nature and public spirit, made him a popular figure years before he became king. He was an ardent promoter of philanthropic causes and a ready and gracious speaker at dedications of public buildings and other ceremonious occasions, and from 1875 to 1901 was the Grand Master of the Masonic Order. He took his seat in the House of Lords, 5 February, 1863, and from time to time attended sessions of the Upper House or followed debates in the House of Commons from the Peers' Gallery. Unhappily his mother excluded him from serious political activities. It was not till Gladstone's last Ministry, 1892-1894, that Cabinet business was regularly communicated to him, and he did not have unrestricted access to foreign dispatches until Salisbury took the Premiership for the third and last time in 1895. But while he was not studious or systematically trained, he was observant ; he gathered stores of information from those with whom he conversed, and retained what he heard. He was widely traveled ; he visited, at one time or another, the chief possessions of the British 1 He was born 9 November, 1841. 1071 io72 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Empire, and was accustomed to spend parts of each year in continen- tal capitals and watering places. In his close association with foreign sovereigns and foreign ambassadors he learned much that was officially kept from him ; but he knew little and cared little for routine matters, domestic or foreign. On 10 March, 1863, he married Alexandra, daughter of Christian, who became King of Denmark in November of the same year. Two sons and three daughters were born of the marriage. Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, who was born 8 June, 1864, died 14 January, 1892, while George, born 3 June, 1865 and created Duke of York in 1892, succeeded to the throne in 1910. First Measures of the New Reign, 1901. In taking the oath be- fore the Privy Council, 23 January, 1901, King Edward declared that he was " fully determined to be a constitutional Sovereign in the strictest sense of the word." He opened Parliament in person, 14 February, and read the speech from the throne, formalities which the late Queen had dispensed with in 1885 and 1861 respectively. The Commons voted him a Civil List of 470,000, an increase of 85,000 over that which Victoria had received; but the step was bitterly opposed by the Radicals, the Laborites, and the Irish Nationalists. 1 Two other important measures carried in this session were the Demise of the Crown Bill, to render reappointments to office unnecessary on the accession of a new sovereign, and a Royal Titles Bill, adding to the royal style the words " all the British Dominions beyond the Seas." 2 The Coronation, and the Retirement of Salisbury, 1902. The horizon during the first year of the new reign was clouded by the Boer War, not formally concluded till 31 May, 1902, and King Edward had to suffer bitter attacks not only from the German press but even from that of the French, a people with whom he had been, and desired to be, friendly. The coronation, set for 26 June, 1902, had to be post- poned, owing to a sudden illness of the King, and subsequently took place, 9 August. Meantime, Salisbury, who was in failing health, resigned n July, and died 22 August of the following year. He was succeeded by his nephew, Mr. Arthur Balfour. The results of a con- ference of the colonial premiers beginning 30 June under the presi- dency of Mr. Chamberlain, were announced 3 November. Similar conferences were to be held every four years, the self-governing colonies were to increase their contributions toward the Imperial navy, the views of such as might be affected by any proposed treaty with a foreign power were to be ascertained, and it was declared that the principle of preferential trade between Great Britain and the oversea 1 The opposition of the latter was due largely to the rejection in the Lords of a bill to alter the terms of the Declaration made by the sovereign on his accession, which contained expressions denouncing the Roman Catholic faith. 2 The full royal title was: "Edward VII, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of all the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India." EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1073 dominions would stimulate and facilitate mutual commercial inter- course, though any hard and fast rules were at present impracticable. Mr. Chamberlain and "Tariff Reform," 1 1903. On 15 May, 1903, Mr. Chamberlain raised the issue in a speech at Birmingham, advocating preferential tariffs and reciprocity in colonial trade, and retaliation, where necessary, in the case of foreign countries. In this and subsequent speeches he argued that the whole fiscal situation had changed since the days of Cobden and Bright, that Great Britain's exports were decreasing and her imports increasing. He did not pro- pose to tax raw materials, but advocated moderate duties on corn, flour, meats, dairy produce (counterbalanced by reductions on tea, coffee, cocoa, and sugar) and foreign manufactures. In this way, he insisted, Great Britain would have a means of bargaining with the colonies and supplying them with the products of industries which they had not yet started ; of preventing other countries from dumping their products on British shores; and of increasing the revenue. Business depression, lack of employment, the deficit due to the late war, and the growing enthusiasm for colonial unity 2 all told in his favor, though his opponents argued that the country needed cheap food and that it was impossible to increase the customs revenue and to keep out imports at the same time. His resignation from the Cabi- net was announced, 18 September, and he was followed into retire- ment by various free-trade Unionists of whom the Duke of Devonshire was the most influential. Apparently Mr. Balfour was ready to go too far for them and not far enough for Mr. Chamberlain. The Prime Minister was inclined to favor the principle of retaliation, without taxing food, but declared that the question of preferential tariffs could not be raised during the present parliament, and suggested that it be referred to the next Colonial Conference. Army Reform, 1904. The miscarriages of the South African War, and the defects in military training and equipment which it mani- fested, forced the Government, n October, 1902, to appoint a Com- mission of Inquiry. The Commission's report, 25 August, 1903, was an " unsparing condemnation of War Office methods." While it made no recommendations as a body, the chairman, Lord Elgin, and other individual members, offered important suggestions. Lord Elgin recommended the abolition of the Commander-in-Chief and the insti- tution of a war board similar to the Board of Admiralty. As a result, a War Office Reconstruction Committee was appointed. In accord- ance with its report, submitted 1904, a Defense Committee was con- stituted with the Prime Minister as its head; the Commander-in- Chief was replaced by an Army Council including the War Secretary, 1 This meant an alteration of the tariff in the direction of protection, instead of in the direction of free trade, as is the usage in the United States. 2 On 24 May, 1904, occurred the inaugural celebration of Empire Day in London and the colonies as a permanent memorial to Queen Victoria and an outward and visible sign of Imperial cohesion. 1074 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND four military members, together with one civil and one finance mem- ber, 1 while, in addition, a Board of Selection was appointed, with the Duke of Connaught as President, to control appointments. The Defense Committee was given a staff, consisting of a secretary and some ten officers of either service. The Fall of the Balfour Ministry, December, 1905. The Balfour Ministry was steadily growing weaker. The Prime Minister per- sisted in treating the tariff question as irrelevant and in staving it off till the next Colonial Conference ; but the Liberals were gaining new strength. They worked persistently to embarrass the Ministry and profited by the split in the Unionist ranks ; 2 they carried votes on three occasions condemning the policies of Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour and won various by-elections. Besides the tariff there were various other difficulties confronting the Government. For one thing, the Nonconformists were opposing the Education Bill of 1902 (see above, p. 996) by a policy of passive resistance, withdrawing their children from the denominational schools and refusing to contribute financial support. Then, 6 March, 1905, George Wyndham, chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned from the Cabinet, owing to the fact that his Under-Secretary, Sir Anthony Macdonnell, to whom he had given practically a free hand, had been found " coquetting with Home Rule " by working with Lord Dunraven, president of the Irish Reform Association, to secure a devolution of financial and legislative powers for Irish representative councils. Finally, the Ministry had aroused great dissatisfaction by sanctioning ordinances, prompted by the South African mine owners, for admitting Chinese coolie labor into the Rand. This strengthened the conviction that the Boer War had been waged in the interests of the capitalists. In view of all these difficulties, Mr. Balfour tendered his resignation, 4 December, 1905, counting, it is said, on the hope that the Liberals would not be able to form a Cabinet and that his party would be recalled to power. The Conservative Government had been in office continuously for ten and a half years and for nearly twenty, excluding the " transient and embarrassed Governments of Gladstone and Rosebery." The people tire of the party in office after a time, so, in addition to other com- plications, old age contributed to the demise of the Conservative regime. Foreign Relations, 1902-1905. The Entente Cordiale, 1904. Under the Marquess of Lansdowne, who had succeeded Salisbury as Foreign Secretary 3 in 1900, and aided by the pacific Edward VII, the 1 They were : the Chief of the General Staff ; the Adjutant-General ; the Quarter- master-General ; the Master-General of the Ordnance; the Civil Member; and the Inspector-General of the Forces. 2 On i December, 1904, the Unionist Free Trade Club was inaugurated under the presidency of the Duke of Devonshire, as an offset to the Tariff Reform League which had held its first meeting 21 July previously. 3 The Prime Minister had held this office himself from 1895 to 1900. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1075 ties with Italy and Portugal had been strengthened, and cordiality with France had been reestablished after the partial estrangement dating from the British occupation of Egypt and manifest during the Boer War. The King was closely related by marriage or blood rela- tionship with most of the leading dynasties of Europe Germany, Russia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Spain, and Portugal. He often visited his royal kinsmen or met them at continental watering places. He was particularly attached to France, both imperial and republi- can. As Prince of Wales he had made long and frequent visits to Paris, where he had many warm friends. But as King, in spite of his friendly foreign attitude, he was careful not to usurp the functions of his responsible ministers. In 1903, during his first continental tour since his accession, he stopped at Paris, and his visit was returned by President Loubet in July. This prepared the way for the entente cordiale concluded by Lansdowne and the French Foreign Minister Delcasse, 8 April, 1904. The British agreed to recognize French interests in Morocco, while the French agreed to recognize those of Great Britain in Egypt. In return for an assurance that the British Government would not alter the political status of Egypt, they ceased to ask for a fixed time for the withdrawal of the British, and consented to allow them a freer hand in the administration of Egypt's surplus revenues. The entente cordiale was later expanded into a triple entente by the adhesion of Russia, the ally of France, and served as a counter- poise to the triple alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy. Edward, Le Roi Pacificateur, was able to accomplish very little toward improv- ing relations with Germany. The latter country, in consequence of the enormous development of population and industry following the Franco- Prussian War, sought to spread beyond the seas, and resented the fact that Great Britain had preempted the best part of the colonial field. The British, on their part, were apprehensive of the increasing manu- facturing and commercial development of Germany and of her growing sea power. Moreover, there were personal reasons why the English royal and the German Imperial families were not warmly attached to one another. The Queen was a Danish princess, and the Prussian attitude on the Schleswig-Holstein question had aroused a rancor never completely healed. Another source of friction was the unpopularity of the King's sister, Victoria, in Germany. So, while Edward and his nephew, the Emperor William, interchanged formal visits on occasion, their relations were far from wholly cordial. The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. The result of the Russo- Japanese war added another disturbing factor. The causes of the conflict were Russia's refusal to evacuate Manchuria and to give assur- ances as to the territorial integrity of Korea and the Chinese Empire and equal rights of trade. 1 The Japanese insisted on these points and 1 On 30 January, 1902, Great Britain had concluded an alliance with Japan for the maintenance of peace and order in the Far East, especially the integrity of China. 1076 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND war broke out 8 February, 1904. The Japanese won a complete triumph ; after an investment of five months they captured Port Arthur, 3 January, 1905 ; they defeated, with tremendous slaughter, a huge Russian army before Mukden ; and they destroyed the Russian Baltic fleet in the Sea of Japan. 1 Peace was signed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U. S. A., 5 September, 1905, by which Russia recognized the preponderating influence of Japan in Korea and re- stored Manchuria to China. The Morocco Crisis, 1905, and the Algeciras Conference, 1906. While Japan leaped into the position of a military and naval power of the first rank, Russia was so prostrated that Germany took advan- tage of the situation to protest against the recent strengthening of the Anglo-French entente by which France was given a free hand in induc- ing the Sultan of Morocco to undertake civilizing reforms. Although Germany, in return for commercial privileges, had agreed to the French policy of " peaceful penetration " in Morocco, she changed her tone as the war went steadily against Russia. In the spring of 1905 the Emperor visited Tangier in his yacht, and, under the pretense of pro- tecting German commercial rights, practically assumed a protectorate over Morocco by declaring that he could not allow any power to step between him and the free sovereign of a free country. M. Delcasse, who was responsible for the French policy, was forced to resign 6 June. The British Government remained neutral, but intimated that un- provoked aggression against France w r ould arouse public opinion in England. Finally, a conference was arranged at Algeciras, meeting 16 January, 1906, when it was agreed that the Powers, and not France alone, should settle with the Sultan of Morocco a plan for policing the country and reforming the system of taxation. The Liberal Programme, 1906. On 5 December, Sir Henry Camp- bell-Bannerman 2 was summoned to form a Cabinet. Mr. Asquith It provided that if either Power went to war in defense of its interests, the other would maintain neutrality, and that if either were attacked by more than one for- eign enemy the other would come to its assistance. This treaty was expanded into a formal alliance, 27 September, 1905, by which the maintenance of the territorial rights of Japan in Korea and of Great Britain in India were mutually guaranteed, ' as well as the integrity of China and the policy of the open door. 1 This fleet on its way to the Asiatic waters had committed "an extraordinary outrage" in the North Sea, that for the moment threatened war with Great Britain. Shortly before midnight, 21 October, 1904, at Dogger Bank, about twenty miles off its course, the squadron passed through a fleet of Hull trawlers and, in a fit of "nervous frenzy," opened fire, sank one vessel, seriously damaged others, killed two men and wounded several more. But the Tsar and the Russian Government expressed profound regret, promised full compensation, and detained the fleet at Vigo for the return of the officers implicated. It turned out that the Admiral Rozhvestvensky had mistaken the trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats ! The incident was subsequently adjusted peacefully by an international commission sitting at Paris. 2 He was the first to have his status solely as Prime Minister and not from a ministerial office. Hitherto the Premier had usually taken the First Lordship of the Treasury, the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, or, in the case of Salisbury, the Foreign Secretaryship. Sometimes he had united two offices. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1077 was made Chancellor of the Exchequer and Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary. The main features of the Liberal programme were : the exclusion of Chinese labor from the Transvaal ; the emendation of the Education Act in the interest of the Nonconformists ; the reduction and national control of liquor licenses ; and sweeping measures for social and industrial betterment. Parliament was dissolved 8 January, 1906, and, in the ensuing general election, the Liberals secured a greater majority than in any parliament since that returned after the Reform Bill of I832. 1 One of the first steps was to stop the further importation of Chinese into South Africa. Also, self-government was granted to the Transvaal, in which the right to vote was conceded to all white, male British subjects of full age who had resided in the Colony. Plans were also made for granting a similar constitution to the Orange River Colony. 2 At home, the Trades Disputes Bill and also the Workmen's Compensation Bill (see above, p. 1060) were passed, but an Education Bill was defeated in the House of Lords. In 1907, the Small Holdings Bill 3 was carried, and in spite of the protests of the bishops, a bill legalizing marriage with a deceased wife's sister. 4 Again, in 1908, an Education Bill 5 failed to pass the Peers and also a Licensing Bill, though the Old Age Pensions Bill (see above, p. 1060) became law in igog. 6 Thus the Liberal party with an overwhelming majority in the Lower House was able to carry only part of its programme, owing to the Conservative strength which invariably dominates the Peers. As early as October, 1907, after they had effectively demolished a Scotch Small Landholder's Bill, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman intimated that the constitution of the Upper House would have to be altered. However, he did not live to finish the fight. Owing to a breakdown in health he resigned 5 April, igoS. 7 Mr. Lloyd George's Budget of 1909, and the War against the House of Lords. The King, who was at Biarritz, summoned Mr. Asquith to assume the Premiership, and in the reconstructed Cabinet Mr. Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was his revolutionary Budget which forced the issue. In consequence of 1 There were 379 Liberals; 51 Labor members; 83 Irish Nationalists; and 157 Unionists. 2 In 1910 the two were combined with Cape Colony and Natal to form the Union of South Africa. 3 Besides providing immunity for the funds of trades unions, it declared that what was lawful for an individual was also lawful for a combination, and legalized peaceful picketing. 4 Many clergymen acting under the advice of their bishops refused to perform such marriages. 5 The Education Bills of 1906 and 1908 aimed at popular control of rate-aided schools and at abolishing religious restrictions in the choice of teachers. 6 In 1907 a court of criminal appeal was constituted and met for the first time, 15 May, 1908. 7 He died, 22 April, 1908. 1078 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND increased naval estimates ! and the cost of the new social industrial legislation he was confronted with a deficit of 16,500,000. The Opposition insisted that the taxable resources of the country were already overstrained and that tariffs were the only means of enhanc- ing the revenue. Nevertheless, Mr. Lloyd George proceeded, in April, 1909, to frame a Budget based on four principles that took no account of tariffs. They were : (i) the appropriation of about 3,000,000 from the sum annually set aside for debt reduction ;' (2) increased duties on the luxuries of the masses, notably liquor and tobacco ; (3) taxation of the excess of wealth by an increase of the income tax and the suc- cession duties, and a higher rate for unearned incomes, from which he anticipated a revenue of over 7,000,000; (4) heavy rates on monopolies, such as liquor licenses, and what roused a furious outcry on unearned increments of land ; that is, the increase in site values of unoccupied and uncultivated lots. In general, the aim of the Budget was to meet the deficit to a large degree by " shifting the burden of taxation from the producers to the possessors of wealth." The Finance Bill based upon it was introduced, 26 May, and was hotly attacked on the ground that it discriminated unfairly, that it struck at security of property, and that it would drive capital from the country. It finally passed the Commons, 5 November, but was rejected by the Lords, on the 3oth, until the judgment of the country could be obtained a step which Mr. Asquith denounced as "a wan- ton breach of the settled practice of the Constitution." 2 Parliament was prorogued 3 December, dissolved 8 January, 1910, and an appeal made to the country in a general election. The issue was fought on the Budget, the abolition of the veto power of the House of Lords, and the introduction of a scheme of Home Rule ; for the Irish Nation- alists had only agreed to support the Government on condition that power of the Peers be so reduced that they would be unable to defeat a new measure of Home Rule. The result of the election showed a striking falling off in the Liberal majority. 3 The Parliament Bill of 1911. Parliament opened 21 February. On 10 May, three resolutions passed the House of Commons, (i) Hence- forth the Lords should have no right to veto a money bill; if in one month they refused their assent it should nevertheless go to the King for his signature, the power to determine whether any par- ticular measure was a money bill being left to the Speaker. (2) Any measure not a money bill passing the Commons in three successive sessions might, in spite of the veto of the House of Lords, be submitted to the King for his approval, provided that, in each instance, it had 1 It was the British policy to keep the naval strength of the country equal to that of any other two powers combined. 2 While the right of the Peers to amend money bills had been given up in 1678 they had never abandoned their right of veto, though they had long ceased to exercise it. 3 The final returns were: Liberals, 275; Labor party, 40; Nationalists, 71; Independent Nationalists, n; Unionists, 273. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1079 been submitted to the Peers one month before the close of the ses- sion, and provided that two years had elapsed since its first introduc- tion. (3) The maximum life of a parliament should henceforth be five years instead of seven. On 17 June, a conference began between the party leaders. 1 It rose with Parliament, 2 August, and resumed its sittings in the autumn. At length, 10 November, Mr. Asquith announced that it " had come to an end without arriving at any de- cision." Parliament resumed its sittings. In the Lords, on the second reading of the Parliament Bill based on the three resolutions of 21 April, the Marquess of Lansdowne moved, as an alternative to the Government scheme, a plan for reconstructing the Upper House by making it more representative, reducing the Conservative majority, and slightly curtailing its powers. 2 As a consequence, Parliament was dissolved, 28 November, and a general election was held for the second time within a year, with the Lansdowne resolutions as the official programme of the Unionist party. The Liberal coalition made a net gain of only 2 seats, thus increasing its majority from 124 to i26. 3 On 21 February, 1911, Mr. Asquith introduced his Parliament Bill into the House of Commons, and, 8 May, Lord Lansdowne introduced a new alternative scheme in the House of Lords ; 4 but, nevertheless, the Parliament Bill passed the Lords with amendments 20 July ; 5 but Mr. Asquith refused to accept the amendments and announced that he had, before the election, se- cured the assent of the King to create a sufficient number of peers to carry the Bill if necessary. As a result, the Bill without amendments 6 1 Mr. Asquith, Lord Crewe, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Birrell, Chief Secretary for Ireland, represented the Government, while Mr. Balfour, the Marquess of Lansdowne (leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords) , Lord Cawdor and Mr. Austin Chamberlain represented the Opposition. 2 It provided that : (i) In future, the House of Lords should consist of Lords of Parliament, sitting by virtue of certain offices or qualifications, some chosen by hereditary peers and nominated by the Crown, others chosen from outside ; (2) Bills other than money bills, if causing differences for two successive sessions, should be settled in a joint session of the two Houses ; (3) The Lords would give up their privilege of vetoing money bills on condition that there should be no tacking. Already, 21 March, Lord Rosebery had carried a series of resolutions for a reform of the House of Lords based on the principle that the possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the right to a seat and a vote. 3 The Liberals actually lost 2 seats; but the Laborites and the Nationalists, between them, gained 4. 4 It provided for : (i) 100 hereditary Lords elected by the Peers ; (2) 120 chosen by electoral colleges composed of the members of the House of Commons from tht district; (3) 100 by recommendation of the Ministry in power, selected in propor- tion to the strength of the respective parties ; (4) the 2 Archbishops, together with 5 bishops, chosen by the episcopal bench; (5) 16 peers of judicial office. The representative peers thus selected were to hold office for twelve years, one fourth going out every three years. 5 Its passage in the House of Commons had been expedited by "kangaroo" closure, authorizing the chairman to make selections from amendments. 6 On 3 May, Mr. Asquith had stated that the Government was under obligation, if time permitted, to propose a scheme for the reconstruction of the Upper House during the lifetime of the present Parliament. io8o A HISTORY OF ENGLAND passed the Lords, 10 August, and received the royal assent 18 August, in spite of the " Die-Hards " or " Forwards " led by Lord Halsbury, who had pledged themselves to die in the last ditch. On 24 August, the Commons voted 252,000 to pay their members salaries of 400 a year. The Accession of George V, 6 May, 1910. King Edward did not live to see the end of the struggle. Early in March, 1910, he caught cold on his way to Biarritz. He returned to London, 26 April, where he died 6 May. His eldest surviving son took the oath x before the Privy Council, 7 May, and was proclaimed, 9 May, as George V. In July, the new King and Queen made visits to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, and in the winter of 1911-1912 they paid a visit to India for the purpose of holding a coronation Durbar. An announcement, made 12 December, that the capital was to be transferred from Cal- cutta to Delhi was not received with unmixed satisfaction. Indeed, while India has been of late years more prosperous than ever before, there has been much, perhaps inevitable, suffering, and a party of the more educated has sought to arouse the masses against British domina- tion. A manifestation of the extremer sort was an attempt to assassi- nate the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, while making a state entry into Delhi, 23 December, 1912. However, he has since shown his interest in the welfare of the people under his care by his attempts to mitigate the lot of the Indian laborers in South Africa. Stimulated no doubt by a concerted international movement to suppress the opium traffic, Great Britain has at last put an end to the Indo-Chinese trade in the drug. Under an agreement reached between China and Great Brit- ain 8 May, 1911, the Chinese production and the imports from India were to be proportionally reduced until the traffic should cease entirely, which was not to be later than 1917. The Chinese, it is alleged, vio- lated their part of the agreement, and, in 1912, an acute situation was reached when cargoes valued at 1 1,000,000, bought by Indian dealers from the Government 2 with money advanced from the banks, were held up at Shanghai. However, in May, 1913, it was announced that the Indo-China opium traffic was ended, and India has already taken new measures to meet the loss in revenue from this source, esti- mated at 4,000,000 a year. 1 On 31 August, 1910, after a long struggle, an Accession Declaration Act was passed which shortened the form of the oath and removed the phrases offensive to Roman Catholics. The oath was as follows : "I (name of sovereign) do solemnly and sincerely, and in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to the law." 2 China was still in the throes of a revolution. In consequence of a series of revolts which began in the autumn of 1911, the Manchu dynasty abdicated early hi February, 1912. A republic was set up with Yuan Shih-Kai as provisional presi- dent, 10 March, 1912. On 6 October, 1913, he was elected president ; but has made himself practically dictator. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1081 South African Problems, 1910-1914. Since the Union of South Africa in ig io, ] there has been much discord, discontent, and unrest. Particularly since 1912 the Premier, Louis Botha, a former general on the Boer side, has been sharply opposed by General Hertzog and the anti-British party because of his enthusiasm for Imperialistic defense. Another difficulty has been raised by the treatment of the East Indian indentured laborers. In 1913, the South African Parlia- ment passed an Immigrants Regulation Act which continued a 3 tax imposed some years before by the Natal Government on such laborers at the end of their term of service, and also restrictions on their movements from province to province. Thereupon, the East Indians began a policy of passive resistance. In November, 1913, their leader in Natal headed a march of men, women, and children across the Transvaal border as a protest. Refusing to pay a fine, he and others were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. Another grievance has arisen from the fact that a Natal court has recently decided that wives married according to Hindu or Mohammedan rites have no status in the province. Moreover, during the year 1913- 1914 South Africa has been disturbed by serious strikes. Since there are 5,000,000 natives to 1,250,000 whites, the Botha Government was so alive to the danger that it not only proclaimed martial law and called out troops but went to the length of deporting ten of the strike leaders, who were put on a steamer at Durban, and sent to England early in the spring of 1914. While the Government secured the pas- sage of a bill in the South African Parliament legalizing its action, the English labor leaders have taken up the case and warmly protested against sending British subjects into exile. The Imperial Conferences of 1907 and 1911. The fourth colonial (henceforth Imperial) Conference met at the Colonial Office, 15 April, 1907. It took up the question of Imperial tariffs ; but since the colonial premiers favored a preferential protective policy and the new Liberal Government opposed it, no agreement could be reached. On the other hand, important steps were taken toward a common system of Imperial defense. At the next meeting, in 1911, Sir Joseph Ward, the Premier of New Zealand, proposed an Imperial Parliament of two houses ; since no other Dominion was prepared to go anything like so far in the direction of Imperial federation the matter was dropped ; but, after a consultation between the British Premier and the Com- mittee of Imperial Defense, it was announced that henceforth the Dominions would be consulted " automatically " as far as possible in international agreements which affected their interests. 2 On i May the rate of postage from Australia to the United Kingdom and all 1 Although the Act of Union had passed the Imperial Parliament in 1909, it did not go into effect till IQIO. 2 On 14 July, 1911, the Anglo- Japanese alliance was revised and renewed with the knowledge and concurrence of the Dominions. io8 2 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND other parts of the Empire, including Egypt, was reduced from 2d. to id. the half ounce. Canadian Reciprocity, 1910-1911. The Borden Naval Programme, 1912-1913. The advocates of Imperial preference were greatly dis- turbed by an agreement between the Canadian and United States governments, published 26 January, 1911, providing for a substan- tially free exchange of natural, especially food products and for a mutual reduction of duties on manufactured goods. The arrangement was ratified by the United States Congress, 22 July; but in a par- liamentary election in September the Canadian Liberal Administra- tion, under Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who had opened the negotiations, was defeated and its reciprocity policy rejected. Mr. Borden suc- ceeded as the new Conservative Prime Minister. During the summer of 1912, he, with several members of his Cabinet, was in England, and as a result of several conferences with the British Ministry they made a tentative offer to supply the Mother Country with three super- Dreadnaughts at a cost of 7,ooo,ooo. 1 On 5 December, Mr. Bor- den introduced the proposal into the Canadian Parliament, and, in spite of an amendment by Sir Wilfrid Laurier that the ships should be constructed in Canada and should not take part in any Imperial war unless voted by the Dominion, the Borden Naval Bill passed the Commons, 15 May, 1913. Thereupon, the Senate voted that: " This House is not justified in giving its assent to this Bill until it is submitted to the judgment of the country," and the final issue awaits the next election. The Morocco Situation, 1911. In consequence of a rebellion in Morocco, France landed troops to restore order; whereupon, Ger- many took occasion to declare that she would not acquiesce in French ascendancy in the country without compensation, and, 2 July, 1911, the Emperor sent a ship of war to Agadir. The British Government declared that this action created a new and grave situation and that it did not purpose to stand aside if British interests were affected. In consequence of this and of a firm speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 21 July, the Germans sent satisfactory assurances. By an arrangement, concluded in November, Germany, in return for terri- torial cessions in the Congo region, recognized the French political ascendancy in Morocco. At the same time, equal economic oppor- tunities for all were guaranteed. The Turco-Italian War, 1911-1912. On 29 September, 1911, war broke out between Italy and Turkey, and, 4 November, the Italian King issued a decree annexing Tripoli. After a year of fighting, preliminaries of peace were arranged 15 October, 1912. Although Turkey neither affirmed nor denied the Italian sovereignty in Tripoli, she agreed to withdraw her troops and to give no aid to the Arabs, 1 In 1909 New Zealand had contributed the battleship New Zealand, which was commissioned in 1912, and in November, 1912, the Confederated Malay States offered a cruiser. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1083 and the Powers recognized the Italians. Italy promised to return the islands in the ^Egean which she had occupied ; but that clause of the treaty remains in abeyance. The Balkan War, 1912. The Christian States of the Balkan Peninsula seized the opportunity to combine against Turkey, to realize long-cherished ambitions, and to redress ancient grievances. By the end of July, 1912, alliances were concluded between Greece, Bulgaria (which had declared itself an independent kingdom in 1908), Servia, and Montenegro. On 8 October, Montenegro declared war on Turkey. On the lyth, Turkey replied by a declaration against Bul- garia, while on the same day Greece and Servia declared war on the Porte. After the Allies had gained a series of striking successes a peace conference was arranged at London, where delegates from the countries at war held their first meeting, 16 December. Meantime, Great Britain and the other Great Powers had been working to keep the conflict localized, and Mr. Asquith, in his Guildhall speech x of 9 November, had declared that : " the victors were not to be robbed of the fruits which cost them so dear." Terms which the Turkish delegation agreed to accept were rejected in consequence of a coup d'etat in Constantinople, and, 3 February, 1913, hostilities were re- newed. On 1 6 May, sittings were resumed ; after ten days of wran- gling, Sir Edward Grey sent for three of the delegates and informed them that they must accept terms on the basis of a treaty drawn up by the Great Powers or leave London. As a result, the Treaty of London was signed, 30 May, by which Turkey ceded all of Rumelia west of a line from Midea on the Black Sea and Enos on the ^Egean, and ceded Crete to Greece. The question of the status of Albania and the ^Egean Islands was left for the Powers to determine. The peace was followed by the break-up of the Balkan League. Servia and Greece combined against Bulgaria; Rumania, which had remained neutral in the previous war, took a hand ; fighting broke out in July, and Turkey took advantage of the situation to reoccupy Adrianople, which she had just been forced to yield. Peace was made at Bucharest, 6 August, by which all her opponents profited at the expense of Bul- garia, who was excluded from any outlet to the ^gean in the west. Although the Triple Alliance was renewed for twelve years in 1912, Anglo-German relations were greatly improved by the necessity of cooperation in the near East ; for Germany was not keen on assisting Austria to expand in the Balkans, while Great Britain was even more reluctant to allow Russia to extend her influence through the Slavonic peoples in the peninsula. Nevertheless, suggestions made in the autumn of 1913 by Mr. Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, for a holiday in the construction of naval armaments were coldly re- ceived in Germany. 1 The occasion for important pronouncements in foreign policy by the Prime Minister. 1084 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND Great Britain and the United States, 1901-1914. In spite of one or two causes for friction, friendly relations between Great Britain and the United States have not been seriously disturbed since the turn of the century. By an award of 20 October, 1903, a long standing dis- pute between Canada and the United States regarding the Alaska boundary was settled. While the extreme claims of the United States were not recognized, the Canadians were disappointed of their hope of access to the sea in that region and their two delegates refused to sign. Although the British representative, Lord Alverstone, affixed his signature, the general feeling in England was that the United States had got the better of the bargain. On the other hand, an award at the Hague, September, 1910, adjusting the Atlantic fisheries dispute, was mainly in favor of Great Britain, though there were reservations in support of American interests. Meantime, following as far as pos- sible the recommendations of the Second Hague Conference of 1907, Great Britain and the United States concluded an arbitration treaty, excluding, however, from compulsory arbitration subjects affecting the " independence " or " honor " or " vital interests " of the two coun- tries, or " the interests of third parties." The treaty, which was for five years, was renewed in the spring of 1914, though there was a ground- less fear on the part of certain United States senators that it might be invoked to force an arbitration of the vexed question of the Panama tolls. The Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 19 April, 1850, had provided for the common use and neutral control of any canal constructed by the Nicaragua or Panama routes, and the British agreed not to make any settlements in Central America. This was superseded by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 18 November, 1901, by which Great Britain gave up all claims to any share in the construction or control of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; but on condition that the navi- gation be free to ships of all nations on equal terms. On 24 August, 1912, a bill signed by President Taft for the regulation of the Panama Canal, then nearing completion, exempted from tolls American ship- ping engaged in coastwise trade. Regarding this as a violation of the spirit of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the British Government framed a protest which was presented at Washington 9 December, Sir Edward Grey suggesting that if the United States could not accept the British interpretation they should refer the matter to arbitration. The British announcement, in August, 1913, that they would not take part in the Panama Exposition of 1915, though based on grounds of expense, was regarded by many as an evidence of dissatisfaction at the attitude of the United States toward the tolls question. In accord- ance with a recommendation made by President Wilson in a message to Congress, 5 March, 1914, it was voted 12 June to repeal the exemp- tion clause, with the proviso, however, that the United States did not thereby relinquish any of its rights. Recent events in Mexcio have put a severe strain on Anglo- American relations. In 1910 Francisco Madero led a revolution against EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1085 Porfirio Diaz, President from 1876 to 1880 and again from 1884 to 1911. In May of the latter year, Diaz was forced to resign and Madero succeeded him in November. In February, 1913, Madero was slain and Huerta set himself up as dictator. While Great Britain and other Powers who had interests in Mexico recognized him as de facto ruler, President Wilson held aloof. In January, 1914, the Spectator voiced the sentiment of many Englishmen when it declared that, " if external force is used to restore order it must be by the United States alone," and complained that the President " deprecates anarchy and blood- shed, but neither stops them himself nor allows anybody else to stop them." On 17 February, the murder or execution of William S. Ben- ton, a British subject who had lived in Mexico as a rancher for twenty years, aroused great resentment, but the wise moderation of Sir Edward Grey, who decided to act through communications to the United States Government, averted a possible rupture. Then a series of events stirred the President to determined action, and, 22 April, Vera Cruz was occupied by American forces. Since then, the representatives of the three leading South American states Brazil, Chili, and Argen- tine have undertaken to adjust the Mexican situation by mediation. Labor Disturbances in England, 1911-1912. The opening years of the reign of George V were disturbed not only by a grave consti- tutional crisis but by serious labor troubles. There had been, in 1908, an engineers' strike affecting 83,000 men and a strike of the Lancashire cotton spinners involving 120,000 operatives. In 1910, there had been strikes in the shipyards, in the cotton trade, and in the South Wales coal fields, but the year 1911 proved to be an " unprecedented year of strikes," which reached the dimensions of a veritable epidemic dur- ing the weeks immediately following the coronation. The situation became acute, in August, with the outbreak of a dock strike in London. The dockers got the increase which they demanded, but they refused to go to work until the other classes belonging to the National Trans- port Federation were dealt with. The movement spread to the rail- roads and culminated, 17 August, when for two days traffic was nearly stopped, and Government interference and the employment of mili- tary force was necessary. As a result of negotiations during 18 and 19 August the strike was brought to an end. The strikes in 1912 were less in number than in 1911, but, considering the number of persons involved and the loss of time and money, they were more serious than in any previous year in English history. Worst of all was the coal strike, occasioned by the demand for a minimum w r age for all under- ground workers. On 26 February, the first miners w r ent out in Derby- shire, and, by 2 March, all the mines in the country, except a few pri- vate ones, were idle. At length the Government stepped in and passed a minimum wage bill, 29 March. It provided for joint district boards under an independent chairman, chosen either by agreement or by the Board of Trade. Mr. Asquith, however, refused a demand that a minimum wage should be fixed in all cases at 2s. for boys and 55. io86 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND for men. As a result of a ballot, taken 4 April, 201,013 voted for resumption of work, while 244,011 voted against it; but a conference of miners' delegates, 6 April, declared for resumption, since a majority of two-thirds was necessary to declare a strike. After the Easter holidays most of the men were back. The strike had involved 1,000,000 mine workers and 500,000 from allied industries, and, from the time when the first men went out, had lasted six weeks. This, and the failure of the London dockers and transport workers to bring about a general strike in July, struck a hard blow at syndicalism. Yet, on the whole, in spite of these labor disturbances and the Balkan war, the year was one of prosperity in trade. Prices were rising ; but busi- ness was good and higher wages and shorter hours were very general. The Liberal Programme, 1911. In the Autumn session of 1911 the National Insurance Bill (see above, pp. 1060-1061) was forced through the Commons by a rigid enforcement of closure and carried in the Lords, notwithstanding vigorous protests. Outside, it was opposed chiefly by domestic servants, by those who employed them, and by the doctors. The domestics felt that, taken care of in homes, they did not need to contribute to any such scheme, while their employers also objected to the extra expense. The doctors, regarding the remuneration as inadequate and the conditions of service as too arduous, stood out stubbornly for better terms. Finally, in December, 1912, Mr. Lloyd George refused to come to the terms of the British Medical Association and proceeded to enroll in panels such indi- viduals as would agree to serve. The other leading features of the Liberal programme were Home Rule, the disestablishment of the Welsh Church, 1 and the abolition of plural voting, or the introduction of the principle of "one man, one vote." On 8 November, 1911, Mr. Balfour resigned his position as leader of the Opposition and, on the i3th, was succeeded by Mr. Andrew Bonar Law, who had been a member of Parliament since 1 900 and to whom Lord Lansdowne had referred in 1909 as " one of the Dreadnoughts of the Unionist party." The Revival of Home Rule and the Ulster Opposition, 1912-1914. - The prospect of Home Rule led to a determined opposition in Ulster led by Sir Edward Carson, who began his political career as a Liberal, who attained great prominence as a lawyer, and rose to be Solicitor- General in the Balfour Ministry. He soon attained such an ascend- ancy in the Province as to gain the name of King Carson. On 5 January, 1912, he organized a great demonstration at Omagh. Furious excitement was aroused when it was announced that Mr. Winston Churchill z was, 8 February, to address a meeting of the Nationalists in Ulster Hall, Belfast. The Standing Committee of the Ulster Unionist Council made determined preparations to prevent this, and Mr. Churchill avoided a riot and possible conflict by holding 1 A subject which had been under discussion for some years. 2 Curiously enough his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, a Conservative, had done more than any other Englishman to stir up Ulster against Home Rule in Gladstone's day. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1087 the meeting in an athletic field outside the city. On n April, 1912, the Home Rule Bill was introduced into the House of Commons. 1 Although objections to the financial provisions of the Bill were pointed out and the advantage Ireland would have over Wales and Scotland, the chief criticism was directed against the injustice to Ulster, and motions were made to exclude the four northeast provinces of Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry, which are prevailingly Protestant. 2 In August, it was announced that the men of Ulster would pledge themselves to a solemn covenant for united resistance to Home Rule and for refusal to accept it if it were set up. A series of great demon- strations began at Enniskillen 18 September, and culminated with the signing of the Covenant at Belfast on the 28th. 3 Meantime, the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill had been introduced into the Commons, 23 April and, in June, a Franchise Bill providing for uni- versal manhood suffrage and the abolition of plural voting. On 12 July, 1913, there was another demonstration at Craigavon attended by 150,000 Ulstermen, and a resolution was adopted to resist Home Rule by force of arms if necessary. The enrollment of the Ulster vol- unteers began, and by December the numbers had reached 100,000. Sir George Richardson, a retired lieutenant-general of the British 1 It provided for a parliament in Ireland, consisting of a senate of 40 members and a house of commons of 164 members. Ulster, which was to have 59 members, to be safeguarded by the provision that the Irish Parliament could not make any law " either directly or indirectly to establish or endow any religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof, or give any preference, privilege or advantage or impose any disability or disadvantage on account of religious belief or religious or eccle- siastical status." Furthermore, it could not legislate on peace or war, the navy, or army, foreign relations, trade outside Ireland, coinage or legal tender. Temporary restrictions were placed on legislation relating to land purchase, old age pensions, national insurance, labor exchanges, royal Irish constabulary, post office and other savings banks and friendly societies. The executive was to remain vested in the sovereign or his representative, and 42 members from Ireland were to be elected to the British House of Commons. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was to give the final decision as to the constitutional validity of any act of the Irish Parliament. The Irish Exchequer was to defray the expenses of the Irish administration, except for the reserved serv- ices mentioned above. The Imperial Exchequer was to pay an annual sum to the Irish Exchequer, starting at 500,000 and reduced 50,000 for six years until it became a permanent annual payment of 200,000. 2 The province of Ulster consists of 9 counties, or 1 1 , including Belfast and Derry City. It returns 17 Home Rulers and 16 anti-Home Rulers, and, if the large and wealthy city of Belfast were excluded, the Roman Catholics would be in the major- ity. They have a strong minority in the four Protestant counties: 31.6 per cent in Down; 20.3 in Antrim; 45.3 in Armagh, and 41.1 in Derry. Belfast contains 24.1 per cent Roman Catholics and Derry City, 56.2. The problem of exclusion is complicated by the Roman Catholic minority in the four counties and the Protes- tants scattered through the rest of Ireland. 3 On ii November, 1912, a curious incident happened an amendment to the financial resolution of the Home Rule Bill was carried against the Government 227 to 206. Instead of resigning or dissolving, the Prime Minister, on the i3th, intro- duced a resolution to rescind the decision. This caused such an uproar that the House was adjourned. On the i8th, the canceled resolution was withdrawn and a new one introduced. id88 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND army, was chosen as Commander-in-Chief , and an Indemnity Guarantee Fund was raised to protect sufferers in the cause. All through July and August Sir Edward Carson went through Ulster making speeches and declaring that, in the event of the Home Rule Bill passing, Ulster would set up a provincial government and refuse to pay taxes to the Parliament at Dublin. In December, the Government prohibited the importation of arms ; but it was a question whether the proclama- tion was legal, and certainly it was "not effective in preventing gun- running. In September, Lord Loreburn, ex-Liberal Lord Chancellor, sent a letter to the London Times urging a reconsideration of the Home Rule policy of the Government. Mr. Churchill suggested a possible scheme of federation, but the Cabinet was under pledge to the Na- tionalists to carry a Home Rule Bill before considering any form of modification. The only alternatives seemed to be, to take a refer- endum, which the Unionists desired, or to run the risk of civil war, if the Home Rule Bill were pressed to a final passage. The Triumph of Home Rule, 1914. On 10 February, 1914, Parlia- ment met. The chief features of its programme as announced in the speech from the throne were : (i) a bill for Irish Home rule, which had already passed in two successive sessions and been vetoed by the Lords ; (2) a bill for the disestablishment of the Welsh Church, which had had the same history ; l (3) a Plural Voting Bill ; 2 (4) reconstruc- tion of the House of Lords ; (5) a measure to increase the number of landed proprietors; (6) a provision for Imperial naturalization; (7) improvement of the condition of the poor, particularly by better housing; (8) enlarged facilities for education. The Home Rule Bill continued as the center of interest. The Unionist Opposition, realiz- ing that they could not defeat the measure in the House of Commons, determined to force a dissolution, to secure an appeal to the country by a referendum or to intimidate the Liberals by threats of civil war in Ulster. On 2 March, appeared a Declaration signed by twenty English subjects, headed by Earl Roberts, to the effect that : " the claim of the Government to carry the Home Rule Bill into law with- out submitting it to the judgment of the nation, is contrary to the spirit of our Constitution," and that if it was so passed they would hold themselves, " justified in taking or supporting any action that may be effective to prevent it being put into operation, and more par- ticularly to prevent the armed forces of the Crown being used to de- 1 It passed the Commons 19 May, 1914, and by the terms of the Parliament Bill of 1911 becomes law, on the signature of the King. 2 On 13 January, 1913, the Speaker announced that any substantial amendments to the Franchise Bill would necessitate a new measure. Owing to amendments providing for votes for women, the Government withdrew the Bill. This was re- sented by women suffragists, especially the Militants, who had begun their violent methods in 1907, and who had acquiesced in the tabling of a Conciliation Bill, granting the vote to certain classes of women, on the understanding that conces- sions would be granted them in the Franchise Bill. On 8 April, 1913 a Plural Vot- ing Bill was substituted, which having twice passed the Commons and having been twice vetoed by the Lords, passed a third time in the House of Commons, 15 June. EDWARD VII AND GEORGE V 1089 prive the people of Ulster of their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom." Five days later, Mr. Asquith laid a compromise scheme before Parliament, providing that before the Bill became operative the parliamentary electors in each of the nine counties of Ulster might decide by vote whether their county should be excluded from the arrangement for a term of six years. Mr. Bonar Law said that if the Government insisted on the excluded counties coming in at the end of six years the Unionists could not accept the plan. He again urged dissolution and submission of the whole question to the electors, though he later intimated that he would agree to leave the question of the term of the exclusion to a future parliament. Then came a crisis. On 20 March, the Government issued an order that was inter- preted by several of the army officers as a step toward the coercion of Ulster and they forthwith resigned. Colonel Seely, the Secretary for War, at once assured them that they had misunderstood the order, which was purely a precautionary measure, and that the Government had no intention of using the suppression of disorder to crush politi- cal opposition to the Home Rule, whereupon they withdrew their resig- nations. The Radical Press at once raised the cry of " army dicta- tion." Colonel Seely, taking the blame on himself, offered his resig- nation ; Mr. Asquith refused to accept it, but repudiated the guarantee, and the Army Council framed an order to the effect that henceforth no officer was to ask for or receive any assurances " as to orders which he may be required to fulfill." This led to the resignation of Sir John French, the Chief of the General Staff, Sir John Ewart, the Adjutant- General, and others. Colonel Seely offered his resignation a second time, which the Prime Minister now accepted, announced his inten- tion of assuming the Secretaryship for War himself, resigned his seat from East Fife, according to the requirements of the Place Bill of 1705, and stood for reelection. He was returned without a contest. Dur- ing his absence Sir Edward Grey threw out a hint that within six years some form of federation might be devised. Mr. Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalists, who had previously insisted that there should be no " watering down" of the Home Rule Bill, declared that he was ready to exert himself to placate Ulster and to do all pos- sible to reach an honorable settlement. On 25 May, the Home Rule Bill passed the House of Commons by a majority of 77, and whether the Lords veto it or not it will go to the King for his signature. After nearly a half century of struggle the Home Rulers have triumphed, at least in Parliament. FOR ADDITIONAL READING R. H. Gretton, A Modern History of the English People, 1880-1910 (2 vols., 1913), rather journalistic and Liberal in sympathy, but clear and vivid. The New International Year Book, 1901-1913, a particularly good summary of the recent Liberal legislation. The London Times (weekly ed.), the annual summaries since 1910 are especially full. For Edward VII, Dictionary of National Biography, ad Supplement, I, 546-610. 4A APPENDIX LIST OF PRIME MINISTERS FROM WALPOLE TO ASQUITH 1721-1742 Sir Robert Walpole. 1742-1743 Lord Wilmington. 1743-1754 Henry Pelham. 1754-1756 I. Duke of Newcastle. 1756-1757 Duke of Devonshire. Real head, William Pitt Secretary of State. 1757-1762 II. Duke of Newcastle. Pitt Secretary of State till 1761. 1762-1763 Earl of Bute. 1763-1765 George Grenville. 17651766 I. Marquis of Rockingham. 1766-1770 Duke of Grafton. 1770-1782 Lord North. March- July, 1782 II. Marquis of Rockingham. 1782-1783 Earl of Shelburne. April-December, 1783 Coalition Ministry. Duke of Portland nominal Prime Minister Real heads Fox and North. 1783-1801 I. William Pitt, the younger. 1801-1804 Henry Addington (Viscount Sidmouth). 1804-1806 II. William Pitt. 1806-1807 "All the Talents." Lord Grenville and Fox, d. September, -1806. 1807-1809 II. Duke of Portland. 1809-1812 Spencer Perceval. 1812-1827 Lord Liverpool. April-August, 1827 George Canning. 1827-1828 Lord Goderich. 1828-1830 Duke of Wellington. 1830-1834 Lord Grey. July-November, 1834 I. Lord Melbourne. 1834-1835 I. Sir Robert Peel. 1835-1841 II. Lord Melbourne. 1841-1846 II. Sir Robert Peel. 1846-1852 I. Lord John Russell. February-December, 1852 I. Lord Derby. 1852-1855 Lord Aberdeen. 1855-1858 I. Lord Palmerston. 1858-1859 II. Lord Derby. 1859-1865 II. Lord Palmerston. 1865-1866 II. Lord John Russell. 1866-1868 III. Lord Derby. February-December, 1868 . . . I. Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield) . 1868-1874 I. William E. Gladstone. 1874-1880 II. Disraeli. 1090 APPENDIX 1091 1880-1885 II. Gladstone. 1885-1886 I. Marquis of Salisbury. February-July, 1886 III. Gladstone. 1886-1892 II. Salisbury. 1892-1894 IV. Gladstone. 1894-1895 Lord Rosebery (Earl of Midlothian). 1895-1902 III. Salisbury. 1902-1905 Mr. Arthur Balfour. 1905-1908 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 1908- /? Mr. Herbert Henry Asquith. INDEX Abdur Rahman Khan, 1067 Ab'ercromby, General, 729, 73i Abercromby, General Ralph, commander in Ireland, 840 Aberdeen', Lord, supports Peel's free trade views, 945 ; problems of Foreign Office under secretaryship of, 947 ; conciliatory pol- icy of, with regard to France, 949 ; coalition Ministry of, 958; Tsar approaches, regarding intervention in Turkey, 960; fall of Ministry of, 963 Ab'ernethy, treaty of, 78 Abhorrers, the, 562 Abjuration Act, the, 648 Abou'kir Bay, battle at, 844, 845 Abraham, the Plains of, 732 Absenteeism, Irish, 880 Abyssinia, Napier's expedi- tion to, 988 Acadia, see Nova Scotia Accession Declaration Act, the, 1080 Acre, Napoleon's failure to capture, 845 Acton Bur'nell, Statute of, see Merchants Adams, John, aids in nego- tiating peace with Eng- land, 780 and note Adams, John Quincy, Amer- ican Secretary of State, 885 Adams, Samuel, 757 Addington, Henry, Lord Sidmouth, becomes Prime Minister, 847, 848 ; re- signs, 850; in Grenville Ministry, 651 ; Home Secretary, 870 ; retires from Home Secretaryship, 874 Addison, Joseph, 796, 797 ; his A Tory's Creed, 678 Addled Parliament, the, 437 Adelaide, Australia, 1066 Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg, Queen of William IV, 905 A'delhard of Bath, 125 Admiral, the Lord High, 343 Admiralty, Court of, 999 "Admonitions to Parlia- ment," Cartwright's, 389 Adrian IV, Pope, in Adrian VI, Pope, 300 Adrianople, occupied by the Russians, 1004 "Adul'lamites," the, 985 Advertisements, the, of Par- ker, 389 Aegean Islands, the, 1083 ^Elf'heah, Archbishop of Canterbury, martyrdom of, 52 /El'fric, Colloquies of, 74 jEl'la, chief of the South Saxons, 29 /Eth'elbald, King of Mercia, 38 /Eth'elbert, King of Kent, 3 T . 32 ; conversion to Chris- tianity, 32 ; his laws, 33, 44 ^Eth'elfrith, Northumbrian king, 33 jEth'elred, King of the West Saxons, 42 ^th'elred, the Redeless, Anglo-Saxon king, decline of the royal power under, 51 ; second coming of the Danes, 51, 52 ; Danegeld and massacre of Danes, 52; retires to Normandy, return to Eng- land and death, 53 /Eth'elric, Northumbrian king, 33 Affirmation Bills, 1009 Afghanistan, 947 ; England repulses a Persian attack upon, 966 ; Auckland's expedition to, 968 ; Rus- sia seeks to extend her influence over, 967 ; Eng- lish failures in, a cause for Indian Mutiny, 969 ; the war of 1878-1879 in, 1006, 1007 ; British with- drawal from, 1013 Afghans, and cessions de- manded by British in India as protection against, 967 Africa, British advance in, 1029 ; cotton imported from, during English fam- ine, 979 African Slave Trade, Pitt's opposition to, 818, 819; abolishment of, by Eng- land, 851 and note. Agadir, 1082 Agincourt (Aj'inkort), battle of, 250, 251 Agitators, the, 502, 505 "Agreement of the People," the, 504, 509 Agric'ola, Governor of Brit- ain, 19 Agricultural laborers, condi- tion of, in the seventeenth century, 596, 597 Agriculture, in the thirteenth century, 164, 165; in the fourteenth century, 215, 216; in the fifteenth cen- tury, 283-285 ; growth of, under Elizabeth, 409 ; con- dition of, in the seven- teenth century, 591-593 ; development of, in eight- eenth century, 789-791 ; condition of, in 1812- 1813, 856 ; status of, at end of Napoleonic wars, 869; improvement in, in early nineteenth century, 894 ; condition of, in the reign of Victoria, 1055, 1056 Such English proper names as are peculiarly pronounced are indicated. 1094 INDEX Aidan (I'dan), 35 Aids, feudal, 85 Aix-la-Chapelle', the peace of (1668), 549; (i748), 716, 717, 720 Alabama Claims, the, 1001 Alabama, the cruiser, 978- 979 Alais', sister of Philip of France, 114, 122 Al'aric, sack of Rome by, 21 Alaska boundary, the, 1084 Albany, Dukes of, 271, 272, 298, 333 Albemarle, Duke of, see Monck, George Albero'ni, Cardinal, 684- 686, 700 Albert, Prince Consort, 935, 955, 978, 980 Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, see Edward VII Albert Victor, Duke of Clar- ence, 1072 Alberta, creation of Cana- dian province of, 932 Albertus Magnus, 159 Aldermen, election of, under act of, 1835, 925 Alehouses, 73, 220, 594 Alencon, Duke of, suitor of Elizabeth, 370, 385, 386 Alexander III, Pope, no Alexander IV, Pope, 154 Alexander VI, Pope, 520 Alexander III, King of Scot- land, 170 Alexander of Parma, Gov- ernor of the Netherlands, 385, 391, 393, 394, 396 Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, 847 ; signs Treaty of Tilsit, 852; breaks alli- ance with Napoleon, 858 ; advocates intervention in European politics, 884 Alexander II of Russia, ac- cession of, 963 Alexandra, Queen of Ed- ward VII, 980, 1072, 1075 Alexandria, captured by Napoleon, 844 ; massacre at and bombardment of, 1014 Alfon'so VI, King of Portu- gal, 54 Alfred, the Great, King of the West Saxons, his youth, 42 ; his repulse of the Northmen, 43 ; mili- tary reorganization, 43, 44 ; laws and political reorganization, 44 ; pro- motion of literature and education, 45 ; final esti- mate of, 46; other refer- ences, 72, 74 Algeciras Conference, the, 1076 Alien Bill, the, 829 A'li, Me'hemet, 886 Allegiance, oaths of, 432, 559, 621, 622, 880 Allotments Acts, 1056 Alma River, battle at the, 962 Almanza (alman'tha), battle of, 663 Aln'wick, 113 Althorp (all'trup), Lord, 883, 903 ; in Grey's Ministry, 909 ; resigns from Grey's Cabinet, 922 ; in Melbourne's Cabinet, 923 ; in House of Lords, ib. See Spencer, John Charles Alva, Duke of, Governor of the Netherlands, 381, 382, 384, 385, 392 Alverstone (awl'verston), Lord, 1084 Amboise, conspiracy of, 374 Ambola, 971 Amboy'na, massacre at, 514, 5i9 American Civil War, the, outbreak of, 977 ; end of, 979 ; stimulates growth of democracy in England, 984-985 ; stimulates Fe- nian movement, 992 American Colonies, the, be- ginnings of the, 436; mi- grations to, during the Laudian regime, 465 ; in- stitutional divergences of, from the mother country, 746, 747 ; preparation of, for independence, 747 ; effect of the Seven Years' War upon, 748, 749; the question of parliamen- tary supremacy over, 749 ; their constitutions, 750; attempt to establish bishops in, 750; the revenue from, 751 ; oppo- sition to the Stamp Act in, 752, 753; object to criminal transportation, 958-959 American Revolution, the, the causes of, 746-753 ; outbreak of, 766 ; strength of the combatants, 767 ; Continental Congress as- sumes executive control of Colonies, 767 ; battle of Bunker Hill, ib.; Wash- ington appointed Com- mander-in-Chief of army, 768 ; Continental army organized, ib. ; siege of Boston, ib. ; Declaration of Independence, ib. ; the Southern Colonies in, ib. ; campaign of 1776, 768, 769 ; Burgoyne's cam- paign, 1777, 769, 770; Convention of 'Saratoga, 770; the French Alliance, 770, 771 ; progress of, in 1778-1779, 772, 773; the war in 1780-1781, 774 776; influence of, upon Ireland, 777 ; opening of peace negotiations, 780 ; end of, 780, 781; Pitt denounces the war of, 812 Amherst, General, 729, 731, 736 Amherst, Lord, Governor- General of India, 967 Amicable Loan, the, 301 A'miens, Mise of, 153, 154 Amiens, the Peace of, 848; rupture of, 849, 850 Ampere, inventor, 1052 Amusements, English, in, eighteenth century, 806 Anassthesia, discovery of, 1051 Anarchy, extent of, under Stephen, 104 Anchorites, 160 Ande'rida, 29 Andred's Weald, 28, 29 Andr6 (an'dra), Major, exe- cution of, 775 Angevin (an'jevin) dynasty, beginning of the, 107 Angles, their invasion of Britain, 29, 30 INDEX 1095 Anglo-French dual control in Egypt, 1002, 1003, 1013, 1014 Anglo- Japanese treaties, the, 1075, 1076, 1081 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the, 45, 7i Anglo-Saxon period, the, revived interest in the study of, 1050 Anglo-Saxons, the, conver- sion to Christianity, 31 ; literature, 70, 71 ; art, 71, 72 ; architecture, 72 ; houses, 72; daily life, 72, 73 ; travel, hunting, inns, public health, 73 ; trade, 73-74; navy, 74; slave trade, ib. Aniline dyes, 1052 Anjou, inherited by Henry II, 103 ; secured by Philip II, 136 Anjou, Duke of (later Henry III, King of France), 384, 390, 391, 397 Anna Maria, daughter of Philip III of Spain and Queen of Louis XIII of France, 441 Annapolis (Port Royal), 670 Annates, 153; Act of, 317, 3i8 Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard II, 225, 228, 234, 237 Anne, of Brittany, 282 Anne of Cleves, Queen of Henry VIII, 332 Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I, 429, 440 Anne, Princess, flees from James II, 583 ; Marl- borough's plot in favor of, 630 ; acknowledged as successor of William III, 636; see Anne, Queen of England Anne, Queen of England, her opposition to party government, 616; char- acter of, 650, 65 1 ; favors of, to Marlborough, 657 ; aversion to the Whigs and quarrels with Sarah, 658, 660, 662, 665, 672 ; insists on resignation of Philip of Spain, ib. ; share of, in bringing about the Union, 661, 662; takes a new favorite, 665 ; drives out the Whigs, 667; de- sire for peace, 668; dis- trust of Bolingbroke, 672 ; dismisses Oxford, 673, 674 ; makes Shrewsbury Lord Treasurer, 674; her death, ib. Annual Parliaments, 479 An'selm, Saint, 52, 83, 89; made Archbishop of Can- terbury, 91, 92 ; conflict with William Rufus, 92, 93 ; journey to Rome, 93 ; recalled by Henry I, 94; comprise an investiture, 95, 96 An'son, Commodore and later Admiral, 704, 716 Anti-Corn Law League, the, 942 Anti-Corn Law Movement, the, Chartists oppose, 939- 940; progress of, 940, 941 Antiseptic surgery, 1052 An'trim, 1087 Apology of the Commons, 433 Apparel, Statutes of, 285 Appeals, Act of, 318; in colonial and ecclesiastical causes, permanent com- mittees of Privy Council to hear, 918 Appellant, see Lords Appel- lant. Apprentices, system of, 598 ; turbulence of, 600 Appropriation of supply, 447, 545 Arabi, the revolt of, 1014 Arbitration court, the, in New Zealand, 1068 Arbitration treaties, 1084 Arbuth'not, John, 645 Architecture, Anglo-Saxon, 72 ; Norman, ib. ; Anglo- Norman, Romanesque, Gothic, or Early English, 89, 90; in the thirteenth century, 161 ; in the fourteenth century, 221, 222; "decorated" style, 222; perpendicular, ib.', the Elizabethan, 417; in the seventeenth century, 6n Arc lights, invention of, 1055 Arcot, 721 Area, the, of the British Empire, 1063 Areopagit'ica, the, 608, 640 Argyle', see Campbell, Arch- ibald, eighth Earl of; Archibald, ninth Earl and first Marquis of, and John, second Duke of Arimathe'a, Joseph of, 22 Ark'wright, Richard, in- vents water frame, 785 Aries, Synod of, 22 Arlington, Earl of, see Ben- net, Henry Armada, the Spanish, 394- 396 Armagh (ar'mah'), 1087 ; the Archbishop of, victim of the Popish Plot, 560 Armagnac (armanyac'), Count of, 249 Armed Neutrality, the formation of, against Great Britain, 774 Arminians, the, 452 Arms, Assize of, 118 Army, the parliamentary, in the Civil War, 488-490; the royalist, in the Civil War, ib. ; condition of, in 1793, 831 ; Americans in the British, during Cri- mean War, 966; reforms in 1870, 997-998; in 1904, 1073, 1074; the sovereign loses control over, 1036; crisis, the, in Ulster, 1089 ; see also New Model and Standing army Army Act, the, 621 Army Council, debates in the, of the New Model, 503, 504; the, of 1904, 1073 Army officer's commissions, struggle over purchase of, in 1870, 998 Army plot, the first, 479; the second, 481 Arnold, Benedict, treason of, 774, 775 Arnold, Matthew, 1044, 1045 Ar'ran, Earl of, Regent of Scotland, 367 Arrow, the affair of, 966, note Art, Anglo-Saxon, 71, 72; in the seventeenth cen- 1096 INDEX tury, 611 ; Victorian, 1056, 1057; see also Painting Art of Colonization, the, 1065 Artevelde, van, Jaques, 192 Arthur, legendary British king, 29, 89, 138, 198, 223, 224, 290 Arthur, Prince, nephew of John, 135, 136 Arthur, Prince, son of Henry VII, 282, 308 Articles, the Lords of the, 428 Articles, of faith, the Ten, 325, 326; the Six, 331; the Forty-two, 355 ; the Thirty-nine, 379, 1041 Articles of the Eyre of 1194, 124 Articles of War, the, forbid dueling in army, 902 Artificers, Statute of, 414 Artisans' Dwelling Act, the, 1002 Artois, the Count of, 834 Ar'undel, Archbishop, 247 Arundel, Earl of, 235, 236, 237, 238 ; see also Howard, Thomas Aryan "race," 13 Ascham (As'kam), Roger, 344, 346, 419 Ashan'ti wars, the, 1036 Ash'bourne Act, the, 1017 Ash'burton, Lord, adjusts boundary disputes with United States, 948949 Ashby vs. White, case of, 659 Ashley, Lord, 921 ; labor legislation of, in 1843- 44, 942-943. Aske, Robert, 327, 328 Askew, Anne, 336 Asien'to, the, 671, 717 As'quith, Herbert Henry, 1076; on the South African War, 1034; be- comes Prime Minister, 1077 ; denounces the veto of the Budget, 1078; promise to reconstruct the House of Lords, 1079 ; carries the Parliament Bill by a threat to create new peers, 1079, 1080; his Guildhall speech on the Balkan War, 1083 ; his attitude on the minimum wage, 1085, 1086; carries the Home Rule Bill in Parliament, 1087, 1089; assumes the secretaryship of War, 1089 Assandun', battle of, 53 Assemblies, see General As- semblies Asser, biographer of Alfred, 45 Assisi (ase'si), 157 Assize', various meanings of the term, 116; courts, 406; the Bloody, 569 Assize of Arms, 118 Assize of Clarendon, 117, 131, iS9 Assize of Northhampton, 117 Association, the bond of, 388; of the Eastern Counties, 492 ; the Catho- lic, O'Connell founds, 880 As'suan dam, the, 1015 Astrology, 417 Atheists, Parliament open to, 975, 1009 Ath'elstan, Anglo-Saxon king, his conquests and power, 47, 48 Atlantic cable, the, 1054 Atlantic fisheries, 1084 Attainder, bills of, against Wolsey, 311; against More and Fisher, 320; against Thomas Crom- well, 332 ; against Thomas Seymour (See'more), 352 ; against Strafford, 479 ; the, of Fenwick (Fen'- ick), 634, 635; against Bo'linbroke and Or'- monde, 678 At'terbury, Francis, Bishop of Rochester, 690, 691 Attwood, Thomas, organizes National Convention of Workingmen, 939 Auckland, Australia, 1068 Auck'land, Lord, expedition to Afghanistan of, 968 Audit of accounts, 206, 246, 545 Auerstadt, battle of, 852 Augmentations, Court of, 324, 406 Augsburg, the Religious Peace of, 442 Augsburg Confession, the, 321, 326 Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, 701, 718, 740, 741, 753 Augus'tine, Saint, converts Kent and establishes Arch- bishopric of Canterbury, 32; failure to win over the British bishops, 33 Augustinians, 99 Augustus (the Strong), King of Saxony, 664 Aumale, Due d', 949 Aurelia'nus, Ambrosius, 29 Austen, Jane, 899 Austerlitz, battle of , 150, 151 Australia, transportation to, 958-959; the origin and growth of, 1065-1067 Austria, in war of First Coali- tion, 834 ; concludes peace of Campo Formio with France, 837; in Second Coalition against France, 845-846 ; forms Third Coalition against France, 850, 851 ; Francis II becomes Emperor of, 751 and note; Napoleon de- feats, in 1809, 855 ; joins Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, in War of Liber- ation, 859; signs first Treaty of Paris, 861-862 ; signs Quadruple Alliance, 865 ; status of, in Italy, 883-884 ; aids in suppress- ing revolutions in 1820, 884; compels Russia to evacuate Danubian Prin- cipalities in Crimean War, 961 ; signs Treaty of Paris after Crimean War, 964-965 ; cedes Lombardy to Sardinia, 975-976 ; Schleswig-Holstein Ques- tion and, 980, 981 ; over- whelmed by Prussia in war of 1866, 987-988 Austrian Succession, the War of the, causes of, 704 ; events of, 706-710,; end and results of, 716, 717 Austro-Hungary, Revolu- tion of 1848 in, 951, 952 Austro-Prussian War, the, 987-988 Auxiliary sciences to his- tory, ii INDEX 1097 Auxilium, 118 A'vice, see Isabel Avignon, the papacy at, 226 Avranches', submission of Henry II at, 112 Aylesbury (ails'bury) elec- tion case, the, 659 B Babington's plot, 393 Bacon, Roger, 150-161, 304 Bacon, Sir Francis, succes- sively Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, writings of, 420; estimate of, 444 ; his impeachment and fall, 444, 445 ; men- tioned, 606, 1049 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, Lord Keeper, 371 Badajoz, Wellington cap- tures, 857 Baden, the Peace of, 679 Baden-Powell (Bayden- Po'ell), Colonel, 1035 Bad'minton, 595 , Badon, Mount, 29 Bahamas, the, 781 Bakewell, Robert, 790, 791 Balaclava Bay, 962 Balance of trade, 288 Balfe, Michael, 1057 Bal'four, Arthur, becomes Irish Secretary, 1020 ; leader of the House of Commons, 1023, 1027 ; becomes Prime Minister, 1072 ; his attitude on tariff reform, 1073, IO 74; his resignation, 1074 > his retirement from the leader- ship of the Opposition, 1086; on the Parliament Bill conference, 1079 Balkan War, the, 1083 Ball, John, 231, 232, 234 Bal'liol, Edward, King of Scotland, 190, 191, 197 Balliol, John, King of Scot- land, 170, 171 Balliol College, Oxford, 160 Bangorian Controversy, the, 683 Bank of England, the foun- dation of the, 637-639; bids on the Debt, 686, 687; suspends in 1797, 836; resumes specie pay- ments, 875 ; in crisis of 1825, 877 ; run on, during Reform Bill agitation, 916 ; charter of, reserved, 918; critical condition of, at Victoria's accession, 941 Bank Charter Act, Peel's, of 1844, 941-942 Ban'nockburn, battle of, 184 Banns, marriage, 719 Bantry Bay, French expedi- tion lands at, 835 Baptists, law against the, 500 Barber Surgeons, gild of, 221; monopoly of, broken, 792 Barbon, Nicholas, 606 Barcelona, 657 Bardi, the, 194 Barebones Parliament, the, see Nominated Barillon, French ambassa- dor, 573 Baring, Evelyn, Lord Cromer, British Commis- sioner in Egypt, 1003 ; Agent and Consular Gen- eral, 1014, 1015 ; his effective administration, 1015, 1016 Bar'net, battle of, 268, 269 Baronet, the title of, created, 437, 438 Barons, concessions to, in Magna Carta, 143 ; de- mand elective ministers, 151 ; refuse a grant to Henry III, 152; war against Henry III, 153- 155; final submission, 156; conflicts with Ed- ward II, 182-185 Barre, Colonel, 752 Barrier, fortress, 646 ; treaties, 664, 671, 826 Barrows, neolithic, 13 Barrows, Celtic, 14 Bartholomew Fair, 806 Barton, Elizabeth, the, nun of Kent, 319 Basle, Peace of, 834 Basques, the, 13 Bastille, the, destruction of, 824 Bastwicke, John, 464, 477 Batavian Republic, 834 ; Austria recognizes, 846 Bate Case, the, 434 Bath, city of, 22, 602 "Batta," the, double, 809; Bentinck revises, 967 Battle, trial by, 117 Battle of Lewes, the, 161 "Battle of the Saints," the, 778 Baxter, Richard, 538, 539, 576, 604 Bayeux Tapestry, the, 60 Beachy Head, battle of, 625 Bea'ton, Cardinal, 333, 334, 352, 367 Beaufort (bo'fort), the Duke of, 595 Beaufort, origin of House of, 246 Beaufort, Edmund, Duke of Somerset, 257, 258, 259, 260 Beaufort, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, 254, 255, 257 Beauvais (bo va'), the Bishop of, 257 Becket, St. Thomas, Chan- cellor, 108 ; Archbishop of Canterbury, ib. conflict with Henry II, 108-1 1 1 ; murdered, 1 1 1 ; canon- ization, ib. ; 113, 219, 225, 242, 243, 329 Bedchamber Question, the 934, 935, 985 Bede, the Venerable, his Historia, 37, 38, 71-73 Bedford, Dukes of, see John and Russell Beggars, 219, 342 Belfast, 9; Queen's College at, 944; anti-Hotoe Rule agitation in, 1086, 1087 Belgae, 14 Belgium, Austria cedes to France, 846 ; revolution of 1830, in, 880-890 Bell, Andrew, educational theories of, 995 Bell, Graham, inventor of telephone, 1055 Bell, Henry, steamboat of, on Clyde, 894 Bellerophon, the, 864 Bellingham, assassin of Per- ceval, 856 Benares, Chait Singh, Raja of, 810 Benedict of Peterborough, Chronicle of, 127 iog8 INDEX Benedictine Order, the, 37 Benefit of clergy, 112 ; abol- ished, 903 Benevolences, abolished by Richard III, 274; ac- count of, 405 ; attempts of James I to collect, 438 ; of Charles I, 455 ; abol- ished, 457 Bengal, the winning of, 735 ; famine in, 809 ; discontent in army at, before Mu- tiny, 970; in Indian Mu- tiny, 971 Bennet, Henry, Earl of Ar- lington, 548, 550, 551 Bentham, Jeremy, assists in law reform, 875 ; pio- neer in legislation, 895 ; influence of, 906-907 Ben'tinck, Lord George, becomes Conservative leader, 945-946; proposal of, for railroads in Ire- land, 951 Bentinck, William, Earl of Portland, 635, 646 Bentinck, William Henry, Duke of Portland, 808, 833, 852, 855 Bentinck, Lord William, re- forms of, in India, 967 Bentley, Richard, 792, 1050 Benton, William, 1085 Benzine, the discovery of, 1052 Beowulf, 45, 70, 71 Berengaria, of Navarre, 122 Ber'esfords, the influence of, in Ireland, 838 ; appeal of, against Fitzwilliam, 840 Bergen, 542 Bergen-op-Zoom, 716 Berkeley (bark'ly), George, 793-794 ; Governor, 307 Berlin, the Congress of, 1005, 1006 Berlin, Decree, the, 852, 853 Bermuda, Durham exiles Canadian rebels to, 931 Bernardoni, Giovanni Fran- cesco, see St. Francis Berni'cians, 30 Bernstorff, 677 Bertrand de Born, 121 Berwick (beVick), Duke of, natural son of James II, 634, 685 Berwick, the Pacification of, 470; the treaty of, 374 Bible, the Wiclif version, 228; forbidden, 247; translations of the, 307, 330, 33i Bible Society, the British and Foreign, 902 Bill of Rights, the, 142, 561 ; terms of, 622 Birmingham, 3 ; Chartist National Convention at, 939 ; Russel proposes to enfranchise, 908 ; Orsini's bombs manufactured at, 974 ; representation of, under the Act of 1867, 987 Birmingham Political Union, the, Revival of, 939 Birrell, Augustine, 1079 Bishops, method of appoint- ment, under Anglo-Saxon kings, under William I, 79; election of, 96, 122; attempt to establish, in the Colonies, 750; the character of the early nineteenth century, 1039 Bishops' Drag-net, the, 573 Bishops' War, the first, 470 ; the second, 473 Bismarck, his attitude on the Schleswig-Holstein Ques- tion, 980; made Chan- cellor, 988 ; his conduct of the Franco-Prussian War, 1000; death of, 1028; his social insurance policy, 1060 Black, Joseph, 792 Black Box, the, 562 Black Death, 198-200, 216, 220, 231, 284 "Black Friday," 712 Blackmore, Richard, 1049 Black Mountains, the, 7 Black Prince, the, see Ed- ward Black Rubric, the, 354 Black Sea, Castlereagh fears Russian supremacy in, 886; Russian desire for outlet from, 959 ; Russia refuses to yield her pre- ponderance in, 963 ; Peace of Paris neutralizes, 964; Russian ships again al- lowed in, 1001 Blackstone, Sir William, 529 ; his Commentaries, 529, 740; Bentham at- tacks views of, 906 Blackwood's Magazine, 900 "Black Year," the, 1056 Blake, Robert, admiral and general, 513, 520 Blake, William, the poetry of, 896 Bleaching, by chlorine, 892 Blenheim, 612; battle of, of, 656 Blenheim palace, 657 Blockades, "Declaration of Paris" on, 964 Blockade running, British profit by, in American Civil War, 978-979 Bloemfontein (blom'fontin), i34 Blood feud, 16 Bloody Assize, the, 569 Bloody Clavers, see Graham, John Blore Heath, battle of, 261 Bliicher, Marshal, in Water- loo Campaign, 862-865 Blue Coat School, 356 "Blue Stockings," origin of term, 806 Boadice'a, or Bou'dicca, in- surrection of, 19 Board of Ordinance, aboli- tion of the, 963 Board schools, 996 Board of Selection, the, 1074 Boccaccio, 225, 303 Bo'cher, Joan, 353 Bodleian Library, 303 Boer War, the, 1032-1036; aid of British colonies in, 1069; conclusion of, 1072, 1074 Boleyn (bul'len), Anne, 309, 310, 317, 3i8, 324, 325 Bolingbroke, see Henry of Lancaster and St. John, Henry Bologna (bolon'ya), Uni- versity of, 115, 128 Bombay, 721 ; acquired under Charles II, 540 Bonaparte, Jerome, King of Westphalia, 852 and note Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland, 851 Bonaparte, Napoleon, at siege of Toulon, 832, 833; defeats Austrians, 1 796, INDEX 1099 835 ; aims to strike India, 838; Egyptian campaign of, 844, 845 ; becomes First Consul, 846; ambi- tions and position of, in 1803, 849; Emperor of the French, 850; crushes Third Coalition, 850, 85 1 ; defeats Prus- sians at Jena and Auer- stadt, 851, 852 ; territorial changes effected by, in 1806, 851, 852; the Continental System of, 852, 853; signs Tilsit treaty with Russia, ib. ; beginning of uprising in Spain against, 853-855 ; defeats Austria in 1809, 855; loses Spain, 856- 858 ; Russian campaign of, 858; first abdication of, 858-859 ; escapes from Elba, 862; defeat of, at Waterloo, 862-865; buys English goods, 893 ; his canal project, 1002 Bonar (bon'ner) Law, An- drew, 1086, 1089 Boniface VIII, Pope, 175, 176 Bonner, Edmund, Bishop of London, 350, 362, 363 Book of Common Order, 375 Book of Homilies, the, 350 Book of Rates, the, 434 Books of Beauty, 1043 Books of Discipline, first and second, 375 Borden, Robert, 1082 Borden Naval Bill, the, 1082 Border, the Scottish, 8 Border Minstrelsy, Scott's, 897 Borodino, battle of the, 858 Boroughs, origin and char- acteristics of, 47, 64-65 ; after the Conquest, 88; under Henry I, 98; in the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries, 128, 129; members from, under the Tudors, 403 ; types of, before first Reform Bill, 910-911; abuses in, be- fore first Reform Bill, 009-910 ; franchise in, under Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867, 916, 987; under Municipal Reform Act of 1835, 925 Boroughbridge, battle of, 185 Bosca'wen, Admiral, 722, 729, 730 Bosnia, 1003, 1005 Boston Massacre, 763 Boston "Tea Party," 764 Boston Port Bill, ib. Boston, siege of, 768 Boswell, James, 799 Bosworth, battle of, 274, 275 Bot, 65 Botany Bay, transportation to, 958-959 Botha (bo'ta), General, in the Boer War, 1033 ; Premier of South Africa, 1081 Bothmar (bot'mar), 677 Bothwell, see Hepburn, James Boufflers (boo-flay'), Mar- shal, 635, 636 Boulogne (booloin'), 334; sold to France, 353 ; Na- poleon's camp at, 850 Boulton (bol'ton), Matthew, 787, 788 Bourbon, Duke of, Regent of France, 691, 692 Bourbon, Isle de, 721 Bourbons, the, restored to France by allies, 859; Metternich pledged to protect, 884; (Orleanist) Palmerston's hatred of, 957 Boxer Rebellion, the, 1036 Boxley, the Rood of, 328, 329 "Boy Patriots," the, 703, 744 Boy Scouts, the, 1035 Boycott, Captain, ion Boyle, Robert, 606 Boyne, battle of the, 626 Brachicephalic skulls, 13 Bracton, 439 Braddock's defeat, 722 Bradlaugh (brad'law) case, the, 1009 Bradshaw, John, 507, 533 Braemar, Highlanders as- semble at, 679 Braganza, House of, driven from Portugal, 853-854 Brahmins, excited state of, a cause of Indian Mutiny, 969, 970 Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suffolk, 296, 327, 344 Brandywine, battle at the, 769 Brazil, Portuguese Royal family flees to, 853, 854; declares independence, 876 ; foreign recognition of independence of, 884- 885 Bread riots in 1795, 834 Breda, declaration of, 527, 529, 533-535; the Peace of, 543 Breslau and Berlin, Peace of, 707 Brest, 296 ; failure of the ex- pedition against, 632 Br6tigny, Peace of, 203 Breviary, the, 331 Bribery in Parliament, 913, 914 Bridewell, 356 Bridgettine monks, the, 320 Bridgewater Canal, 786, 787 Bright, John, works to secure Corn-Law repeal, 940 ; characterization by, of Disraeli's franchise bill of 1859, 984 ; furthers reform in 1866, 986; proposes "votes for women," 987; in Gladstone's second Ministry, 1009 ; opposes Home Rule, 1018, 1019 "Bright clauses," the, in Irish Land Act of 1870, 994-995 Brihuega, the battle of, 665 Brindley, James, 786, 787 Brisbane, 1066 Bristol, 5, 287 ; riot at, 915 Britain, races in, 1 1 ff . ; extinct men and animals of, i i-i 2 ; paleolithic age in, ib. ; neolithic man in, 12-13; Celtic invaders into, 14; after the with- drawal of the Romans, 25 British and Foreign School Society, the, 995 British Association for the Advancement of Science, the, 1051 British Columbia, 932 British East Africa Com- pany, 1029 IIOO INDEX British Empire, the, area, population, and revenue of, i, 1063; desire to restrict, 1064, 1069 ; in- crease of emigration in, 1065 ; see Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand; the problem of, 1068, 1069 British Indian Empire, the, China threatens, 966 British Isles, physical char- acteristics, i-io ; area and population, i ; cli- mate, 12 British Museum, foundation of, 793 note Brittany, Duchy of, 194, 282 "Broad bottom," ministries, 706, 709 Broad Churchmen, the, 1041, 1042 Bronte, Charlotte, 1047 Bronze age, in Britain, 13 Brougham (broom), Henry, characterization of, 868 ; counselor for Queen Caro- line, 873 ; assists in legal reform, 875 ; contributes to Edinburgh Review, 900 ; influence of Bentham on, 907 ; in Grey's Ministry, 909 ; speech of, on second Reform Bill, 915, note; hostility of William IV to, 923 ; not in Mel- bourne's second Ministry, 924 ; political policy of, in 1838-1839, 933 Brown, Lord Madox, 1057 Browne, Archbishop, 335 Browne, Robert, 388 Browne, Sir Thomas, 607 Brownists, the, 388 Browning, ElizabethBarrett, 1046 Browning, Robert, 1045, 1046 Bruce, David, King of Scot- land, 190, 196, 197 Bruce, Robert, claimant to Scottish throne, 170 Bruce, Robert, King of Scot- land, 177, 180, 184, 190 Bruce, Edward, 184, 201 Bruce, Thomas Lord Elgin, 1050; see Elgin sculp- tures Brunanburh, battle of, 47 Brussels, Wellington's head- quarters at, 862 ; popular rising of 1830 in, 890 Brut, legend of, 127 Brythons, the, 14 Buchanan, George, 429 Bucharest, the Peace of, 1083 Buckingham, Dukes of, see Stafford and Villiers Buckle, Thomas, 1050 Budget, Disraeli poor at framing a, 989 Budgets, Peel's, of 1842, 941 ; the second Free Trade, 942 ; Gladstone's first, 959; Disraeli's, of 1852, upsets Derby's first Ministry, 958 ; Glad- stone's, of 1860, 977; Llpyd George's, 1077, 1078 Bulgaria, 1003-1006 Bull, see John Bull Bull baiting forbidden in England, 903 Buller, General, 1034, 1035 Bunker Hill, battle of, 768 Bunyan, John, 576, 607 Bur'dett, Francis, 907 Burford, battle of, 38 Burgh, de, see Hubert Burghley (bur'ly), Lord, see Cecil, William Burgoyne, General, cam- paign of, 769, 770 Burgundy, Edward IV's commercial treaty with, 271 Burgundy, Dukes of, see John, Philip, and Charles ; see, also Margaret and Mary Burh, see Borough Burial Act, the, 1009 Burke, Edmund, 726; views of, on American taxation, 749 ; character and policy of, 754. 755 ; opposes the Stamp Act, 755 ; works to conciliate American Col- onies, 765, 766; made Paymaster of the Forces, 776; in trial of Hastings, 820 ; attitude towards French Revolution, 825, and note ; estrangement between Fox and, 825, 826 ; denounces Pitt's foreign policy, 828 ; on the war with France, 830 ; opposes parliamentary re-- form, 907 Burke, Thomas Henry, ion Burmah, Lower, British an- nexation of, 968 Burmese war, the first, 967 Bur'net, Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 604 Burne-Jones, Edward, 1057 Burney, Fanny, English novelist, 800-801, 900 Burns, Robert, poetry of, 896 Burton, Henry, 464, 477 Burton, Robert, 607 Bury, St. Edmund, 42 ; brothers of, 131 Bushel's case, 639 Bussy, Marquis de, 721 Bute, Earl of, see Stuart, John Butler, James, twelfth Earl and first Duke of Ormonde, 498, 510, 511 Butler, James, second Duke of Ormonde, 654, 670, 678, 679, 685, 690 Butler, Samuel, 608 Butt, Isaac, 1010 Buxton, Thomas Powell, 920, 1059 Byng (blng), Admiral George, Viscount Torring- ton, 664, 685 Byng, Admiral John, 723, 724, 726, 727, 728 Byron, Lord, in Greece, 886, and note; literary work of, 897-898; influ- ence of, 1045 Cabal' Ministry, the, 532, 547-549 ; break-up of, 551 "Cabinet," the, of Charles II, 532 Cabinet system, the be- ginning of, 529, 614-617, 642 ; weakness of, under Anne, 667 ; check in the progress of, under George III, 738; influ- ence of first Reform Bill upon, 917 Cable, the Atlantic, 1054 INDEX IIOI Cabot, John, 5, 283, 200, 303 Cabot, Sebastian, 410 Cade, Jack, rebellion of, 259 Cadiz, Duke of, 949 Cadiz, plundered by Drake, 394 ; expedition against, under Howard and Es- sex, 397, 398; unsuccess- ful expedition to, in 1625, 454; expedition against, under Rooke and Or- monde, 654 Csdmon, 71 Caedwalla, 34 Caesar, Julius, his Com- mentaries, 14; descrip- tion of the Celtic religion ib. of London, 16; first invasion of Britain, 55 B.C., 17; second in- vasion, 54 B.C., 17, 18; description of the ancient Germans, 27, 62 Calais, made a staple, 212, 213 ; siege and capture of, 197 ; attempt of French to recover, 202 ; use of cannon at, 218; retained at end of Hun- dred Years' War, 260; representation granted to, 339; lost by England, 364, 365, 372 Calcutta, acquired by the British, 591, 721; the "Black Hole" of, 734; capital transferred from, to Delhi, 1080 "Caleb Williams," 899 Caledonians, the, 15 Calendar, the reform of the, 718, 719; extended to the Colonies, 750 Calico printing, introduced into England, 590 Calvin, Robert, case of, 435 Calvinism, 366, 367 ; doc- trinal and political in- fluence of, 349, 350 Cambrian Mountains, 7 Cambridge, University of, beginning of, 128; in the fourteenth century, 223; teaching monks to be maintained at, 323 ; in the time of Henry VIII, 345; the Test Act of 1871, 997 Cambridge Platonists, the, 603, 604 Camden, Earl, see Pratt, Charles Camera Stellata, see Star Chamber Cameron, Donald, of Lochiel, 711 Cameron, Sir Ewen, of Lochiel, 628 Cameronians, the, 574 Campbell, Archibald, fifth Earl of Argyle, 367 Campbell, Archibald, eighth Earl and Marquis of Argyle, 481, 506, 512, Si3, 535 Campbell, Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, 568 Campbell, Archibald, Mar- quis and first Duke of Argyle, 628 Campbell, John, second Duke of Argyle, 679, 680, 699 Campbell, Sir Colin, 972, 973, and note Campbell, Thomas, poet, 899 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 1076, 1077 Campeggio, Cardinal, 310, 3" Camperdown, British naval victory off, 837, 838 Campion, Edmund, 387 Campo Formio, Peace of, 837 Camulodunum, 18, 19 Canada, the British con- quest of, 736; ceded to the British, 743 ; proph- ecy concerning the French surrender of, 741, 749; regulations for, under Quebec Act, 764, 765 ; France gives up all claim to, 771 ; loyalty of, to England, in war of 1812, 860; governmental prob- lems and revolt in, 930- 932; Durham's proposed constitution for, becomes model for British Colo- nies, 932; Government bill for the, 932 ; immi- gration into, 1065 ; gov- ernment of, 1067 Canadian Reciprocity, 1082 Canal transportation, de- velopment of, in Eng- land, 786, 787 Canning, George, opposition of, to Addington Ministry, 847, 848; quarrel be- tween, and Castlereagh, 855 ; leader of House of Commons, 874, 875 ; Ministry of, 878-879 ; death of, 879; foreign policy of, 884-886; duel with Castlereagh, 902 ; joins Scott, to found Quarterly Review, 900 ; defeats bill for gradual abolition of slavery in British Colonies, 920 Canning, Viscount, in India, 969-970; energy of, in the Mutiny, 971 Cannon, use of, 213, 218 Canons, Black, 99; White, ib. Canon law, the, 116 Canterbury, foundation of the archbishopric of, 32 ; murder of Archbishop Thomas at, 1 1 1 ; dis- puted election of the Archbishop of, 137 Canterbury Tales, 127, 225 Canton, opened to British trade, 948 Canton River, Chinese destroy opium in, 948 Cape Breton, ceded to the British, 743, see also Louisburg Cape Colony, 1030, 1031 Cape of Good Hope, pro- visions concerning, in treaty of Amiens, 848 ; secured to Great Britain by Congress of Vienna, 865 Cape Passaro, battle off, 685 Cape St. Vincent, battle off, 836 Capel, Arthur, Earl of Essex, 562, 564 Capet, Hugh, founder of the French Capetian dynasty, 56 Capitalist class, develop- ment of, in England, 788, 789 Capodistrias, President of Greece, 887, 888 IIO2 INDEX Caracalla, decree of, 21 Caraffa, Cardinal, see Paul IV Carbery Hill, battle of, 377 Card playing, in the Middle Ages, 217, 218 ; rage for, in eighteenth-century Lon- don, 806 Cardan, Jerome, 417 Cardinal's College (later Christ Church), 297 Cardwell, Edward, army reforms of, 907-998 Carew (ca'ry), Sir Peter, 360 Carham (car'am), battle of, 54 Caricaturists, British, in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, 901 Carisbrooke Castle, 505 Carlos, Don, son of Philip II, 375 Carlyle, Thomas, his vin- dication of Cromwell, 524 ; champions cause of John Eyre, 983 ; on Reform of 1867, 987 ; his writings, 1043-1045 Carmar'then, Marquis of, see Osborne, Sir Thomas Carnar'von, i6g Carnatic, the, 721 ; winning of the, 735 Carnot, French War Min- ister, 832, 835, 837 Carolinas, the, the British wage unsuccessful war in, 774, 775 Caroline of Anspach, Queen of George II, 696, 697, 700, 701 Caroline, Queen of George IV, history of, 872-873 Carpenter, General, 680 Carr, Robert, successively Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset, 440, 441 Carson, Sir Edward, 1086, 1088 Carteret, John, Lord Gran- ville, 706, 707, 709, 716, 718 Carthagena, Vernon's ex- pedition against, 704 Carthusians, the, 126; pro- ceeding against, 320, 321 Cartwright, Edmund, Eng- lish inventor, 785, 786, 892 Cartwright, Thomas, Pres- byterian, 389 Carucage, the, of 1198, 124 Carwell, Madame, 554 "Case of the Army fully stated," the, 504 Cashel, synod at, 112 Casket Letters, the, 377 Cassiter'ides, or tin islands, 14 Cassivellaun'us, or Cas- wallon, 17 Castillon, battle of, 260 Castle Chamber, court of, 406 Castles, Anglo-Norman, 89, 90; in the thirteenth century, 162 ; in the fourteenth century, 221 Castlemaine, Lady, see Pal- mer, Barbara Castlereagh (Castleray'), Viscount, in Ireland, 142 ; British Secretary for War, 854 ; quarrel between, and Canning, 855 ; represents Great Britain at Congress of Vienna, 862 ; political status of, after Napoleonic wars, 868; suicide of, 874, and note ; advo- cates non-intervention in European affairs, 884 ; attitude toward Russian intervention in Greece, 886; duel with Canning, 902 Catalonia, 657, 663, 665 Cateau Cambrdsis, Peace of, 343, 372 Catesby, Robert, 432 Catharine of Aragon, Queen of Henry III, betrothed to Arthur, 282 ; marries Henry VIII, 283 ; divorce proceedings against, 308- 311; popularity of, 317; divorce from Henry VIII pronounced, 318; death of, 321, 322 Catharine of Braganza, Queen of Charles II, 540, 558, 560 Catharine Howard, Queen of Henry VIII, 332, 333 Catharine Parr, Queen of Henry VIII, 336 Catherine de' Medici, 379, 384 Catherine, Empress of Rus- sia, 692 Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 827 Catholic Emancipation, 879- 882 Catholic League, the, of 1609, 442 Catholic Relief Bill, the, 1040 Catholics, see Roman Catholics Cattle Act, the Irish, 536 Catuvellauni, the, 17 Cautionary towns, the Dutch, 391, 438 Cavalier Parliament, the, temper and work of, 536, 537 ; the Clarendon Code of, 537-539 ; overthrow of Clarendon by, 544, 545 ; gains of, 545, 546 ; origin of corruption in, 553, 554 ; its dissolution, 560, 561 Cavalier poets, the, 607, 608 Cavaliers, name first em- ployed, 483 ; burdens on, 522 Cavendish, origin of the family of, 329 Cavendish, Lord Frederick, ion Cavendish, Henry, scientific discoveries of, 895 Cavendish, William, fourth Duke of Devonshire, Prime Minister, 725 Cavour, Count, r&le of, in achievement of Italian unification, 975-976 Cawnpore, massacre at, 971 Caxton, William, 290, 291 Ceaw'lin, 29 Ce'cil, Robert (later Earl of Salisbury), successively Secretary of State and Lord Treasurer, 397, 429, 432, 434, 437 Cecil, Robert, successively Viscount Cranborne and Marquis of Salisbury, en- trance into politics, 985 ; comment of, on Reform Bill of 1867, 986, 987 ; his negotiations in the Russo- Turkish War, 1004, 1005 ; his attack on Gladstone, 1016; his first Ministry, 1017; his negotiations INDEX 1103 with Parnell, 1017; his denunciation of the first Home Rule Bill, 1019; his second Ministry, 1019- 1024; estimate of his domestic and foreign policy during his second administration, 1023 ; his defeat and resignation, 1023, 1024; third and last Ministry, 1026 S. ; man- agement of the Vene- zuela disputes, 1028; see Khaki election ; retire- ment and death of, 1072; as Foreign Secretary, 1074, 1076 Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, successively Secretary of State and Lord Treasurer, character f> 37 1 1 37 2 ; sympathy with the Puritans, 389; his cautious councils, 397 ; his death, 398; his eco- nomic policy, 413 Celts, the, invasion of, into Britain, 13 ; myths con- cerning, ib. remains of, in Britain, ib. ; religious, social and political char- acteristics of, in Britain, 14-16; trade and indus- try, 16-17; slightness of influence of, on Anglo- Saxons, 30 Censorship, see Press Ceorls, 69 Cerdic and Cynric, founders of the West Saxon House, 29 Cerro, mines at, 340 "Cessation," the, in Ireland, 498 Cetewayo, Zulu chief, 1030 Ceylon, secured to Great Britain by Congress of Vienna, 865 ; retained by England in Peace of Amiens, 848 Chaise, Pere la, 556, 557 Chait Singh, 810 Chalgrove Field, battle of, 402 Chalmers (Chah'mers), Dr., 1042 Chaluz, Castle of, 125 Chamberlain, Austin, 1079 Chamberlain, Joseph, enters the Cabinet, 1009; helps arrange the Kilmainham Treaty, ion; breaks from the Liberal party, 1019 ; becomes Colonial Secretary under Salis- bury, 1027 ; fosters Imperialism and protec- tion, 1027, 1028 ; presi- dent of the conference of 1902, 1072; his advocacy of Tariff Reform, 1073, 1074; resignation of, 1073 Chancellor, the Lord High, functions of, 97, 108, 168, 404 Chancellor, Richard, 410 Chancery, court of, 'Peel inaugurates reform of, 904; under the reform of 1873, 999 Chandernagore, 721, 734 Chantries, 336, 345; sup- pressed, 349; disposal of the spoil from, 353 Chantry schools, 345 Chapman, George, 418 Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks, 37, 38, 41, 74 Charles, Prince (later Charles I), 432 ; proposed as husband for Maria Anna of Spain, 441 ; journey to Spain, 446; betrothed to Henrietta Maria, 447 ; involved with Buckingham in anti- Hapsburg alliances, 447, 448, see Charles I Charles I, King of England, character and problems of, 450, 451 ; his advisers, 452, 453 ; quarrels with his first Parliament, 453, 454; dissolves his second to block inpeachment of Buckingham, 454, 455 ; his financial exactions, 455 ; involved in war with France, 455, 456; forced to sign the Petition of Right, 457, 458; at- tempts to collect tonnage and poundage and issues a Declaration concerning religion, 458, 459; dis- solves Parliament and orders the imprisonment of Eliot and eight other members, 459, 460; his eleven years of personal rule, 460-471 ; summons Short Parliament, 471, 472 ; devices of, for raising money after its dissolution, 472 ; sum- mons a Great Council and a new Parliament, 473 ; forced to consent to Strafford's execution, 478, 479; journey to Scotland, 481 ; rejects the Grand Remonstrance, 483; attempts to arrest the five members, 483, 484 ; withdrawal from London and struggle for control of the kingdom, 484; raises standard at Nottingham, 485 ; as com- mander of the royalist forces, 489, 491, 492, 495-497 ; rejects the Treaty of Oxford, 491 ; his flight after Naseby, 497, 498; his intrigues with the Irish, 498; his surrender to the Scots, 499; futile nego- tiations with the Scots, 500, 501 ; handed over to Parliament, 501 ; his person secured by the army, 502 ; rejects the Heads of Proposals, 502, 503 ; flees to the Isle of Wight and makes the "Engagement" with the Scots, 504, 505 ; his trial and execution, 506-508 ; his regulation of trade and manufactures, 589 ; as an art collector, 611 Charles II, King of England, proclaimed in Ireland and Scotland, 510, 511; his sojourn in Scotland, 512; defeat at Worcester and flight, 513 ; results of his French policy, 521; his recall to England, 527 ; his declaration at Breda, 527, 529; his character and policy, 530, 531 ; his moderation, 533 ; his rev- enue, 533, 534; his failure to secure tolera- tion, 534, 535, 538; his HO4 INDEX coronation, 536; foreign policy and marriage of, 539, 54; draws close to France, 540; his first war with the Dutch, 540-543 ; growing dis- content against, 543, 544 ; throws over Clarendon, 544, 545 ; seeks to make himself absolute, 547 ; joins a Triple Alliance against Louis XIV, 549; negotiates the Secret Treaty of Dover, 549, 550; his Declaration of Indulgence, 551; his second war with the Dutch, 552, 553; gives up his Roman Catholic designs and allies with the High Church party, 553, 554; his idleness, 554; his tortuous foreign policy, 555, 556; his attitude toward the Popish Plot, 556-560; vain effort of, to save Danby, 560, 561 ; his triumph over the Whigs, 562-564 ; his death, 565 ; state of monarchy at death of, 566; his Dec- laration of Indulgence compared with those of James II, 576; bribery in elections commences under, 911 Charles IV, King of France, 191 Charles V, King of France, 204, 205, 207 Charles VI, King of France, 238, 245, 249, 251, 254 Charles VIII, King of France, 281, 282, 343 Charles IX, King of France, 379, 384 Charles X, King of France, 889 Charles V, German Em- peror, 298-301, 308, 310, 334, 359, 364, 380 Charles, Archduke, later Emperor Charles VI, 646, 647, 657, 658, 659, 663, 668, 670, 692, 704 Charles II, King of Spain, 549, 645, 646 Charles III, successively King of Naples and Spain, 684, 685, 700, 741, 742 Charles IV, King of Spain, Napoleon forces retire- ment of, 853, 854 Charles XII, King of Sweden, 663, 682, 685 Charles (the Bold), Duke of Burgundy, 267, 270, 299 Charles, Duke of Orleans, 250 Charles Albert of Bavaria, elected Emperor as Charles VII, 704, 705, 710 Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, birth of, 690; joins the futile French ex- pedition of 1744, 709; his leadership of the '45, 710-714; his flight, last years and death, 714 Charleston, siege of, re- pulsed, 768 Charlotte, Queen of George III, 740 Charter, confirmations of the, 148, 154, 170, 175, 176 Charter of Forests, 148 Charter, the Great, see Magna Carta Charter of Liberties, of Henry I, 94 Charter of Stephen, 100 Chartered Company, the, 1032 Charterhouse, the, 320 Charters, of boroughs, 1 29 Chartism, first phase of, 938-940; collapse of, 952- 953 Chateau Gaillard, 124 Chateaubriand, his char- acterization of William Pitt, 814 note Chatham, Earl of, see Pitt, William Chatterton, Thomas, 802 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 127, 221, 290, 291, 303, 418; his life and writings, 224, 225 Chauvelin, French ambassa- dor to England, 828, 830 Cheke, Sir John, 344, 355 Chelsea, pottery industry at, 786 Chess, 73 Chester, 22 ; battle of, 33 ; palatinate of, 78; repre- sentation granted to, 339 ; Fenian attempt to capture castle of, 992 Chesterfield, Earl of, see Stanhope, Philip Dormer Chevalier de St. Georges, the, see James Francis Edward Chichester, Sir Arthur, 436 Child, Sir Josiah, 605, 636 Child labor, abuses of, 943 Childers, Hugh, naval re- forms of, 997-998 Children, in the Middle Ages, 217; legislation affecting the employment of, 943 Chillingworth, William, 603 Chiltern Hills, 4 China, opium war of, with Great Britain, 947-948 ; Great Britain at war with, in 1856, 966 and note; war with Japan, 1029; relations with, in the last years of Victoria, ib. ; Manchuria restored to, 1075 ; coolie labor from, excluded from the Trans- vaal, 1076 ; revolution in, 1080; see Boxer Re- bellion and Opium Chinese coolies in South Africa, 1074, 1077 Chinon, 114, 255 Chippenham, treaty of, 43 ; election, the, 705 Chivalry, 90, 218 Christ Church, see Cardinals, College Christian IX, King of Den- mark, 980, 1072 Christianity, British, 22; conversion of Anglo- Saxons to, 31 Christian socialism, 1048, 1062 Christmas, Old Father, 224 Christ's Hospital, 356 Chronicle, The London, on defeat of second Reform Bill, 915 Chroniclers, see Ordericus, Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntington, William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Benedict of Peterborough, Roger of Hoveden, Wil- INDEX 1105 Ham of Newborough, Walter of Coventry, Mat- thew Paris, Froissart Chupattis, the, 970 Church, the English, be- ginnings of, 32, 35; or- ganization and extension of, 36 ; influence of, 38 ; a model of unity in Anglo-Saxon England, 40; attitude of Wil- liam I toward, 79, 80; concession to, in charter of Henry I, 94; gains of, under Stephen, 105 ; secu- lar character, under Henry II, 126; conces- sions to, in Magna Carta, 143 ; condition of, under Henry III, 159. 160; Statute of Mortmain directed against, 1 79 ; parliamentary attacks on its wealth, 247 ; the, declining power of, in the fifteenth century, 278, 279; condition of, at the eve of the Reforma- tion, 307, 308; see also Church of England, Church of Rome, Refor- mation, Oxford Move- ment, Anselm, Becket, Wiclif, Laud, Wesley Church, the Scotch-Irish, 22, 23 Church of England, separa- tion of, from Rome, 315- 320; articles of faith of, 325, 326; suppression of the monasteries, 322- 324, 328-330; Protestant excesses, 349, 350; first Act of Uniformity, 350, 351 ; the second Act of Uniformity, the revised Prayer Book, and the Forty-two Articles, 354, 355 ; Mary restores the system of Henry VIII, 350, 360; the Eliza- bethan settlement of, 372-374; attacked in the Marprelate libels, 389, 390 ; royal supremacy over, under Elizabeth, 402, 403 ; in Ireland, 436; views of the High Anglican party in^ 452; 4B the Declaration of Charles I concerning in- novations in the, 459, 460; the Laudian policy and religious discontent, 461-466 ; split in parlia- mentary party over re- form of, 480, 481 ; atti- tude of Cromwell toward, 518; ceases to be a national body, 528; fail- ure to secure toleration in, 534, 535 ; the Claren- don Code, 537-539; re- versal of the policy of Charles II toward, 553 ; aims of James II to Ro- manize, 570-573, 575-579 ; his belated concessions to, 580, 581 ; the clergy of, in the seventeenth century, 596 ; Latitudi- narian movement in, 603, 604; toleration in, and the failure of comprehen- sion, 621, 622; the es- tablishment guaranteed, in the union with Scotland, 662 ; Sacheverell's de- fense of, 666 ; rationalism in, in the eighteenth cen- tury, 793 ; Ecclesiastical Commission corrects abuses in, 925 ; educa- tion in control of, 995 ; monopoly of members of, under Test Act of 1871, 997 ; condition of, in the nineteenth century, 1039 1041 ; later conflicts in, 1042 Church of Rome, introduced into Kent, 32; triumph at Whitby, 35 ; organiza- tion and extrusion of, 36; its influence, 38; English fear of, in 1850, 953-954 Church of Scotland, see Scotland Church courts, under Wil- liam I and Stephen, 109; under Henry II, no; powers of, under Eliza- beth, 402 Church lands, 533 Church rates, compulsory, Derby opposes abolition of, 989 Churchill, John, later Duke of Marlborough, deserts James II, 583 ; his plot and dismissal by Wil- liam III, 630; discloses the expedition against Brest, 632; draws to- ward William III, 634; takes up his work, 648; character of, 653, 654 ; his relations to parties, ib. ; his campaigns, 654- 656, 658-659, 662-665, 668, 669; receives grant of Blenheim, 657 ; forces a Whig secretary on the Queen, 660; accused of aiming at a military dictatorship, 665; refuses to resign, 667 ; attempts to obstruct the peace, 668 ; his removal, 669 ; his achievements, 671, 672; retires to the Con- tinent, 672; military sys- tem of, outworn, 717 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 1018, 1020, 1086 Churchill, Winston, 1083, 1086-1088 Gibber, Colley, 802 Cinque (sink) Ports, the, 162, 163, 213; Lord War- den of the, 407 Cintra, the Convention of, 854 Circulation of the blood, discovery of the, 606 Cisalpine Republic, Austria recognizes, 846 Cistercians, 99, 126 Cities, 65 ; under Munici- pal Reform Act of 1835, 925 ; see also Boroughs "Citizen King," the, 889 Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington captures, 857 Civil List, the, beginning of, under William III, 623 ; of George III, 739, 741 ; of George IV, 868; of William IV and Victoria, 929, 930 ; of Edward VII, 1072 Civil Service, opened to public competition, 959; Reform of, in 1870, 997 Civil War, the great, open- ing of, 485; comparison no6 INDEX of parties in, 486-400; plan of campaign, 490; the campaigns of 1642 and 1643, 490, 491 ; end of the first, 499 ; state of parties, 499 Civil War, the second, 505 ; crushed by Cromwell, 505, 506 Claim of Right, the, 627, IOIO, IOI2 Clarence, Dukes of, see Albert Victor, and George Clarendon, Assize of, 131, iS9 Clarendon Code, the, 537- 539 Clarendon, Constitutions of, no, 117 Clarendon, Earl of, see Hyde, Edward and Henry, and Villiers, George Clarkson, Thomas, 819 Classes, Presbyterian, 366 Classicism, revolt against, in eighteenth century, 801-802 Claudius, Roman Emperor, 18 Claverhouse (Cla'vers), see Graham, John Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, the, 1084 Clement IV, Pope, 161 Clement VII, anti-pope, 227 Clement VII, Pope, 235, 300, 301,309-311, 315,318 Clergy, the condition of, in the time of Alfred, 45 ; in the time of Henry III, 159; the condition of the, in the seventeenth cen- tury, 596; in eighteenth century, 793 ; attempts to relieve Irish, in 1833, 919 ; Episcopal, in Ire- land denounce Glad- stone's Church Disestab- lishment Bill, 993-994 ; the character of, in the nineteenth century, 1039, 1040 Clergy reserves, the, 930 and note, 932 Clericis Laicos, Bull of, 174 Clerkenwell, Fenian attempt to destroy, 993 Clermont, the, Hudson steamboat, 893-894 Cleveland, President Grover, 1028 Clifford, Thomas, Baron, Lord Treasurer, 547, 548, SSo, S5i, 553 Clinton, Henry Pelham, fourth Duke of Newcastle, 910 Clinton, Henry Pelham, fifth Duke, 958, 961 Clinton, General, 768, 769, 770; Commander-in- Chief of British forces in America, 772 Clipper ships, 1053 Clive, Robert, later Baron Clive, "the father of the British Empire in India," 721, 722, 727, 734-736, 809-810, 966 Clontarf, O'Connell plans mass-meeting at, 943 Close boroughs, 911 Closetings, the, of James II, 575 Closure, 1086 Cloth manufacture, 211 Club, the, a discontented faction in Scotland, 627, 628 Clubs, London, 601 Cluniac reforms, 49, 50, 80 Clyde River, the, 8 Cnut, conqueror of Edmund Ironside, King of Eng- land, 53 ; extends power of the earls, becomes ruler of Denmark and Norway, his laws, journey to Rome, 54; character and rule, ib. ; his forest laws, 8 1 ; see Chess Coal, begins to be used as fuel, 589, 590; use of, in iron manufacture, 786 Coal strike, the, 1085, 1086 Coalition, the First, against France, 832-836; end of, 837, 838; war of Second, against France, 845-846; war of Third, 850-851 Coast line, importance of, 7 Coat and conduct money, 472 Cobbett, William, views of, 869 ; goes to America, 870; the "Two-penny Trash" of, 871 and note; Political Register of, the Radical organ, 900; in- fluenced by Bentham, 907 ; in first Reformed Parliament, 918; de- nounces the New Poor Law, 922 Cobden, Richard, fights for Corn-Law repeal, 940 and note; Peel's tribute to, 946 and note ; nego- tiates a commercial treaty with France, 976 Cobham, Eleanor, second wife of Humphrey of Gloucester, 254, 257 Cockfighting forbidden in England, 903 Codrington, Admiral, vic- tory of, at Navarino, 887 Coercion Bills for Ireland, 919-920, 946, 951 ; see also Ireland Coffeehouses, 601 Coifi, 34 Coinage, British, 16; Nor- man, 90; of Henry VII, 288 ; under Edward I, II, III, 214; under Henry VII, 288; de- basement of, 355 ; restora- tion of, by Elizabeth, 408; debasement of, sug- gested, 472; restoration of, under William III, 635 ; see also Debasement Coke, Sir Edward, 407, 438- 44. 457 Coke, Thomas, 894 Colchester, 18, 29 Cold harbors, 220 Cole, Old King, 20, 224 Coleman, Edward, 556, 557, 559 Colenso, John William, Bishop, 1042 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, literary work of, 896-897 ; attitude towards the French Revolution, 898 Col'et, John, 304, 305, 344 Coligny, Admiral, 383, 384 Collectivism, development of policy of, 984 Colleges, Irish, Gladstone's bill to unite, 999 Colley, Sir George, 1031 Col'lier, Jeremy, 610 Collins, Wilkie, 1048 INDEX 1107 Colloquies, of ^Elfric, 74 Colman, 35 Colonial conferences, 1022, 1028, 1070, 1072-1074, 1081 Colonial preference, 1072, 1080, 1081 Colonial system, the old, evils of, 1064 Colonies, Huskisson's policy regarding, 875 ; Ben- tham's influence on im- provement of government of, 906; abolition of slavery in British, 918, 920, 934, see Buxton and Jamaica ; contribute to England during cotton famine, 979 ; England's growing interest in prob- lems concerning, in 1866, 988; Crown and self- governing, 1063, 1064 ; see American colonies Colonies, American, begin- ning of struggle of, with Great Britain, 763 ; First Continental Congress of, 765 ; attempts of British government to conciliate, 765, 766; British views concerning, before Ameri- can Revolution, 766 ; out- break of Revolution of, ib. ; British estimate of fighting capacity of, 767 and note; strength of, in the Revolution, 767, 768; Declaration of In- dependence of, 768; un- rest in, before the Revolu- tion, ib. ; France and Spain join, against Eng- land, 770, 771 ; cotton from, to England, 784 Colonies, British, Durham's Constitution becomes model for self-governing, 932; troops in, reduced in number by Cardwell, 997 ; Disraeli's Imperial- istic theories regarding, 998-990 Colonies, the Canadian, Durham's proposals for governing, 931-932 Colonies, the Spanish- American, declare inde- pendence, 876 Colonization, American, in the sixteenth century, 41 1, 412 Columba, Saint, 35 Columbia River, the navi- gation of, free to English and Americans, 949 Columbus, Bartholomew, 290 Columbus, Christopher, 282, 290, 303 Colville, see Calvin, Robert Comet, the, Bell's steam- boat, 894 Cominges, William, 286 Comitatus, 68 Comites, the, 28 Commander-in-Chief, the reorganization of duties of, 963 ; Cardwell in- creases subordination to Secretary for War of the, 997-998 ; the office of, abolished, 1073 Commendams, 431, 439 Commercial classes favored by the Tudors, 401 Commercial system, the British, 747, 748 Commercial treaties, 289 ; see France, Ireland, Bur- gundy, and Intercursus Magnus Commission, Civil Service, selects candidates for Home Service, 997 Commissioner, Lord High, Durham sent to Canada as, 931 Committee of Both King- doms, the, 489, 495 Committee of the Privy Council on Education, the, creation of, 996 Committee of Safety, the, in the Civil War, 488 Common law, the, 116; Peel simplifies procedure in courts of, 904- Common law, the courts of, 406 ; reform of, in 1873, 999 Common Pleas, Court of, 117, 144; see also Com- mon Law Courts Common Prayer, Book of, 350; revised editions of, 354, 355, 373, 557 ; Queen Carcline's name omitted from, 872, 873 Common Sense, Paine's pamphlet, 768 Commons, House of, first separate session of, 174; payment of members, ib. ; attempt to exclude law- yers, ib. ; origin of legis- lative powers of, 210, 211 ; money grants to originate in, 246; composition of, under Henry VIII, 339; Roman Catholics excluded from, 373 ; control of, by Elizabeth, 403, 404 ; priv- ileges gained, in judging disputed elections, in free- dom from arrest, 433 ; "Apology" of, ib.; quar- rels of, with James I over privilege, 445, 446; protestation of, 446 ; gains of, under James I, 448, 449 ; insist on right to initiate money bills, 472 ; gains in appropriation of supply and audit of ac- counts, 545 ; successfully afesert that money bills must originate in, and cannot be amended, 545, 546 ; resolution of, re- serving the exclusive right of granting trading priv- ileges, 636 ; property qualification in the, 668; unable to exclude legal qualified members, 744 ; attempt to exclude Wilkes, 745, 746; theory and practice of represen- tation in, 747 ; failure of, to exclude members, 758; struggle over de- bate reporting in, 762; contractors excluded from, 776 ; composition, 824 and note ; inequalities in representation in, 009- 910 ; placemen in, 913 ; composition of, in first Reformed Parliament, 917-918; radical claims to abolish property quali- fication for, 926 ; frame resolutions for governing India, 974 ; property qualification for, abol- ished, 975 ; distribution of seats in, under Reform no8 INDEX Bill of 1867,987; atheists made eligible, 1009 ; pay- ment of members in, 1062, 1080; see Corrupt Practices Act, Franchise Act, and Parliament Bill Commonwealth of Australia, the, 1067 ; government of, ib. Commonwealth, the Eng- lish, 509-516; forces of disorder in, 510; sea power of, 513, 514; grow- ing opposition to, 514, 515; end of, 516 Commonwealth of Oceana, the, 604, 605 Commune, the, of London, 122, 129, 130 Communion in both kinds, 331, 349 Communism, Owen's ex- periments in, 938 Comperts, 323 Compound householders, 986 Comprehension, failure to secure, 551, 621, 622 Compton, Henry, Bishop of London, 572, 581, 583 Compton, Sir Spencer, later Earl of Wilmington, 706, 708 Compton, Spencer, succes- sively Marquis of Harting- ton and Duke of Devon- shire, 1002 ; attitude on the Bulgarian Massacres, 1004 ; Liberal leader, 1009 ; breaks from the Liberal party, 1018, 1019; refuses the leadership of the Commons under Salis- bury, 1019, 1020; takes office under Salisbury, 1027 ; opposition to tariff reform, 1073, 1074 Compurgation, 117 Comus, Milton's, 609 Conciliation Bill, the, 1088 Concordat of iSoi, the, 847 Conde, French Marshall, 566 Conde, Huguenot leader, 378, 382 Confederacy, the Southern, Great Britain recognizes, as a belligerent, 978; surrender of, 979 Confederation of Rhine, for- mation of, 851 Conferences, see Colonial and Imperial Confirmatio Cartarum, 176 Congregation, Lords of, 368, 374 Congregationalists, the, 388 Congress, the American, rejects North's concilia- tion proposals in 1778, 771 Congress European, at Verona, 884 ; Canning opposed to governing Europe by, 884-885 Congresses, European, pro- vision for, by quadruple Alliance, 883 Congreve, William, 610 Connaught, the Duke of, 1074 Connaught, the Province of, 112, 471 Connecticut, the Funda- mental Orders of, 517 Conservatives, the name adopted by moderate Tories, 918; middle classes joining, in 1838- 1839, 933 ; revolt of, against Corn-Law re- peal, 945 ; divisions of, in 1846, 950; Disraeli re-creates party of the, 991 ; the English, de- nounce Gladstone's dis- establishment Bill, 993 ; see Unionists Conservators of the Peace, 1 80 Consolidated Fund, Pitt's, 816, 817 Consols, 815 and note Conspiracies to Murder Bill, Palmerston's, 974-975 Conspiracy, the Cato Street, 872 Constable, John, 901 Constance, Council of, 227, 251 Constantine, Roman Em- peror and founder of Constantinople, 20 Constantinople, capture of (1453), 6, 289, 302 Constantius, Roman Em- peror, 20 Constitution, the English, 750 ; Bentham objects to Blackstone's laudation of, 906; Disraeli's early theory of the, 989 Constitutional Information, English Society for, 828 Constitutional royalists, the, 476, 483 Constitutions of Clarendon, no, 112 Consubstantiation, 227 Continental Army, Ameri- can, organization of, 768; at Valley Forge, 770 Continental Congress, the First, 765 ; the Second, 768 Continental system, the, establishment oi, 852, 853 ; produces industrial suf- fering in England, 856; causes war between Great Britain and the United States, 859-860 ; effects on England of, 893 Conventicle Act, the, 538 Conventicles, 389 Convention Parliament, the, of the Restoration, 527, 529,532-535; of William of Orange, 584-586; its illegal status, 587 ; turned into a parliament, 621 Convocation, beginnings of, 1 74 ; powers of, restricted by Henry VIII, 317; forced to declare null the marriage of Henry VIII and Catharine, 318; powers of, under Eliza- beth, 402 ; grants to Charles I, and assertion of the Divine Rights of Kings, 472; clergy cease to grant supplies in, 545 ; rejects plan of compre- hension, 622; suspended for one hundred and thirty-five years, 683 Cook, Captain James, 789, 1065 Coolies, Chinese, Treaty of Peking recognizes emi- gration of, 966 note ; in South Africa, 1074, 1077 Cooper, Sir Anthony Ash- ley, first Earl of Shaftes- bury, chief of the Puritan party, 532; his aims, INDEX 1109 548 ; not consulted in the Treaty of Dover, 550; dismissed, 551 ; organizes the Country party in the Lords, 554; foments the Popish Plot, 558, 559; share in passing the Habeas Corpus Act, 561 ; leader in the Exclusion struggle, 562, 563 ; his flight and death, 563, 564 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third Earl of Shaftesbury, 640, 793 Cooper, Samuel, 611 Cooperative movement, the, 1061 Coote, Colonel Eyre, 735 Cope, Sir John, 711 Copenhagen, bombardments of, 846, 847, 852 Coper'nicus, 303 Cfip'ley, John Singleton, 900 Cor'biesdale, battle of, 512 Cork, 9; Queen's College established at, 944 Corn laws, in the fifteenth century, 284; the, of 1815, 856; question of the, in 1826, 877-878; repeal of the, 945-946 and notes; suspended in 1846- 1847, 950; repeal of the, Russell and, 985 note; Derby splits with Peel on abolition of the, 989; the repeal of, 1056 Cornwall, Duchy of, 77 ; disposition of revenues from, 929 and note, 930 Cornwall, tin mines of, 3 ; revolt in, 351 Cornwallis, Lord, joins Clin- ton in Virginia, 775 ; surrender of, 775, 776; Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land, 841, 842; works for Irish Union, 842, 843 Coroners or crowners, 123 Corot, French artist, Con- stable's influence on, 901 Corporation Act, the, 537; repeal of the, 880-881, 985 Corporations, municipal, Reform Act of 1835 for, 924-925 Corresponding Society, the London, 828 Corrupt Practices Act, 1012 Corruption, parliamentary, Pitt fights, 814, 815; in elections for Parlia- ment, 911-912 and notes; in Parliament, 913 and note, 914 Corsned, the, or sacred morsel, 66 Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 594 Cotswold Hills, 4 Cotters, 64 Cotton, manufacture of, sta- tus of, in 1830, 892; fam- ine of, in England, 979 Council, see also Privy Council Council of the North, the President and, court of, 328, 378, 406; abolished, 480 Council of Wales and the Marches, the, 406 Council for Trade, the, 591 Councilors, election of town, under Act of 1835, 925 Councils, county, 1022 ; dis- trict and parish, 1024 Count of Britain, the, 20 Count of the Saxon Shore, the, 20 Counterfeiting, death pen- alty for, removed, 904 Counter-Reformation, the, 379 Counties, unfair represen- tations of, before first Reform Bill, 909 Country gentry, the, in the seven teenttt century, 595 Country party, the, 554 County, franchise in, be- fore first Reform Bill, 912; franchise in, under Reform Bill of 1867, 987; see Shire County Councils, 407, 1022 County Courts, 1022 Courtenay (court'ny), Wil- liam, Bishop of London, 208 Courtenay, Edward, 360 Courts, of Appeal, the, a division of the Supreme Court of Judicature, 999 ; baron, 87 ; of Common Law, the, 168; custom- ary, 88; constitution of a new, for divorces, 974; leet, 87; Pie Powder, 163 Covenanters, the, 506, 512, 513; rising of the (1679), 573,574; their opposition to William III, 627 Covenants, in Scotland, 367, 368; the Scottish Na- tional, 469, 471; the Solemn League and, 493 ; Englishmen ordered to take the, 494 ; the Ulster, 1087 Coverdale, Miles, 330 Cowper (coo'per), William, poetry of, 896 Crabbe, George, poetry of, 896 Craft gilds, 130 Craftsman, the, 698 Craggs, James, 688 Craigavon, 1087 Cranborae, Viscount, see Cecil, Robert Cranfield, Lionel, Earl of Middlesex, 447 Cranmer, Thomas, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, enters the service of Henry VIII, 314; made archbishop, 317; gives sentence of divorce, 318; views on monasteries, 323, 327; his first Prayer Book, 345, 350; his second, 354; his Forty- two Articles, 355 ; accepts Lady Jane Grey as suc- cessor of Edward VI, 355; execution of, 364; attitude toward the Bible, 452 Crawford, Earl of, 481 Crecy (cray'see or cres'sy), battle of, 195. 196, 218 Creeds, the three, 325 Crete, 1029, 1083 Crewe, Chief Justice, dis- missed by Charles I, 455 Crewe, Lord, 1079 Crime, in England in the eighteenth century, 805, 806, 903 ; in the nine- teenth century, 1058 Crimean War, the, causes of, 959 and note, 960; England dragged into, IIIO INDEX 960-961 ; opening of the conflict, 961 ; opening of siege of Sebastopol, 961 ; suffering during the, 962, 963 ; end of the, 963- 965, and notes; checks designs of Russia on Turkey, 965 ; Americans in British army in the, 966 ; the navy in, 1054 Criminal Appeal, the Court of, 1077 Criminal Code, the reform of, in early eighteenth century, 903-904 ; Ben- tham's influence on re- form of, 906 Criminous clerks, 109, no Cromer, Lord, see Baring, Evelyn Crompton, Samuel, Eng- lish inventor, 785 Cromwell, Oliver, 343 ; early parliamentary career of, 476; considers migration to America, 483 ; his " Ironsides " and New Model, 489, 490, 492, 495- 497 ; views on the first par- liamentary recruits, ib. ; leader of the anti-Presby- terian party, 494; at Marston Moor, 495 ; views of, on toleration, 496 ; urges conciliation between Parliament and the army, 502 ; his slow change of view, 503, 504 ; crushes the Second Civil War, 505, 506 ; assumes the lead in abolishing monarchy, 506-508 ; ef- forts to preserve order, 510; conquest of Ire- land, 510, 511; of Scot- land, 512, 513; dissolves the Rump, 515; made Lord Protector, 517; his aim, 518; his religious policy, ib. ; his foreign policy, 519; makes peace with the Dutch, ib. ; his war with Spain, 520; his alliance with France, 520, 521 ; his difficulties with his parliaments, 521- 523; his death, 523, 524; final estimate of, 524, 525 ; his body dishonored, 533 ; his attitude toward France, 540; regret for, 543, 544; contributes to agricultural progress, 592 ; as a patron of art and music, 6n; fear of his army, 642 ; Carlyle's vin- dication of, 1044 Cromwell, Richard, 525, 526 Cromwell, Thomas, early career of and entrance into the service of Henry VIII, 314, 315; his use of Parliament, 315 ; advises a Lutheran alliance, 321 ; undertakes dissolution of the monas- teries, 322-324, 326; his innovations, 327; his in- junctions, 327, 330; fall and death of, 332; his packing of Parliament, 338, 339 "Cromwellian Settlement," the, 511 Cronje, General, 1033, 1034 Cronstadt, British and French fail to capture, 961 Crosby, Lord Mayor, 762 Cross, Assheton, 1002 Crown, the, powers of the East India Company transferred to, 973-974 Crown lands, 404, 533 Crown pleas, 123, 144 Crown Point, 731 Crown revenues, see Rev- enues Cruelty to Animals, Royal Society for Prevention of, 903 Cruelty to animals, British laws against, ib. Crusades, the first, 93 ; third, 120, 121, 122; influence of, 157 Crystal Palace, the, 955 Culloden, the battle of, 713 Cumberland, see Ernest Au- gustus and William Augustus Cumbria, 170 Cumbrian Mountains, 2 Cunobelinus, 18 Curia Regis, the, 86, 97, 117 Customs Bill, the, passage of, 946 Customs duties, origin of, 211, 212; Pitt's reforms of, 815, 816, 817 Cynewulf, 71 Cyprus, 1006 D Dacre, Scottish homages at 47 Daguerre, 1052 Dalhousie (dalhSw'zie), Earl of, aggressive policy in India of, 968-969 Dalrymple (dalrim'ple), John, Master of Stair, 629 Dalrymple, John, second Earl of Stair, 707 Dal ton, John, atomic theory of, 895 Dampier (dam'per), Wil- liam, 789, 1065 Danby, Earl of, see Osborne, Sir Thomas Danegeld, 52, 55, 81, 118 Danelagh, 43 Danes, see Northmen Danes, in Ireland, 112 Dante, 157, 225 Danubian Principalities, the, 960, 961, 964 Darby, Abram, 786 D'Arc, see Jeanne Dardanelles, the Peace of, Paris neutralizes, 964 Dare, Virginia, 412 Darien Company, the, 660, 661 Darlington, Countess of, see Kielmannsegge, Coun- tess von Darnel's case, 456 Darnley, Earl of, see Stew- art, Henry Darvell Gadarn, 329 Darwin, Charles, 1049, 1051 Darwin, Erasmus, 1051 Dashwood, Sir Francis, 907 Dauphin, the, later Charles VII, King of France, 250, 251, 252, 2S4. 256 David I, King of Scotland, 100, 101 David, Welsh prince, 169 Davis, Jefferson, 977 Davis, John, 411 Davis, Thomas, 944 Davison, Secretary, 393, 394 INDEX mi Davy, Sir Humphry, 895, 1055 Death duties, 1027 Debasement of the coinage, 340, 341 ; suggested, 472 Debates, struggle over re- porting, 761, 762 Debt, see National Debt Deccan, the, 721 Deceased wife's sister, mar- riage with a, legalized, 1077 Declarations, of Breda, the, see Breda ; the, concerning religion of Charles I, 459, 460; of Charles II of 1662, 537 ; the, of Charles II, concerning religion, 534, 535; of Independence, the, 768 ; of Indulgence, the, of Charles II, 551 ; the, of Monmouth, 569; of In- dulgence, the first, of James II, 575, 576; the second, 578, 579; of James II, 630, 631 ; of Paris, the terms of, 964- 965; of the Rights of Man, 824; of Sports, the, 463, 464; of William of Orange, 581, 582 Decorative Art, in the Vic- torian Age, 1056, 1057 Decretum, the, 116 De donis conditionalibus, 179 Defender of the Faith, origin of the title, 295 "Defenders," the, in Ire- land, 839, 840 Defenestration of Prague, the, 442 Defense Committee, the, 1073, 1074 Defense, Imperial, 1081 Defense of the Seven Sacra- ments, Henry VIII's, 295 Defoe, Daniel, 647, 799 De Grasse, Admiral, 775, 778 De Guichen, Admiral, 775 De h&retico comburendo, the Statute, 247, 326, 529 Deirans, 30 Deists, the English, 793 Delcasse', M., 1075, 1076 Delegates, High Court of, 318, 402 Delhi, 720; in the Indian Mutiny, 967, 970-973 ; made capital of India, 1080 Delinquency, 500 Demise of the Crown Bill, 1072 Democracy, awakening of, in England, 984-985 ; its effect on literature, 1042 ; Carlyle's denun- ciation of, 1044 Democratic Federation, the, 1063 De Moleyns (dem'moleens), 1055 Demouriez, French com- mander, 829 Denain, the battle of, 670 Denmark, joins armed neu- trality of 1800, 846, 847; Great Britain seizes fleet of, 852 ; Schleswig-Hol- stein and, 980-981 Deorham, battle of, 29 Depositions, of Edward II, 186; of Richard II, 240; of Henry VIII, papal bull for, 318 De Quincey.Thomas, writing of, 899, 900 Derby (dar'by), Earls of, see Stanley, Edward George and Edward Henry Derby, the races, 602 "Derbyshire Insurrection," the, 870 De Religiosis, the Statute, see Mortmain Desborough, John, 526 Desmond, Earl of, 386 Despensers, the, 184, 185, 1 86 D'Estaing, Admiral, 772 Dettingen, the battle of, 696, 707, 708 Devereux (dev'erroo'), Robert, second Earl of Essex, 370, 397, 398 Devereux, Robert, third Earl of Essex, 440, 476, 477-479, 484, 486, 490- 492, 495, 496 Devolution, 1026 Devolution, the War of, 549 Devon, revolt in, 351 Devonshire, Dukes of, see Cavendish, William, and Compton, Spencer De Wett, General, 1033, 1034, 1035 De Witt, John, Grand Pensionary of Holland, 552 Dialogue of the Exchequer, 127 Diarmait, King of Leinster, 112 Diaz, Bartholomew, 411 Diaz, Porfirio, 1085 Dickens, Charles, 938, 1047 Dickinson, John, 757 Diebitsch, Russian com- mander, in Balkans, 887 "Die-Hards," the, 1080 Differential duty, 940 Diggers, the, 504 Dilettanti Society, the, 803 Diocletian, reorganizer of Roman Empire, 20 Directory, the, established in France, 835 Disarming Act, the, 715 Discovery, under the Tudors, 409-411 Disestablishment, the, of the Irish Church, 991, 993, 994; of the Welsh Church, 1086, 1088 . Dispensing, royal preroga- tive of, abolished, 586 Dissent, after the Clarendon Code, 539 Dissenters, the Protestant, 528; efforts of James II to win over, 575, 576; the High Churchmen ap- proach, 576; gain legal toleration, 621; repeal of Test and Corporations Acts favor, 880; meas- ures on behalf of, 924, 925 ; status of, at Victoria's accession, 927 Dissolution of the monas- teries, 322-324, 328-330; effect of, on the poor, 342 Disraeli (dizray'ly) Benja- min, supports protection in Commons, 942 ; leads revolt of Conservatives against Corn Law repeal, 945946 ; unites Irish and Radicals to defeat Coer- cion Bill for Ireland, 946 ; Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, 957-958; com- ment of, on Aberdeen's III2 INDEX Coalition Ministry, 958; positions and prospects of, in 1865, 083 ; bill of, to extend franchise in 1859, g84; passes Reform Bill of 1867, 986-087 ; comment of, on Napier's Abyssinian expedition, 988 ; foreshadows idea of ' British Imperialism, in speech, 988; first Ministry of, 989990 ; characterization of, 989, 990 ; comparison between Gladstone and, 990-991 ; resignation of, in 1868, 991 ; delight of, at fail- ure of Land Act of 1870, 995 ; exploits Imperial- ism during Gladstone's first Ministry, 998-999 ; criticism of Gladstone's first Ministry by, 999 ; his second Ministry, 1001- 1008; policy of, 1001, 1002 ; his purchase of the Suez Canal shares, 1002 ; makes Victoria Empress of India, 1003 ; created Earl of Beacons- field, 1003 ; his policy in the Russo-Turkish War;^ 1003-1006 ; at the Con- gress of Berlin, 1005, 1006; his Afghan War, 1006, 1007 ; his resigna- tion, 1008; as a novelist, 1046 Distraint of knighthood, 461 District Councils, 1024 Divine Right of Kings, the, views of James I on, 429, 430; asserted by Con- vocation, 47 2 ; not be- lieved in by Charles II, 531 ; blow at, 587 ; de- cline of belief in, under the Hanoverians, 693 Divorce of Henry VIII and Catharine, 301, 302, 308- 311, 315, 316, 318 Divorce, the law of, 719; the Bill of, 1857, 974; the Court of, in 1873, 999 Dock strike, the, 1085 Dockwray, William, 602 Dogger Bank incident, the, 1076 Dolichocephalic skulls, 13 Domesday Survey and Book, 81, 82 Domestic system, the, 287, 288 Dominican friars, 157159 Dominion of Canada, the, 932 and note Dominion of New Zealand, the, 1068 Domremy, 255 Don Carlos, Spanish Pre- tender, 889 Don Pacifico Case, the, 955, 956 Donne, John, 607 Donum, 118 Dorislaus, murder of, 514 Dorset, Marquis of, invades Guyenne, 295, 344 Dort, Synod of, 452 Dost Muhammad, 968 Douay, college at, 387 Douglas, Archibald, Earl of Angus, 333 Dover, the secret Treaty of, 549, 550, 557 Dover, the sham Treaty of, 550 Dowlah, Suraja, 734, 735 Down, 1087 Downing, Sir George, 545 Downing Street, 545 Drake, Sir Francis, 391 394, 397, 4U Drama, the English, be- ginnings of, 224; the Elizabethan, 422-425 ; the Jacobean, Carolian, and Restoration, 610, 611 ; in age of Anne and the Georges, 802-803 ; in the Victorian Age, 1046 Drapier Letters, the, 691, 798 Dresden, battle of, 859; the Peace of, 710 Dress, in the Elizabethan period, 416; in the Res- toration period, 602 ; ex- travagance of, in eight- eenth-century England, 806 ; in early nineteenth century, 901-902 Dreux, battle of, 379 Drinking, in the fourteenth century, 217; excessive, in early nineteenth cen- tury, 902 Drogheda, massacre of, 511 Druidism, 15 ; suppression of, 18, 19 Drumclog, battle of, 574 Drummond, Under-Secre- tary in Ireland, 933 " Drunken Administration," the, of Cartaret, 706 Dryden, John, 601 ; his career and chief works, 609611 Dubois, Cardinal, 682, 691 Dudley, Dud, 589 Dudley, Edmund, 280, 699 Dudley, Guildford, 355, 360, 361 Dudley, John, successively Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, 351 ; assumes control of the Council, 353 ; Prot- estant zeal of, 353 ; makes himself Duke of Northumberland, 354 ; his plot, 355 ; its failure and his execution, 358 Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 353, 370, 375, 39i, 397, 398, 415 Dueling, 600, 902 Dufferin, Lord, 1014 Duffy, Charles Gavan, 944 Duke of Britain, the, 20 Dumouriez, treason of, 832 D unbar, the battle of, 512, Si3 Duncan, Admiral, mutiny in fleet of, 837, 838 Dundas', Admiral, 961 Dundee', Viscount, see Gra- ham, John Dunkirk, acquired by Crom- well, 520; sold to France, 540, 544 ; to be razed, 670 Dunning attacks power of George III, 773 Dunstan, St., early life and character, 48; Abbot of Glastonbury, share in monastic and educational reform, adviser of Edred, banishment under Edwig, 49 ; recall by Edgar, 49, 50; made Archbishop of Canterbury, decline of in- fluence under .flLthelred, 51 Dunraven, Lord, 1074 Dunwich, borough of, 910 Dupleix, 721 Duquesne, Fort, 722 INDEX 1113 Duquesne, Marquis, Gover- nor of Canada, 722 Durham, Bishop of, Rus- sell's letter to the, 953 Durham, palatinate of, 79 Durham, Lord, influenced by Bentham, 907 ; in Grey's Ministry, 909 ; presides over committee to draft Reform Bill, 915; mis- sion of, to Canada, 931, 932; the "Report" of, 932, 1065 Dutch, the, as trade rivals of the English, 410, 591 ; the carrying trade of, in the reign of Charles I, 466 ; send auxiliaries in 1715 and 1745, 711, 712; French violate treaty rights of, 829 Dutch Wars, the first, 514, 519; the second, 540- 543 ; the third, 552, 553 Duties, Gladstone's reduc- tion of, 959; Gladstone raises, to fight Russia, 961 ; Gladstone repeals, on paper, 977 Dynamiters, the Fenian, 1012 , Dynamo, the, 1052, 1055 Dykevelt, his mission to England, 577, 578 Eadgar the ^Etheling, 58, 76, 77, 78 Ealdhelm, St. Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, 37 Ealdorman, the, 44, 50, 51, 67 ; see also Earl Earls, Anglo-Saxon, 69 ; power of, broken by Wil- liam I, 78; rising of the Norman, ib. East Africa Company, the British, 1029 East Anglian Hills, 4 Eastern Association, the army of the, 489 East Florida, 781 East India Company, the Dutch, 411 ; the English, founding of the, 411, 413 ; purchase of pepper from, 472 ; the new General Society, 636; its union with the old company, ib. ; growth of, 720, 721 ; North's attempt to assist, 764 ; organization of, 809 ; Parliament investigates, 809,811; North's Regu- lating act, 809, 810 ; Pitt's Bill to regulate, 815; charter of, renewed, 918; monopoly of China trade held by, 948; ex- tends control in India, 966, et seq. ; monopoly for trading removed, 967 ; powers of, transferred to the Crown, 973-974 ; the French, 720, 736 East Indian laborers, in South Africa, 1081 Eastland Company, the, 413 East Saxons, the, conquest of London by, 29 Ecclesiastical Commission, the, corrects abuses in Church of England, 925 Ecclesiastical Commission, the court of, 572, 577, 582-586 Ecclesiastical jurisdiction under William I and Stephen, 109; under Henry II, 100-112; in the Tudor period, 402 Ecclesiastical Polity, Hook- er's, 390, 420 Ecclesiastical Reservations, the, 442 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the, 954, 985 Economic theory, in the seventeenth century, 605 ; in the eighteenth century, 795. 796; in the early nineteenth century, 895, 896; in the Victorian period, 1049 Edgar, the Peaceful, Anglo- Saxon King, 49 ; the "nigh- water mark of royal supremacy in the Anglo- Saxon period, 49, 50 Edgehill, battle of, 489, 490 Edgeworth, Maria, 899 Edict of Nantes, the, 397 ; revoked, 570 Edinburgh, 54 ; represen- tation in Parliament be- fore first Reform Bill, 912; the treaty of, 374 "Edinburgh Letter," the, 945 Edinburgh Review, the, 900, 908, 1043 Edmund, Anglo-Saxon King, 48 Edmund Ironside, Anglo- Saxon King, 53 Edmund (Crouchback), younger son of Henry VII, 152, 156, 171, 174 Edmund, Earl of Kent, 189 Edmund of Lancaster, 240 Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury, 150, 151 Edred, Anglo-Saxon King, 48 Education, in the fifteenth century, 291 ; under Henry VIII, 344; foun- dations of Edward VI, for, 356; in the seven- teenth century, 594; re- form of, in 1870, 995-996 and notes Education Bill, the, of 1870, 996; of 1902, 1074; of 1906, 1077 ; of 1908, ib. Edward the Elder, 46; his reconquest of the Dane- lagh, 47 ; relations with the Scots, ib. Edward "The Martyr," 51 Edward the Confessor, King of the Anglo-Saxons, his holiness, his fondness for Normans, 55 ; declares William of Normandy his heir, reaction against his Norman favorites, 57; his death, 58 Edward I, King of England, as Prince, 133 ; allied with Simon de Montfort, 154; joins the King, ib. ; hostage after Lewes and escape, 155 ; victory at Evesham, ib. ; lessons learned from de Mont- fort, 156; goes on Cru- sade, ib., 158; accession and character, 166, 167 ; military policy, 167 ; as a lawgiver and adminis- trative organizer, 167, 1 68; conquest of Wales, 168169; wars with Scot- land and France, 169-172 ; summons Model Parlia- INDEX ment, 173, 174; conflicts with his subjects, 174, 175; expedition against Flanders, 175; confirms the Charters, 175, 176; peace with France, 176, 177 ; last campaign against Scotland, 177 ; his quo warranio inquiries and statutes, 178-181 ; expulsion of the Jews, 170, 1 80; significance of reign of, 181 ; trade regulations of, 211, 212; asserts sovereignty of the seas, 213 Edward II, King of England, appointed Regent, 175; accession and character, 181, 182 ; conflicts with the barons, 182-185; in- vasion of Scotland and repulse at Bannockburn, 184; culmination of mis- rule, 185 ; overthrow and imprisonment, 185, 186; deposition and death, 186, 187 Edward III, King of Eng- land, proclaimed guar- dian of the realm, 186; chosen King, ib. ; years of minority, 189; marries Philippa of Hainault, ib. ; assumes the government, 189, 190; his character, 190; sends expedition against Scotland, 190, 191 ; assumes title of King of France, 191 ; alliances abroad, 192 ; expeditions against Flan- ders and France at the opening of the Hundred Years' War, 192, 193 ; concessions to Parliament, 193, 194; truce with France, 194; victor at Crecy, 195, 196; besieges and captures Calais, 197; ceases to take active part in the war, ib. ; troubles with subjects, 198, 203; makes Black Prince ruler of Gascony, 204; declin- ing capacity of, 205 ; his death, 208, 209 ; secures sovereignty of the seas, 213 Edward, Earl of March, later Duke of York and King of England, 242, 261 ; exile and return, 261, 262 ; defeat at St. Albans, 263 ; but occupies London and declared King, 264; see Edward IV Edward IV, victory at Towton, 265 ; character of, 265, 266 ; marries Elizabeth Woodville, 266 ; estrangement from War- wick, 266, 267 ; taken prisoner, 267 ; driven out of England, 268; returns and gains victories at Tewkesbury and Barnet, 268, 269 ; ruthlessness and exactions, 269, 270; expedition to France and treaty of Pecquiny, 270; execution of Clarence, 270, 271 ; last years of, 271, 272; his death, 272; moneys promised to, 282 Edward V, 272, 273 Edward, Prince, son of Henry VIII, birth of, 331 ; proposed marriage of, to Mary, Queen of Scots, 334, 344; see Edward VI Edward VI, situation at accession of, 348; death and character of, 355, 356 Edward VII, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Em- peror of India, accession and character of, 1071, 1072 ; coronation of, 1072 ; as an advocate of peace, 1075 ; appoints Mr. Asquith Prime Minister, 1077 ; his death, 1080 Edward, the Black Prince, his birth, 189; at Cr6cy, 195, 196; victory of, at Poitiers, 202, 203 ; ruler of Guyenne, 204; in- volved in war with Spain, ib. ; loses ground in France, 205, 206 ; leads opposition against the court party, 206 ; his death, 207 ; his use of cannon, 218 Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI, 260, 267- 269 Edward, Earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward IV, 279, 280 Edwig, Anglo-Saxon King, 49 Edwin, Northumbrian King, supremacy and overthrow, / 34 Edwine, Earl of Mercia, 58, 59, 76, 77 Egbert, establishes the West Saxon supremacy, 41 Egmont, Count, 381 Egypt, Napoleon's expedi- tion to, 618; Napoleon's campaign in, 844, 845 ; French forces abandon, 847 ; provision for, in treaty of Amiens, 848; Anglo-French dual con- trol in, 1002, 1003, 1013, 1014; revolution in, and the beginning of the British occupation, 1013- 1016; the transformation of, 1016; government of, 1064; the English in, 1075 ; see Suez Canal Eighteenth century, leading characteristics of, 614 Eikon Basilike, the, 507 Ejectors, the, 518 Elba, Napoleon at, 859; Napoleon escapes from, 862 Eldon, Lord Chancellor, 868, 878, 881 El Dorado, 412 Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of Henry II, 103, 113, 135 Eleanor of Provence, Queen of Henry III, 150, 173, 181 Eleanor of Castile, Queen of Edward I, 166 Elections, Grenville Act to settle disputed, 761 ; the Clare, 881 ; bribery in, before first Reform Bill, 911-912 and notes Elective ministers, baronial demand for, 151 Electoral Hesse, Prussia in- corporates, 988 Elector of Bavaria, the, see Max Emanuel Electrical inventions and appliances, 1054, 1055 Electricity, 1052 INDEX Elgar, Sir Edward, 1057 Elgin, Lord, and army re- form, 1173 Elgin sculptures, the, 1050 Eliot, Sir John, 437, 454, 455 ; his Resolutions, 459 ; his imprisonment and death, 460; his political views, 466 Eliot, George, see Evans, Mary Ann Eliott, General, defends Gib- raltar against Spain, 772 Elizabeth, Princess, later Queen of England, birth of, 318; declared illegiti- mate, 325; later placed in the line of succession, 355 ; Thomas Seymour aims to marry, 352 ; charged with complicity in Wyatt's Re- bellion, 360, 361 ; acces- sion and character, 369, 370; her courtships, 370; her favorites and coun- cilors, 370, 371 ; her problems and policy, 371, 372 ; makes peace with France, 372 ; her religious settlement, 372-374; her Scotch policy and rela- tions to Mary, Queen of Scots, 374-377 ; policy of, towards the Catholics, 378, 379; aid to the Huguenots, 378; bull of excommunication against, 382 ; Anjou marriage proj- ect, 384; Alencon mar- riage project, 386; plots against, 386-388 ; atti- tude of, toward the Protes- tant extremists, 389; in- tervention of, in the Netherlands, 300, 391 ; her support of the English seamen against Spain, 39 2 > 393 ; her part in the execution of Mary, 393, 394; her part in repuls- ing the Armada, 394- 397 ; final struggle with Philip II, 397, 398; de- clining years and death of, 398, 399 ; strength and weakness of her monarchy, 401 ; Poor Laws of, 415 ; progresses of, ib. Elizabeth of York, later Queen of Henry VII, 272 ; 274, 279, 283 Elizabeth, Princess (later Countess Palatine), 432, 437 Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, 684-686 Elizabethan settlement, the, 372 Ellenborough (el'lenboro), Lord, Chief Justice, 851 Ellenborough, Lord, Gover- nor-General of India, 968 ; his India Bill, 973, 974 Elphinstone, General, 968 Ely, the monks of, 55, 77, 131 Elyot, Sir Thomas, 344, 345 Embargo, the American, of 1807, 860 Emigration, 1064, 1065 Emma, Queen of JEthelrtd, and, later, of Cnut, 53 Emmet, Robert, 844 Empire, Holy Roman, the, end of, 851 ; Colonial, British, aspirations for, in early nineteenth cen- tury, 928 ; the League of the, 1069 ; see British Em- pire Empire Day, 1073 Employer's Liability Act, the, 1009 Empson, Sir Richard, 280, 699 Enclosures, beginning of, 216; laws against, in the fifteenth century, 284 ; aided by the Reformation, 329; Henry VIII tries to check, 341 ; Somerset op- poses, 350; legalized, 353 ; laws against, under Eliza- beth, 409; in the seven- teenth century, 591, 593 ; in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centu- ries, 789-791, 894 Encumbered Estates Act, the, 951, 994 Encyclopedists, the, 604, 823 Engagement, the, 505 Engagers, the, 513 England, area of, i ; pro- ductiveness of, 7 ; origin of the name, 29;^ under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 84-90 ; at the close of the twelfth century, 84-92 ; laid under an interdict, 137 ; invaded by Louis of France, 145 ; expulsion of French from 147, 148; conditions in, in the thir- teenth century, 157-165; magnificence ' of, after Cr^cy, 197-198; causes for popular discontent in, 198 ; Black Death in, 198; turning of the tide against, in the Hundred Years' War, 204-206; increasing discontent in, 206 ; life in, under the first three Ed- wards, 210-229; popula- tion of, in the fourteenth century, 216; becomes a national state, 228, 229; condition of, in the fif- teenth century, 283-291 ; population of, in the fif- teenth century, 286, 287 ; condition of, under Henry VIII, 338-346 ; popula- tion of, under Henry VII and Henry VIII, 341 ; development of sea power of, 391-393 ; condition of, under Elizabeth, 401-425 ; conditions of, in the seventeenth century, 588- 612 ; population of, during the Restoration, 596 ; ex- pansion of, in the eight- eenth century, 617-619; material character of, under the first two Georges, 694 ; revival of sea power of, 1782, 778; conditions in, in the eight- eenth century, 783-806 ; commercial union of, with France, 817; effects of French Revolution on, 822, 823 ; favorable con- ditions in, as compared with France at end of eighteenth century, 823, 824; reception of French Revolution in, 824, 825 ; debt of, at end of Napo- leonic wars, 831 ; suffer- ing in, in 1795, 834, 835; descent on, from France, in 1797, fails, 836; criti- cal condition of, in 1796- 1797, 835, 836; suffering ui6 INDEX in 1799 in, 846; Napo- leon's proposed invasion of, 850; industrial dis- turbances in, in 1811- 1812, 856; conditions in, 1815-1830, 867, 868; at the eve of the Reform Bill, 892-904 ; financial crisis of 1825 in, 877 ; effect of July Revolution in, 890; social effects of French Revolution in, 901-902 ; conditions in, at Victoria's accession, 927 ; discon- tent of working classes of, in Victoria's early years, 937-941 ; threatened with financial crisis in 1836, 941 ; potato famine in, 944; relation of, to the Franco-Prussian War, looo ; local government in, 1022, 1024; popula- tion and wealth of, in the nineteenth century, 1058 ; condition of, in the Vic- torian Age, 1039-1065 English, language of law courts, 201 ; first used in court proceedings, 699 English Channel, shoalness of, 5 Englishry, presentment of, 81 Enniskillen, 624, 625, 1087 Entails, 179 Entente cordiale, the, 1074- 1076; the triple, 1075 Enumerated goods, 747 Episcopacy in Scotland, 435 Episcopal elections, 96, 122, 137, 139, I4 1 . 402; see also Bishops Epsom, 602 Erasmus, 304-306; as an educational reformer, 344 Erie, Lake, Perry's victory on, in 1813, 861 Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, gets Han- over upon accession of Victoria, 929 Erse language, 14 Erskine, John, Earl of Mar, 670-681 Escheats, 85 Eskimos, traces of, in Brit- ain, 12 Essays and Reviews, the, 1042 Essay on Man, Pope's, 801 Essay on Woman, the, 745, 746 Essay on Population, Mal- thus', 895-896 Essayists, British, of late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, 890-900 Essex, Earls of, see Devereux, Robert, and Capel, Arthur Estates General, French, meeting of, at Versailles, , 789, 824 Etaples, Peace of, 282 Ethandun, battle of, 43 Ethelfleda, the Lady of the Mercians, 46 Ethelwold, the "Father of the Monks," 49 Etheredge, Sir George, 610 Eugene, Prince, 653, 655, 656, 659, 663, 664, 665, 670 Eugenie, Empress, 1002 Euphuism, 419 Eustace, brother-in-law of Edward the Confessor, 56 ; son of Stephen, 104 Evangelicals, the, 1039, 1040, 1041 Evans, Mary Ann, 1047, 1048, 1049 Evelyn, John, 572 Evesham, battle of, 155 Evolution, the doctrine of, 1050, 1051 Ewart, Sir John, 1089 Exchequer, the, 98, 117, 127 Exchequer, the Stop of the, 550, 637 Exchequer bills, 832, 963 Exchequer Chamber, Court of, 406 ; decision of, in the Bate case, 434; decision of, in the Cavin case, 435 Exchequer Court, see Com- mon Law Courts Excise, Walpole's, 699, 700; Dr. Johnson's definition of the term, 699 Exclusion, bills against James, 560, 561 ; struggle, beginning of the, 555 ; of the Ulster counties proposed, 1087, 1089 Excommunication, of John, 137 ; of Henry VIII, 318 Exeter, Duke of, 252 Exeter, Marquis of, 332 Exhibition, the great indus- trial, of 1851, 954, 955 Ex-officio oath, 431 Exploration under the Tudors, 409-411 Exports, British, 6; under James I, 589 ; increase in British, in 1824, 876 Export duties, Peel abolishes, 942 Eye, the witch of, 257 Eyre, the, of 1194, 124 Eyre, John, suppresses insur- rection in Jamaica, 983 Fabian Society, the, 1063 Factory Act, the, of 1802, 920; of 1833, 918, 920, 921, 938; of 1843-1844, 942, 943 Factory Acts, the, since 1878, 1060 Factory System, Arkwright founder of, 785; use of steam in the development of, 788; results of, 788, 789 Faerie Queene, the, 422, 607 Fagel, Grand Pensionary, 577 Fairf ax.iThomas, commander of the parliamentary army, 490, 502, 506, 507, 512 Fairfax, Lady, 507 P'airs, 130, 131, 163, 806 Falaise, 113 Falkirk, battle of, 176 Falkland, Lord, 476, 603 Family Compact, the first, 703 ; the second, 708 ; the third, 742 Famine, the cotton, 979 Famines, in the thirteenth century, 165 ; in the fourteenth century, 220 "Fantastic School," the, of English poetry, 607 Faraday, Michael, 1052 Farquhar, George, 610, 611 "Farmer George," 739; see George III Faro banks, 902 Fashoda incident, the, 1015, 1016 Faulkes de Breaute', 148 Fawkes, Guy, 432 Federation, Imperial, 1069, INDEX 1117 1081 ; of the United King- doms, suggested, 1088, 1089 Felony, prisoners on trial for, to have counsel, 925 Felton, John, 458 Fen'ians, 991-993 ; con- trasted with the Home Rulers, 1010 Fens, the draining of the, 592 Fenwick (fen'ick), Sir John, 634, 635 Feorum fidtum, 68 Ferdinand of Aragon, 281, 282, 295, 296, 298, 299 Ferdinand VI, King of Spain, 684, 716 Ferdinand VII of Spain, 853, 884, 889 Ferdinand II, German Em- peror, 442 Ferdinand, Austrian Em- peror, abdication of, 952 Ferdinand of Brunswick, Prince, 730, 733, 736 Ferdinand of Naples, 884 Ferguson, Robert (the "Plotter"), 568 Feud, the, 65 Feudal dues, 404 Feudal grievances under John, 140 Feudal incidents, 91, 433 Feudal system, the, abol- ished, 533 Feudalism, elements of, in Anglo-Saxon times, 84 ; Anglo-Norman, ib. ; inci- dents and other obliga- tions, 85 Field, Cyrus, 1054 Field deputies, the Dutch, 054, 057, 663, 664, 667 Field of Cloth of Gold, the, 299 Fielding, Henry, 799-800 Fifth monarchy men, 501 ; rising of, 535 Filmer, Sir Robert, 604, 605 Finch, Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, 583, 620, 621, 641, 668, 669, 676 Finch, John, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 467, 468 Fining of Juries, abolished, 529 Finnsburg, Battle of, 71 Firearms, 263 Fire of London, the, 543 Fir ma burghi, 129 First fruits, see Annates First Fruits, Court of, 406 Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, 319, 321 Fishguard Bay, French ex- pedition lands at, 835 Fitch, Ralph, 410, 411 Fitzgerald, Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, 281, 335 ; Gerald, ninth earl, ib. Fitzgerald, William Judkin, 841 Fitzgerald, Vesey, 881 Fitzgibbon, John, Earl of Clare, Irish Lord Chancel- lor, 838, 842 Fitzherbert, Mrs., 820, 821, 872 Fitzmorris, James, 386 Fitzwilliam, Lord, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 839, 840 Five Articles of Perth, the, 467, 470 Five Boroughs, the Danish, 46 Five knights' case, the, 456 Five Mile Act, the, 538, 539 Flagellants, Brotherhood of the, 199 Flambard, see Ranulf Flanders, expedition of Ed- ward I against, 175; a factor in the Hundred Years' War, 192 ; inva- sion of, 192, 193 ; crusade against, 235 ; invaded by Henry VIII, 1513, 296 Fleet marriages, the, 719 Fleet wood, General, 526 Flemish weavers, migrations of, 214 Fleury, Cardinal, Bishop of Fr6jus, 692, 703, 708 Fleurus, battle of, 625 Flodden, battle of, 296 Flogging, illegal for women, 903 Flood, Henry, 777 Florida Treaty, the, of 1819, 949 Florio, John, 418 "Flying Coach," the, 593 Flying shuttle, the, invention of, 785 Folk, the, see Tribe Folkmoot, the, 66 Fontainebleau, Treaty of, 708 Fontenoy, the battle of, 709 Food, English, in the four- teenth century, 217; in the fifteenth century, 284 ; in the Restoration period, 602 Forbes, Brigadier, 729 Forced loans, see Loans Foreign Enlistment Act, the, 1001 Foreign policy, British, char- acter of, at Victoria's accession, 927-928 Forest fines, declared illegal, 480 Forest, Friar, 329 Forests, under Cnut, William I, 81 ; under Henry II, 118; under John, 138; concessions regarding, in MagnaCarta, 144 ; charter of, 148, 154, 176; en- croachments on the, by Charles I, 461 Forfeiture, 85 Forgery, death penalty re- sumed for certain classes of, 004 Forster, Thomas, 680, 68 1 Forster, W. E., 995, 996 Fortescue, Sir John, 200 "Forwards," the, 1080 Foucault and Staite, 1055 Fountains Abbey, 99 Four Days' Battle, the, 542 Fox, Charles James, 529, 776 ; character of, 779 ; attitude of, towards the Americans after the Revo- lution, 780 ; joins North in attack on Shelbume, 808; Secretary of State, ib. ; India Bill of, 811, 812; attack on Pitt, 812, 813 ; breach between, and Prince of Wales, 820, 821; Pitt thwarts, on Regency question, 821, 822 ; attitude towards French Revolution, 825 ; estrangement between Burke and, 825, 826; political breach between, and Grenville, healed, 850 ; made Foreign Secre- tary, 85 1 ; death of, 85 1 ; dress of, 901 ni8 INDEX Fox, George, 524 Fox, Henry (later Lord Holland, 719, 720, 723, 725, 730, 742, 779 Fox, Libel Act of, 762 Foxe, John, 420, 421 Foxe, Richard, Bishop of Winchester, 280 Fragment on Government, Bentham's, 906 France, war with Edward I, 169-172 ; peace with, 176 ; Edward assumes title of King of, 190; Hundred Years' War with, ib. ; causes, 191, 192; cam- paigns, 1338-1340, 192, 193; truce, 194; cam- paign of 1346, 194-196; siege and capture of Calais, 197 ; attempt to recover, 202 ; campaign of battle of Poitiers, 202, 203 ; sufferings and dis- order in, 203 ; Peace of Bretigny, ib. ; turning of the tide against England, 204-206 ; course of the war under Richard II, 2 35. 2 43 ! war reopened by Henry V, 248-250; three invasions of, by Henry V, 250-252 ; treaty of Troyes, 251; siege of Orleans and relief of, by Jeanne d'Arc, 255 ; Eng- land loses ground in, 257 ; end of Hundred Years' War, 260 ; treaty between Louis XI and Edward IV, 267 ; between Louis XI and Charles of Burgundy, ib. ; Edward's expedition to, 270; relations with Henry VII, 280, 281; alliance with Henry VIII, 296 ; meeting of Francis I of, with Henry VIII, 299, 300; invasion of, by Surrey, 300 ; expedition of Suffolk against, 300; Henry VIII signs a truce with, 301 ; renewal of war with Henry VIII, 334 ; relations with, under Somerset, 352; War- wick's treaty with, 353 ; war with, under Mary, recovers Calais, 364, 365; Elizabeth makes peace with, 372 ; marriage treaty with, 447 ; war with, under Charles I, 455 ; Peace of Susa with, 460; refuses to aid Charles I, 488; Crom- well's alliance with, 520, 521 ; Charles II's alliance with, 536 ; he draws closer to, 540; treaty of Dover with, 549-550; relations of James II with, 5 70, 5 7 1 ; influence of, on the Res- toration drama, 610; sig- nificance of the wars with, in the eighteenth century, 618; alliance of William III against, 629, 630; King William's W r ar with, 629-636 passim; Peace of Ryswick with, 636; see Spanish Succession, War of the; Peace of Utrecht with, 670, 671 ; commercial treaty with, defeated, 672; see Triple Alliance, the, of 1716; becomes a principal in the War of the Austrian Suc- cession, 708 ; declares war on England, 709 ; see Aix-la-Chapelle, the Peace of (1748); see Seven Years' War, the; see Paris, the Peace of, 743 ; joins the United States against England, 770, 771 ; initiates the Armed Neutrality of 1778, 774 ; peace concluded with England, 1783, 781 ; commercial union of, with England, 817; Burke on intervention in revolu- tionary, 826; Triple Alli- ance of 1781 against, 826, 827 ; aggressive in Nether- lands, 828; Pitt's effort to avoid intervention in revolutionary, ib. ; for- eign intervention in rev- olutionary, 829 ; declares war on Great Britain, 1793. 830; prepares to invade Holland, ib. ; First Coalition against revolu- tionary, 832-834; Peace of Basel concluded with, 834; aims at ruin of England's trade, 835 ; Directory rejects English peace proposals in 1796, ib.; expedition to Ire- land from, 835, 836; failure of expedition to England from, in 1797, 836; conditions in, in 1796-1797, 837; end of war of First Coalition against, 837, 838; Wolfe Tone seeks aid for Ire- land from, 840; expedi- tions to Ireland from, in 1798, 841 ; war of Second Coalition against, 845- 846 ; Napoleon becomes First Consul of, 846 ; gains of, after LuneVille, 847 ; Louisiana receded to, ib. ; signs Peace of Amiens, 841 ; Great Brit- ain declares war on, March, 1803, 849, 850; war of Third Coalition against, 850, 851 ; na- tional risings against, in 1813, 850; American Non-intercourse Act against, 860; signs first Treaty of Paris, 861-862 ; boundaries of, as deter- mined at Vienna, 865 ; intervenes in Spain in 1820, 884-885; Revolu- tion of 1830 in, 889; attitude of, toward Bel- gian Revolution, 890 ; July Revolution in, stimulates parliamentary reform in England, 908 ; strained relations of, with England over Spanish marriages, 949; troops from, restore Pope in Revolution of 1848,951; nears war with England over Don Pacifico case, 955-956; in the Crimean War, 959-964 ; joins England against China in 1856, 966; antagonizes England by her attitude towards Or- sini's Conspiracy, 974- 975 ; assists in Italian uni- fication, 975-976; Napo- leon III proposes media- tion in American Civil INDEX nig War by Russia, England, and, 979; England es- tranged by Palmerston from, 988 ; in China, 1029; in South Africa, 1032 ; relations with, under Edward VII, 1072, 1074,1075; see Morocco; see Fashoda; see Entente cordiale France, Isle de, 721 Franchise, county, by law of 1430, 285 ; restricted, before first Reform Bill, 909; the borough and county, before first Re- form Bill, 910-912; in Scotland and Ireland be- fore first Reform Bill, 912 note, 913; under Reform Bill of 1832, 916 ; state of, in 1865-1866, 984 ; extension of, by Bill of 1867, 986-987; ex- tension of, by the Act of 1884; the, in the South African Republic, 1033 Franchise Bill of 1912, 1087, 1088 Francis I, King of France, 298, 299, 301, 317, 333, 351 Francis II, King of France, 374, 375 Francis, successively Duke of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Emperor of Germany, 700, 704, 708, 710 Francis II, becomes Emperor of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire ceases to exist, 851, and note Francis Joseph, Austrian Emperor, 952, 976 Francis, St., 157-159, 308 Francis, Sir Philip, 759 Franciscan friars, the, 131, 157-159 Franco-Austrian War, the, 975-976 Franco-Prussian War, the, IOOO, IOOI Franking, abuse of, 816, 936, 937 Franklin, Benjamin, 749, 752, 758, 763, 770, 780; his experiments with elec- tricity, 792 Franks, piratical invasions of, against Britain, 20 Fraser, Simon, Lord Lovat, 7i4 Frederick Barbarossa, Em- peror, no, 122 Frederick I, King of Prussia, 656 Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, 676 ; his character and aims, 704, 705, 707, 710; allies with England in the Seven Years' War, 724; see Silesian War, the third ; breaks with England, 743, 744; joins the Armed Neutrality of 1778, 774; Carlyle's History of, 1044 Frederick VII, King of Denmark, 980 Frederick, Prince of Wales, 697, 701, 709, 718, 739 Frederick V, Count Pala- tine^ 44 2, 443, 437 Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, 845, 881 Frederick of Augustenburg, 980 Frederick William II, 829 Frederick William III, 851, 852, 859 Free Church of Scotland, 1042 Freedom of speech, 586 Freeholders, the forty shil- ling, 285, 912, 916 Freeman, Edward Augustus, 1004 Freeman, Mrs., see Jennings, Sarah Free trade, agitation to secure centers at Man- chester, 940-941 ; Peel furthers growth of, 941, 942 ; Peel's conversion to, 944946 Free United Presbyterian Church, 1043 French, General, 1035, 1089 Frere, Sir Bartle, 1030, 1031 Friars, Franciscan, 131, 157- 159, 219; proceedings against, under Henry VIII, 319, 320; orders of, 328 Friends of the People, society of, organized to promote parliamentary re- form, 907, and note Friendly societies, 1060, 1061 Frith, John, 317 Fro'bisher, Martin, 411 Froissart, Jean, chronicler, 196, 223 Frost, John, 939 Fry, Elizabeth, 1059 Fulk the Good, of Anjou, 145 Fuller, Thomas, 603 Fulton, Robert, 893-894 Gadarn, Darvell, 329 Gaels, 14 Gage, General, 757, 768 Gainsborough, battle of, 492 Gainsborough, Thomas, '804 Gallicanism, 570 Galway, Earl of, see Ru- vigny, Henri de Galway, Queen's College established at, 944 Gama, Vasco da, 411 Gambling, in the seven- teenth century, 602 ; in the eighteenth century, 806 Game Laws, changes in, in early nineteenth century, 903 Games in the fourteenth cen- tury, 217, 218 Gaol Acts, 1059 Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, 348, 350, 353, 358, 359, 360, 362 Garibaldi, march of, 976 Garrick, David, 802 Garter, Order of the, 198 Gascony, troubles in, 149; Henry Ill's expeditions to, 149, 151 ; de Mont- fort in, 152; expeditions against, in the reign of Edward I, 171, 172, 174, I 75, !77; hearth tax in, 205 Gaskell, Mrs., 1048 Gaspee, affair of the, 763 Gates, General, 770, 775 Gatton, Borough of, 910 Gauden, Dr. John (later Bishop of Worcester), 507 Gaunt, Elizabeth, 569 Gaunt, see John II2O INDEX Gavelkind, 85 Gaveston, Piers, 182, 183 Gawayne and the Green Knight, 224 General Assembly, the, of the Church of Scot- land, 366, 428; the Veto Act of, 1042 General Staff, the, 1035 General Warrants, 744, 745 Geneva Award, the, 1001 Geoffrey of Anjou, 96, 103 Geoffrey, Count of Brittany, son of Henry II, 113, 114 Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, 121, 141 Geoffrey, Fitzpeter, 135, 140 Geoffrey de Mandeville, 103 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 8g Geoffrey of Monmouth, 127 George I, King of Great Britain, 437 ; ceases to attend Cabinet meetings, 617; proclaimed, 674; his peaceful reception in England, 676 ; character and policy of, 676, 677 ; difficulties of, abroad and at home, 677, 678; rising of 1715 against, 670-681 ; his journeys to Hanover, 681, 682 ; arranges the Triple Alliance and dis- misses Townshend, 682, 683 ; concludes the Quad- ruple Alliance, 684, 685 ; resentment against, 688 ; negotiates the Treaty of Hanover, or Herren- hausen, 692 ; his death, ib. material bases of his power, 693 George, Prince (later George II, King of Great Britain), 676; made Guardian of the Realm and Lieutenant, 682 ; re- lations with his father, 696 ; see George II George II, King of Great Britain, contributes to the growth of the Cabi- net, 617; as man and King, 696, 697 ; his quarrels with Frederick, 701 ; in the campaign of Dettingen, 707, 708 ; vainly seeks to support Cartaret against the Pel- hams, 708, 709; forced to admit Pitt, 716 ; makes a treaty with Frederick the Great, 724; makes Pitt Secretary of State, 725; dismisses Pitt, but obliged to recall him, 728; recalls the Duke of Cum- berland, 729; gives his confidence to Pitt, 734 ; death of, 737 ; robbed by thief, 806 George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, sig- nificance of his reign, 738 ; character and policy of, 739-74 1 ; breaks up the combination of Pitt and Newcastle and brings about a peace, 742-744; his opposition to Wilkes, 745 ; his support of the Grenville Programme, 746, 749, 750; foresees the gravity of the American crisis, 752; his mental illness, 753 ; his dismissal of Grenville, ib. his opposition to the Rocking- ham Ministry, 754-756; commissions Pitt to form a ministry, 756; attacked in the Junius Letters, 759 ; makes Lord North Prime Minister, 759; share of, in government under North's Ministry, 760, 761 ; Royal Marriage Act, 762 ; Acts of, to coerce Massachusetts, 764; at- titude of England to- wards, regarding Ameri- can Revolution, 766 ; thwarts development of re- sponsible government, 771, 772; his power attacked, 773 ; curbs Gordon rioters, 773, 774! threatens to retire to Hanover, 776, 808; ap- points Shelburne Prime Minister, 780; his posi- tion in 1783, 781 ; blocks Fox's India Bill in House of Lords, 811, 812; dis- misses Coalition Ministry, 812; breach between, and Prince of Wales, 820, 821 ; insanity of, 821 ; obstinacy of, regarding concessions to Irish Cath- olics, 843, 844; peace letter from Napoleon to, 846; blindness and in- sanity of, 856 ; death of, 871 ; bribery in elections reaches height under, 911, and note George, Prince of Wales and Regent, his unpromis- ing youth, 740 ; his friend- ship for Fox, 808 ; mis- conduct of, 820, 821 ; question of Regency of, 821, 822; becomes Re- gent, 856; his extrava- gance, 868; his carriage attacked, 869, 870; dress of, 901 ; see George IV George IV, King of Great Britain and Ireland, ac- cession of, 871872; sep- aration of, from Queen Caroline, 872873; op- poses Catholic Emanci- pation, 881-882 ; death of, 883 George V, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Emperor of India, birth of, 1072; assents to the creation of Peers, 1079; his accession and visits to various parts of his kingdom, 1080 George, Duke of Clarence, 265, 267, 268, 270, 271 George of Denmark, con- sort of Queen Anne, 583, 650, 653 George, King of Greece, 888 George, Prince, High Com- missioner of Crete, 1029 George, David Lloyd, his socialistic legislation, 1061 ; becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1077 ; his Budget, 1077, 1078; on the Parliament Bill conference, 1079 ; speech of, on the Morocco ques- tion, 1082 ; his Insurance Bill resisted, 1086 Georgia, Oglethorpe's colony in, 805 Georgiana, Duchess of Dev- onshire, 813 INDEX II2I Gerald de Barri, see Giraldus Cambrensis Geraldines, see Fitzgerald, 281 Germain, Lord George, Co- lonial Secretary, 769 ; see also Sackville German Confederation, the, and Schleswig-Holstein, 980-981 Germanic, the invasions of the Empire, 21; of Britain, 25 ff. "German Ministry," the, 683 German Unification, un- successful efforts towards, in 1848, 951-952 Germans, their ancient re- ligion, 26; political or- ganization, ib. ; ranks, personal characteristics, 28 ; causes of migration, ib. Germany, development of, causes England concern, 928; revolution of 1848 in, 951952; in China, 1029 ; concessions of, for Heligoland, 1032; rela- tions with, under Ed- ward VII, 1072, 1075 ; under George V, 1083 ; see Morocco Ghent, Treaty of, 86 1 Gibbon, Edward, comment of, on the Gordon Riots, 774 note; historical writ- ing of, 792-793 Gibraltar, capture of, 656; ceded to the British, 671 ; negotiations concerning, 691, 692; Spain attempts to recover, 772 ; Spanish siege of, raised, 778 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 411, 412 Gilbert and Sullivan, 1057 Gilds, origin and growth of, 130; in the thirteenth century, 164; in the fourteenth century, 215; festival of, 224; regula- tions of, 231 ; in the fifteenth century, 287 ; under Henry VIII, 341 ; decline of, 413 ; in the seventeenth century, 598 ; as ancestors of Friendly Societies, 1060. 1061 Gillray, James, caricatur- ist, 901 Gin, Act to check drinking of, in 1736, 804 Giraldus Cambrensis, 127, 128 Girton College, 1059 Gladstone (glad'ston), Wil- liam E., enters Parlia- ment from Newark, 910; in Peel's second Ministry, 941 ; in Coalition Minis- try, 950; early Budgets of, 959 ; financial policy of, to support Crimean War, 961, and note; ap- proves Cobden's com- mercial treaty with France, 976 ; in Palmer- ston's second Administra- tion, 976 ; in sympathy with South in American Civil War, 977 ; Liberal financial policy of, in 1860, 977; able adminis- tration of Exchequer by, during American Civil War crisis, 979 ; leader of House of Commons, 983 ; attitude toward compound householders, 986 ; speeches by, further reform in 1866, 986; Dis- raeli on policy of, toward Victoria, 990 ; charac- ter and policy of, 990- 991 ; first Ministry of, 991-999; first Ministry of, foreign affairs, 1000- 1001 ; temporarily with- draws from the Liberal leadership, 1002 ; de- nounces the Bulgarian atrocities, 1003, 1004; opposes Disraeli's Afghan policy, 1007 ; his Midlo- thian campaign, 1008, 1009 ; second Ministry of, 1009-1017; his Land Act of 1881, ion ; his Franchise Bill of 1884, 1885, 1012, 1013; his disastrous Egyptian policy and failure to relieve Gordon, 1013-1016; fall of his second Ministry, 1016,1017; adopts Home Rule, 1017; his third Ministry and the defeat of his first Home Rule Bill, 1018, 1019; re- pudiates Parnell, 1021; his Newcastle Programme, 1023 ; his fourth Minis- try and the defeat of his second Home Rule Bill, 1024; threatens the . Lords, 1026; his resig- nation, ib. ; death of, 1028 ; his disastrous South African policy, 1031 ; his High Churchmanship, 1041 Glamorgan, Earl of, 498 Glanville, Ranulf de, Jus- ticiar, 113, 121; Treatise ascribed to him, 126, 127 Glasgow, 8, 428; repre- sentation of, in Parlia- ment, before first Reform Bill, 912 Glastonbury, Abbey of, 22 Glencoe, the Massacre of , 629 Glendower, Owen, 243, 244, 245 Glenfinnan, 711 "Glorious Revolution," the, see Revolution of 1688 Gloucester, 22 Gloucester, the Duke of, son of Anne, 643 ; see also Thomas of Woodstock, Humphrey, and Richard Gloucester, Statute of, 178 Godfrey, Sir Edmund Bury, 557 Godolphin, Sidney, 583, 630, 632, 635, 660, 662; his character and policy, 654, 666 ; dismissed, 667 ; his death, 672 Godoy, Spanish Minister, signs treaty with Napo- leon to divide Portugal, 853 Godwin, William, 899 Godwine, Earl of Wessex, 54 ; exile of, 56 ; return and death, 57 Goidels, 14 Gold, discovery of, in the Transvaal, 1031, 1032; in California and Aus- tralia, 1056 ; in Australia, 1067 Golden Rose, the, 307 Goldsmith, Oliver, 800, 802 note; plays of, 803 1122 INDEX Gondomar, Count, 441, 443, 445, 446 Good Hope, Cape of, 411 Good Parliament, the, 206, 207, 615 Goodwin, Sir Francis, case of, 433 Gordon, General Charles ("Chinese Gordon"), in the Sudan, 1014, 1015 Gordon, George, see Byron, Lord Gordon, Lord George, fa- natic, anti-Catholicism of, 773, 774 Gordon Riots, the, 773, 774 Goree, 729, 743 Gorham case, the, 1042 Goshen, Lord, 1020 Gothic art, revival of, 1044, 1057 Government, British, grow- ing paternalism of, at Victoria's accession, 927 Gower, John, 225 Gowrie Conspiracy, the, 428 Grace, Act of, 623 Grafton, the Duke of, his Ministry, 756-760 Graham (gray'am), John, of Claverhouse, later Vis- count Dundee, 574, 628, 629 Graham, Sir James, 909; refuses place in Peel's Cabinet, 923 ; Home Secretary, 943 ; supports Peel's free trade views, 945 ; in Coalition Minis- try, 958 Grail, the Holy, 22 Grammar schools, under Henry VIII, 344! of Edward VI, 356 Gramont, Duke of, 707, 708 Grampian Hills, 8 Grand Alliance, the, 647 Grand Army, Napoleon's, veterans of, at Waterloo, 864 Grand National Consoli- dated Trade Union, the, 938 Grand Remonstrance, the, 482, 483 Grand Tour, the, 901 Granvella, Cardinal, minis- ter of Philip II, 381 Granville, Earl of, see Car- taret, John Granville, Lord, 1000, 1002, 1009, 1015, 1016 Gratian, 116 Grattan, Henry, 777, 829, 838, 840, 842 Gray, Thomas, 802 Gray's Elegy, 732, 802 Great Britain, rise of the sea power of, 619; name of, adopted at the union of England and Scotland, 662 ; territorial gains of, by the Peace of Utrecht, 670, 671 ; achievements of, in the war of the Spanish succession, 672; struggle begins with American Colonies, 763 ; strength of, in American Revolution, 767 ; isola- tion of, by formation of "Armed Neutrality," 774; critical situation of, in 18001801, 846, 847; ter- ritorial gains of, at Con- gress of Vienna, 865 ; situation of, with refer- ence to Europe at close of Napoleonic wars, 883- 890; effect of separation of Hanover upon, 929 ; survey of problems of, after Crimean War, 966; sentiment in, regarding American Civil War, 977- 978 ; survey of problems confronting, in 1865, 983 Great Contract, the, 434, 435 Great Council, the, 98, 118; summoned by Charles I, 473 Greater Britain, 1063-1069 Great Fire, the, 599, 611 Great Mogul, the, 720 Great Schism, 227, 251 Great Seal, the, 311, 583 Greece, independence of, 886-888 ; Byron and War of Independence of, 898 ; England in trouble with, over Don Pacifico case, 955~956; war with Tur- key, 1029 Greek Christians, Russian, desire regarding, in Otto- man Empire, 959 ; Rus- sia refuses to renounce protectorate over, 963 ; struggle between Latin Church and, over Holy Places, 959 Green Ribbon Club, the, 554, 564 Green, J. R., 135 Greene, Nathanael, General, 775 Greene, Robert, 420, 423 Greenwich, the National Observatory at, 606 ; royal hospital at, 612, 633 Greenwood, Frederick, 1002 Gregory I, Pope, 32, 74; his Pastoral Care, 45 Gregory VII, Pope (Hilde- brand), 80 Gregory IX, Pope, 149 Gregory XI, Pope, 208, 227 Gregory XIII, Pope, 385- 387, 7i8 Grenville, George, 725; be- comes Prime Minister, 744 ; his colonial programme, 746, 751-753; his dis- missal, 753 ; his Election Act, 760, 761, 913 ; his death, 761 Grenville, Lady Hester, 725 Grenville, Thomas, 780 Grenville, William Wynd- ham, Lord Grenville, British Foreign Secretary, 830; opposition of, to Addington Ministry, 847 ; refuses to enter Cabinet in 1804, 850; Ministry of " All the Talents," 851, 852 Grenville Election Act, the, of, 1770, 760, 761 Gresham, Thomas, 413 GrSv'ille, Charles, character- ization of Derby by, 989 Grey, Charles, later Earl Grey, motions of, for parliamentary reform re- jected, 907 ; becomes Prime Minister, 99 ; Ministry of, secures Par- liamentary Reform, 914- 917; resignation of, 922; adviser to the bishops, 1040 Grey, Lady Jane, 344, 355, 358, 360, 361 Grey, Lord Leonard, 335 Grey de Wilton, Lord, 386 INDEX 1123 Grey, Sir Edward, Foreign Minister, 1077, 1083-1085, 1089 Grey, Sir Richard, 272, 273 Grindal, Edmund, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 389 Grocyn, William, 304, 305 Grosseteste, see Robert Grote, George, 1050 Grouchy, Marshal, at Waterloo, 863, 864 Grub Street, advent of authors of, 798 Gualo, papal legate, 147, 148 Guarda-coslas, the Spanish, 703, 74 Guesclin, Bertrand du, 204- 207 Guillotine Closure, the, 1020, 1021, 1024 Guinegate, the battle of, 296 Gulf Stream, the, 2 Gulliver's Travels, 797 Gunpowder, early use of, 218 Gunpowder Plot, the, 432 Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, 470 Gustavus III, of Sweden, 827 Gutenberg, John, 291 Guthrum, Danish invader, 43 Guy of Lusignan, 136 Guyenne, seized by Philip VI, 102, 107 ; made separate principal- ity, 204; see Aquitaine and Gascony Guzman, Domingo de, see St. Dominic Gwledig, British leader, 25 H Habeas Corpus, 142, 144; purpose of the writ of, 456; attitude of the judges of Charles I on, 466 Habeas Corpus Act, the, 529; passed, 561; James II aims to repeal the, 571 ; suspended, 634, 833, 870; in Ireland, 840 Hadrian, Abbot, 36 Hadrian's Wall, 20 Hague Conference, the first, 1029; the second, 1084 Haidarabad, Nizam of, Mornington forces terri- tories from, 967 Haidar Ali, 809, 845 Hailes, the phial of, 329 Hakluyt, Richard, his Voy- ages, 412, 421 Hales, Sir Edward, the case of, S7i Hales, John, 603 Halidon Hill, battle of, 191 Halidon Rig, 333 Halifax, Earl of, see Mon- tague, Charles Halifax, Marquis of, see Savile, George Halley, Edmund, 792 Hal, Prince, see Henry, Prince of Wales Halsbury, Lord, 1080 Hamilton, General Ian, 1035 Hamilton, James, Marquis of, 470, 481, 505, 506 Hamilton, Patrick, 367 Hampden, John, 466-468, 475, 476, 479, 492 Hampton Court Confer- ence, the, 431 Hampton Court Palace, 311 Hams, Anglo-Saxon, 63 Handel, George Frederick, 697, 803, 1057 Hanover, the Treaty of, 692 ; Napoleon gives kingdom of, to Prussia, 851 ; dispo- sition of, at Victoria's ac- cession, 929 Hansard, case of Stockdale against, 936 Hanseatic League, 162 Harcourt, French ambassa- dor, 645, 646 Harcourt, Sir William, 1027 Hardinge, Lord, Viceroy of India, 1080 Hardinge, Sir Henry, 968 Hardwicke, Earl of, see Yorke, Philip Hardwicke's Marriage Act, 719 Hardy, Thomas, 1049 Harfleur, siege of, 250 Hargreaves, James, invents spinning jenny, 785 Harington, Sir John, 418 Harleck, 499 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, intrigues with Mrs. Masham, 665 ; char- acter of, 667 ; leading minister of Anne, 667, 668; founds the South Sea Company, 671", 686; rivalry with Bolingbroke, 672, 673 ; his dismissal, 673, 674; his impeach- ment, 678 Harold Harefoot, Danish King of England, 55 Harold, son of Godwine, 56 ; becomes Earl of Wessex, 57 ; King of England, 58 ; victory at Stamford Bridge, 59; defeat and death at Senlac, 59, 60 Harold Hadrada, King of Norway, 59 Harrington, James, 604 Harrison, William, 421 Harthacnut, Danish King of England, 55 Hartington, Marquis of, see Compton, Spencer Harvey, William, 606 Hasten, 43 Hastings, see Senlac Hastings, Lord, 273 Hastings, Warren, governor of Bengal, 810; impeach- ment of, 561, 820 Havana, captured by the British, 742 ; restored, 743 Havelock the Dane, 161 Havelock, Henry, 972 Hawke, Admiral, 716, 730, 733 Hawkins, John, 392, 411 Hawley, General Henry, 712 Haxey, Sir Thomas, case of, 238 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, the, 1084 Hazlitt, William, 900 Head, Major, 931 Heads of Proposals, the, S2, 503, 509 Health, public, in the Anglo- Saxon period, 73 ; in Anglo-Norman times, 88; in the twelfth century, 132 ; in the fourteenth century, 220, 221; in the fifteenth century, 284, 285 ; in the time of Henry VIII, 341, 342; in the reign of Elizabeth, 4i4, 415 Health Act, the Public, 1002 1124 INDEX Hearth Tax, the, 621; in Gascony, 205 Heathfield, battle of, 34 Heinsius, Grand Pensionary, 653 Heligoland, 865, 1032 HSm'ans, Felicia, 1043 Hengist and Horsa, invaders of Britain, 25 Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I, betrothed to Charles, 447 ; character of, 453 ; fosters Roman Catholicism, 465 ; plots of, 479, 481 ; threatened impeachment of, 483 ; es- capes abroad, 484 ; seeks foreign alliances, 488, 498 ; urges Charles to take the Covenant, 501 Henrietta, of Orleans, sister of Charles II, 540, 550, 554 Henry I, King of England, accession and issue of Charter of Liberties, 94; marriage to Edith (Ma- tilde), ib. ; suppresses a rising of the barons, 94, 95 ; treaty with Robert, 95 ; conquest of Nor- mandy, ib. ; victory at Tenchebrai, 95 ; com- promise with Anselm, 95, 96 ; last years, character and policy, 96, 97 ; ad- ministrative reorganiza- tion, the Curia Regis and Exchequer, 97, 98; en- courages growth of towns, 98 ; founder of Curia Regis and Exchequer, 117; originator of scutage, 118; charters to London, 129; charter to Weavers' Gild, 130 Henry II, King of England, 96; early visits to Eng- land, 103 ; marries Elea- nor of Aquitaine, ib. ; recognized as heir of Stephen, 104 ; accession and character, 107 ; prob- lem and policy, 107, 108; conflict with Becket, 109- 1 1 1 ; in Ireland, 112; submission at Avranches, 112; crushes a revolt led by Prince Henry, 113, 114; penance at Becket's tomb, 113; last years and death, 114; constitu- tional and legal reforms, 114-116; development of the jury system, 116, 117; reorganization of the courts and administrative reforms, 117, 118; rev- enue of, 118; summary of his work, 119; litera- ture and learning at his court, 126; grants of borough charters, 129; imposes fines on adulterine gilds, 130 Henry III, King of England, constitutional importance of his reign, 133, 134, 147 ; crowned, 147 ; years of minority, 148, 149 ; un- successful expeditions against Gascony and Wales, 149 ; beginning of his personal rule, 150; marries Eleanor of Prov- ence, ib. ; invasions of needy foreigners, ib. ; leads another unsuccessful ex- pedition to Poitou and Gascony ; new inroads of foreigners, 151 ; breach with Simon de Montfort, 152; baronial war against, 153-155 ; death and char- acter of, 156, 157, 158; favor to Jews, 180; to Lombards and Proven- gals, 211 Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, 236 ; made Duke of Hereford, 238; quarrel with Norfolk and exiled by Richard II, 239 ; lands at Ravenspur, 239 ; chosen King, 240 ; see Henry IV Henry IV, King of England, opening of his reign, 242, 243 ; character and prob- lems, 243 ; revolts against, 243-245 ; last years of, 245, 246 Henry, Prince of Wales, at Shrewsbury, 245 ; Welsh campaign of, ib. ; begins to assume the government, 246 ; see Henry V Henry V, King of England, accession and character, 247, 248; reopens war with France, 248, 249, 250; suppresses the Lol- lards, 248, 249 ; first inva- sion of France, 250; vic- tory at Agincourt, 250, 251 ; second invasion, 251 ; concludes Treaty of Troyes, ib. ; third inva- sion, 252 ; his death, ib. ; suppresses alien priories, 323 Henry VI, King of England, coronation of, 256; dis- regards Parliament in the appointment of councilors, 257 ; marries Margaret of Anjou, ib. ; temporary insanity of, 260; second attack, 261 ; dominated by Margaret, 261, 262; defeated and taken pris- oner, 262 ; release of, 263 ; flight into Scotland after defeat at Towton, 265 ; attainted, 266 ; again a prisoner, 267 ; his release, 268 ; his death and character, 269 Henry, Duke of Richmond, representative of the Lan- castrian line, in exile in France, 273, 274; lands in England, 274; victory at Bosworth, 274, 275 ; pro- claimed King, 275 ; see Henry VII Henry VII, King of Eng- land, chapel of, 222; his policy, 276; character of, 278; problems and means of securing his title, 279; marries Eliza- beth of York, 279 ; troubles with pretenders, 279, 280; his exactions, 280; establishes the Star Chamber, 279, 280; Irish policy of, 281 ; foreign policy of, 281-283 ; mar- riage alliances, ib. ; mod- ern and medieval traits of, 283 ; regulation of gilds, 287 ; negotiates Intercursus Magnus, 289; issues a patent to the Cabots, 290; death and estimate of, 291, 292 INDEX 1125 Henry VIII, King of Eng- land, marries Catharine of Aragon, 283 ; accession and character of, 294, 295 ; author of the De- fense of the Seven Sacra- ments, gains title of "De- fender of the Faith," 295 ; joins the Holy Alliance, 295 ; invades Flanders, 296 ; betrayed by Fer- dinand he allies himself with Louis XII ; favor to Wolsey, 297 ; unsuc- cessful candidate for the Imperial crown, 299 ; his alliance with Charles V, 299, 300 ; meeting with Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold, ib. ; yields on the question of the Amicable Loan, 301 ; he withdraws from the European war, 301, 302; motives of, for separation from Rome, 301, 302; a patron of the New Learn- ing, 306; his orthodoxy, 307 ; his divorce proceed- ings against Catharine, 308-3 1 1 ; throws over .Wolsey, 311, 312; takes Cranmer and Cromwell as advisers, 314; sum- mons the Reformation Parliament and brings about the separation from Rome, 315-320; perse- cutes heretics, 316, 317; restricts powers of Con- vocation, 317; marries Anne Boleyn, ib. ; se- cures divorce from Catharine, 318; assumes title of Supreme Head, 320; has More, Fisher, and others executed, 320, 321 ; his dissolution of the monasteries, 322-324; divorces and executes Anne Boleyn, 324, 325; marries Jane Seymour, 325; imposes the Ten Articles on the Church, 325, 326; attitude of, toward the Pilgrimage of Grace, 327, 328; dis- posal of the spoils of monasteries, 329, 330; forces the Six Articles on Parliament, 331, 332; marries and divorces Anne of Cleves, 332 ; throws over Cromwell, ib. ; mar- ries Catharine Howard, ib. ; has her executed, 333 ; Scotch policy, 333, 334 ; war with France, 334; Irish policy, 334, 335 ; marries Catharine Parr, 336; closing years and death of, 336, 337 ; nature of his absolutism, 338 ; management of Par- liament, 338-340 ; his revenue and his extrava- gance, 340 ; as a military leader, 344; attitude to- ward education, 344, 345 ; character of his age, 346; final regulation of the succession, 355 Henry, son of Henry II, in, 113, H4 Henry, Prince, son of James I, 432, 437 Henry, Cardinal of York, son of the Old Pretender, 7i4 Henry II, King of France, 3Si Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV, King of France), 384, 390, 397, 398 Henry VI, Emperor of the Germans, 123 Henry FitzAylwine, Mayor of London, 130 Henry of Huntington, 89 Henry of Lancaster, guard- ian of Edward III, 189, 194 Henry of Trastamara, 204 Henry of Winchester, 100, 102, 103 Henry, Patrick, 750 Hepburn (heb'burn), James, Earl of Bothwell, 375, 376, 377 Heptarchy, 30 Herbart, Admiral (later Earl of Torrington), 580, 581, 625, 626 Herbert, George, 607 Herbert, Sidney, 945, 958 Heresy laws, 326; repealed by Somerset, 349 ; see De haretico comburendo Heretics, persecution of, by Henry VIII, 316, 317 Heriot, 68 Heritable jurisdictions, abol- ished in Scotland, 715 Herrenhausen, Treaty of, see Hanover Herrick, Robert, 608 Hertford, Earl of, see Sey- mour, Edward Hertzog, General, 1081 Herzegovina, 1003, 1005 Hide, 63 High Church party, views and aims of, under Charles I, 452 ; resists forced loan, 455 ; under the direction of Laud, , 461-463 ; on the side of Charles I in the war, 487 ; alliance with Charles II, 553 ; alienated by James II, 575-580; re- action of, against Wil- liam III, 620, 622; prin- ciples of, 651 ; opposes the Union, 662 ; alienated by the Education Act of 1870,998; see Sacheverell and Oxford Movement High Commission, the Court of, begins to be .active, 379 ; enlarged powers of, 389 ; under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, 402, 403 ; see Ecclesiastical Com- mission ; abolished, 480 ; in Scotland, 435, 469, 470 High Court of Delegates, the, 318, 402 High Court of Justice, the, a division of the Supreme Court of Judicature, 999 Highe, Thomas, inventor, 785 Highland Host, the, 573 Highlands, the Scottish, 8; state of, at the end of the seventeenth century, 628 High Steward, the court of the, 639, 640 Highwaymen, in the seven- teenth century,- 593 ; in the eighteenth century, 805,806 Hildebrand, see Gregory VII Hill, Abigail, see Masham Hill, Rowland, Post Office reforms of, 936, 937 1126 INDEX Historical writing, Eliza- bethan, 420, 421 ; Vic- torian, 1043, 1050 Hoadley, Benjamin, Bishop of Bangor, see Bangorian Controversy Hobbes, Thomas, 487; his political theories, 604, 605 Hoche, French commander, 834 Hochkirchen, the battle of, 730 Hogarth, William, 803 . Hohenlinden, battle of, 846 ; Campbell's poem, 890, Holbein, 332 Holborne, Robert, council for Hampden, 467 Holinshed's Chronicles, 421 Holland, ceases to be a great Power, 717; joins the Armed Neutrality of 1778, 774; England de- clares war against, 1780, ib. ; Orange Party of, in Triple Alliance, 826, 827 ; States General of, appeal to England for aid, 829; France declares war on, 1 7 93 1 830; France pre- pares to invade, ib. ; Batavian Republic set up in, 834 ; kingdom of, I 85 1 ; revolts against j France in 1813, 859; j Belgium declares her in- dependence from, 890 ; see also Dutch Wars^and Austrian and Spanish Suc- cession, wars of the Holland, Lord, 872 ; see also Fox, Henry Holies, Denzil, 459, 460 Holmby House, 501 Holmes, Robert, 841 Holstein, Duchy of, 980 Holy Alliance, the, 865 Holy Grail, 223 Holy League, 301, 306; 01 France and Spain, 380 Holy Places, the quarrel over the, in Palestine, precipitates Crimean War, 959 ; settlement of cus- tody of, 965 Holy rood palace, 376 Holy Sepulcher, the, 959 Home Rule, origin of the movement, 1010 ; adopted by Gladstone, 1017; de- feat of Gladstone's first bill for, 1018, 1019; Ulster opposition to, 1018; the Conservative substitute for, 1023, 1024 ; defeat of Gladstone's second Bill in the Lords, 1024; the problem, 1025, 1026 ; Rosebery's views on, 1027 ; becomes an issue in the election of 1910, 1078; revival of the struggle for, 1086-1088 ; the triumph of, in Parlia- ment, 1089 Home Rule Federation, the, 1010 Homilies, the Book of, 350 Hong-Kong, 948 Honorius, Roman Emperor, withdraws Roman legions from Britain, 21 " Honours," 87 Hood, Admiral, Lord, 813, 834 Hood, Thomas, 1043 Hooker, Richard, 390, 420 Hooper, John, Bishop of Gloucester, 336, 353, 363 Hopton, Ralph, Royalist commander, 492 Hospitals, St. Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's, 356 Hotham, Sir John, 484 Hotspur, see Percy, Henry Houghton, Prior John, 320 Hounslow Heath, 580, 642 House breaking, death pen- alty for, removed, 904 Household franchise, 1012 House of Commons, see Commons House of Lords, see Lords House, the "Other," under the Protectorate, 523 "Hovering Act," the, 816 Howard, Lord Charles, of Effingham (later Earl of Nottingham), 394, 395, 396, 440 Howard, Catharine, see Catharine Howard, Edward, Lord Ad- miral, 296 Howard, Frances, Lady Es- sex, 440, 441 Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey, poet, 336, 346 Howard, Henry, seventh Duke of Norfolk, 573 Howard, John, prison ret former, 805, 1059 Howard, Thomas, Earl of Surrey and Duke of Nor- folk, 296, 328, 333, 336, 337 Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, 377, 381, 382 Howard, Thomas, Earl of Arundel, 611 Howe, General, incompe- tency of, 768; occupies Philadelphia, 769 ; re- sponsibility of, in Bur- goyne's surrender, 770 Howe, Admiral, Lord, peti- tion from British seamen to, 837 ; quells naval mutiny at Spitbead, ib. Hubert de Burgh, 136; Justiciar, 148-150 Hubert Walter, 121, 122, 123, 124; probable author of the Treatise, 127, 135, 136, 140 Hudson's Bay, 510 Huerta, General, 1085 Hugh, St., Bishop of Lincoln, 124, 131 Hughes, Thomas, 1062 Huguenots, introduction of new industries into Eng- land by, 589, 783 Humanism, 303 Humber River, 5 Humble Petition and Ad- vice, the, 523 Hume, David, 792, 794 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 252, 254, 255, 256, 257, 303 "Hundred Days," the, 862 Hundred Rolls, 178 Hundreds, Anglo-Saxon, 44, 62 ; origin of, 65 ; courts and procedure in, 65, 66; responsibility of the, 81 Hundred Years' War, the, significance of, 191 ; causes of, 191, 192 ; open- ing campaigns, 192, 193 ; three years' truce, 194; Crecy, 195, 196; capture of Calais, 1^7; campaign and battle of Poitiers, 202, 203 ; peace of Brt- INDEX 1127 igny, 203 ; turning of the tide against England, 204-206 ; economic effects of, 212; longbow and firearms in, 218, 235; reopened by Henry V, 248-250; his three in- vasions of France, 250- 252; Treaty of Troyes, 251 ; siege of Orleans, and relief of, by Jeanne d'Arc, 255 ; England loses ground, 257 ; end of, 260; effect on the no- bility, 278 Hungerford, Sir Thomas, 206 Hunt, Holman, 1057 Hunt, Leigh, literary work of, goo Hunting, in Anglo-Saxon times, 73 ; in the seven- teenth century, 595 Hurst Castle, 506 Huskisson, William, presi- dent of Board of Trade, 874-875 ; reforms of, 875- 877 ; resigns from Wel- lington's Cabinet, 881 ; death of, 908 Huss, John, 228, 251, 308 Hutchinson Letters, the, 763 Hutton, James, 895 Huxley, Thomas, 983, 1051, 1052 Hyde, Anne, 544, 552 Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, leader of the Constitutional royalists and author of the History of the Great Rebellion, 476, 483, S3o; made Lord Chancellor, his character and policy, 532, 533; opposes Charles II's at- tempts at toleration, 538 ; foreign policy of, 539; blamed for the sale of Dunkirk, 540; the fall of, 544, 545 ; laments bribery, 553 ; his over- throw, 615 Hyde, Henry, Earl of Clarendon, 567, 575 Hyde, Lawrence, Earl of Rochester, 567, 575 Hyde Park, reform demon stration in, 986 Iberians, 13, 16 Idle River, battle of, 34 Immigrants Regulation Act, 1081 Impeachments, beginning of, 206 ; of Latimer and Lyons, 206, 207 ; of Suffolk, 258; of Mom- pesson, Michell, and Bacon, 442-445 ; of Mid- dlesex, 447 ; of Bucking- ham, 454, 455 ; of Laud, 477, 478; of Strafford, 477-479 ; of Clarendon, 545 ; of Danby, 560, 561 ; prorogations no bar to, 561 ; royal pardon no bar to, 561 ; no pardon to be pleaded in bar of, 644 ; of Portland, Orford, Halifax, and Somers, 646 ; of Dr. Sacheverell, 666, 667 ; of Bolingbroke, Ox- ford, and Ormonde, 678 ; of Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, 693, 694 ; of Lord Lovat, 714; of Warren Hastings, 820 Imperial Conferences, 1081, 1082 Imperial defense, 1081 Imperial federation, 1069, 1081 Imperial Federation League, the, 1069 Imperial Guard, Napoleon's, at Waterloo, 864 Imperial Naturalization Bill, the, 1088 Imperialism, British, Dis- raeli foreshadows idea of, 988; Disraeli popularizes the idea of, 990; Glad- stone opposed to extreme, ib. ; Disraeli exploits idea of, during Gladstone's first Ministry, 998-999 ; growth of the idea of, 1022, 1027, 1065 ; Vic- toria as the embodiment of, 1037 Imports under James I, 589 Impositions, 404, 434 Impressment, British, antag- onizes United States, 860 "In and out" clause, the, 1024 Incandescent lamp, the, ioS5 Incident, the, 481 Income tax, the, established by Pitt, 846; abolished after the Napoleonic Wars, 868; Peel's sec- ond Ministry revives, 941 ; Gladstone proposes re- duction of the, 959; Gladstone doubles, to fight Russia, 961 ; in- creased by Lloyd George, 1078 Indemnity and Oblivion, Act of, 533 Indemnity Bill, the, 622 Independent Labor party, the, 1062, 1063 Independent Nationalists, the, 1025 Independents, the, 388 ; breach with the Presby- terians, 499; in the New Model, 503 India, opened up by Eng- lishmen, 411; beginnings of the English activity in, 720, 721 ; the struggle with the French for supremacy in, 721, 722; triumph of the British over the French in, 734- 736 ; mutual restoration of Conquests in (1763), 743 ; state of, at close of Seven Years' War, 808- 809 ; North's Regulating Act, 809, 810; Fox's Bill for, 811 and note, 812; Pitt's Bill, 815; British successes in, in 1793, 833 ; Napoleon strikes at, 838, 844, 845 ; supposed plot of Russia against, 966; extension of British con- trol in, 966 ff. ; the Mutiny in, 969-973 ; Derby Ministry intro- duces bill for govern- ment of, 973-974; Bill, the, of 1858, carried, 975 ; cotton imported from, during English famine, 979; Civil Service, the, posts in, filled by competi- tive examination, 997 ; Victoria 'declared Empress of, 1003 ; visit of Prince 1128 INDEX Albert to, 1006; the government of, 1064; visit of George V and Mary to, and transfer of the capital of, 1080; see Anglo-Japanese Treaties ; "India Bill No. 2," the, 973-974 Indian Empire, the Order of the, 1006 Indians, American, in Ameri- can Revolution, 767 ; loy- alty of, to England, in War of 1812, 860 Indo-European "race," 13 Indulgence, the Declara- tion of Charles II, 551 ; the first Declaration of James II, 575, 576; the second, 578, 579 Industrial and Social Prog- ress, in the Victorian Era, 1058 Industrial Revolution, 4 ; effects of, 788 and note, 789 Industry, in the thirteenth century, 163, 164; in the fifteenth century, 287, 289; under Edward I, II, III, 211-214; regula- tion of, 213, 214; under Elizabeth, 413, 414; con- dition of, under James I and Charles I, 589; con- dition of, in the seven- teenth century, 589, 590; development of, in Eng- land, before the great inventions, 783, 784 ; de- velopment of the cotton, 784-786; disturbed con- ditions in, in 1811-1812, 856; depressed state of, at end of Napoleonic wars, 868, 869; laissez- faire theory opposes state interference with, 937-938 Ine (e'ne or I'ne), King of the West Saxons, his laws, 4, 44 Injunctions, governing monasteries, 323; royal, of Henry VIII, 326; Cromwell's, 327, 330 Inkerman, battle of Mount, 962 Innocent III, Pope, 117, 124, 137. 138, 139, MS Inns, Anglo-Saxon, 73 ; in the Middle Ages, 220; in the seventeenth cen- tury, 594 Inns of Court, 223 Inoculation, discovery of, 792 Inquisition, the, 380, 381 Inquisition jury, the, 116, ii7 Inquisition of Sheriffs, the, 118 Instrument of Government, the, 516, 517 Insularity, importance of British, 5, 6 Insurance, against sickness and unemployment, 1060, 1061 Insurance Bill, the National, 1086 Intercursus Magnus, 289 Interdict, 137 Interest, forbidden, 215, 288 ; legalized under Eliz- abeth, 408 ; fall in rate of, under Charles I, 589 Interludes, 422 International Workingmen's Association, the, 1062 Interparliamentary period, the, under James I, 437 443 ; under Charles I, 460-471 Invasions into Britain, neo- lithic, 12; Celtic, 13; Germanic, 25, 26, 28-30; Danish, 41, 42, 51-53; Norman, 59, 60 Investiture, compromise on, 95, 96 lo'na, monastery of, 34 Ionian Islands, 865 Ireland, physical charac- teristics, 8, 9; English conquest and oppression of, 9 ; population of, ib. ; granted to Henry II, 1 1 1 ; condition of, 1 1 1 , 112; conquest of, by Strong- bow and Henry II, 112; John's visit to, 114; his expedition against, 138 ; description of, by Gi- raldus, 127; laws of Ed- ward III relating to, 201 ; on side of Bruce against Edward II, ib. ; visited by Richard II, 237 ; his second visit, 239; sup- ports Simnel and War- beck, 281 ; disorders in, under Henry VII, ib. Poynings's Law imposed on, ib. ; policy of Henry VIII toward, 334, 335; he assumes the title of King of, 335 ; movements in, against Elizabeth, 386 ; Essex's failure against, 398 ; Mountjoy's conquest of, ib. ; court of Castle Chamber in, 406; diffi- culties with,under James I, 435. 436; Wentworth's rule in, 471; rebellion of 1641 in, 481, 482; Charles I's relations with the Roman Catholic party in, 488, 498, 499; Crom- well's conquest of, 510, 511; the "Cromwellian Settlement in," 511 ; rep- resented in the English Parliament, 516 ; the Res- toration in, 535, 536; restrictions on Irish com- merce, 575 ; policy of James II in, 575 ; land- ing of James in, 624 ; the Parliament of 1689 in, 624, 625 ; flight of James from, after the defeat at the Boyne, 626 ; the treaty of Limerick and its violation, 626, 627 ; oppressive restrictions and penal laws against the Irish, 627 ; evil condi- tions in, under George III, 777 ; independence of Parliament of, 777, 778; Pitt fails to establish freedom of trade between, and England, 817 ; French expedition to, in 1796, 835, 836; conditions in, in 1782-1789, 838, 839; effect of French Revolu- tion in, 839 ; Fitzwilliam made Lord Lieutenant of, 839, 840; expedition from France to, in 1798, 841 ; rebellion of 1798 in, ib. ; condition of, after rebellion of 1798, 841, 842 ; Lord Cornwallis Lord Lieutenant of, ib. ; INDEX 1129 parliamentary union of, with England, 9, 842, 843 ; representation of, in Eng- lish Parliament, 843 ; Napoleon on French ex- pedition to, 844 ; agita- tion on behalf of Roman Catholics in, 880 ; Catholic emancipation fails to quiet, 882 ; par- liamentary franchise in, before first Reform Bill, 913 ; parliamentary fran- chise under Bill of 1832, 916-917; the Tithe War in, 918-920; conditions in, at Victoria's accession, 932-033 ; violent agita- tion of O'Connell in, in 1843, 943-944; potato famine in, 9, 944; a new Coercion Bill for, defeated, 946 ; Russell's remedial measures for relief of, 950-951 ; effects of Revolution of 1848 upon, 952 ; disorder in, in 1865, 984; represen- tation of, under Act of 1867, 987; measures on behalf of, during Glad- stone's first Ministry, 991-995 ; Gladstone's bill to unite colleges of, 999 ; Victoria's visits to, 1037 ; condition of, in the last decade of Victoria's reign, 1024, 1025 ; see Wood's Halfpence, Fenians, Irish Land Acts, Parnell Ireton, General, 502, 503, So6, 507, 511, 533 Irish Agricultural Commis- sion, the, 9 Irish Agricultural Organi- zation Society, the, 1025 Irish Church, Derby op- poses disestablishment of, 989 ; Gladstone and dis- establishment of the, 991- 994 Irish Church Temporali- ties Bill, the, 918, 919, 1040 Irish forfeitures, 642 Irish Land Acts, of 1870, the, 994995; of 1881, ion Irish Local Government Act, 1028 Irish Nationalists, see Na- tionalist Party 7mA People, the, Rossa proprietor of, 992 Irish Protestant Volunteers, 778 Irish Tithe War, the, 918- 919 Irish Union, the, O'Connell agitates repeal of, 943- 944 Iron, development of Eng- lish manufacture of, 786 ; smelting of, 589 ; develop- ment of the manufacture of, 786 " Ironsides," the, 489, 492, 495 Isabel of Angouleme, second wife of John, 135 Isabel, of Gloucester, first wife of John, 135 Isabella of France, Queen of Edward II, 176, 185- 187, 189, 190 Isabella,Queen of Richard II, 238 Isabella of Castile, 282, 299, 380 Isabella, Queen of Spain, 949 Island Voyage, the, 398 Isle de Bourbon, see Bourbon Isle de France, see France Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 1002, 1003 Italian Opera, in England, 802 Italian Republic, Napoleon president of, 849 Italy, status of Austria in, 883-884; Revolution of 1830 in, 890; Revolution of 1848 in, 951, 952; Cavour and Unification of, 975976 ; kingdom of, Austria recognizes, 988 Itinerant justices, under Henry II, 117 ; instruc- tions to, 123, 124; under Edward I, 168 Ivan (the Terrible), King of the Muscovites, 410 Jack Ketch, 569 Jackson, General Andrew, defeats British at New Orleans, 861 Jackson, Dr., 1051 Jacobites, the, under Wil- liam III, 625, 630, 634, 641 ; under George I, 677, 679-681, 685, 690, 691 ; under George II, 703, 709, 710-714, 7i8 Jacqueline, wife of Hum- phrey of Gloucester, 254 Jacquerie, 203 Jamaica, English capture of, 520; suspension of con- stitution of, 933-934; in- surrection in, 983 James I, King of England, epigram on Bacon, 420; significance of his acces- sion, 427 ; early environ- ment and character of, 427-429; views on mon- archy, 429, 430; his treatment of the Puri- tans, 430, 431 ; of the Catholics, 431-433 ; con- flicts with Parliament, 433, 434, 437, 443, 444, 445-449 ; financial em- barrassments of, 433, 434 ; relations with Scotland, 435 ; with Ireland, 435, 436 ; conflicts with his subjects during the inter- parliamentary period, 437-443 ; negotiations of, for a Spanish marriage, 441, 442; his policy in the Thirty Years' War opposed to that of his subjects, 442, 445, 446 ; quarrels with the Com- mons over privilege, 445, 446 ; adopts the anti- Spanish policy of the Commons, 447 ; arranges marriage treaty of Charles and Henrietta Maria, ib. ; sends out the Mansfeld expedition, 447, 448 ; death and final estimate of, 448, 449 ; character of, 440; regulation of trade and manufactures by, 589 ; Scotch policy of, 468 James, Duke of York, made Lord Admiral, 532 ; patron of the African Company, 541 ; in the second Dutch war, 541 ; INDEX marries Anne Hyde, 544 ; conversion to Rome, 549 ; resigns as Lord Admiral, 5Si, 552; in the third Dutch War, 552 ; be- comes the center of Cath- olic hopes, 554, sss ; his connection with the Pop- ish Plot, 557-560; ex- cluded from the Council, 559 ; attempts to exclude from the succession, 559, 560; resumes office in defiance of the Test Act, 564; see James II James II, King of England, his character and aims, 566, 567 ; first measures of, 567 ; his revenue, 567, 568; vengeance of, after Monmouth's rising, 569, 570; the turning point in his reign, 570 ; his rela- tions with Louis XIV, 57, 5?i ; his encroach- ments on the Test Act, and Ecclesiastical Commis- sion, 571, 572; quarters an army on Hounslow Heath, 572, 573 ; his deal- ings with the Scots, 574, 575 ; his Irish policy, 575 ; his first Declaration of Indulgence, 575, 576; his attack on the Universi- ties, 577 ; his attempt to pack a Parliament, 577, 578; his second Declara- tion of Indulgence, 578, 579; birth of a son to, 579; fails in suit against the Seven Bishops, 580; orders recruits from Ire- land, 581 ; issues belated concessions on the coming of William, 581, 582; his flight, 583 ; his capture and second flight, 583, 584 ; Parliament declares his abdication, 585, 586 ; lands in Ireland, 624 ; flees again to France, 626 ; his Declaration, 630; ex- pedition of, defeated at La Hogue, 630, 631 ; 'his second Declaration, 631 ; forbids mourning for Mary, 633 ; death of, 647 JamesI, Kingof Scotland, 245 James III, King of Scot- land, 271, 272 James IV, King of Scotland, 296 James V, King of Scotland, 333, 334 James VI, King of Scotland (later James I, King of England), his birth, 376; ascendancy of Esm6 Stew- art over, 387 ; seized in the Ruthven raid, ib. ; disinherited, 394; named as Elizabeth's successor, 399 ; see James I, King of England James Francis Edward, his birth, 579; taken to France, 583 ; attempts an invasion of Scotland in 1708, 663, 664; ex- cluded from France, 670; distrusted by the Protes- tants, 673 ; the rising of 1715 in behalf of, 679- 691 ; see Atterbury Jameson, Dr., 1032 Jameson Raid, the, 1032 Jamestown, settlement of, 436 Jane (Seymour), Queen of Henry VIII, 325, 331, 332 Japan, war with China, 1029 ; see Anglo-Japanese Treaties, Russo-Japanese War Jarnac, battle of, 381 Jay, John, 780 Jeanne d'Arc, 255, 256 Jefferson, President Thomas, 860 Jeffrey, Francis, 900 Jeffreys, George, succes- sively Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor, 564, 569, 570, 583, 584 Jemmappes, Austrians de- feated at, 829 Jena, battle of, 852 Jenkins' Ear, the War of, 701-704 Jenkins, Robert, 702 Jenkinson, Anthony, ex- plorer, 410 Jenner, Edward, 895 Jennings, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 650, 654, 658, 660, 665, 667 Jervis, Admiral Sir John (Lord St. Vincent), wins battle of Cape St. Vin- cent, 836 Jesuits, the, founding of the Society of, 379, 380; in England, 387, 388, 560; see Popish Plot Jews, 90, 164, 199, 212, 221, 380, 719; massacre of, 1 2 1 ; expulsion of, by Edward I, 180, 181 ; return of, 518, 500; re- moval of exclusion from Parliament, 975 Jingoism, origin of the term, 1004 Joanna of Castile, 282, 299 Johannesburg, 1032 John, King of England, occasions revolt of 1173, 113; revolt against Henry II, 114; misconduct in Ireland, ib. ; gains the name Lackland, ib., 121; plots against Richard I, 122, 123; scholarship of, 126; treatment of the weavers' gild, 130; con- stitutional importance of his reign, 133, 134; his character, 134, 135; the three crises of his reign, 135 ; the loss of Nor- mandy, 136; the disputed archiepiscopal election, his struggle with the Pope and his submission, 136-138; struggle with the barons, 130-141 ; concession of Magna Carta, 142 ; final struggles and death, 145 John Lackland, Softsword, see, John, King of Eng- land John II, King of France, 202, 203, 204 John VI, King of Portugal, 884, 888 John, Duke of Bedford, 252, 254, 256, 257 John of Burgoyne, 221 John of Gaddesden, 221 John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, 205, 206, 207, 208, 225, 226, 230, 239 John of Salisbury, 125, 126, 127 John (the Fearless), Duke of Burgundy, 249, 251 INDEX 1131 John, Don, of Austria, 385, 386 John Bull, The History of, 64S Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his definition of "excise," 699 ; character and v/ritings, 798, 799 Jones, John Paul, 772, 773 Jones, Inigo, 611 Jonson, Ben, 424, 425 Joseph I, German Emperor, 6S7, 663, 664, 668, 671 Joseph II, German Emperor, 826 Joseph Ferdinand of Bava- ria, 645, 646 Joyce, Cornet, 502 Jubilees, Victoria's, in 1887, 1022, 1065, 1069; in 1897, 1027, 1028 Judges, the, conflicts of, with James I, 438-440; three, dismissed by Charles I, 466; consultation of, by James I, 439 ; by Charles I, 467 ; tenure of, 644 Judgment by peers, 144 Judicial combat, 81 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the, 318, 402 ; decisions of, in the Gorham, Essays and Re- views, and Colenso cases, 1042 Judith, niece of William I, married to Waltheof, 77 Julius II, Pope, 308 "July Ordinances," the, 889 "Junius, the Letters of," 758, 759 Junot, French commander, in Portugal, 854 Junto, the Whig, 641 ; break- up of the, 643 Juries, introduced into Eng- land by William I, 116; brought into general use by Henry II, 116, 117; fining of, abolished, 529 Jury, trial by, 46 Justices of the Peace, 124, 180, 216, 405-407, 414 Justiciar, the, 97, 150 Justification by faith, 307, 325, 326, 380 Justinian, Roman Emperor, Justinian Code, the, 115, 116 Jutes, their invasion of Britain, 25, 29 Kaffirs, the, 1030 Kalm (Swedish traveler), 749 Kamschatka, English expe- dition against, in 1854, fails, 961 Kangaroo closure, 1079 Kars, in Asia Minor, Russia secures, 964 Katherine of France, suc- cessively wife of Henry V, and of Owen Tudor, 249, 251 Kaunitz, minister of Maria Theresa, 724 Kay, John, invents flying shuttle, 785 Kearsarge, the, 978 Keats, John, poetical writ- ings of, 898-899 Keble, John, 1040, 1041 "Keepsakes," 1043 Kelvin, Lord, see Thomson, William Kemble, John, 1050 Kendal, Duchess of, see Schulenburg, Countess von Kenilworth, Dictum of, 156 ; Castle of, 415, 417 Kenneth, King of the Scots, So Kenneth, MacAlpine, King of the Scots, 170 Kent, Duchess of, mother of Victoria, 928, 930 Kent, the Nun of, 319 Kentish petition, the, 647 Keppel, Admiral, 739 Keroualle, Louise de, D uchess of Portsmouth, 554 Ketch, John, see "Jack Ketch" Kelt, Robert, rebellion of, 3Si "Khaki election," the, 1035 Khartum, 1015 Kiao Chau, 1029 Kidd, Captain, 789 Kielmannsegge, Countess von, 677 Kilkenny, Statute of, 201, 202, 237 Killiekrankie, battle of, 628 Kilmainham Treaty, the, ion Kimberley, 1031, 1034 Kimbolton, Lord, see Mon- tagu, Edward, 483 King, the Anglo-Saxon, his functions, 68; see also Monarchy ; office of, abolished by the Rump, Sf>9 "King of France," title, dropped by English mon- arch, 843 King Horn, 161 King James' version, the, 331, 43i Kingmaker, see Neville, Richard King's Bench, Court of, 117; business of, in 1825, 903 ; see Common Law Courts King's Book, the, 336 "King's evil," 58 King's Friends, the, 739, 758 King's peace, 68 King's Primer, the, 331 Kingsley, Charles, 1041, 1048, 1062 King Waldere's Lay, 71 Kipling, Rudyard, 1049 Kirke, Colonel Percy, 569, ,, 6 * 5 " Kirke's Lambs," 569 Kirk o' Field, 376 Kirk sessions, 366 Kitchener, General Herbert, Lord Kitchener, his con- quest of the Sudan, 1015 ; in the Boer War, 1034, 1035 Kloster-Zeven, 729 Kneller, Sir Godfrey, por- trait artist, 803 Knight, Dr., 310 Knighthood, distraint of, 461 ; declared illegal, 480 Knights' fees, 85 Knights Hospitallers, 99 Knights Templars, 99 Knolles, (nOls) Richard, 421 Knox, John, 365, 367, 368, 374, 375 Koniggratz or Sadowa, battle of, 987 Konigsmarck, Philip von, 676 Korea, 1029, 1075, 1076 Korsakov, Russian com- 1132 INDEX mander, defeated at Zurich, 845 Kruger, President, 1033, 1035 Kutuzov, Russian com- mander, 858 Labor disturbances, 1911 1912, 1085, 1086 Labor legislation, since the second Reform Bill, 1060; in New Zealand, 1068 Labor parties, 1062 Labor party, the, oppose the Civil List, 1072 Laborers, condition of, in the fifteenth century, 287, 288; condition of, under Henry VIII, 341 ; under Elizabeth, 408, 409 ; con- dition of, in the eighteenth century, 804 ; condition of, in the Victorian period, 1058 ; Huskisson's reforms regarding, 876-877 ; stat- utes of, 200, 216, 219, 231, 342 La Bourdonnais, 721 Labrador, 290 Lackland, see John, King of England Ladies' Gallery, the, 1059 Ladies-in-waiting, the royal, and party politics, 934- 935 Ladysmith, 1034 La Fayette, Marquis de, 770 Laffeldt, battle of, 716 La Haye, 864 La Haye, Sainte, 864 La Hogue, battle of, 631 Laibach, Congress of, 883 Laissez -faire, Whigs advo- cate policy of, for industry 921 ; the doctrine of, opposed to State inter- ference in industry, 937- 938; supporters of, fight Ashley's legislation of 1843-1844, 942-943; doc- trine of, works hardship in Ireland, 950 ; death of policy of, 984; protest against, 1062 Lake district, the, 3 Lake of the Woods, the, 949 Lake, General, 841 "Lake School," the, 896-897 Lally, Comte de, 735 Lamarck, 1051 Lamb, Charles, literary work of, 899-900 Lamb, Mary, literary work of, 899 Lamb, William, Lord Mel- bourne, in Canning's Cabinet, 878 ; resigns from Wellington's Cabi- net, 881 ; in Grey's Cabi- net, 909 ; first Ministry of, 922-923; second Min- istry of, 924; reforms of second Ministry of, 924- 926 ; prepares Victoria's accession speech to Privy Council, 928 ; Victoria's instructor, 929 ; char- acterization of Ministry of, in 1837-1838, 933, 934 ; resignation of, 434 ; con- duct of, in Bedchamber Question, 934-935 ; dif- ficulties of, with Victoria, over Prince Consort, 935- 936 ; opposes Corn-Law repeal, 940; final resig- nation of, 940-941 Lambert, John, General, 526, 533 Lancaster, Duchy of, dis- position of revenue from, under Victoria, 929-930 Lancaster, House of, par- liamentary basis of, 240; constitutional importance of its regime, 242 ; causes for fall of, 265, 275, 276 Lancaster, James, 411 Lancaster, Joseph, educa- tional reformer, 995 Lancaster, Thomas of, 183- 185 Land bank project, the, 638 Land Purchase Acts, the Irish, 1017, 1023, 1024; see also Irish Land Acts Landed proprietors, rise of, in eighteenth-century Eng- land, 791 Landor, Walter Savage, lit- erary work of, 900 Landseer, Edwin, Sir, 1057 Landwehr, the Prussian, 859 Langfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, 52, 79, 83, 89, 90 Langland, William, 225, 226, 230 Langport, battle of, 499 Langside, battle of, 377 Langton, Stephen, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 137, 138, 139, I4S, 148 Language, in the thirteenth century, 161 Lansdowne, the Marquess of, 1074, JOTS, 1079, 1086; see also, Petty, William, Earl of Shel- burne. Lardner, Dionysius, 1053 Latimer, William, Lord, im- peachment of, 206 Latimer, Hugh, Bishop of Worcester, 285, 325, 327, 34S, 363 Latin Church, the struggle between Greek Church and, over Holy Places, 959 Latitudinarians, the, 603 Laud, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, character of, 453 ; policy of, 461- 463 ; impeachment and execution of, 477, 478 Lauderdale, Duke of, see Maitland, John Laudian divines, the, 451, 602, 603, 1041 Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 1082 La Vendde, insurrection in, 832 Law Courts, reorganization of British, in 1873, 999 Law, John, 688 Lawlessness in Medieval England, 216; in eight- eenth-century England, 805, 806 Lawrence, Sir Henry, de- fense of Lucknow by, 971- 972 Lawrence, John (later Lord Lawrence), aids in sup- pressing the Indian Mutiny, 971, 972 Lawrence, Major Stringer, "father of the Indian army," 721 Lawrence, Thomas, 900 Lawyers, attempt to exclude, from Parliament, 174 Layamon, 127 Laynez, the Jesuit, 379 Lay patronage, 1042, 1043 INDEX "33 League, the Anti-Corn Law, founded, 940 ; growth of, 942 League, the Catholic, 390, 39 1 ! 397 ; see Holy League League of the Empire, the, 1069 Learning at the court of Henry II, 126; of Henry VIII, 344 Leeds, 3, 908, 987 Leeds, Duke of, see Osborne, Sir Thomas Leicester (les'ter), Earl of, see Dudley, Robert Leighton (lay'ton), Alexan- der, 464, 477 Leinster (leVster), 112 Leipzig, battle of, 859 Legal memory, year of, 178 Legatine, commission, the, 3io Legislation, beginning of, under Edward I, 168 Lely, Peter, 611 Lenthall, Speaker, 483, 484 Leo X, Pope, 300, 303 Leof'ric, Earl of Mercia, 56 Leopold I, German Em- peror, 646, 647, 655, 657 Leopold, Prince of Saxe- Coburg, later King of Belgium, 871, 887, 888, 890, 928, 935 Leopold of Austria, 122, 123 Lesage, 1054 Leslie, Alexander, Earl of Leven, 470, 495 Leslie, David, Scottish gen- eral, 495, 512 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 1002 Letter from Sydney, the, 1065, 1066 " Letters of Junius," the, 758, 759, ?6i Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, the, 757 Leuthen, the battle of, 729 Levant Company, the, 413 Levelers, the, 501, 504, 510 Le'ver, Charles, 1048 Leviathan, the, 604 Lewes, battle of, 154; Mise of, 154-i.SS Lexington, battle of, 766 Libel, the law of, 640, 936 Libel Act, Fox's, 762 Liberal party, the, Glad- stone causes breach in, 991 ; Gladstone breaks up, 991 ; the, social legis- lation of, 1060, 1 06 1 ; alliance of, with the Laborites and National- ists, 1062 Liberal programme, the, of 1906, 1076, 1077 Liberal Unionist party, birth of, 1019 Liber de Unitate Ecdesice, 325 Liberties, see "Honours" Licensing Bill, the, 1077 Lichfield, archbishopric of, 39 Liegnitz, the battle of, 736 Light Brigade, Charge of the, 962 Ligny, battle of, 862, 863 Ligurian Republic, the, 846 Lilburne, John,464,477, 510, 664 Lillibullero, 581 Limerick, the siege a*nd treaty of, 626 ; violation of the treaty, 627 Limoges, sack of, 205, 207 Linacre (lin'acre), Thomas, 304, 35 Lincoln, defeat of Stephen at, 102 ; the fair of, 148 Lincolnshire, rising in, 327 Lindisfarne, 35, 42 Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III, 240 Lisle, Viscount, see Dudley, John Lister, Joseph, Baron Lister, 1052 Literature, Anglo-Saxon, 70, 71; Anglo-Norman, 88; at the court of Henry II, 126; in the thirteenth century, 161 ; in the fourteenth century, 223- 226; in the fifteenth cen- tury, 290, 291 ; in the time of Henry VIII, 345, 346 ; in the Elizabethan age, 417-425; in the seventeenth century, 607 ; in the eighteenth century, 796-803 ; the Victorian, 1043-1049 Literary criticism, in the Restoration period, 611 Little Parliament, the, see Nominated Littleton, Sir Thomas, 290 Liverpool, 5 ; railroad from Manchester to, opened, 894; cruiser Alabama built at, 978; repre- sentation of, under the Act of, 1867, 987 Liverpool, Lord, made Prime Minister, 856 ; Ministry of, supports Welling- ton in Spain, 857; with- draws the Orders in Coun- cil, 860; conspiracy to destroy Cabinet of, 872; bill introduced by, to divorce Queen Caroline, 873 ; end of Ministry of, 878 Livery and Maintenance, 216, 230, 237, 280, 281 Livery Companies, 414 Llywelyn ap Grufiydd, 168, 169 Llywelyn ap Jowerth, Prince of North Wales, 138, 156, 1 68 Loans, forced, 340, 405, 455 ; abolished, 455 Lob-lie-by-the-fire, 597 Local government under the Tudors, 407 Local Government Act, the, 1024, 1026; extended to Ireland, 1024 Lochleven Castle, 377 Locke, John, his political philosophy, 605 ; his Let- ters on Toleration, 621 ; assists in restoration of coinage, 635 ; influence of, in revolutionary preachers, 747 ; indebtedness of Hume to, 794 Lodge, Thomas, 420, 423. Logarithms, invention of, 606 Lollards, 228, 246, 247, 248, 249 Lombards, money lenders, 164 Lombardy, Austria in con- trol of, 951, 952 London, 5 ; in Celtic times, 1 6 ; Saxon conquest of, 29 ; taken by the North- men, 42 ; recovered by Alfred, 43 ; captured by William I, 76; granted a charter, ib. under Henry 1 134 INDEX I, 98 ; charters to, 1 29 ; granted a "commune," 122, 129, 130; receives a charter, 1 23 note ; charters to, from Conquest to Magna Carta, 129, 130; gilds and livery companies of, 130; concessions to, in Magna Carta, 143 ; in the time of Edward I, 180 ; Black Death in, 199 ; trade regulations in, 211 ; lawlessness in, 216; trade combinations in, 231 ; pop- ulation of, in the fifteenth century, 287 ; health reg- ulations in, 341 ; opposi- tion of James I to' its growth,4i4 ; population of, in Elizabeth's reign, meas- ures to check growth of, 414, 415 ; treaty of (1603), 432; in the first months of the Long Parliament, 477 ; the Plague and Fire in, 543 ; Treaty of (1674), 553 ; condition of, in the seventeenth century, 599-601 ; in the eight- eenth century, 806 ; banks of, in crisis of 1825, 877; Treaty df (1827), 886; conference of, 887 ; con- ference at, Belgian Revo- lution referred to, 890; postal rates from, to Bel- fast and Aberdeen, before Penny Post, 936; Anti- Corn Law Movement fails in, 940; Chartist conven- tion in, 952; conference at, Schleswig-Holstein Question before, 980 ; in- crease of members from, 1013 ; made a separate county, 1022, 1023 ; Treaty of (1913), 1083 Londonderry, the siege of, 624, 625 ; proportion of Protestants in, 1087 London Gazette, the, 640 London Magazine, the, 900 Longbeard, see William FitzOsbert Longbow, effectiveness of the, 169, 218 Longchamp, see William Long Parliament, the tem- per and aims, 474, 475 ; the leaders in, 475-477; impeachments by, 477- 479 ; remedial legislation of, 479, 480 ; struggle over religion and the Grand Remonstrance, 481-483 ; alliance with the Scots, 493 ; intolerance of, 500 ; conflict with the army, 500504, 506 ; Pride's Purge of, 506 ; see Rump ; final dissolution of the, 526 Lord Chancellor, the Roman Catholics excluded from office of, 882 Lord Lieutenant, the Eng- lish, origin of, 407 ; at- tempted coercion of, by James II, 578 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Roman Catholics excluded from office of, 882 ; power of, under Coercion Bill, 919-920 Lord Protector, the, see Cromwell, Oliver and Richard, and Seymour, Edward Lords Appellant, the, 236, 238 Lords, House of, the origin of, as a separate House, 1 74 ; spiritual power weakened by dissolution of the monasteries, 329; composition of, under Henry VIII, 339; the control of, by Eliza- beth, 403 ; as a court of appeal, 406 ; bishops tem- porarily deprived of seats in, 484 ; parties in, 487 ; temporarily abolished by the Rump, 509 ; yield right to amend money bills, 545, 546 ; gain right to hear appeals from Chan- cery, 554; Country Party organized in, ib. ; de- nounce tacking, 659 ; creation of twelve new peers in, 669 ; a Tory stronghold under Pitt, 815; threat to create peers in, to carry Reform Bill, 915; Radicals call for reform of, 926; Irish bishops excluded from, 993 ; as a Court of Ap- peal under reform of 1873, 999; threat to diminish their power, 1013 ; Gladstone suggests curtailing the power of, 1026; decides in favor of lay patrons, 1042 ; deci- sions of, in the Taff Vale and Osborne cases, 1062 ; reduction of the powers of, 1077-1080 ; see also Witan, Great Council, Parlia- ment, Barons, Nobility, and Peers Lords of the Articles, the, 428 Lords of the Congregation, the, 367 Lords Ordain ers, 183 Loreburn, Lord, 1088 Lose-coat-field, 268 Lostwithiel, the surrender at, 495 Lothian, cession of, 54, 170 Lotteries, 637, 913914 Loubet, President, 1075 Loudon, the Earl of, 728 Loughborough (luf'boro), Lord, see Wedderburn Louis VII, King of France, 103, no, in, 113 Louis (afterwardsLouis VIII, King of France), 138; in- vasion of England, 145; defeat and expulsion, 147, 148, 149 Louis IX (St. Louis), King of France, 149, 151, 154 Louis XI, King of France, 267, 268, 270, 282 Louis XII, King of France, 295, 296 Louis XIII, King of France, 488 Louis XIV, King of France, alliance of Charles II with, 536, 540, 541 ; treaty of, with the Dutch, 541 ; in- tervenes in the first Dutch War, 542 ; fear of, 547 ; his " War of Devolution " with Spain, 549 ; combines with Charles II in the Treaty of Dover, to se- cure his aid in a war on the Dutch, 549-553 ; sub- sidizes the Opposition, SSS.S^o; his Gallicanism, INDEX "35 570 ; alienates the Dutch, 581 ; receives James II and' his Queen, 584 ; aids James II, 620, 624 ; alli- ance of William III against, 629, 630 ; in the campaign of 1693, 631 ; agrees to the Peace of Ryswick, 636, 637 ; see Spanish Succession ; promises to recognize the son of James II, 647, 648 ; his proposals of peace to the Dutch, 659, 663 ; later negotiations of, 664, 668; makes Peace of Utrecht with England, 670, 671 ; achievements of, in the war, 672 ; death of, 679 ; length of his reign, 1036 Louis XV, King of France, 679, 691, 709, 724, 742 Louis XVI, King of France, 824, 828, 830 Louis XVIII, King of France, 859, 862, 889 Louis Napoleon, see Napo- leon Louis Philippe, ascends throne of France, 889; alienates England in Span- ish marriages affair, 949 ; ousted by Revolution of 1848, 951 Louis, Emperor of the Ger- mans, 192, 193 Louis, Count of Flanders, 192, 196 Louisburg (Cape Breton Island), the capture of, 710; reverts to France, 717; recapture of, 729 Louisiana, ceded by France to Spain (1763), 743; Spain recedes to France, 847 ; Napoleon sells to the United States, 849 Louth, outbreak of Lincoln- shire rising in, 327 L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 849 Louvois, minister of Louis XIV, 629 Lovelace, Richard, 607 Lowe, comment of, on re- form of 1867, 987 Lowestoft, battle of, 541 Lowlands, the Scottish, 8 "Loyalty Loan," the, 836 Loyalists, in American Col- onies, 766; provision re- garding, in Treaty of Paris, 781 Loyola, Ignatius, 379, 380 Lucknow, siege of, 971973 Lud, god of commerce, 16 "Luddites," the, 856 Ludlow, General, 511 Luneville, Peace of, 846 Luther, Martin, 299, 303, 305, 37, 308, 330 Luttrell, Colonel, 758 Luxembourg, Marshal, 630- 632, 634 Lycidas, Milton's, 608 Lydgate, John, 290 Lyell, Sir Charles, 895 Lyly (IJ'ly), John, 419 Lyme Regis, 568 Lyndhurst, Lord Chancellor, 923, 933 Lyons, Richard, 206, 207 Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, writings of, 1046 Lytton, Edward Robert, Earl of Lytton, Viceroy of India, 1006, 1007 M MacArthur, John, 1066 Macaulay, Thomas Bab- ington (Baron Macaulay), combats views of Radi- cals on parliamentary re- form, 908; his writings, 1043 Macaulay, Zachary, 819 Macdonald, Flora, 714 Macdonnell, Sir Anthony, 1074 Macedonia, 1005, 1006 Machiavelli, 314, 605 Mackay, General Hugh, 628 Mackintosh, Brigadier, 679, 680 Mackintosh, Sir James, the V indicia Gallics, of, 825 ; assists in law reforms, 875 Macpherson, James, 802 Madagascar, 721 Madero, Francesco, 1084, 1085 Madison, President James, 860 Mad Parliament of Oxford, Madras, 721 ; see India Madrid, Treaty of, between Charles V and Francis I, 301 ; Peace of (1630), 460; in the War of the Spanish Succession, 663, 665 Mafeking, 1035 Magdala, Abyssinian strong- hold, 988 Magdalen College, case of the Fellows of, 577, 582 Magenta, battle of, 976 Magna Carta, 94, 135; the struggle for, 142 ; sig- nificance of, ib. ; terms of, 143, 144; means of enforcement and future importance of, 144, 145; declared null and void by the Pope, 145, 147; con- firmations of, 148, 153, 154, 156, 170, 175, 176 Magnum Concilium, see Great Council Mahdi, the, in the Sudan, 1014, 1015 Mahomet, 677 Maiden Castle, 15 Maidston, Cromwell's cof- ferer, 525 Maine, French province se- cured by Philip II, 136 Maine, U. S. A., Ashburton adjusts boundary of, 948 Maintenance, see Livery Maitland, John, Earl and later Duke of Lauderdale, 548, 549, 550, SSL 573 Major-Generals, the rule of the, 522, 523 Majuba Hill, the battle of, 1031 Malakoff Tower, the, 963-964 Malcolm, King of Scotland, 77 Maldon, battle of, 51 Malmesbury, the borough of, 910 Ma/lory, Sir Thomas, 290 Malplaquet, the battle of, 665 Malta, captured by Napo- leon, 844; recovered by England, 846 ; in treaty of Amiens, 848 ; England refuses to evacuate, after Amiens, 849; secured to Great Britain by Congress of Vienna, 865 1136 INDEX Malthus, Thomas, 895 Mamelukes, the, Egyptian, 844 and note Manasseh Ben Israel, 500 Manchester, 3 ; cotton in- dustry centered at, 784; massacre in, 870-891 ; railroad to Liverpool from, opened, 894 ; Russel ad- vocates enfranchisement of, 908 ; free trade agi- tation centers at, 940; representation of, under the Bill of 1867, 987; Fenian disturbance at, 992-993 "Manchester martyrs," the, 993 Manchester School, the, views of, on Ashley's legislation of 1843-1844, 943 Manchester, Earl of, see Montagu, Edward Manchuria, 1036, 1075, 1076 Manila, captured by the British, 742 ; restored, 743 Manila ransom, the, 743 Manitoba, Province of, 932 Manning, Cardinal, 1042 Manoa, fabled city of, 412 Manor houses, in the four- teenth century, 222, 223 Manors, Anglo-Saxon, 62, 63, 64 ; in Anglo-Norman times, 86-88 Mansfeld expedition, the, 447, 448 Mansfield, Lord, see Murray, William Manufactures, measures to protect, 289 ; regula- tions of, by James I and Charles I, 589; develop- ment of, in England be- fore the great inventions, 784; status, in 1832, of, 892 ; British, opposition of, to factory legislation, 921 Manwaring (man'nering), Roger, 451 Maoris, the, 1068 Map, Walter, 127 Mar, Earl of, see Erskine, John Mara'thas', 809, 810, 967 "March of the Blanketers," the, 870 Marchand, Major, 1015 Marcher lords, the, 155, 169, 185 Marconi, inventor, 1054 Mare, Sir Peter de la, 206 Marengo, Austria defeated at, 846 Margaret, daughter of Ed- ward the jEtheling, 58 Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, 257, 258, 260-270 Margaret of Burgundy, 271, 272, 280 Margaret, Queen of James IV of Scotland, 282, 296, 298, 333, 355 Margaret, Maid of Norway, 170 Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, 381 Margaret of Valois, 384 Margaret Beaufort, Count- ess of Richmond, 279 Maria Anna, daughter of Philip III of Spain, 441, 446 Maria Christina, Queen and Regent of Spain, 889, 949 Maria Leczinska, Queen of Louis XV of France, 691 Maria Theresa, Empress, 700, 704, 705, 708, 710, 716, 717, 724, 725, 826 Marian Exile, significance of, 365, 366 Marian exiles, 388 Marian martyrs, the, 363 Marie Antoinette, 828 Marignano, battle of, 298 Markets, 130, 131 Marlborough, Duchess of, see Jennings, Sarah Marlborough, Duke of, see Churchill, John Marlborough, the Statute of, 156 Marlowe, Christopher, 423 Marprelate libels, the, 389, 390 Marriage, feudal incident of, 85 . Marriage with a deceased wife's sister legalized, 1077 Marriage Act, Lord Hard- wicke's, 719 Mar'ryat, Captain, 1048 Marsh, Adam, 160 Marshall, see William Mar- shall Marston Moor, battle of, 494, 495 Martin, Richard, "Human- ity Martin," 903 Mar'vell, Andrew, 607 Mary I, Princess and Queen of England, 308, 344; provisions concerning her succession, 355 ; acces- sion, character, and policy of, 358, 359; marriage projects, 359; restores the ecclesiastical system of Henry VIII, 359, 360; marries Philip of Spain, 360; suppresses Wyatt's rebellion, 361 ; secures reunion of Church of England with Rome, 361 ; the Marian persecutions, 361-364; last years and death of, 364, 365 Mary II, Princess, later Queen of England, marries William of Orange, 555 ; her succession barred by the birth of a son to James II, 579; chosen joint sovereign with William, 585, 586 ; her arrival in England, 586; influence of, in purifying the drama, 610, 625; her death, 632 Mary- (of Modena), Queen of James II, 552, 570, 579, 583 Mary, sister of Henry VIII, Queen of France, and Duchess of Suffolk, 296, 355 Mary (of Lorraine), Queen of James V of Scotland and Regent, 333, 334, 367, 374 Mary, Queen of Scots, birth OI > 334 ! crowned Queen, ib. ; taken to France, 352 ; married to the Dauphin (later Francis II of France), 353 ; refuses to ratify the Treaty of Edin- burgh, 374; returns to Scotland and marries Darnley, 375 ; murder of Darniey, 376; her mar- riage to Bothwell, defeat, and flight to England, INDEX H37 377 ; her trial and cap- tivity, ib. ; plot of Nor- folk to marry, and the rising of the Northern Earls to put her on the throne of England, 377, 378; aim of Philip II to make her Queen, 380; plots in behalf of , 381, 382, 385, 386, 387, 388, 393; her execution, 393, 394 Mary of Burgundy, 270-272, 299 Mary of Bavaria, 646 Ma'serfeld, battle of, 35 Masham, Mrs., 665, 667 Mashonaland, 1032 Mason, James M., Confed- erate Commissioner to England, 978 Massachusetts, resistance to the Stamp Act in, 753 ; to the Townshend Acts, 757 Massachusetts Bay, colony of, 436 Massacre of St. George's Fields, the, -758 Massacre, the "Peterloo," 870-871 Matabeleland, 1032 Mathew, Father, 950, 1059 Matilda, daughter of Henry I, 96 ; marries Em- peror Henry V, ib. ; mar- ries Geoffrey of Anjou, ib. ; claims the throne, 100; begins civil war, 101 ; gains and losses, 102, 103 ; retires from the struggle, 103 ; mention of, 309 Matthew Paris, 156, 161, 172 Matthews, Thomas, 330 Matthias, Emperor of Ger- many, 442 Maurice (mdr'ris), Freder- ick Denison, 1041 Mauritius, secured to Great Britain by Congress of Vienna, 865 Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, 655, 656 Maximilian, later Emperor of the Germans, 271, 272, 281, 282, 295, 296, 298, 299 Maximilian, Duke of Ba- varia, 442 Maximilian, Archduke, in Mexico, 980 Maximus, 20, 21 May Fair, 806 Mayflower Compact, the, 5i7 Maynard, Sergeant, 584 Maynooth College, 840, 944 ; grant to, discontinued, 993 Mazarin, Cardinal, 372, 488 McAdam, John, 893 McCarthy, Justin, 1021 Meagher (ma'her), Thomas Francis, Irish conspira- tor, 952 Meath, 112 Medicine, in fourteenth cen- tury, 221 ; in the seven- teenth century, 606 ; in the eighteenth century, 792 ; in the nineteenth century, 895 Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 394 Medway, the Dutch enter the, 542, 543 Meerut, rising at, 970 Melbourne (mel'bun), Lord, see Lamb, William Melbourne, capital of Vic- toria, Australia, 1066 ; temporary capital of the Commonwealth of Aus- tralia, 1067 Melrose Abbey, 99 Melville, Andrew, 431 Menai Straits, road across, 893 Menshikov, Prince, 960-962 Mercantilism, 288 ; declin- ing strength of, 605 ; Adam Smith's criticism of, 796 Merchant Adventurers, the, 289, 413 Merchant gilds, 130 Merchants, concessions to, in Magna Carta, 143 ; Statute of, 179, 212; foreign, in England, 212, 213; in the fifteenth century, 286; of the Staple, 289 ; condition of, under Henry VIII, 341 Merchant Shipping Act, the, 1002 Mercia, supremacy of, 38, 39 Mercians, the, 30 Merciless Parliament, the, 236 Meredith, George, 1048, 1049 Merlin, 89, 243 Merry Andrew, 224 Mersey River, 5 Merton College, Oxford, 160 Methodism, rise of, 794-795 Methuen Treaty, the, 655 Metropolitical visitations, the, 463 Metternich, Prince, 865, 883, 884 Mexico, recognition of Re- public of, 885 ; Napoleon III intervenes in, 979-980 ; the situation in, 1910- 1914, 1084, 1085 Michell, Sir Francis, 443, 445 Middle class, the, in the fifteenth century, 286 Middlesex election, the, 757, 758 Middleton, John, Earl of, 535 Miguel, claimant to Por- tuguese throne, 885, 888, 889 Milan decree, the, 853 Mile End, 232, 233 Militant suffragists, 1060, 1088 Military and Naval Officers' Oath Bill, the, 880 Military tenures, introduced by William the Conqueror, 85 ; abolished, 534 Mill, James, 907, 1049 Mill, John Stuart, 973, 983, 1041, 1059, 1060 Millais (mil la'), John Everett, 1057 Millenary Petition, the, 430, 431 Millet, Constable's influence on, 901 Milner, Sir Alfred (Lord Milner), 1033 Milton, John, 423, 451, 601, 747 ; his life and works, 608, 609 Minden, the battle of, 733 Mines and collieries, Acts relating to, in 1842-1843, 942, 943; in 1872-1906, 1060 Minimum Wage Bill, the, 1085, 1086 Ministerial responsibility, 615, 646 1 138 INDEX Ministries, list of, from Walpole, appendix Ministry of All the Talents, 851, 852 Ministry, the, distinguished from the Cabinet, 614 Minorca, captured by the British, 665 ; ceded to Great Britain, 671 ; cap- tured by the French, 723, 724; restored, 743; lost again, 776; ceded to Spain, 781 Miquelon, Island of, 781, 833 Miracle plays, 224 Mise of Amiens, the, 153, 154 Mise of Lewes, 154 Missal, the, 331 Mistress of the Robes, the, changed with each Gov- ernment, 935 Mitchell, Irish conspirator, 952 Modena, see Zurich, Peace of Mogul, the Great, 720, 960- 973 Mogul Empire, British assume guardianship of, 967 Mohocks, 600 Moira, Lord, see Rawdon, Francis, Earl of Hastings Moldavia, 887, 964 ; see Rumania Mompesson, Sir Giles, 443, 445 Monarchy, rise and decline of Anglo-Saxon, 62 ; rev- enues, 66; evidences of growth of, 68, 69 ; cause of decline of, 69, 70; strength of, at the acces- sion of James I, 566 ; declining respect for, under the first two Georges, 693 Monasteries, hospitality of, 220 ; faults and merits of, 322 ; dissolution of the, 322-324, 328-330; as centers of poor relief, 342 ; of education, 345 ; see Monks Monastic revival in twelfth century, 99 ; decline of, under Henry II, 126; see Monks, Monasteries, and Cluniac reform Monck, George, later Duke of Albemarle, 526, 527, 532, 542 Money bills, the Lords yield right to amend, 545, 546 ; to veto, 1078 Money lending, legalized, 408; see Interest and Usury Monks, work and influence of, 36,37 ; the, as landlords, 285, 341 ; proceedings against under Henry VIII, 319, 320, 322-324, 326, 328-330; see Monasteries and Monastic revival Monmouth, Duke of, see Scott, James Monopolies, attitude of Eliz- abeth on, 399 ; under the Tudors and Stuarts, 405 ; attack on, 443, 444; Act abolishing, 444 ; grants of, by Charles I, 461 ; justification for, 588, 589 Monroe, President, enunci- ates "Monroe Doctrine," 885 and note Monroe Doctrine, the, 885, 1028 Mons, 630 Montagu (mon ta gu'), Charles, later Earl of Halifax, his share in the restoration of the coinage, 635 ; in founding the National Debt and the Bank of England, 635- 637, 643 ; impeachment of, 646; mention of, 667 Montagu, Edward, Earl of Manchester, 477, 483, 492, 495, 496 Montagu, Edward, Earl of Sandwich, 552 Montagu, John, Earl of Sandwich, 745 Montague, Mrs., 806 Montcalm, Marquis of, 278, 731-733 Montenegro, 1003, 1005 Montesquieu, 823 Montfort, de, see Simon Montgomery, Robert, 971 Monthly assessments, 488 Montpensier, Due de, 949 Montreal, the British cap- ture of, 736 Montrose, the Earl of, 481, 498, 512 Moore, Sir John, death of, 854 and note Moore, Thomas, 899, 1045 Morality plays, 224 Morals, status of British, after French Revolution, 902 Moray, Earl of, see Stewart, Lord James Mordaunt, Charles, Earl of Peterborough, 657, 663 More, Sir Thomas, 295 ; Speaker of the Commons, 300; character and work of, 305, 306; made Lord Chancellor, 311, 314; re- signs, 317; arrest and execution of, 319-321 ; as a writer, 346 Morea, the, Ibrahim Pasha in, 886, 887 Morkere, Earl, 58, 59, 76, 77 Morley, John, Viscount Morley, 1013, 1024 Morley, Mrs., see Anne, Queen of England Mornington, Lord, see Wellesley, Richard, Mar- quis of Wellesley Morocco, 138, 1075, 1076, 1082 Morris, William, 1057 Morse, Samuel, 1054 Morte d' Arthur, Malory's, 290 Mortimer, Edmund, Earl of March, heir presump- tive of Richard II, 240, 244, 245, 250 Mortimer, Roger, 186, 189, 190 Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 263 Mortmain, Statute of, 179 Morton, Earl of, Regent of Scotland, 367, 387 Morton, Thomas, Lord Chancellor, 280, 289 Morton, Dr., 1051 " Morton's Fork," 280 Mortuaries, 316 Moscow, in Napoleon's Rus- sian campaign, 858 Mountjoy, Lord, 398 Mount Vernon, 704 INDEX "39 Mowbray, Thomas, Earl of Nottingham, 236 ; Duke of Norfolk, 238, 239 Muckden, battle of, 1076 Mummeries, 208, 218 Mummings, 224, 422 Mun, Thomas, 605 Municipal . corporations, at- tacks on, by Charles II, and James II, 563, 564, 577. 578; forfeited char- ters restored, 582 Municipal Reform, problem of, for Ireland, in 1837, 932-933 Municipal Reform Act, the, 924-925 Munster, 112 Miinster, the Bishop of, 542 Murphy, Father John, 841 Murray, Lord George, 711- 7M Murray, Brigadier James, 735 Murray, William, Lord Mansfield, 719, 761 Music, in the seventeenth century, 612; in the eighteenth century, 803 ; in the Victorian Age, 1057 Mustapha, 677 Mutiny Act, the, origin of, 621 ; opposed by Walpole, 683; by Fox, 812 "My son's Ministry," 808 Mysore, establishment of, as British protectorate, 966-967 ; revolt in, 845 N "Nabobs" in Parliament, 911 Namur, 631, 634, 862 Nana Sahib, 969, 971, 972 Nankin, Treaty of, 948 Nantes, the Edict of, 397 ; revoked, 570, 589 Na pi er, Admiral, Sir Charles, 961 Napier, General, Sir Charles, 968 Napier, John, 606 Napier, Sir Robert, Abys- sinian expedition of, 988 Naples, in Second Coalition against France, 845 ; re- volt of 1820 in, 884 Napoleon, see Bonaparte Napoleon, Louis, later Napoleon III, Palmer- ston approves the coup d'tlat of 1851 of, 957; supports French protec- torate over Holy Places, 959; ambition of, a cause of Crimean War, 959, 960; anxiety of, to end Crimean War, 964, 965 ; Orsini's attempt to assassinate, 974975 ; Orsini's plot stimulates to intervention in Italy, 975 ; negotiates a com- mercial treaty with Cob- den, 976 ; unfriendly atti- tude of, to United States during Civil War, 979-980 ; attitude and policy of, in Schleswig-Holstein ques- tion, 980; in the Franco- Prussian War, looo Naseby, battle of, 497, 498 Nash, Richard (Beau Nash), 602 Nash, Thomas, 420 Natal, 1030, 1031 ; in the Boer War, 1033, 1034, 1035 Nation, the Irish nationalist journal, 944 National Assembly, French, aggressive decrees of, 829, 830 National Constituent As- sembly, the French, 824 National Debt, the, 550; beginning of the, 637 ; Scotch share in, 662 ; after Napoleonic wars, 831; in 1796-1797, 836; after the Union, 843 ; amount of, at end of Napoleonic wars, 868 ; see South Sea Company National Insurance Bill, the, 1086 National Land Leagues, 1010 National League, the Irish, ion, 1020 National Society, the, foun- dation of, 995-996 National Transport Federa- tion, 1085 Nationalist party, the, split in the ranks of, 1021, 1022 ; reunion of, 1025 ; the Independent, ib. ; com- bination with Liberals, 1062; opposes the Civil List, 1072 ; the agreement with, 1078; see Home Rule and Parnell Nationality in Revolutions of 1848, 951 Naturalization Bill, the Im- perial, 1088 Navarino, 887 Navigation Acts, the, in the fifteenth century, 288, 289; of 1651, 414, 519; of 1660, 534, 535, 539; their effect on trade, 590, 591 ; scope of, and effect of, on the American Revolution, 747, 748, 750, 7Si Navigation Law, the, 213 ; of Elizabeth, 412; op- position of Burghley to, 413 ; repeal of, 875 ; tem- porary suspension of, in 1846-1847, 950 Navy, beginning of English, 172, 213 ; under Henry VII and Henry VIII, 343 ; growth of, under Elizabeth, 390, 391 ; in the Civil War, 488 ; under the Commonwealth, 514; condition of, under Charles II, 541 ; abuses in treasurerships of, in late eighteenth century, 816; superiority of, in X 793> 831 ; mutiny in, in 1797. 836, 837 ; reforms in, in 1870, 997-998; in the Victorian period, 1053, 1054 Near East, see Russo-Turk- ish War Necker, French Minister, 824 Neerwinden, battle of, 631 Nelson, Admiral, at battle of St. Vincent, 836; de- feats Napoleon at Aboukir Bay, 844, 845; in com- mand before Copenhagen, 847 ; victory off Tra- falgar, 850 Nemours, Due de, Belgian crown offered to, 890 Neolithic man, in Britain, 12-13 Netherlands, commercial 1 140 INDEX treaty with (the Great Intercourse), 289; revolt of, against Philip II, 380, 381, 385 ; Elizabeth's in- tervention in the, 390, 391 ; French aggressions in, 828; French driven from, 832 ; defeat of allies of First Coalition in, 834 ; the kingdom of, 880-890; see also Flan- ders, Holland, Belgium and Batavian Republic Neutral goods in "Declara- tion of Paris," 964 Neutrals, regulations regard- ing, under Continental system, 852, 853 Neville (nev'il), Richard, Earl of Warwick, the king- maker, 261-264 passim, 266, 267, 268, 269 passim Neville's Cross, 196 New'ark, Scotch camp at, 499 Newberrie, John, 410, 411 New Brunswick, Province of, 932 Newbury, first battle of, 492 ; second battle of, 496 Newcastle, 5 Newcastle, Dukes of, see Pel- ham-Holles and Clinton Newcastle, the Earl of, 491, 53i Newcastle Program, the, 1023, 1024 Newcastle, the Propositions of, 501 Newcomen, his steam engine, 787 Newfoundland, 290, 412, 670, 671,932; fisheries of, French rights in, defined, 781 New Harmony, U.S.A., Owen's colony at, 938 New Learning, the, 298, 302, 303; in England, 303- 307 Newman, John Henry, in the Oxford Movement, 1040,' 1041 ; his writings, 1044-1046 "New Model" army, the, 343, 489, 490, 496, 497 ; breach with Parliament, 499 ; conflicts with Parlia- ment, 500-504; rise of democratic opinion in, 503, 504; disbanded, 533 New Netherland, 541, 543 Newnham College, 1059 New Orleans, battle of, 86 1 "New Poor Law," the, 921- 922 Newport, R.I., French fleet blockaded at, 774 Newsletters, 601 New South Wales, 958, 959, 1066, 1067 Newspapers, 601 New Testament, the, edition of Erasmus, 305 ; Luther's translation of, 307 ; Tyn- dale's translation of, 330 Newton, Sir Isaac, 577 ; his discoveries, 606 ; share in the restoration of the coinage, 635 Newton Butler, battle of, 625 New World, discovery of, 6 New York, 553, 769, 992 New Zealand, origin and growth of, 1065, 1068; contributes a battleship, 1082 Ney, Marshal, 862-864 Nice, 975-976 Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 886, 959, 960, 963 Nicholas of Hereford, 228 Nicholas of Lynn, 213 Nicholson, General, 972 Nicolls, Colonel Richard, 541 Niemen, the interview of Napoleon and Alexander on, 852 Niepce, 1052 Niger Company, the,' 1029 Nightingale, Florence, in the Crimea, 962 Nile, battle of the, 844, 845 Nineteen Propositions, the, 484 NIths'dale, Lord, 681 Noailles, Marshall de, 707, 708 Nobility, weakness of, under the Tudors, 278; con- dition of, in the fifteenth century, 285, 286 ; in the seventeenth century, 595 Nominalists, the, 160 Nominated Parliament, the, 516, 524 Nomination boroughs, 916 Nonconformists, their rise, 388; effect of the Act of Uniformity upon, 537 ; decline of, in eighteenth century, 793 ; Education Bill of 1870 unpopular with, 996; barred from the universities, 997 ; op- pose the Education Bill of 1902, 1074 ; failure of Education Bills favoring, 1077 ; see Dissenters Non-intercourse Act, the American, 860 Non-jurors, the, 622 Non-residence, of clergy- men, 316, 1040; Ecclesi- astical Commission cor- rects, 925 Non-resistance, Tory, High Church theory of, 563 Nootka Sound, 827 Nore, mutiny at, 837 Norfolk, Dukes of, see Howard and Mowbray Norham, Award of, 170 Norman architecture, 72 Norman barons, risings of, 91, 93, 94, 95 Norman Conquest, results of, 84 ff. Norman earls, rising of, 78 Normandy, Duchy of, founded by Rollo, 41 ; conquered by Geoffrey of Anjou, 103 ; loss of, by John, 135 North, Lord, enters the Grafton Ministry, 757 ; becomes Prime Minister, 759; his character and policy, 759, 760; breaks Whig power, 760; char- acterization of Adminis- tration of, 760, 761 ; favors conciliation with American Colonies, 765 ; failure of policy of, to conciliate American Col- onies, 766 ; Continental Congress rejects concilia- tion schemes of, 768; efforts to conciliate Ameri- can Colonies in 1778, 771 ; Administration of, loses strength, 773 ; resig- nation of, 776 ; Irish re- forms of, 777 ; unites with Fox to attack Shel- INDEX 1141 burne, 808; Secretary of State, ib. ; Regulating Act of, 809, 810 North, Thomas, 418 Northallerton, battle of, see Standards North America, voyage of Cabots to, 290; the English colonies in, 436, 437 ; struggle of the French and English in, 722 North Briton Review, No. 45, 744, 745 North Downs, 4 North German Confedera- tion, organization of the, 987-988 Northern earls, rising of the, 377, 378 Northern Rising, the, see Pilgrimage of Grace Northern Star, the, Chart- ist organ, 939 Northampton, Assize of, 117 North Island, 1068 Northmen, their home, 41 ; their conquests, ib. first invasion of England and Ireland, 42 ; their king- doms, and the West Saxon reconquest, 46, 47 ; second coming of, 51, 52 ; gain a foothold in ' Eng- land, 53 ; establish a dynasty under Cnut, 53 North Pole, 213 Northumberland, Duke of, see Dudley, John Northumbrians, 30 ; their supremacy, 33 ; end of su- premacy, 38 Norton, Thomas, 422, 423 Norwich, strike at, 784 ; case of the Archdeacon of, 134; Bishop of, crusade to Flanders, 235 Nottingham, Earl of, see Howard, Charles, and Finch, Daniel Nova Scotia, 670, 671, 932 Novel, the, rise of, 798, 799 ; development of, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, 899 ; in the Victorian period, 10461049 Noy, William, suggests ship money to Charles I, 466 Nun of Kent, the, 319 Nymwegen, the Peace of, 556 O Gates, Titus, 556, 557, 558, 562, 567 Oath helpers, 66; see Com- purgators Oaths, see Supremacy and Allegiance Obdam, Admiral, 542 O'Brien, William Smith, 952 Observants, the friars, 320 Occasional Conformity Act, 668, 669; repealed, 684 Oceana, see Commonwealth, 604, 605 O'Connell, Daniel, cham- pions cause of Catholics, 880-882; fights duel, 902 ; secures franchise reform in Ireland, 913 ; attitude of, toward English remedial legislation for Ireland, 919, 920; supports Whig Ministry, 932-933; names " Chartist" agitation, 939 ; violent agitation of, in 1843, 943-944; death of, 944 O'Connor, Feargus, Chartist leader, 939, 952 Octavius, Roman Emperor, 18 Odo of Bayeux, 91, 93 O'Donnell, Frank Hugh, IO2I Off a, King of Mercia, 38, 39; his Dyke, 38; his laws, 39, 44; letter from Charlemagne to, 74 Ogle, Captain, 789 Oglethorpe, James, 804, 805 Ohm, 1052 Ohthere, the Northman, 45 Old Age Pensions Act, 1060, 1077 Oldcastle, Sir John, 249 Old Sarum, borough of, 702, 910 "Oliver the Spy," govern- ment agent, 870 Oliver Twist, contemporary life reflected in, 938 Omagh (oma'), 1086 Omdurman, 1015 O'Neill (nel), Hugh, Earl of Tyrone', 398 Onslow, Colonel, 762 Ontario, province of, 932 Oollt'ic range, 4 Opium traffic, measures for the suppression of, 1080 Opium War, the, 947-948 Orange, see William Orange Free State, 1030, 1034, 1035 "Orange Lodges," formation of, in Ireland, 839 Orange River Colony, 1035 "Orator" Hunt, 869, 871, 907, 918 Ordeals, 66, 81, 117 Order of the Indian Empire, the, 1006 Orderi'cus Vita'lis, 89 "Orders in Council," the, 852, 853, 860 Ordinances, the, of 1311, 183; royal, 210; of the Tory Parliament, 489 Oregon boundary question, the, 948, 949 Orford, Earl of, see Russell, Edward, and Walpole, Robert and Horace Origen (or'ijen), 22 Orleans, siege of, 255 Orleans, see Charles, Duke of Orleans, Philip II, Duke of, Regent of France, 679, 682, 685, 691 Ormonde, Duke of, see Butler, James Ormonde, Marquis of, see Butler, James Orosius, Alfred's translation of, 45 i Orsini, conspirator, 974975 Orsted, 1052 Osborne, Sir Thomas, suc- cessively Earl of Danby, Marquis of Carmarthen, and Duke of Leeds, be- comes Lord Treasurer, 553; his use of bribery, 553, 554; his religious policy, 554 ; his bill for a Protestant successor, 555 ; attitude toward the Pop- ish Plot, 557, 558; fall of, 560, 561 ; signs the invitation to William of Orange, 581 ; his plan for regulating the succession, 585; his dismissal, 615; 1142 INDEX becomes head of the Ministry under Wil- liam III, 622; forced to retire, 641 Osborne Judgment, the, 1062 O'Shea, Captain, 1021 Ostend Company, the, 692 Oswald, Northumbrian King, 34, 35 Oswy, Northumbrian King, 35 Otho, papal legate, 150 Otis, James, 749 Otto I, King of Greece, 888 Otto IV, German Emperor, 138, 141 Ottoman Empire, see Turkey Oudenarde, battle of, 664, 696 Oudh, the Begums of, 810; Wazir of, 810; land cessions secured by British from, 967 ; British an- nexation of, 968-969; in Indian Mutiny, 971 "Outdoor Relief," for British paupers, 921, 922 Outram (oot'ram), Sir James, in India, 972 Owen, Robert, 938, 1061, 1062 Oxford, . barons present de- mands to John at, 141 ; Provisions of, 153, 154; knights of the shire sum- moned to, 173; head- quarters of Charles I, 487, 491 ; Treaty of, 491 ; royal Parliament at, 494; the last Parliament of Charles II at, 562, 563 ; borough of, practice of bribery in parliamentary election by, 911 Oxford, Earl of, see Vere, Aubrey de and Harley, Robert Oxford Gazette, the, 640 Oxford Movement, the, 953, 1040, 1041, 1042 " Oxford Reformers," the, 283, 291, 304-307 Oxford, University of, not founded by Alfred the Great, 46 ; origin of, 1 28 ; quarrel with papal legate, 150; friars at, 158; col- leges at, 1 60; Magdalen Tower at, 222; in the fourteenth century, 222, 223 ; New College founded at, 223 ; in the time of Henry VIII, 324, 345; James II's attack on the, 577; the Test Act of 1871, 997 Pacification of Berwick, the, 470 Page, 1054 Pageants, 224 Paine, Thomas, 768, 825, 828 Painter, William, 418 Painting, in the seventeenth century, 611; in the eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, 900-901 ; in the Victorian Age, 1057 Palatinate, of the Rhine, the, 442, 443, 447; see Frederick V Palatinates, 78, 79 Pale, the Irish, 237, 281 Paleolithic men, of the river drift, 1 1 ; of the caves, 12 Palestine, quarrel over Holy Places in, precipitates Crimean War, 959 Paley, William, 895 Palladio, 611 Pallium, 92 Palmers, 219 Palmerston, Lord, in Can- ning's Cabinet, 878; re- signs from Wellington's Cabinet, 881 ; Foreign Secretary, 888; in Grey's Ministry, 909 ; foreign policy of, 947, 948, 955- 957 ; favors Italians in Revolution of 1848, 952; in Coalition Ministry, 958; would force Rus- sian concessions before Crimean War, 960; in- tervenes in China in affair of the Arrow, 966 note; frames an India Bill, 973 ; carries the Divorce Bill of 1857, 974 ; fall of, 974-975 1 begin- ning of second Ministry of, 976-977 ; in sympathy with South in American Civil War, 977; in Trent affair, 978; imports cot- ton from India and Egypt during English famine, 979; attitude of, in question of the Duchies, 980-981 ; characterization and death of, 981, 982 ; policy of, isolates Eng- land in 1866, 988; op- poses the Suez Canal proj- ect, 1002 Panama, Paterson's attempt to establish a colony in, 660, 661 ; exposition, the, 1084; tolls, ib. Pandulph, .papal legate, 139, 148 Pantheon, the, closing of, 902 "Papal Aggression," the, 953-954 Papal States, the, incor- porated in kingdom of Italy, 976 Papelotte, 864 Paper Duty Repeal Bill, the, 977 Paper money, depreciation of American, 774; issue by Bank of England to be covered by bullion, 942 Papineau, Louis Joseph, 930-931 Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, 609 Pardoners, 219 Pardoning power, the, 1036 Paris, siege of, 1000 Paris, Treaties of (1763), 742, 743; (1783), 781; (1814), 861, 862; (1815), 865 ; (1856), 964, 965 Paris, University of, 128 Paris, see Matthew Parish, the origin of, 64; in Tudor times, 407 ; care of roads by, 593 Parish priest, the, in the thirteenth century, 159 Parish registers, 327 Parker, Sir Hyde, 847 Parker, Matthew, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 374, 389, 420 Parker, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, 572 Parliament, origin of, 133 ; Simon de Montfort's, 155, 1 68, 173; the Model, 170, *73i J74. origin and INDEX "43 growth of, to 1205, 172- 174; payment of mem- bers, 174; the unlearned, ib. ; declaration of, 1322, 185; deposes Edward II and sets up Edward III, 186; gains of, in 1341, ig3, 194; the Good, 206, 207 ; beginning of im- peachments in, ib. ; sep- aration into Lords and Commons, 174, 210; gains in the fourteenth century, 210, 21 1 ; the Merciless, 236 ; the Great, of Shrews- bury, 238 ; deposes Richard II and sets up Henry of Lancaster, 240, 241 ; gains of, under Henry IV, 246; attacks wealth of Church, 247; causes of weakness under the later Lancastrians, the Yorkists, and the Tudors, 279; resists Sub- sidy of 1523, 300; the Reformation, 315-320, 324; acts of, relating to the monasteries, 323,324, 328, 336 ; Henry VIII re- proves, 336 ; Henry's management of, 338-340; control of, by Elizabeth, 403 ; privileges of, 403, 404; conflicts of, with James I, 433, 434, 437, 443, 444, 445-449; the "Addled," 437; conflicts of, with Charles I, 453- 455, 457-46o; taxing power of, 467, 468; the Short, 471, 472; the Long, first session of, 474- 481 ; struggle with Charles I for control of the king- dom, 484 ; its organization during the Civil War, 486- 490 ; breach with the army, 499 ; intolerance of, 500 ; conflicts with the army, 500504, 506 ; Pride's Purge of, 506; see the Rump; see also the Nominated ; quarrels of Cromwell with, 521-523; final dissolution of the Long, 526; the Conven- tion, 527, 529, 532-535; gains of, under Charles II, 529; see the Cavalier; gains of, under Charles II, 545, 546; origin of cor- ruption in, 553 ; new tests excluding Roman Catholics from (1678), 559 ; breach of James II with, 571 ; the Conven- tion, of William, 584-586 ; rights of, in the Declara- tion of Rights, 586; Scotch members admitted to, 662 ; corruption in, in the time of Walpole, 690 ; Act of, necessary for divorces to 1857, 719; question of its supremacy over the Colonies, 749, 750; struggle over re- porting of debates in, 761, 762 ; Adam Smith favors Colonial representation in, 766; annual, urged by Duke of Richmond, 773 ; Pitt's attempts at reform of, 818; Catholic priests excluded from, 882 ; drunken men in, 902 ; causes of reform of, in nineteenth century, 905- 906 ; Bentham's influence upon reform of, 906-907 ; abuses in, needing reform, 909-914; question of priv- ileges of members of, in Stockdale vs. Hansard, 936 ; annual, Working- man's Association wants, 939; property qualifica- tion for election to, abol- ished, 975 ; restoration of payment of members of, ib. ; abolition of disabil- ities of Jews to sit in, ib. ; open to atheists, 975, 1009; bills to reform, between 1832-1866, 984; opened in person by Ed- ward VII, 1072 ; powers of the Lords reduced in, 1078-1080; term of , short- ened to five years, 1080; see Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, 1884, and 1885; see also House of Com- mons and House of Lords Parliament Bill, the, 1078, 1079, 1080 Parnell, Charles Stewart, character of, 1010; his visit to the United States, ib. ; his arrest and re- lease by the Kilmainham Treaty, ion ; breaks off his connection with the Clan-na-Gael, 1012 ; Salis- bury's negotiations with, 1017; accepts the first Home Rule Bill, 1019; his suit against the Times, 1020, 1021 ; his disgrace and death, 1021, 1022 "Parneilism and Crime," 1020 Parsons, Robert, 387 Parson's Cause, the, 750 Parthenon Sculptures, the, 1050 Parties, political, rivalry of, checks political evils in eighteenth century, 914; see Cavalier, Roundhead, Court, Country, Tory, Whig, Conservative, Liberal, Radical, Young Ireland, Nationalist, Labor Partition Treaties, the, 645, 646 Party system, the, beginning f> 554; rise of, 614-617 Pasha, Ibrahim, in Greek Revolution, 886, 887 Paterson, William, 638, 660- 661 Patriarcha, the, 604 "Patriots," the, 698, 700, 701 Patronage, see Lay Patron- age Paul III, Pope, 321, 348 Paul IV, Pope, 364, 379 Paul, Tsar of Russia, 835, 845-847 Paul's Walk, 600, 601 Paulet, Sir Amyas, 393 Pauncefote (pounce'foot) Sir Julian, 1029 Pauperism, in late seven- teenth and in eighteenth centuries, 804, 921, 922 Pavia, siege and battle of, 301 Paxton, Sir Joseph, 955 Payment of. members, 1062 Peace, see Justices Peace Preservation Acts for Ireland, 919, 995, 1010 1 144 INDEX Peacham's case, 439 Peasant Revolt, the, 225, 228, 230-234 Pecquigny, Treaty of, 270 Pedro, King of Castile, 204 Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, 885, 888, 889 Peel, Sir Robert, the Elder, interest in factory legis- lation of, 920921 Peel, Sir Robert, made Home Secretary, 874 ; law reforms of, 875 ; re- fuses service in Canning's Cabinet, 878 ; supports Wellington Ministry, 88 1 ; reforms criminal code, 903 and note, 904; in- fluenced by Bentham, 907 ; First Ministry of, 923- 924; supports Municipal Reform Bill of 1835, 9 2 5; deplores accession of Vic- toria, 928 ; precipitates Bedchamber crisis, 934 935 ; second Ministry of, begins, 941 ; the Bank Charter Act of, 941-942 ; furthers development of free trade, 942 ; views of, on Ashley's labor legis- lation of 1843-1844, 943 ; conciliatory measures for Ireland of, 944; conver- sion of, to free trade, 944-946 ; secures Corn Law repeal, 945, 946 ; death, and estimate of work of, 946-947 ; failure of, to relieve Irish troubles, 950 ; Disraeli's attacks on, during Corn Law agita- tion, 942, 989; Derby splits with, on Corn Law repeal, 989 Peele, George, 423 "Peelites," the, 947; Con- servatives among, in 1846, 950 ; refusal of, to support first Derby Ministry, 957 ; in Coalition Ministry, 958 ; Gladstone secedes with the, 990 "Peep of Day Boys," the, 838, 839 Peerage Bill, the, 686 Peers, judgment by, 144; Pitt and creation of, 815; wide control over Com- mons by, before first Re- form Bill, 910; fight first Reform Bill, 914-915; defeat second Reform Bill, 915 ; Tory, oppose munic- ipal Reform Bill of 1835, 925 ; see Lords, House of, and Parliament Bill Peine forte et dure,,nj, 217 Peking, the Treaty of, 966 Pelham, Henry, 708, 709, 716, 718, 719 Pelham - Holies, Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, char- acter of, 698; makes his brother Prime Minister, 708; brings Pitt into the Ministry, 716; opposes the reform of the calen- dar, 718; becomes Prime Minister, 719; his quan- dary, 722, 723; dismisses Pitt, 723 ; makes Byng a scapegoat, 724; resigns, 725 ; anticipates Pitt as a strategist, 727 ; forms his second Ministry with Pitt in control of foreign af- fairs, 728, 730; end of his Ministry, 742 Pelissier, General, 963 Pembroke Castle, 505 Penal laws, under Eliza- " beth, 373, 387, 388 ; under James I, 432, 442, 445; under Charles I, 451, 455 ; operation of, suspended for Protestant Dissenters, 621 ; done away with, 773 Penal servitude, regulation regarding, as established for transportation, 958- 959 Penda, King of Mercia, 34, 35 Peninsular War, the, 853-858 Penn, Admiral, 520 Penn, William, 576 Pennine Mountains, the, importance of, 293 Pennington, Admiral, 455 Penny postage, in London, 602 ; introduced in Eng- land, 936-937 ; Imperial, 1028, 1081, 1082 Penrud'dock's rising, 522 Penry, John, 390 Pensionary Parliament, the, see Cavalier Parliament Pensions, Victoria's allow- ance for, 929; see Old Age Pensions Pentland rising, the,. 573 Pepperell, William, 710 Pepys (peeps), Samuel, 538, 540, 54i Perceval, Spencer, 852, 855, 856 Percival, Dr., 920 Percy, Henry, Earl Mar- shal, 208 Percy, Henry, Earl of Nor- thumberland, 244, 245 Percy, Sir Henry (Hotspur), 244, 245 Percy, Thomas, Bishop of Dromore, 802 Periodical literature, British, in early nineteenth cen- tury, 900 Per'rers, Alice, 205, 206, 207, 208 Perry, Commodore, victory on Lake Erie of, in 1813, 861 Persia, 591, 966, 968, 969 Perth, West Australia, 1066 Peruzzi, the, 194 Peter, St., 22 Peter (the Great), Tsar of Russia, 682 Peter of Amiens, 93 Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, 147, 148, 149, 150 Peter of Wakefield, 138, 139 Peterborough, Earl of, see Mordaunt, Charles Peter's Pence, origin of, 39 ; abolished, 318 Petition of Right, the, 457, 458 Petitioners, the, 562 Petitions and the origin of legislation, 210, 211 Petrarch, 225 Petre (pe'ter), Father, 571, 572 Pet'ty, Sir William, 605, 606 Petty, William, Earl of Shelburne and Marquis of Lansdowne, 776, 778- 780, 808, 825 Pev'ensey, 29, 59 Philadelphia, 765, 769, 772 Philip II (Augustus), King of France, 114, 121, 122, 123, 135, 136, 138, 141, 149 INDEX "45 Philip IV, King of France, 171, 176 Philip V, King of France, 185, 186 Philip VI, King of France, 191-197 passim, 202 Philip II, King of Spain, 359-362, 364, 365, 372, 375, 380, 381 ; rejoices at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 385 ; re- calls Alva, ib. his share in the Catholic League, 39. 391 ; leader of the Counter-Reformation, 392 ; plans expedition against England, 393 ; claim to the English throne, 394; sends the Armada against England, 394; views of, on the destruction of the Ar- mada, 396 ; final struggle with Elizabeth and death, 397, 398 Philip III, King of Spain, 441, 442 Philip IV, King of Spain, 520, 542, 549, 645, 646 Philip of Anjou, later Philip V of Spain, 646, 647, 664, 668, 670, 671, 679, 682, 685, 691, 692, 716 Philip (the Good), Duke of Burgundy, 251, 254, 282, 289 Philip (the Fair), Duke of Burgundy, 299 Philiphaugh, battle of, 498 Philippa, of Hainault, Queen of Edward III, 189, 197, 205, 220, 223 Philippa, wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 240 Phillip, Commodore, 1065 Philosophical Radicals, the, aims of, in 1838-1839, 933 note Philosophy, in the seven- teenth century, 604; hi the eighteenth century, 793, 794; in the late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, 895 ; in the Victorian Age, 1049, 1050 Phoenicians, 14 Phcenix Clubs, organization of, in Dublin, 991, 992 Phcenix Park murders, the, ion Photography, 1052 Physicians, College of, 304; see Medicine Picts, the, 15, 20, 30 Piedmont, revolt suppressed in, 884; joins Franco- British Alliance, 963 Pie Powder Court, 163 Piers the Plowman, 225, 226 Pigott forgeries, the, 1021 Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 326-328 Pilgrims and pilgrimages, 219, 220, 326 Pilgrim's Progress, the, 607 Pillory, the, 805, 903 Pinkie Cleugh, battle of, 352 Piracy, in eighteenth cen- tury, 789 Piraeus, British siege of Greek ships at the, 956 "Pitch-cap," the, 841 Pitt, Fort (Pittsburgh), 729 Pitt, William (later Earl of Chatham), the beginning of the political career of, 702, 703 ; denounces sub- sidies, 707 ; and Carteret, 709; he enlists High- landers, 715, 727 ; ad- mitted to the Pelham Ministry, 716; opposition of, to his Chief New- castle, 719, 720; dis- missal of, 723 ; made Secretary of State, 725 ; estimate of, 725, 726; his "system," 717, 727; vainly tries to save Byng, 727 ; his dismissal and recall as Secretary in the second Newcastle Minis- try, 728; his conduct of the campaigns of 1757- 1760, 728-734, 736; wins the confidence of George II, 734, 737! anti-party attitude of, 738; his resignation, 741, 742 ; distinction of, be- tween taxation and regu- lation of trade, 749; re- fuses to tax the Colonies, 751; refuses to form a Ministry, 753 ; his op- position to the Stamp Act, 755 ; forms the Grafton-Pitt Ministry, 756; becomes Earl of Chatham, 756; his ill- ness and retirement, ib.; attacks the Grafton Min- istry, 759 ; opposes British Colonial policy, 765, 766; views of, regarding Ameri- can Colonies in 1778, 771 ; death of, 772; advocates parliamentary reform, 907 Pitt, William, the Younger, struggle of, with the Coalition, 812, 813 ; Tory- ism of, 813; sketch of career -of, 813814; posi- tion of, in 1784, 814, 815 ; India Bill of, 815 ; estab- lishes commercial union between England and France, 817; estimate of his political strength and achievements, 819 ; attitude of, in Hastings's impeachment, 820 ; recon- ciles George III and Prince of Wales, 820, 821 ; thwarts Fox on Regency question, 821, 822; atti- tude towards French Rev- olution, 824, 825 ; for- eign policy of, 826-830; Burke denounces foreign policy of, 828; dismisses Chauvelin from England, 830; on the war with France, ib.; hostility to- ward in 1795, 834; sub- sidizes Austria in war with France, 834; fails to make peace with France in 1796, 835; France seeks overthrow of, ib.; efforts of, to secure peace with France in 1797, 837; instructs Fitzwilliam re- garding Ireland, 840; re- calls Fitzwilliam from Ire- land, ib.; decides upon Irish Union, 842-844 ; resignation of, 843, 844 ; organizes Second Coalition against France, 845 ; sup- ports Addington Ministry, 847, 848 ; second Minis- try of, 850, 851 ; death of, 851 ; duel with Tier- ney, 902 ; advocates par- liamentary reform, 907 ; 1146 INDEX Quebec Government Bill of, 930 Pius V, Pope, 382 Pius VII, 847 Place, Francis, 907 Place Bills, 639, 646, 913, 1089 Plague, the, 221, 341, 543, see also Black Death Plantagenet (plantaj'enet) dynasty, the, beginning of, 107 ; end of, 240, 241 Planters, British colonial, oppose abolition of slavery, 920 ; labor troubles of, in Jamaica, 933-934 Plassey, the battle of, 735 Platonic Academy, 304 Platonists, the Cambridge, 603, 604 Plautius, Aulus, 18 Plautus, 422 Play House Bill, passage of, 802 Plim'soll, Samuel, 1002 Plombieres, the meeting of Cavour and Napoleon III at, 975-976 Plun'ket, William, Baron Plunket, champions Cath- olics, 870-880 Plun'kett, Sir Horace, 9, 1025 Plural holdings, ecclesias- tical commission corrects, 925 Plural voting, 986, 1012, 1023, 1086, 1087 Plural Voting Bill, the, 1088 Pluralities, 316, 431, 1040 Plymouth, colony of, 431, 436 Pocket boroughs, 910 Poet laureate, 897, 1045 Poetry, Anglo-Saxon, 70, 71 ; Anglo-Norman, 88, 89; in the Middle Ages, 223, 226, 290; Eliza- bethan, 421 ; in the seven- teenth century, 607, 610; in the eighteenth century, 801,802; Romantic, 896- 899 ; Victorian, 1045, 1046 Poitiers, 218 Poitou, oppression of the nobles of, by John, 136 ; John's expedition to, 139, 141 ; Henry Ill's expedi- tions to, 149, 151 ; in- corporated into French dominions, 151 Poland, 827, 834, 890, 981 Pole, Reginald, later Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 32S, 326, 332, 359, 361, 362, 365 Pole, Michael de la, created Earl of Suffolk, 234, 235, 236 Pole, William de la, Duke of Suffolk, 257, 258 Poles, execution of, 332 Polish succession, war of the, 700 Political Register, the, Cob- bett's Radical organ, 900 Poll taxes, 207, 230, 231 Pol'lock, Sir George, 968 Polo, Marco, 1065 Pompadour, Madame de, 724 Pondicherry, 721, 736 Pontiac, the conspiracy of, 749 Poonah, the Peshwa of, 809, 967 Poor Laws, the, of Hen- ry VIII, 342, 343 ; of Elizabeth, 343, 415; the New (1834), 921, 938, 1055; the Irish, 932, 933, 939,951 Poor preachers, the, 228 Poor relief, in the Middle Ages, 342 ; in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, 804 Pope, Alexander, poetry of, 801, 896 Popish Plot, the, 543, 556- 560 Population, of England, in the Anglo-Norman period, 88 ; in the fourteenth cen- tury, 216; in the fifteenth century, 286, 287 ; in- crease of, under Henry VII and Henry VIII, 341 ; in the Restoration period, 596; growth of, in the eighteenth century, 804 ; of Scotland under James VI, 428 ; decrease of, in Ireland, 1025 ; increase of, in the United Kingdom, and in England and Wales in the nineteenth century, 1058 ; of the British Em- pire, 1063; of New Zea- land, 1068 Person, Richard, 1050 Port Arthur, 1029, 1076 Port Jackson, 1065 Porte, the Sublime, origin of name, 886 and note; treaty of 1740 with, 959; see Turkey Portland, Earl of, see Ben- tinck, William Portland, Duke of, see Ben- tinck, William Henry Porto Bello, 703, 704 Portsmouth, Duchess of, see Keroualle, Louise de Portsmouth, the Peace of, 1076 Portugal, marriage alliance of Charles II with, 540; as a maritime power, 618, 619; joins the Grand Alliance, 655 ; Methuen Treaty with, ib. ; in Second Coalition against France, 845 ; seized by Napoleon, 853-854; loses Brazil, 876; result of 1820 in, 884; revolution Portuguese, the, in India, 720, 721 Portuguese West Africa, 1032 Posidonius, 14 Positivism, 1049 Post, the, in the seventeenth century and the Restora- tion period, 601, 602 ; see Penny postage Post nati, the, 435 Potato famine, the, 944, 1056 Potosi, mines of, 340 Pottery, development of English manufacture of, 786 Poundage, see Tonnage Poverty, suffering from, in England, during Victoria's early reign, 937 Poynings, Sir Edward, 281 Poynings' Law, 281, 842 Prsecipe (prg'cipe), writ of, 142, 144 Prasmunire (pre'mu nl're), Statute of, 200, 237 ; em- ployed against Wolsey, INDEX 1147 311 ; invoked by Henry VIII against the clergy, 3i7 Pragmatic Sanction, the, 692, 704, 708, 709, 717 Prague, the Defenestration of, 442 Prague, Peace of, 987- 988 Praise of Folly, see Erasmus Pratt, Charles, Lord Cam- den, 747, 759 Prayer Book, see Common Prayer Preferential trade, 1072, 1081, 1082 Premonstratensians, gg Preraphaelites, the, 1046, 1057 Prerogative, the royal, mag- nified by the High Church party, 451, 452 Presbyterians, organization of, 366 ; aims of, under Elizabeth, 388, 389; re- ligious and political theo- ries of, 43 1 ; relations of, with James I, 435 ; effort of, to capture the Estab- lished Church of England, 480, 481 ; see Solemn League and Covenant, and Westminster Assembly ; breach of, with the Inde- pendents, 495 ; Charles II's views of, 530 ; block the efforts of Charles II to secure toleration, 535, 538 ; lose ground in Eng- land, 539; oppose the union with England, 660 ; establishment of, guaran- teed in the union, 66 1 ; Irish, Gladstone's treat- ment of, in 1869, 993; see United and Free Church Presbyteries, 366 Presentment jury, 116, 117 Press, the censorship of the, 464; end of the censor- ship of, 640; becomes a factor in party govern- ment, 641 ; progress of, as a political factor, under George III, 762 ; in struggle over reporting debates, 762 ; the London, on defeat of second Re- form Bill, 915 Pressburg, Peace of, 850-851 Pressing to death, 805 ; see also Peine forte et dure Prester, John, 988 Preston, battle of, 506; Jacobite surrender at, 680 Prestonpans, the battle of, 711 Pretenders, see James Fran- cis Edward ; Charles Edward, Simnel, and War- beck Pretoria, 1035 Prevention of Crimes Bill, the, ion Price, Dr. Richard, 794, 8 1 8, 825 Pride's Purge, 506 Priest, the parish, in thir- teenth century, 159 Priestley, Joseph, 792, 825 Prime Minister, the, rise of, 615, 616; the first use of the name, 698, 705 ; the office of, 1076 Primer, the King's, 331 Primogeniture, 85 Prince, the, of Machiavelli, 3M Prince Edward Island, 932 Printing, introduction into England, 290, 291 Priories, alien, 323 Prisons, in the Middle Ages, 216, 217; efforts of Ogle- thorpe and Howard to reform, 804, 805 ; im- provement of, in the nineteenth century, 1059 Privateering, abolition of, in "Declaration of Paris," 964, 965 Privateers, American, during Revolution, 772 ; British, in American Civil War, 978-979 Privilege, see Parliament Privy Council, the, under the Tudors, 404; as a court of appeal, 406; its constitution under Charles II, 532; com- mittee of, for Trade, 591 ; powers of the, 646 ; crea- tion of educational com- mittee of, 996; Judicial Committee of the, 318, 402, 918; judgment in the Gorham, Essays and Reviews, and Colenso cases, 1042 Probate, Court of, under the reform of 1873, 999 Probate of wills, 316 Proclamations, royal, 349, 439 Procopius, Roman historian, 25 Proctors, tithe, abuse of, by Irish peasantry, 919 Progresses, royal, 415 Prohibitions, 438, 439 Property Qualification Act, 668 Prophesyings or exercises, 389 Prose writers, see Literature Protection, Disraeli supports policy of, in Commons, 942 ; abandonment of, in England, 946-947 ; Dis- raeli abandons, 958; see Chamberlain, Joseph, Corn Laws, Gladstone, Huskis- son, Mercantilism, Peel, and Adam Smith Protectorate, the, 517, 527 Protectorates, British, 1064 Protestant extremists, under Edward VI, 348-356; under Elizabeth, 388-390; see Baptists, Brownists, Congregationalists, Fifth Monarchy Men, Indepen- dents, Presbyterians, Puri- tans, Quakers, Dissenters, Nonconformists Protestant Association, the Elizabethan, 563 ; Lord George Gordon's, 773 Protestant flail, the, 559 Protestant Union, the, 442 Protestation, the, of the Commons, 446 Provisions of Oxford, the iS3 t 154 Provisions of Westminster, the, 154, 156 Provisors, Statute of, 200, 237 Prussia, becomes a power of the first rank, 717; joins Triple Alliance of 1781, 826, 827; in war of First Coalition, 834; joins armed neutrality of 1800, 846; Great Brit- ain lays embargo on 1 148 INDEX vessels of, 852; joins Russia, Austria, and Sweden in War of Libera- tion, 859; signs first Treaty of Paris, 861-862 ; signs Quadruple Alliance, 865 ; attitude of, toward revolution in Belgium, 890; signs Treaty of Paris after Crimean War, 964 ; Napoleon III counts on neutrality of, in war of Italian Unity, 976; Victoria favors, in Schles- wig-Holstein affair, 980, 981 ; defeats Austria in war of 1866, 987-988; see Frederick II (the Great), King of; see Franco-Prussian War, 1000 Prynne, William, 464, 466, 477 Public Debt, the, in Pitt's Ministry, 815, 816; see National Debt and Sink- ing Fund Public works, Russell's sys- tem of, for Ireland, 950- 9Si Public Worship Regulation Act, the, 1042 Pularoon, 541, 543 Pulteney, Sir William (later Earl of Bath), 698, 705, 706, 708, 716 Punishments, 216, 217, 805, 903, 904 Punjab, the annexation of, 968 Purcell, Henry, 612 Puritans, the origin of, 388 ; demands of, at the ac- cession of James I, 430, 431; their views and aims in the time of Charles I, 451, 452; their .moral and religious discontent, 463-466; moral influence of, 525 ; hostility of, to the stage, 610 Puritan revolution, the, 228 ; its principles, 366; com- plex and peculiar character of the, 402 ; the results of, 508, 527 Purvey, John, 228 Purveyance, 201, 218, 433; abolished, 534 Pusey, Dr., 1041 Puttenham, Richard, 346, 420 Pym, John, 471, 472, 475- 477. 479, 481 ; his part in the Grand Remon- strance, 482, 483 ; ar- ranges the Solemn League and Covenant, 493; his death, ib. Pyramids, the, at Giza, 1002 Pyramids, battle of the, 844 Pyrenees, the Peace of the, 54 Pytheasof Marseilles, 14, 1 6 Quadrivium, 128 Quadruple Alliances, the (1718), 684, 685; (1815), 865; (1834), 889 Quakers, the, 538, 567, 621, 719 Quarter-days, 718 Quarter Sessions, 406 Quartering Acts, 749 Quarterly Review, the, 900 Quatre Bras, battle of, 862, 863 Quebec, the siege and cap- ture of, 730-733; the Province of, 932 Quebec Act, the, 764 Quebec Government Bill, the, 930 Quebec Ordinances, the, 931-932 Queen Anne's Bounty, 651 Queen's Bench, Court of, under reform of 1873, 999 Queen's Colleges, in Ireland, 944 Queensland, 1066, 1067 Quia Emptores, 181 Quiberon Bay, naval battle & t, 733 ; the landing at, 884 Quiros, De, 1065 Quo warranto, inquiries, under Edward I, 178; writs of, brought by Charles II against Lon- don and other municipal corporations, 563, 564 R Races in Britain, Eskimos, 12 ; Iberians, 13 ; Celts, 13 Rack-renting, Irish, 880 Radcot Bridge, 236 Radical party, the, oppose the Civil List, 1072 Radicals, the, in the Whig party, 868 ; agitations of, 869-870, 872; the Press organ of, ooo; school of philosophic, 007 ; Mac- aulay combats views of, 908; oppose New Poor Law of 1834, 922; claims of, under Melbourne's second Ministry, 925-926 ; policy of, in 1838-1839, 933 ; Chartism embodies aims of British, 939; denounce Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 954 Raeburn (ra'bun), Sir Henry, 900 Raedwald, King of the East Anglians, 33, 34 Raglan, Lord, 962, 963 Raglan Castle, 499 Railroads, development of, 894; in the Victorian Age, 1052, 1053; gov- ernment ownership of, in Australia, 1067 ; in New Zealand, 1068; see Steam engine Railway strike, the, 1085 Rainsborough, Colonel, 504 Rakoczy, Prince, 655 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 370, 397, 412, 421, 438, 441, 606 Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, 78 Ralph Roister Doister, 422 Ramillies, the battle of, 659, 662 Ranelagh, 806, 902 Rani of Jhanai, the, 973 Ranulf Flambard, 91, 94, 95 Rastadt, preliminaries at, 670 Rates, compulsory church, abolition of, 925 Rates, the poor, burden of, before New Poor Law, 921922 Rating franchise, 101 2 Raw'don, Francis, Lord Moira and Earl of Hast- ings, Governor-General of India, 967 Ray, John, 792 Raymond VI, of Toulouse, 138 INDEX "49 Raymond, John, 411 Reade, Charles, 1048 Real Presence, the, 325, 354 ; see also Transubstantiation Realists, the, 160 Recognition, Act of, 430 Recognition juries, 117 Recreation in the twelfth century, 99 ; in the four- teenth century, 217 Recusants, measures against, 387, 388; under James I, 432, 443, 447; see Penal Laws Redan, the, 963 Redistribution Act, the, of 1885, 1013 Redmond, John, succeeds to Parnell's leadership, 1022 ; becomes leader of the reunited Nationalists, 1025 ; and the Home Rule Bill of 1914, 1089 Reeve, the Anglo-Saxon, 63,65 Reflections on the French Revolution, Burlap's, 825 Reform Bill, the *rst, de- ' feated, 914-915; defeat of second, 915 ; passage, terms, and results of third, 915-917; results of first, 917; the first, of 1832, disappointment of working classes in, 937- 938; Russell and, 985 note ; its effect on the Church, 1040; of 1866, 984-985; of 1867, 986- 987; of 1884-1885, 1012, 1013 Reform of the Calendar, see Calendar Reformation, the, in Eng- land, causes for, 301, 302 ; condition of the Church on the eve of the, 307, 308 ; causes of, 308; some results of, 316; effect of, on poor relief, 342 ; prin- ciples of, in England, Ger- many, and Scotland con- trasted, 366 Reformation of Manners, Society for, Wilberforce founds, 902 Reformation Parliament, the, 315-320, 324 Reforms, legal, of 1833, 918 Refugees, foreign, in Eng- land, 589 Regency Bills, the (1705, 1706), 658; (1765), 7531 (1788, 1789), 821, 822 Regicides, the, 533 Reginald, sub-prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, 137 j Regium Donum, 993 "Reign of Terror," the, 833 Relief, feudal incident of, 85 Relief Bill, Savile's, 773 Religion, of the Celts, 14; in thirteenth century, 159, 1 60; in the eighteenth century, 793 ; in the nineteenth century, 1030- 1042 Renascence, the, 225, 291 ; 302, 303 ; in England, 303-307 ; influence of, on English literature, 418 Rent, Ricardo's theory of, 896 "Repealers," 924 Representation, inequalities in, in House of Commons, 900-910 ; after Reform Bill of 1832, 984; see American Revolution and Virtual representation Requests, Court of, 350 Resolutions, the Eliot, 459 Responsibility of ministers, 615, 646 Restoration, causes and nature of, 527, 528; colonial and trade ex- pansion during, 590, 591 Restoration of the coinage, see Coinage Revenues, Anglo-Saxon, 68; Anglo-Norman, 86 ; under Henry II, 118; under Henry VIII, 340; under the Tudors, 404, 405 ; of the royalist and parlia- mentary parties in the Civil War, 488; settle- ment of, at the Restora- tion, 533, 534; the, of James II, 567, 568; set- tlement of, under Wil- liam III, 623 ; from the American Colonies, 751 ; of the British Empire, 1063 ; see Civil List Revenue officers, deprived of right to vote, 7?6, 777 Revised version, the, 331 Revolution, of 1688, the nature and results of, 697 ; see American Revolution Revolution, Belgian, of 1830, 880-890 Revolution, the French, ef- fects of, on England, 822, 823 ; causes of, 823, 824 ; outbreak of, 824 ; govern- ments of, 824 and note; reception of, in England, 824, 825 ; English propa- ganda checked, 828 ; Eng- lish societies to spread doctrines of, ib. ; emis- saries of, in England, 829 ; Reign of Terror of, 833 ; effect in Ireland of, 889 ; attitude of English poets toward, 898 ; social effects of, 901-902 ; Bentham's fear of, 906 ; of 1 830, 899 ; spread of movement of 1830, 890 ; stimulates reform in England, 908; Revolution, Spanish, of 1820, 884, 885 Revolution in Portugal and Spain, 888-889 Revolution, European, of 1848, 951-952 Revolution Society, the Eng- lish, 825 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 803- 804 Rhe, the expedition to, 455, 456 Rheims, college at, 387 Rhodes, Cecil, 1031, 1032, 1033 Rhodesia, 1032 Rhuddlan, Statute of, 169 Ricardo, David, 896 Rich, Robert, Earl of War- wick, 477 Richard I (Cceur de Lion), King of England, made Duke of Aquitaine, 113; revolt against Henry II, 114; accession and char- acter, 1 20 ; exactions, 121; participation in the Third Crusade, 121, 122; return and imprisonment in the German Empire, 122, 123; his ransom and visit to England, 1 23 ; departure for France and INDEX death, 123, 124; growth of boroughs under, 129; grants a guild hall to the merchants of Cologne, 131 Richard II, King of England, festivities for, as Prince of Wales, 207, 208 ; navi- gation laws under, 213, 225; accession, 230; atti- tude toward the Peasant Revolt, 232-234; marries Anne of Bohemia, 234; manifestations of despot- ism of, 235 ; temporarily yields to the opposition, 236 ; recovers power and rules well for eight years, 236, 237 ; goes to Ireland, 237 ; attempts^to resume absolute power, 237239 ; second mar- riage, 238; second visit to Ireland, 239 ; deposi- tion of, 240; death and final estimate of, 241, 243 Richard, Duke of Gloucester 265 ; suspected of murder of Henry VI, 269; leads an expedition against Scotland, 272; makes himself Protector, 272; character and policy, 272, 273 ; proclaimed King, 273 ; see Richard III Richard III, King of Eng- land, crimes and vain efforts to secure popu- larity, 273, 274; defeat and death at Bosworth, 274, 275 ; estimate of, 275 Richard, Duke of York, 257 ; claim to the throne, 258; visit to Ireland and return, 259 ; Protector, 260, 261 ; opens War of the Roses, 261 ; in exile, 261, 262 ; claims the throne, defeat and death at Wakefield, 262 Richard, Duke of York, son of Edward IV, 272, 273, 280 Richard de Clare ("Strong- bow"), Earl of Pembroke, 112 Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, 153 Richard of Cornwall, 150, 152, i?3 Richard Fitzneal, 127, 150, 156 Richardson, Chief Justice, 464 Richardson,' General Sir George, 1087, 1088 Richardson, Samuel, 799 Richelieu, Cardinal, 447, 455, 488 Richmond, Duke of, urges annual parliaments, 773 Ridley, Nicholas, Bishop of London, 363 Ridolfi plot, the, 381, 382 Rights, Bill of, see Bill Rights, the Declaration of, 586; see Bill of Rights Rights of Man, Paine's pam- phlet, 825 Riot Act, the, 678 Riots, in connection with parliamentary reform, 915, 986 Ripon, negotiations with the Scots at, 473 Rising of 1715, the, 679- 681 ; of 1745, 710-714 Ritualism, 1041, 1042 River systems, 475 Rivers, economic impor- tance of, 4 Rivers, Lord, 272, 273, 304 Rizzio, David, 376 Roads, Roman, 21 ; in the fourteenth century, 218; in the fifteenth century, 285 ; in the seventeenth century, 593 ; in the early nineteenth century, 893 ; in Scotland, 715 Robert (Curthose), Duke of Normandy, 78 ; rising of, 91 ; goes on the first Cru- sade, 9,3 ; mortgages his duchy to William Rufus, ib.; forestalled as King of England, 94; return from the Holy Land, ib. ; leads a rising against Henry I, 95 ; treaty with Robert, ib. ; defeat at Tinchebrai, ib. ; dies a prisoner, ib. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, 100, 101, 102, 103 Robert of Artois, 192 Robert of Bellame, 95 Robert of Crickland, 125 Robert of Jumieges, 56, 57 Robert of Mowbray, 93 Robert Fitzwalter, 142 Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 131, 151, 152, 164, 181, 304 Roberts, General, Earl Rob- erts, in the Afghan War, 1007; in the Boer War, 1034-1036 ; honors ac- corded to, 1035, 1636 ; opposes Home Rule Bill, 1088 Robespierre, 833 Robethon, 677 Robin of Redesdale, 267 Robin Hood, 224 Robinson, Frederick, Vis- count Goderich, 874, 879 Robinson, Sir Hercules, 1032 Robinson, Sir Thomas, 719, 720 Rochambeau, Count, 774- 776 Rochdale, 1061 Rochester, Earls of, see Wilmot, John, and Hyde, Lawrence Rochester, Viscount, see Carr, Robert "Rocket," the, Stephenson's locomotive, 894 Rockingham, Council of, 92 Rockingham, the Marquis of, first Ministry of, 754- 756; second Ministry of, 776-778; death of, 780 Rockingham Act, the, checks abuses in Parlia- ment, 913 Rodney, Admiral, 730, 775, 778 Roe, Thomas, 591 Roebuck, John, 786 Roger, of Hereford, 78 Roger of Hoveden, 127 Roger of Salisbury, 97, 101 Rogers, John, 330, 363 RoiPacificateur, Le, 1075 Rollo, 41, 56 Roman Catholicism, con- trasted with Calvinism, 366; Puritan fears of, 464, 465 Roman Catholics, excluded from the House of Com- mons, 373 ; treatment of, by James I, 431-433 ; the party of, fostered by Hen- rietta Maria, 465 ; mostly INDEX on the side of Charles I, 487 ; Charles I's intrigues with, in Ireland, 488, 4g8 ; the condition of, under Cromwell, 517, 518; Charles II's attempts to reintroduce, 534, 549- 552; the Test Act against, 551 ; see the Popish Plot ; excluded from Parlia- ment (1678), 559; ad- mitted to office by James II, 571, 572; prog- ress of, in Scotland, 574 ; indulgence granted to, 575, S?6, 578, 579; fanati- cism against, in England, 773, 774; Grenville Min- istry fails to secure com- missions in army and navy for, 852 ; disabilities of, before the Relief Acts, 879; emancipation of, 879-882; status of, at Victoria's accession, 927 ; Russell's legislation against, 954; see Acces- sion Declaration Act Roman Catholics, Irish, penal laws against the, 627; condition of, 1782, 838 ; concessions to, 839 ; failure of, to secure con- cessions after the Union, 843, 844 ; denounce founding of nonsectarian schools in Ireland, 944; proportion of, in Ulster, 1087 Roman de Ron, 88 Roman Empire, the, 17 Roman fortifications in Brit- ain, 19 Roman Law, revival of, 115, 116; Henry II keeps it out of England, 116 Roman roads, 21 Romans, their invasion of Gaul, 1 7 ; invasions of Britain, 17, 18; conquest of Britain, 18; occupation of Britain, 18 ff. ; forti- fications in Britain, 19, 20 ; end of the occupation, 20, 21 ; advantages and dis- advantages of rule, 21 ff . ; taxation, 23 ; slightness of influence on Anglo- Saxons, 30 Romantic movement, the, in literature, 801, 802, 896-899 Rome, sack of, 301 ; Eng- lish college at, 387 ; French occupation of, 951 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 903- 004, 912 Romney, George, 804 Rood of Boxley, the, 328, 329 Rooke, Sir George, 656, 657 Root and Branch party, the, 481 Rosebery, Lord, 1003 ; his Ministry, 1026, 1027 ; his scheme for reforming the Lords, 1079 Roses, see War of the Rossa, O'Donovan, 992, 1012 Rossbach, the battle of, 729 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1046, 1057 Rothschild, Baron, 975 Rotten boroughs, 910, 916 Rouen, siege of, 251 "Round tables," 194, 198, 218 Roundheads, the, 483, 616 Roundway Down, battle of, 492 Rouse's Point, 948 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 604, 823 Rowlandson, Thomas, car- icaturist, 901 Royal African Company, the, 541, 591 Royal Agricultural College, 1055 Royal Agricultural Society, the, 1055 Royal Exchange, the, 413 Royal Marriage Act, 762 Royal Society, the, 603, 606 Royal title, the, changes in, 662, 843, 1003, 1072 Royal Titles Bills (1876), 1003 ; (1901), 1072 Rozhvestvensky, Admiral, 1076 Rubens, 611 Rumelia, 1006, 1083 Rump Parliament, the, 506 ; abolishes the kingship and the House of Lords, 509; unpopularity of, ib. ; re- fuses to dissolve, 509, 510; dissolved by Cromwell, 5i5,Si6 Rump, the, recalled and finally dissolved, 526 Runnymede, 142 Rupert, Prince, 489, 492, 495, 497, 499, 542, 552 Ruskin, John, 1044, 1045, 1057 Russell, origin of the family of, 329 Russell, Edward (later Earl of Orford), 581, 630, 631, 632, 634, 641, 643, 646 Russell, John, Lord, carries repeal of Test and Cor- poration Acts, 880-881 ; identifies parliamentary reform with Whigs, 907, 908; in Grey's Ministry, 909 ; introduces Reform Bill, 915; resigns from Grey's Cabinet, 922 ; speaker of House of Com- mons, 924 ; introduces Municipal Reform Act of 1835, 925; attitude to- ward Victoria upon her accession, 929 ; sends Durham to Canada, 931; becomes an advocate of free trade, 944945 ; first Ministry of, 950; religious problems of first Ministry of, 953~954 ; criticizes Palmerston's in- dependent tendencies, 956 ; in Coalition Minis- try, 958; dismisses Pal- merston, 957 ; fall of first Ministry of, ib. ; would force Russian concessions before Crimean War, 960 ; presents bill to abolish Jewish disabling oath, 975 ; in sympathy with South in American Civil War, 977; hasty policy of, in Trent affair, 978 ; refuses to intervene in American Civil War, 979 ; attitude of, on question of the Duchies, 980-981 ; second Ministry of, 983 ; Reform Bills of, 984, 985 ; fall of second Ministry, and death of, 985, and note ; see Alabama Claims 1152 INDEX Russell, William, Lord, 558, 562, 564 Russell, Sir William How- ard, correspondent of Times during Crimean War, 962 Russia, opening up of, in the sixteenth century, 410; joins the armed neutrality of 1778, 774; Pitt's failure to check the expansion of, 827, 828; in war of First Coalition, 834 ; Tsar Paul of, 835 ; in Second Coalition against France, 845 ; armed neu- trality of 1800, organized by Tsar of, 846, 847; Alexander I becomes Tsar of, 847 ; boundary dis- pute between United States, England, and, ad- justed, 949; joins Third Coalition against France, 850, 851 ; meets Napoleon at Eylau and Friedland, 852 ; Napoleon's cam- paign in, 858; combines with Prussia, Austria, and Sweden, against Napoleon, 859; signs first treaty of Paris, 861-862 ; signs Quadruple Alliance, 865 ; Nicholas I, Tsar of, 886; attitude of, towards Greek struggle for independence, 886, 887; attitude of, towards Belgian Revolu- tion, 890 ; in the Crimean War, 959-965 ; accession of Nicholas II, 963 ; supposed plot against India of, 966 ; seeks ex- tension of her power in Afghanistan, 968; Napo- leon III counts on assist- ance from, in struggle for unity in Italy, 976; Napoleon III proposes mediation in American Civil War by England, France, and, 979 ; Eng- land isolated by Palmer- ston from, 998 ; brings her ships again into the Black Sea, 1000, 1001 ; in China, 1029 ; occupies Man- churia, 1036 ; see Afghan, War of 1878; Russo- Turkish and Russo-Japa- nese War Russia Company, the, 413 Russo-Japanese War, 1075, 1076 Russo-Turkish War, 1003- 1006 Ruthven (riv'en) raid, the, 387, 428 Ruvigny, Henri de, Earl of Galway, 663 Ruyter, Admiral de, 542, 552 Ryehouse plot, the, 564 Ryswick, the Peace of, 635, 636 Sabbath, association for better observance of, 902 Sac and Soc, 64 Sacheverell, Dr. Henry, 666, 667 Sackville, Lord George, 733 Sackville, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, 423 Sacraments, definition of, 325 Sadler, Michael, 921 Sadowa, battle of, see Konig- gratz Saint Alban, shrine of, 180, 329 St. Albans, Council at, 140; residence of Henry III, 161 ; reeve and four men summoned to, 173 ; battle of, 261 ; second battle of, 263 St. Albans, Viscount, see Bacon, Sir Francis St. Aldhelm, see Ealdhelm St. Anthony's fire, 88 St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 384, 385 St. Benedict, 36, 37 St. Brice's Day, massacre of, 52 St. Dominic, 157-159 St. Edmund, martyrdom of, 42 Saint-Evremond, 611 St. Francis, see Francis St. Gilbert of Sempringham, 99 St. Giles' Cathedral, the riot in, 469 St. Helena, Napoleon at, 864-865 St. John (sm jm), Henry, later Viscount Boling- broke, character of, 667 ; his peace negotiations with France, 668-670; rivalry with Oxford, 672, 673 ; failure of his succession schemes, 674 ; dismissal, 676 ; his flight from Eng- land, 678; enters the service of the Pretender, ib. aims to stop the rising of 1715, 679; dis- missed by the Old Pre- tender, 680; return to England, 691 ; his activity in opposition, 698; end of his political career, 701 ; his Idea of a Patriot King, 740 St. John, Oliver, 467, 476, 477 St. Leger, Sir Anthony, 335 St. Lucia, island of, 865 St. Omers, 556 St. Paul, 22 St. Paul's Cathedral, 416, 462,612; see Paul's Walk St. Paul's, Council at, 140 St. Peter's Fields, 870 St. Pierre, Island of, 781, 833 St. Stephen, chapel of, 483 St. Thomas, see Becket Sal'adin, 118, 121, 122 Salian Franks, law of, 191 Salisbury, Countess of, 332 Salisbury, Earl of, 261, 262, 263 Salisbury, Marquis of, see Cecil Salisbury oath, the, 82 Salomans, Alderman, 975 Salonl'ka, massacre at, 1003 Sancroft, William, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 572, 578, 583, 585 Sanctuary of the Nativity, the, 959 note San Domingo, revolt in, 849 Sandwich, Earl of, see Mon- tagu Sanitation, 220, 221 ; in the time of Henry VIII, 341, 342 San Jacinto, the, 978 San Stefano, the Treaty of, 1005 Santa Cruz, 394 INDEX "53 Saratoga, surrender of Bur- goyne at, 770 Sardinia, 671, 685, 975, 976 Sarmiento, Don Diego, Count Gondomar, see Gondomar Sarum Use, the, 350 Saskatchewan, Province of, created, 932 note Saucy Castle, see Chateau Gaillard Saunders (san'ders), Admi- ral, 731, 732, 733 Savannah, capture of, by British, 772 Savery, Thomas, 787 Savile (sav'il), George, Mar- quis of Halifax, 562, 563, 567, 583> 585, 616, 620 Savile, Sir George, Bill of, on behalf of Catholics in England, 773 Savile, Sir Henry, 606 Savonarola, 303 Savoy, 976 Savoy, Duke of, 657 Savoy Conference, the, 535 Savoy palace, 232, 356 Sawtre, William, 247 Saxe, Marshal, 664, 709, 736 Saxons, piratical invasions of Britain, 20 Scheldt, French open to navigation, 829, 830 Schism Act, 673 ; repealed, 684 Schleswig-Holstein ques- tion, the, 980, 981, 985, 988, 1075 Scholasticism, 160, 291 Scholemaster, The, 344 Schomberg, Count, 581, 625, 626 Schoolmen, 345 Schools, 126, 223, 344, 995. 996 ; see Chantry and Grammar Schulenburg, Countess von, 677, 691 Science, in the seventeenth century, 125, 126; in the Elizabethan Age, 417; progress of, in the seven- teenth century, 606; in the eighteenth century, 791, 792; in the early nineteenth century, 895 ; in the Victorian Age, 1050- 1052 Scone (scoon), coronation stone of, 171 ; coronations at, 513, 680 Scotch-Irish Church, the, 22 Scotch Small Landholder's Bill, 1077 Scotland, physical features, 8; wars with Edward I, 169-172; alliance with France, 170; disputed succession in, 170; ris- ing of Wallace, 175; ris- ing of Bruce and last cam- paign of Edward I against, 177; repulse of Edward II at Bannock- burn by, 184; "Shameful Peace" with, 189; dis- puted succession, in, 190; expedition against, by Edward III, 191 ; repulse of invasion from, at Neville's Cross, 197 ; rela- tions of Edward IV with, 271, 272; supports War- beck, 280; James IV, King of, marries Margaret of England, 282 ; invasion from, repulsed at Flodden, 296; designs of Hen- ry VIII on, 333, 334; impolicy of Seymour toward, 351, 352; the Reformation in, 367, 368 ; 374, 375; conflicts be- tween Mary and the Protestant lords, 375- 377 ; attempted Catholic revival in, 386, 387 ; con- dition of, at the accession of the Stuarts, 428, 429; relations with, under James I, 435; projects of union with, 433, 435 ; Episcopacy vs. Presby- terianism, 435 ; outbreak against the policy of Charles and Laud, and the first Bishops' War, 468-470 ; the second Bishops' War, 473 ; Mon- trose in, 488 ; the Solemn League and Covenant arranged with, 493 1 troops from, on the side of Parliament, 499 ; Ham- ilton invades England from, 505. So6; conquest of, by Cromwell, 512, 513; defeat of invaders from, at Worcester, 513; repre- sented in the English Parliament, 516; the Res- toration in, 535 ; landing of Argyle in, 568 ; the situ- ation in, under Charles II and James II, 573-575; the Revolution in, 627 ; the rising of, under Dundee, and its collapse, 628, 629 ; Presbyterianism reestab- lished in, 628; the mas- sacre of Glencoe in, 629; union of, with England, 8, 660-672 ; development of, after the union, 662 ; attempted descent upon, in 1708, 663, 664; rising of 1715 in, 670-681; Jacobite force lands in, 685 ; French invasion against, 709; the rising of '45 in, 710-714; the transformation of, in the eighteenth century, 714- 716; parliamentary fran- chise in, before first Re- form Bill, 912, 913; under bill of 1832, 916- 917; representation of, under Act of 1867, 987; visits of Victoria to, 1037 ; secessions from the Church of, 1042, 1043 Scots, homages, 47, 113, 121, 171 ; invasion of Britain, 20; union of, and Pitts, 30 ; alleged submission to Edward the Elder, 47 Scott, James, Duke of Mon- mouth, 558, 559, 562, 564, 568-570, 574 Scott, Major, 820 Scott, Sir Walter, 415, 710. 897, 898, 900, 1040, 1043, 1045 ; his literary work, 897, 809 Scroggs, William, Chief Jus- tice, 560 Scrope, Richard, Archbishop of York,' 245 Scutage, 118 Scutari, hospitals at, during Crimean War, 962 Sea coal, 5 Seamen, Elizabethan, their achievements, 400-411 "54 INDEX Sea power, rise of the Eliz- abethan, 391-393 Search, the right of, as a cause of the War of Jen- kins' Ear, 701, 702 ; of the War of 1812, 853, 860; given up, by Great Brit- ain, 86 1 Sebastopol, siege of, 962, 963 Secession, question of, in American Civil War, 977 Secretary of State, the, 404 Secretary of State for India, the institution of, 974 Secretary for War, abolition of office of, 963 ; reor- ganization of duties of, 963, and note Sectaries, Act against, 390 Security, Act of, 661 Sedan, the battle of, 1000 Sedgemoor, battle of, 568, 569 Seditious writings, royal proclamation against, 828 Seditious Meetings Bill, the, 835 ; passage of a new, 870 Seely, Colonel, 1089 Self-denying ordinance, the, 496, 497, Soo Selkirk, Alexander, 789 Selling, William, 304 Seminary priests, 387, 388 Seneca, 422 Senegal, 729 Senlac, battle of, 59, 60, 88 Separatists, 388, 389 Sepoys, 721 ; in Indian Mutiny, 969, 971 Septennial Act, the, 617, 681, 926 Sepulchre, Holy, 93, 959 Sequestration, 500 Serf, the Anglo-Saxon, 64 Serjeanty, grand, 533 Servia, 964, 1003, 1005 "Service" franchise, the, 1012 Settlement, the Act of, 642- 644; the law of, 921, 922 Seven Bishops', the Case of the, 578-580 Seven United Provinces, the, 385 Seven Years' War, the, issues in, 720; chief events in, 722-736, 741-743 ; the peace negotiations, 741- 743 ; effect of, in pre- cipitating the American Revolution, 748, 749 Severn River, 5 Severus, Septimius, Roman Emperor, 20 Seville, the Treaty of, 701 Seymour, Charles, Duke of Somerset, 577 Seymour, Edward, Earl of Hertford, invades Scot- land, 334; becomes Pro- tector and Duke of Som- erset, 348; character of, 348, 349 ; remedial legis- lation of, 349 ; Protestant excesses under, 349, 350; growing unpopularity of, 350 ; risings against, 350, 351 ; failure of his foreign policy, 351, 352; his fall, 352, 353; execution of, 354; Edward VI's opin- ion of, 355 Seymour, Jane, Queen of Henry VIII, 325, 33*, 332 Seymour, Thomas, Lord High Admiral, 352, 370 Shaftesbury, Earls of, see Cooper Shakespeare, William, 142, 143, 279, 415, 420, 421 ; his writings, 423, 424 Shameful Peace, the, 189 Shanghai, opened to British trade, 948 Sharp, James, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, 573, 574 Sheep raising, 234, 284, 409 ; in Australia, 1066 Sheffield, 3 Sheldon, Gilbert, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 545 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, liter- ary work of, 898 Sheppard, Jack, 806 Sher Ali, 1007 Sherfield, Henry, case, of 462, 463 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 820, 848 ; plays of, 803 Sheriff, the, or shire-reeve, 44 ; Anglo-Saxon, 67 ; in Anglo-Norman times, 87 ; at the Exchequer, 98; decline of, under the Tudors, 407 Sheriff Muir, the battle of, 680 Sheriff's "aid," the, 109 Sheriffs, Inquisition of, 118; attempts of James II to control the, 578 Ship money, 466-468; de- clared illegal, 480 Shipping, laws relating to, 213 ; in the fifteenth century, 288, 289; in- crease of, under Hus- kisson's reforms, 876 ; status in 1830, 892-893; extent of, in 1910, 1053 Shires, origin of, 44, 46; Anglo-Saxon, 62 ; varied origin, courts and proce- dure, 67 ; see County Shirley, James, 610 Shirley, Sir Thomas, case of, 433 Shirley, William, Governor of Massachusetts, 710 Shirley vs. Fagg, case of, 554 Shooting Niagara, Carlyle's pamphlet, 987 Shorthouse, Joseph Henry, 1049 Short Parliament, the, 471, 472, 752 Shovel, Sir Cloudsley, 656 Shrewsbury, Peace of, 168; the Great Parliament of, 239; battle of, 245 Shrewsbury, Earl of, see Talbot, Charles Shrines, 180, 219; destruc- tion of, 329 Sicily ceded to Savoy, 671 ; acquired by Austria, 685 ; revolt of 1820, in, 884 Sickness, insurance against, 1060, 1 06 1 Siddons, Mrs., 802, 803 Sidmouth, Lord, see Adding- ton Sidney, Algernon, 564 Sidney, Henry, 581 Sidney, Sir Philip, 391, 419, 420 Sigismund, Emperor, 251 Sikh Wars, the, 968-969 Silesian Wars, the first and second, 705, 707, 710; the third, 725, 729, 730, 733, 736 Silk manufacture, the, in the seventeenth century, 589 "Silken Thomas," 335 Simnel, Lambert, 279, 280 INDEX "55 Simon de Montfort, 152- 156; 160, 168, 181; character and work, 155, 156; Parliament of, 153, 168, 173 Simpson, General, succeeds Raglan in Crimea, 963 Simpson, Sir James, dis- coverer of chloroform, 1051 Sinclair, Oliver, 333 Sind, annexation of, 968 "Singeing the King of Spain's beard," 394 Sinking Fund, the begin- ning of the, 683 ; of 1717, 699; Pitt's, 817, 818; end of the, 875 Sinope, Russians attack Turkish fleet at, 960 Siward, Earl of Northum- bria, 56, 57 Six Articles, the, 336; re- pealed, 349 Skeffington, Lord Deputy, 33S Skelton, John, 345 Slave trade, Anglo-Saxon, 74, 79; abolition of African, 818, 819, 851 Slavery, 86, 87 ; abolition of, in the British colonies, 918, 920, 989 ; promise of regulation by Congress of Vienna, 865 ; question of extension of, as a cause of the American Civil War, 977 Slidell, Confederate com- missioner to England and France, 978 Sluys (slois), naval battle of, 193 Small Holdings Acts, 1056, 1097 Smith, Adam, 606, 766, 795, 796, 895, 896, 1049 Smith, Sidney, 900, 914, 917, 937 Smith, William Henry, leader of the House of Commons, 1020, 1023 Smithfield, 233 Smollett, Tobias, 704, 800 Smuggling, 699, 701, 702, 805, 815, 816; in postal service before penny post- age, 937 ; English traders promote, with China, 948 Soap Company, the, 461 Socage, 534 Social classes, in the seven- teenth century, 594; in the Victorian period, 1058 Social Compact, the, 604 Social Democratic Federa- tion, the, 1063 Social Democratic party, the, 1063 Social Levelers, or Diggers, 504 Socialism, 938, 1062, 1063 ; Christian, 1048, 1062 Socialists, agitations of, at end of Napoleonic wars, 869 Society, British and Foreign Bible, 902 Society, English Revolu- tionary, 825, 828 Society, the British and Foreign School, 995 Society, the National, 995- 996 Society, Royal, for Preven- tion of Cruelty to Ani- mals, 903 ; see also Royal Society Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, the, 1050 Society of Arts, the, 803 Society of Friends of the People, the, 907 Society of Jesus, see Jesuits Socinians, 622 Sociology, 1049 Solebay, see Lowestoft and Southwold Bay Solemn League and Cove- nant, see Covenant Solferino, battle of, 976 Solway Moss, battle of, 333 Somers, John (later Lord), in the Seven Bishops' case, 580; his share in the Restoration of the coin- age, 635 ; character of, 641 ; his Balancing Letter, 642 ; deprived of the Great Seal, 643 ; impeach- ment of, 646 Somerset, Dukes of, see Seymour Somerset, Earl of, see Carr, Robert Somerset, Henry, Duke, of Beaufort, 595 Sophia, Electress of Han- over, 643, 658, 676 Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Frederick William I of Prussia, 676 Sophia Dorothea, Queen of George I, 676, 692 South Africa, the British in, 1030-1036 ; the union of, 1067, 1068, 1077, 1081 ; government in, 1067, 1068 ; Indian laborers in, 1080; labor problems in, 1081 South African Republic, see also the Transvaal, 1033 South American Republics, the, Canning and the recognition of, 885-886 South Australia, 1066, 1067 South Downs, the, 4 Southey, Robert, 898 ; writ- ings of, 897 South Island, 1068 South Kensington Museum, the, 955 South, Marshal, 854, 857, 858 South Saxons, the, invasion of Britain, 29 South Sea Bubble, the, see South Sea Company South Sea Company, the, 671, 686-688, 703 Southwark Fair, the, 806 Southwold Bay, the battle of, 552 Spa Fields, 869, 870 Spain, war of England with, 204 ; matrimonial alli- ance with Henry VII, 282 ; aggressions of Elizabethan seamen against, 392-394, 396-398; marriage nego- tiations with, 441 ; journey of Charles to, 446; mar- riage negotiations with, broken off, 447 ; peace of Madrid with, 460; refuses to aid Charles I, 488 ; Cromwell's war with, 520; in the War of the Spanish Succession, 657, 663, 665, 671 ; see Utrecht, Peace of; helps to defeat the Darien proj- ect, 661 ; reforms and projects of Alberoni in, 684-686 ; see Vienna, 1156 INDEX Treaty of; see Jenkins' Ear, the War of, 701-704 ; see Aix-la-Chapelle, the Peace of (1748); joins France in the Seven Years' War, 741743 ; see Paris, the Peace of, 743 ; joins France against England, 772; joins the armed neutrality of 1778, 774; concludes peace with Eng- land, 781 ; antagonism between England and, in 1789-1790, 827; joins First Coalition against France, 1793, 832; Jervis defeats squadron from, 836; cedes Louisiana to France, 847 ; signs Peace of Amiens, 848; fleet from, at Trafalgar, 850; national uprising against Napoleon begins in, 853- 855 ; Peninsular War in, closes, 856-858; Spanish- American colonies of, de- clare independence, 876 ; Revolution of 1820 in, 884, 885; Revolution in, 888-889; Louis Philippe anxious to exercise con- trol over, 949; Palmer- ston's mandate to gov- ernment of, in 1848, 955; sends expedition to Mexico in 1860, 979 " Spanish Fury," the, 385 Spanish marriages, the, 949 Spanish Succession, War of the, 618; opening of the, 644646, 652-659, 662- 666, 668-670 passim Speakers, of the House of Commons, 206, 339; to decide on Money Bills, 1078 Special lecturers, 462 Spectator, the, 796 Speculation, frenzy for, in 1825, 877 Speech, freedom of, 586 Speech from the throne, the, read by Edward VII in person, 1072 Spencer, Charles, Earl of Sunderland, 659 ; made a Secretary of State, 659, 660 ; removed, 667 ; as- sjsts in the overthrow of Townshend, 682 ; final dismissal from office, 688 Spencer, Herbert, 983, 1049, 1050, 1051 Spencer, John Charles, leader of Whigs, 883 ; see Althorp, Lord Spencer, Robert, Earl of Sunderland, 562 ; chief adviser of James II, 567, 571 ; testimony of, in the Seven Bishops' case, 579; dismissed by James II, 582 ; advises William III to select a party ministry, 616 Spenser, Edmund, 421, 422 Spinning jenny, the, inven- tion of, 785 Spinning mule, the, 785 Spithead, mutiny at, 836, 837 Sports, the Declaration of, 463, 464; see Recreation Spottiswood, Archbishop, 469 Spurs, battle of the, 296 Stafford, Edward, Duke of Buckingham, execution of, 295 Stafford, Henry, Duke of Buckingham, 273, 274 Stafford, Thomas, 364 Stafford, Lord William, vic- tim of the Popish Plot, 560 Stage coaches, number of, in 1825, 893 Stair, Earl of, see Dalrymple, John Stair, the Master of, see Dalrymple Stamford Bridge, battle of, 59 Stamp Act, the, 749, 751- 753 ; repeal of, 755, 756 Stamp Act Congress, the, 752 Standards, battle of the, 101 Standing army, nucleus of the, 533 ; increased by James II, 572, 573 ; illegal without consent of Parlia- ment, 586; reduction of, 642 Stanfield, Clarkson, 1057 Stanhope, James, first Earl Stanhope, 682, 683, 684, 685, 688 Stanhope, Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, 700, 718, 728, 754; Letters to his Son, 801 Stanislaus, deposed King of Poland, 692 ; becomes Duke of Lorraine, 700 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 1041 Stanley, Edward George, Lord Stanley and four- teenth Earl of Derby ; in Grey's Ministry, 909 ; Irish Secretary, 919 ; Colonial Secretary, 920; refuses portfolio under Peel, 923 ; leads oppo- sition in Don Pacifico trouble, 956 ; first Min- istry of, 957-958; com- ment of, on Peace of Paris, 965 ; second Min- istry of, 975, 976 ; third Ministry of, 985-986 ; comment of, on Reform of 1867, 987; resignation and death of, 988-989 Stanley, Edward Henry, fifteenth Earl of Derby, 1005 Stanley, Lord, 275 Staples, Merchants of the, 289 Staple towns, 212 Star Chamber, Court of, 281, 404, 480, 561 Steamboats, 893-894, 1053 Steam engine, the, 787, 788, 894 Steam railways and naviga- tion in the Victorian Age, 1052, 1053 Steele, Sir Richard, 680, 796, 797 Steelyard, the, 131 Steenkirke, battle of, 631 Stephen, King of England, loo ; his charter, ib. ; character and problems, 100, 101 ; attack on the Salisburys, 101 ; in- volved in Civil War, 101- 103 ; agrees to Treaty of Wallingford, 103, 104 ; results of his rule, 104- 105 ; extension of Church courts under, 109 Stephens, James, 992 Stephenson, George, devel- INDEX "57 ops steam transportation, 894 Sterne, Laurence, 800 Steuben, Baron, 770 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1049 Stewart, Dugald, 895 Stewart, Esm6, 386, 387 Stewart, Henry, Lord Darn- ley, 375, 376, 377 Stewart, Lord James, later Earl of Moray, 367, 376, 382 Stlg'and, Archbishop of Canterbury, 57 Stillingfleet, Benjamin, 806 Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop of Worcester, 604 Stirling Bridge, battle of, 175 "Stockdale and Darling- ton " railroad, opening of the, 894 Stockdale vs. Hansard, 936 Stockmar, Baron, 929 Stoke, battle of, 280 Stolberg, Louise von, Coun- tess of Albany, 714 Stonehenge, 15 Stop of the Exchequer, the, 55 Stourbridge Fair, 163 Stow, John, 421 Strachan (strawn), Sir Rich- ard, British Admiral, 855 Strafford, Earl of, see Went- worth, Sir Thomas Stratford, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 193 Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 960, 961 Strathclyde, 30, 170 Strikes, at Norwich, in 1754, 784; use of, by British trades unions, 938; in 1911-1912, 1085, 1086 Strode, William, 460 "Strongbow," see Richard de Clare Stuart, John, Earl of Bute, 740, 741, 742, 743, 744 Stuart, Robert, King of Scotland, first of the line, 197 Submission of the clergy, 3i7, 318 Subsidies, 201,405 Subsidy of 1523, 300 Succession, acts of, provid- ing for the heirs of Henry VIII and Anne, 318; relating to heirs of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, 325 ; of 1544, 355 ; plans for regulating the, 584, 585 Suckling, John, 607 Sudan, the, 1014-1016 Sudbury, Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, 233 Suez Canal, the, 967, 990, 1002, 1053 Suffolk, Duke of, father of Lady Jane Grey, 358, 360 Suffolk, Earl of, execution of, 295 "Suffolk Resolves," the, 765 Suffrage, manhood, urged by Duke of Richmond, 773 ; aim of the Work- ingman's Association, 939; in Franchise Bill of 1912, 1088 Suffrage, women's, in Australia, 1067 ; in New Zealand, 1068 Suffragists, the militant, 1060, 1088 Sugar Acts, the, 748, 751 Sully, epigram on James I, 429 Sumptuary laws, 201, 214 Sunday schools, develop- ment of, 795 Sunderland, Earl of, see Spencer, Robert and Charles Superstition, 160, 417, 597 Supremacy, Act of, passed in the first parliament of Elizabeth, 373 ; provi- sions of, relating to eccle- siastical jurisdiction, 402 Supremacy, oaths of, 373, 559, 621, 880 Supreme Court of Judication Act, the, 999 Supreme Head of the Church of England, title assumed by Henry VIII, 320 Surgery, in the fourteenth century, 221 ; in the nineteenth century, 1052 Surinam, 543 Surrey, Earls of, see Howard, Henry and Thomas Susa, peace of, 460 Suspending, royal preroga- tive of, 586 Suttee, Bentinck abolishes Hindu practice of, 967 Suvorov, Russian com- mander, 845 Swansea, 7 Sweating sickness, the, 284, 4iS "Sweet William," the, 713 Swein, Danish invader, 51 ; King of Norway, renewed attacks on England, 52 ; dominant in England, death, 53 Swift, Jonathan, his Conduct of the Allies, 669; his Drapier Letters, 691 ; his other writings, 797, 798 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1046 Switzerland, revolts against France in 1813, 859; revolution of 1830 in, 890 Swynford (swm'ford), Cath- erine, 246, 279 Sydney, Australia, 1065 Syndicalism, 1063, 1086 Synods, 366 Tacitus, Roman historian, 18, 19 Tacitus' description of the ancient Germans, 27, 62 Tacking, 643, 659 Taff Vale case, the, 1062 Talavera, battle of, 855 Talbot, Charles, Earl, and later, Duke of Shrews- bury, 581, 616, 620, 621, 634, 641, 674, 676, 677 Talbot, John, Earl of Shrewsbury, 257, 260 Talbot, Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 571, 575, 623, 624 Talbot, William, 1052 Tallages, 86, 176 Tallard, Marshal, 655, 656 Talleyrand, 862 Talmash, General, 632 "Tamworth Manifesto," the, 923-924 Tangier, 540, 591, 1076 Tarbes, Bishop of, 309 Tard Venus, 204 Tariff, Huskisson's reform of the, 875-876; reduc- tion of, in 1842, 941 ; iiS8 INDEX Gladstone reduces articles on, in 1860, 977 ; Disraeli advocates an imperialistic protective, 999 Tariffs, preferential, 1081, 1082 Tariff reform, 1073, 1074 Tariff Reform League, the, 1074 Tasman, Abel, 1065 Tasmania, 1065, 1066, 1067 Taxation, under the Tudors, 404, 405 ; the arbitrary, of Charles I, 461, 472; curtailed, 480; of the American Colonies, 749 753, 756, 757; Huskis- son's reform of, 875-876 Taylor, Jeremy, 603 Taylor, Rowland (ro'land), 363 Tea, the tax on, 757 Tea Room Party, the, 987 Teghler, Wat, 232, 233, 234 Telegraph, the, 1054 Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 1014 Telephone, the, 1054, 1055 Telford, Thomas, 893 Temperance revival, the, 1059 Temple, Richard, Lord Temple, 725, 728, 731, 742, 755 Temple, Lord, his son, 8n Temple, Sir William, 549, 562, 797 Tenant farmers, the, in the seventeenth century, 596 Tennyson, Alfred, 1045, 1046 Tenths and fifteenths, 405 Tenures, see Military Tertullian, 22 Test Act, the, passed, 551 ; James II seeks to repeal, 568, 571 ; repeal of, 880- 881 Testament, see New Testa- ment Test and Corporation Acts, beginning of annual in- demnity from, 684; the repeal of the, 880, 88 1, 1040 Teutonic, see Germanic Tewfik Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, 1003, 1013, 1014, 1016 Tewkesbury, battle of, 268 Thackeray, William Make- peace, 1047 Thagi, or thugs, suppres- sion of the, 967 Thanet, 25 Theaters, Shakespearean, 424 ; the decline of, 425 ; ordinance closing, ib., 610 Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, 108, 116, 126 Theobald of Blois, 100 Theodore of Tarsus, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 36 Theodore, King of Abys- sinia, 988 Theology in eighteenth cen- tury England, 793 The United Irishmen, Mitch- ell, editor of, 952 Theyns, 69 Thirlwall, Bishop, 1050 Thirty-nine Articles, the, 379, 621, 997, 1041 Thirty Years' War, the, 437, 442, 443, 445, 519 Thistlewood, plans con- spiracy to destroy Liver- pool's Cabinet, 872 Thomas of Lancaster, 183 185 Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, 235-238 Thomas Aquinas, 159 Thomson, James, 802 Thomson, William, Lord Kelvin, 1052, 1054 ' ' Thorough ' ' Went worth and Laud's policy of, 453, 471 Thrale, Mrs., 806 Three-field system, the, 63 Throgmorton's plot, 387, 388 Thurlow, Lord, 776, 8n Thurot, Admiral, 730, 733 Ticonderoga, 729, 731 Tierney, Pitt's duel with, 902 Tilbury, 395 Tillotson, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 604 Tilsit, Treaty of, 852, 853 Times, the London, founded, 900; Russell special cor- respondent of, during Crimean War, 962 ; on defeat of second reform bill, 915 ; on Tory policy, in the Reform of 1867, 987 ; suit of Parnell against, 1020, 1021 Tin, Celtic trade in, 16 Tin mines in Britain, 14 Tinchebrai, battle of, 78, 95 Tippermuir, battle of, 498 Tiptoft, John, Earl of Worcester, 268, 303, 304 Tipii, Ruler of Mysore, 845 Tirel, Walter, 93 Tithe Commutation Act, the, 1055 Tithe, Saladin, 118 Tithes, English, 924, 925 Tithes, Irish, 910920, 933 Tobacco, 416 Toland, John, English Deist, 793 Toleration, religious, in Utopia, 306; absence of, in the sixteenth century, 362 ; failure of Charles II to secure, 534; and of James II, 575, 576, 578, 579; extended to Epis- copalians in Scotland, 715 Toleration Act, the, 621, 622 Tone, Wolfe, 839-841 Tonge, Dr. Israel, 556 Tonnage and poundage, 210, 404, 454, 458 Tooke, Home, 833 Torbay, William's landing at, 582 Torgau, the battle of, 736 Tories, the High Church, approach the Dissenters, 576; changed attitude of, toward lawfulness of re- sistance, 580; see High Church "Torrens System" of land registration, 1067 Torres Vedras, lines of, 856, 857 Tory party, the, origin of, 562 ; doctrines of non- resistance, 563 ; reaction of, against William III, 620; refuse to vote for admission of Nonconform- ists to office, 622 ; attacks the Bank, 638; favors a Place Bill, 639; its rela- tions to William III, 641 ; make up and aims of, 651, 652 ; the eclipse of, under the first two Georges, 689, 693 ; return of, to power under George III, 738; French Revolution and the, 822; reforms of the INDEX "59 Liberal, 875 ff. ; opposes parliamentary reform, 908; attempts of, to defeat parliamentary re- form, gis, gi6; attitude of, towards factory legis- lation, 921 ; liberalism of, in Reform of 1867, 987 Tostig, Earl of Northum- bria, 57-59 Tottel's Miscellany, 346, 421 Toulon, 832 Touraine, secured by Philip II, 136 Tourbin, Admiral, 663, 664 Tourville, Admiral, 625, 626, 631, 632 Tower of London, 76, 489 Towns, the, in the seven- teenth century, 598, 599 ; see Borough Townshend, Charles, Vis- count, 676, 682, 683, 688, 699, 790 Townshend, Charles, 756, 757 Townshend Acts, the, 756, 757 Townships, Anglo-Saxon, 62, 63 Towton, battle of, 265 Tract XC, 1041 Tractarian movement, see Oxford movement Tracts for the Times, the, 1040 Trade, Anglo-Saxon, 73, 74; in the twelfth century, 131 ; in the thirteenth century, 162, 163 ; under Edward I, II, III, 211- 213 ; in the fifteenth cen- tury, 288, 289; under Henry VIII, 343 ; regu- lation of, under Eliza- beth, 412; regulation of, by James I and Charles I, 589 ; during the Restora- tion, 590, 591 ; increase of, in 1824, 876; condi- tion of, in 1830, 892, 893 Trade Unionism, 938, 1061, 1062 Trading classes, favored by the Tudors, 401 Trading companies, under Elizabeth, 413 ; justifi- cation for, 588, 589 Trades Disputes Act, the, 1062, 1077 Trades Unions, General Fed- eration of, 1062 Trades Unions Acts, 1061, 1062 Trafalgar, battle of, 850 Traile de Madame, le, 550 Traitorous Correspondence Bill, the, 833 Trans-Humbrians, the, 145 Transportation, improve- ment in British, by 1830, 893-894 ; see Canals, Steamboats, and Steam railways Transportation of criminals, 958, 959, 1067 Transubstantiation, 227, 331 ; the declaration against, 621, 880; see also Real Presence Transvaal, the, 1030; re- volt in, 1030, 1031 ; dis- covery of gold in, 1031, 1032; war in, 10341036; self-government granted in, 1077 ; see also Boer War Travel, in Anglo-Saxon times, 73 ; in fourteenth century, 218-220; in the seventeenth century, 593 Treasons, Statute of, 200; punishment for, 217; Acts of, of Henry VIII, 320; Acts of, under Warwick, 353 ; Acts of, under Ed- ward VI, 349 ; Acts of, under Edward VI, 354; Acts of, under Elizabeth, 387 ; new theory of, 478 ; new theory of, in the trial of Charles I, 506, 507 Treason, Act regulating trials for, 639, 640 Treasonable Practices Bill, the, 834 Treasurer, 97 Treaty of 1856, the, viola- tion of, 1003 Trelawney, Sir Jonathan, Bishop of Bristol, 579 Trent, the Council of, 380 Trent affair, the, 978 Trial by battle, 117 Trial by jury, introduced into England by William I, 1 1 6 ; brought into general use by Henry II, 116, 117 Tribe, the, among the an- cient Germans, among the West Saxons, 44 Triennial Acts, the, of 1641, 479; of 1694, 639 Triers, the, 518 Trinidad, 848, 865 Trinity College, Cambridge, 345 Trinoda necessitas, 68 Trinovantes, 18 Triple Alliances (1668), 549, 55; (1716), 682, 683; (1788), 826, 827; of Germany, Austria, and Italy, 1075, 1083 Tripoli, annexed by Italy, 1082 "Triumvirate," the, 562 Trivium, 128 Trollope, Anthony, 1048 Tucker, Josiah, views of, concerning the American Colonies, 766 Tudor, Henry, Duke of Richmond, see Henry Tudor, House of, basis of the new absolutism of, 278, 279 Tudor monarchy, strength and weakness of, 401, 402 Tull, Jethro, 700 Tun-moat, 63 Tunscipe, see township Turco-Italian War, the, 1082 Turenne, Marshal, 520, 566 Turkey, Russia at war with, 827, 828; in Second Coalition against France, 845; Sultan of, signs peace of Amiens, 848; Greece revolts from, 886- 808; Russian desire re- garding Greek Christians in, 959; troops of, begin Crimean War, 960; signs Treaty of Paris, after Crimean War, 964-965 ; Crimean War checks de- signs of Russia on, 965 ; relations with Great Brit- ain in the last years of Victoria, 1028, 1029; war with Greece, 1029; see Russo-Turkish War Turner, Joseph Mallard, ooi, 1044 n6o INDEX Turnips, the cultivation of, 592, 700 Turpin, Dick, 806 Tuscans, money lenders, 164 Tuscany, under Peace of Zurich, 976 Tusser, Thomas, 409 Tweed River, 4 Two-bottle orthodox, the, 1030-1041 "Two-penny Trash," Cob- bett's Register, 871 and note Two-power standard, the, 1078 Tyler, see Teghler Tyndale, William, 330, 363 Tyndall, John, 1051 Tyne River, 4 Tyrconnel (tercSn'nel), the Earl of, see Talbot, Richard, 571 Tyrell, Sir James, 273 Tyrone', Earl of, 436 U U'dall, Nicholas, 422 Uganda, 1032 Uitlanders, the, 1032, 1033 Ulster, 112; the plantation of, 436; the rebellion in, of 1641, 480, 481 ; re- bellion of 1798 in, sup- pressed, 840, 841 ; Tenant Right, 994 ; beginning of opposition to Home Rule in, 1018; growth of the opposition, 1086- 1089 ; the, Covenant, 1087 ; balance of Catholics and Protestants in, 1087 ; the army crisis in, 1089 Undertakers, the, 437 ; in Ireland, 436, 777 Unemployment, insurance against, 1060, 1061 Uniformity, first Act of, 35, 351 ; second Act of, 354^ 355 1 the Act of Elizabeth, 372 ; the Act of 1662, 537, 538 Union, the, of England and Ireland, 9, 842, 843 Union of England and Scotland, projects for, 433. 435 ; brought about in 1707, 8, 660-663 Union of South Africa, 1067, 1068, 1077 Unionist Free Trade Club, the, 1074 Unitarians, 622 United Irishmen, Wolf Tone and the, 839; defenders unite with, 840 United Kingdom, increase of population and wealth in, 1058 United Presbyterians, 1042 United States, the, indepen- dence of, acknowledged by England, 780, 781 ; trade war between Great Britain and, 856 ; war of Great Britain with, 859-861 ; commercial re- lations of, with Great Britain, improve after war of 1812, 876; thwarts European intervention in South American Repub- lics, 885 and note, 886; panic of 1836 in, 941 ; boundary disputes ad- justed with, 948-949 ; re- fuses to agree to " Declara- tion of Paris," 964, 965 ; Civil War in, 977 ; Trent affair nearly starts war between England and the, 978; resent British atti- tude toward privateering and blockade running dur- ing Civil War, 978-979; Mexican policy of Napo- leon III causes trouble to the, 979-980 ; England estranged by Palmerston from, 988; Fenian move- ment in, 992 ; British immigration to, 1065 ; attempted reciprocity of, with Canada, 1082 ; re- lations with, under Ed- ward VII and George V, 1084; see American Civil War and Venezuela Universities, the, rise of, 1 28 ; in the thirteenth century, 1 60; in the fourteenth century, 222, 223 ; in the fifteenth century, 291 ; the divorce of Henry VIII referred to, 316; in the time of Henry VIII, 345 ; in the seventeenth cen- tury, 594; attack of James II upon, 577 ; in the Restoration period, 603 "University Group," the, of Elizabethan dramatists, 423 University Test Act, the, 997 Urban II, Pope, 92, 93 Urban VI, Pope, 227, 235 Uses, Statutes of, 326, 327 Usury, legislature against, 215, 288 Utilitarians, the English, 604, 895 Utopia, the, 305, 306 Utrecht, the Peace of, 637, 670, 672 Utrecht, the Union of, 385 Uxbridge, Treaty of, 496 Vacarius, 116, 126 Valentine, Benjamin, 459, 460 Valhalla, 26 Valla, Lorenzo, 303 Valladolid, 556 Valley Forge, Continental Army at, 770 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 610, 612 Vancouver, Province of, 932 Vancouver Island, 949 Vancouver Sound, 949 Van Dieman's Land, 1065, 1066 Vandyke, 611 Vane, Sir Henry, 478 Vane, Sir Henry, the Younger, 476, 479, 493, 515, 533 Vauban, 630 Vaudreuil, Governor-Gen- eral of Canada, 736 Vauxhall, 148 note, 602, 806 Venables, General, 520 Vendome, the Duke of, 659, 663, 664 Venezuela boundary, the, 1028 Venner, Thomas, 535 Vera Cruz, 1085 Vere, Aubrey de, Earl of Oxford, 581 Vere, Robert de, Earl of Oxford, 234, 235, 236 Vergennes, French minister, 749, 774 INDEX 1161 Vergil, Polydore, 345 Vernon, Admiral Edward, 703, 704, 70S Verona, European congress at, 884 Versailles, Treaty of, 781 Veru'lam, Huron, see Bacon, Sir Francis Verulamium, destruction of, 19 Vestiarian controversy, the, 388, 389 Veto Act, the, of the Scotch General Assembly, 1042 Veto, the royal, 339, 615, 750 Vicegerent, the, 315, 322 Vice President of the Com- mittee on Education, creation of office of the, 996 Viceroy, institution of title of, for Crown's represent- ative in India, 974 Victor Emmanuel, crowned King of Italy, 976; Aus- tria cedes Venice to, 988 Victoria, Australia, 1066, 1067 Victoria, Empress of Fred- erick II of Germany, 1075 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, early life and accession of, 928 ; Civil List of, 929; char- acter of, at her accession, 934; conduct of, in Bed- chamber crisis, 934-935 ; marriage of, 935-940 ; anxious to conciliate France in 1846, 949; comment of, on the Great Exhibition, 955 ; opposed to National Liberal move- ment in Europe, 955 ; memorandum to Palmer- ston from, 956-957 ; es- timate of Wellington, 958 ; tries to intervene on Austria's behalf in war of Italian Unification, 976 ; adopts conciliatory policy in Trent affair, 978 ; interest and policy of, in Schleswig-Holstein ques- tion, 980, 981 ; Bismarck repulses mediation offer of, 988 ; Disraeli's policy toward, 990 ; attitude towards Gladstone of, 990-991 ; aids passage of Gladstone's disestab- lishment bill, 993 ; abol- ishes purchase of army commission by royal war- rant, 998; her attitude toward the Franco-Prus- sian War, 1000; declared Empress of India, 1003 ; her mediation in the ex- tention of the franchise, 1013 ; her opposition to Home Rule, 1018; her Jubilees of 1887 and 1897, 1022, 1065, 1(369, 1027, 1028; her relations with Gladstone, 1026 ; death and estimate of, 1036, 1037; problems of her reign, 1037, 1038; ex- cludes Prince Albert from political activities, 1071 ; Empire Day as a memo- rial to, 1073 Victorian art, 1056, 1057 Victorian historians, 1043, 1050 Victorian literature, 1043 Victorian philosophers, 1049, 1050 Victorian poets, 1045, 1046 Victorian prose writers, 1043-1045, 1046-1049 Victorian science, 1050-1052 Vienna, Congress of, the, 861-862 Vienna, Treaties of, 691, 692, 700, 704 Vigo Bay, capture of Spanish fleet in, 654; captured in 1719,685 Villafranca, Truce of, 976 Villars, Marshal, 663, 665, 668, 670 Villa Viciosa, the battle of, 665 Villeins, 231 ; in the twelfth century, 131 ; proportion of, in reign of John, 142 Villenage, causes for aboli- tion of, 234 Villeneuve, Admiral, Nelson defeats off Trafalgar, 850 and note Villeroy, Marshal, 634, 655, 656, 658, 659 Villiers, Charles, fights for Corn Law repeal, 940 Villiers, George (later Duke of Buckingham), 440, 441 ; journey to Spain, 446; adopts an anti-Spanish policy, 446 ; his alliances, 447, 448; character of, 453 ; impeachment of, 454. 455; his expedition to Rh6, 455, 456; his murder, 458; as a col- lector, 611 Villiers, George, second Duke of Buckingham, 544, 548, 550, 551, 566 Villiers, George, Earl of Clarendon, 964, 997, 1000 Vimeiro, battle of, 854 Virgate, 64 Virginia, origin of the name, 412 Virginia Resolves, the, 752, 757 Visitations, under Somerset, 350; see also Metropolit- ical and Sheriffs Vitoria, battle of, 857 Vives, Ludovicus, 344 Volta, Alessandro, 1052 Voltaire, 823 Volunteers, the Ulster, 1087, 1088 Vortigern, 25 Votes for women, 987, 1088 Vulgate, the, 330 W Wace, of Jersey, 88 Wade, General George, 712, 7i5 Wagram, battle of, 855 Wakefield, battle of, 262 Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 1065, 1066, 1068 Wakeman, George, 560 Wakes, the Somerset, 464 Walcheren, battle of, 855 Waldersee, Count von, 1036 Wales, physical features and resources, 7, 8; relations with John, 138; unsuc- cessful expedition of Henry III against, 149; rising against Edward I, 171 ; conquest of, by Edward I, 168; Statute of, or Rhuddlan, 169; revolt of, against Henry IV, 243, 244; represen- tation granted to, 339 Il62 INDEX Wales, Prince of, 77 ; origin of title, 169 Wales and the Marches, Council of, set up, 406; abolished, 480 Walewski, Count, 957, 974, 975 Walker, Obadiah, 572 Walker, Robert, 611 Wallace, Alfred Russell, 1051 Wallace, Sir William, 175, 177 Wallachia, 887, 964 Waller, Sir William, 492 Wallingford, treaty of, 103, 104 Walpole, Horace, later Earl of Orford, 417, 707, 718, 730, 733, 759, QOI ; writ- ings of, 801 Walpole (wol'pole), Sir Robert, later Earl of Orford, 617, 676; his denunciation of the Peace of Utrecht, 678 ; in op- position, 683, 684 ; settles the affair of the South Sea Company, 688; be- ginning of his twenty years' ascendency, ib. his character and policy, 688-690 ; proves indis- pensable to George II, 696, 697 ; becomes Prime and sole Minister, 698, 699 ; his excise, 699, 700 ; his pacific policy, 700; his attitude toward the War of Jenkins' Ear, 701- 703 ; forced out of office, 705 ; created Earl of Orford, ib. ; influence of, after his retirement, 706- 708; refuses to tax the Colonies, 751 ; use of bribery in Parliament, 913 Walsingham, Our Lady of, 219 Walsingham (wSl'singham), Sir Francis, Secretary of State, 371, 398 Walter of Coutances, 123 Walter of Coventry, chronicler, 139 Walter of Henley, 164 Walter, John, 900 Walter Map, 127 Walters, Lucy, 562 Waltheof, Son of Siward, 57, 76-78 Walton, Izaak, 607 Wandewash, the battle at, 735 War of 1812, the, 860-861 War of Liberation, the, 858- 859 War of the Roses, the, open- ing of, 259, 260, 261 ; battle of St. Albans in, 260; of Blore Heath in, 261 ; battle of Wakefield in, 262 ; second battle of St. Albans in, 263 ; occu- pation of London in, 264 ; battle of Towton in, 265 ; Edward's imprisonment and exile in, 267-268 ; victories at Tewkesbury and Barnet in, 268, 269 ; effect on the nobility of, 278; effect of, on educa- tion, 291 Warbeck, Perkin, 280, 282 Ward, Sir Joseph, 1081 Ward, William George, 1041 Wards and Liveries, Court of, 406, 533 Wardship, feudal incident of, 85 Warfare, art of, in the four- teenth century, 218; in the sixteenth century, 343, 344 Warham (wor'ham), Wil- liam, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 306, 317 Warwick, Earl of, guardian of Richard II, 230 Warwick, Earl of, see Ed- ward, Neville, Dudley, Rich Wash, the, 51 Washington, capital of United States, destruction of, by British troops, 861 Washington, George, 704, 722 ; Commander-in-Chief of Continental Army, 768 ; in campaign of 1776, 769; at Valley Forge, 770; hardships of army of, 774 ; receives surrender of Corn- wallis, 775, 776 Washington, Lawrence, 704 Washington , the Treaty of, 1001 Waterford, 9 Water frame, the, invention of, 785 Waterloo, campaign of, 862- 865 Watling Street, 22 Watt, James, development of steam engine, 787, 788 Watts, George Frederick, 1057 Waverley Novels, the, 899 Wavre, 862, 863 Wealth, increase of, in the nineteenth century, 1058 Wealth of Nations, the, 795, 796, 1064 Wedderburn, Alexander, later Lord Loughborough, 763, 844 Wedgwood, Josiah, 786 Wedmore, Peace of, 43 Weekly Political Register, Cobbett's paper, 869 Wei-hai-Wei, 1029 Wellesley (weTsley), Sir Arthur, Duke of Welling- ton, in India, 845 ; in the Peninsular Campaign, 853, 854, 856-858; repre- sents Great Britain at Congress of Vienna, 862 ; Waterloo campaign of, 862-865 ; refuses service in Canning's Cabinet, 878 ; blocks Corn Law in Lords, 878-879 ; becomes Prime Minister, 879 ; Catholic Emancipation passed under Ministry of, 881- 882 ; end of Ministry of, 883 ; at Congress of Verona, 884-885 ; atti- tude and policy of, in Greek revolt, 887 ; policy of, in Portuguese Revolu- tion, 888 ; recognizes Louis Philippe, 889 ; chal- lenges Winchelsea to duel, 902 ; resignation of Min- istry of, 908-909 ; at- tempts to form Ministry during Reform Bill agi- tation, 916; in Peel's Cabinet, 923 ; refuses to form Ministry upon Mel- bourne's resignation, 934 ; furthers Corn Law repeal, 946 ; measures of, against Chartist agitation, 952; death of, 958 INDEX 1163 Wellesley, Richard, succes- sively Lord Mornington, Marquis Wellesley, 845, 966, 967 Wellington, capital of New Zealand, 1068 Welsh, the tribes of, 30 Welsh Church, disestablish- ment of, suggested, 1023 ; the disestablishment of, 1086, 1088 Wentworth, Sir Thomas (later Earl of Straff ord), enters Parliament, 437 ; character of, 453 ; resists forced loan, 455 ; his bill for security of the sub- ject, 457 ; his "apostasy," 458; his rule in Ireland, 471 ; advises Charles to summon an English Par- liament, ib. ; created Earl of Strafford, ib. ; advises arbitrary methods, 472; impeachment and execu- tion of, 477-479 Wergeld, 16 Wesley, Charles, 794 Wesley, John, 794, 795 Wesley, Samuel, 579 Wesleyan revival, 1039 West Australia, 1066, 1067 West Florida, 781 West Indies, French suc- cessors in, during 1778- 1779, 772; Rodney in, 775 ; British successes in 1793, 833; Villeneuve and Nelson at, 850; crisis in, in 1839, 933-Q34 Westminster, Council at, 109, no; Provisions of, 154, 156; statutes of, 178, 179, 181 ; Peace of, 553, 554; see London, Treaty of Westminster Abbey, 58, 156, 162, 171, 222, 329 Westminster Assembly, the, 493, 494, 500 Westminster Hall, 222, 601 ' ' Westminster Scrutiny, ' ' the, 813 Weston, Sir Richard, 592 Westphalia, creation of king- dom of, 852 Westphalia, the Peace of, 519 West Point, Arnold attempts to betray, 775 West Saxons, invasion of Britain, 29 ; temporary eclipse of, 40; causes of ultimate supremacy, 40, 41 ; reconquest of the Danelagh by, 46-51 pas- sim Wexford, massacre of, 511 Wharton, Thomas, later Marquis of, 581, 641, 669 Wheeler, General, 971 Whig party, the, origin of, 562 ; reverse of the, at the close of the exclusion struggle, 563 ; rise of, 615, 616; relations of, to William III, 620, 637, 641 ; make up and aims of, 652 ; driven out by Anne, 667 ; advantages of, in the struggle over the Hanoverian succession, 673 ; factions of, under George II and George III, 738, 740; North breaks power of, 760; Pitt routs, 812, 813; French Revolution and the, 823 ; split in the, 1791, 825, 826; united in 1804, 850; views of, in 1816- 1817, 868; rally to cause of Queen Caroline, 873 ; in Canning's Cabinet, 878 ; colors of the, 901-902 ; identified with movement for parliamentary re- form, 907 ; victory of, in general election of 1830, 908 ; support reform movement in England, 914; Ministry of, under Grey, favors Parliamen- tary Reform Bill, 914- 917 ; in first reformed Par- liament, 918 ; advocates laissez-faire in industry, 921; attitude of, toward Victoria upon her acces- sion, 929 ; leaders of the, advocate free trade, 944- 945 ; in Coalition Minis- try, 958; Disraeli op- posed to commercial aris- tocracy of, 989 ; see also Liberal party Whip with six strings, the, 331 ; see also Articles of Faith Whistler, James McNeill, 1057 Whitby, Synod of, triumph of the Church of Rome at, 35, 36 White, General Sir George, 1034 White, John, 412 Whiteboys, the, 777, 838 Whitefield, George, 794, 795 Whitefriars, 600 Whitehall, 507, 601 White Ship, the, 96 Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 389 Wiclif, John, writes The Last Age of the Church, 199 ; career and activities of, 208; development of his views, 226, 227; his death, 227 ; influence on English language, 228; attitude toward Peasant Revolt, 231 ; Bible of, sup- pressed, 247 ; a forerunner of reform, 308; Bible of, 330 "Widow McCormack's po- tato patch," the, 952 Wigs, discarded in England, 901 Wilberforce, William, 819, 902, 920 Wilfrid, leader of Roman party at Whitby, 35 Wilhelmina, sister of Fred- erick the Great, 677 Wilkes, Captain, in Trent affair, 978 Wilkes, John, 726, 744-746, 757, 758, 762, 007 Wilkie, Sir David, art of, ooo William, Fort, in the High- lands, 629; see also Cal- cutta William I (the Conqueror), Duke of the Normans, visits England, 56; de- clared heir of Edward the Confessor, 57 ; claims the crown from Harold, 58 ; his other claims, 59; victory at Senlac, 59, 60, 74 ; captures London and crowned King, 76; disposal of lands of conquered, puts down risings and wastes vale of York, 77; quells 1164 INDEX a rising of the Earls, 78; method of keeping down different classes of his subjects, 78-79 ; rela- tions with the Church, 79, 80 ; relations with the Papacy, 80 ; his laws, 80, 8 1 ; revives the Dane- geld, orders Domesday Survey, 81, 82; exacts Salisbury oath, last years and death, 82, 83 ; char- acter and rule, 83 ; in- troduces feudal tenures into England, 84-86 ; sep- aration of lay and ec- clesiastical jurisdiction, 109; under Henry II, no; brings jury system to England, 116; charter to London, 129 William II (Rufus), 80; character and policy, 90; puts down the Norman barons, 91 ; treaty with Robert, ib. conflict with Anselm, 92, 93 ; puts down rising of William of Mow- bray, 93 ; last years and death, 93, 94 William of Orange, Stad- holder of the Dutch, later William III of England, his birth, 514; becomes Stadholder, 553 ; marries Mary, 555 ; the English begin to look to, 570; refuses to indorse the Declaration of Indulgence, 577 ; his character and policy, 577 ; sends Dyke- velt to England, 577, 578; invited to England, 580, 581 ; issues a Decla- ration and sails for Eng- land, 581, 582; lands at Torbay, 582 ; arrives in London, 584; calls a convention which chooses him and Mary as joint sovereigns, 584-586 ; pro- claimed, ib. ; selects a Whig cabinet, 616; sig- nificance of his reign, 619, 620 ; reaction against, 620; turns the Conven- tion into a parliament, 621 ; works for tolera- tion, 621, 622; opposed to bribery, 622 ; dissatis- fied with the revenue settlement, ib. ; victor at the Boyne, 626; op- position of the Cove- nanters to, 627 ; sanctions the massacre of Glencoe, 629; forms an alliance against France, 629, 630; his succession of defeats, 63063 2 ; founds Green- wich hospital, 633 ; plot to assassinate, 634, 635 ; arranges the Peace of Ryswick, 635, 636; turns toward the Whigs, 641 ; quarrels with Parlia- ment, 642, 643 ; arranges the Partition Treaties, 645, 646 ; forms the Grand Alliance, 647 ; death and character of, 648; urges the union with Scotland, 661 ; mili- tary system of, outworn, 717; uses bribery in Parliament, 913 William IV, King of Great Britain and Ireland, early history and personal traits of, 905 ; attitude toward parliamentary reform, 914916; accepts resig- nation of Prince Mel- bourne, 923 ; death of, 926 William the Lion, King of Scotland, 113, 121, 138 William I, German Emperor, 1000 William II, German Em- peror, 1075, 1076 William I, King of Nether- lands, 889, 890 William (the Silent), of Orange, 381, 384, 385, 388 William, Stadholder of Hol- land, 716, 717 William, Prince, son of Henry I, 96 William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, 707, 708, 709; his victory at Cul- loden and the cruelties which followed, 713, 714; in the Seven Years' War, 728,729 William of Aumale, 148 William FitzOsbert (Long- beard), 124 William, Lord Latimer, 206, 207 William Longchamp, 121, 122 William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, Regent of Eng- land, 136, 147, 148 William of Malmesbury, 89 William of Newburgh, 127 William of Ockham, 159 William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, 222, 223 Willis, Dr., King's physician, 822 Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 410 Wills, see Probate Wills, General Sir Charles, 680 Wilmington, Earl of,, see Compton, Sir Spencer Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester, 530 Wilson, President, 1084, 1085 Wilson, Richard, 804 Wilson, Thomas, 418 Winchelsea, Lord, Welling- ton's challenges to duel, 902 Winchelsea, Robert, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, 174, i7S Winchester, court school at, 45 Winchester, Statute of, 163, 179, 180 Winchester Fair, 163 Winslow, Captain, sinks Alabama, 978 Winstanley, Gerard, 504 "Winter King," the, 442 Winward Field, battle of, 35 Wireless telegraphy, 1054 Wiseman, Cardinal, 953 Wishart (wish'art), George, 367 Witchcraft, 160, 417, 597 Wite, 65 Witenagemot, origin and functions, 67 Woden, 26 Wolfe, General James, 729, 731, 732, 733 Wolseley, General Garnet, Lord Wolseley, his failure to relieve Gordon, 1015; INDEX 1165 in the Boer War, 1033, 1034 ; succeeded by Roberts as Commander- in-Chief, 1035 \Volsey, Thomas, Cardinal, and Archbishop of York, rise of, 296, 297 ; his pomp and influence, 297, 298 ; concludes the Treaty of Universal Peace, 298; vain attempts to secure the Papacy, 299-301 ; his policy of alliance with the Emperor, 300, 301 ; unpopularity of his sub- sidy and of his amicable loan, 300, 301 ; attitude toward the New Learning, 306; his share in the divorce of Henry VIII and Catharine, 300-3 1 1 ; fall and death of, 311, 312, 314, 317; dissolves some smaller monasteries, 3 23 ; preference for di- plomacy over war, 343 ; his school at Ipswich, 344 Women, legislation regulat- ing of employment of, 943 ; enfranchisement of, 1049; condition of, in the nineteenth century, 1059 ; votes for, 1059, 1070 Wood's Halfpence, 691 Woodstock, Council of, 109 Woodville, Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV, 266, 272 Woodward, John, 792 Wool, act for burying in, 500; trade in, 212 ; origin of duty on, 211; free of duty in 1843, 941 Woolsack, the, 412 Worcester (woos'ter), battle of, Si3 Worcester, the Marquis of, 487 Wordsworth, William, 896- 898, 1043 Working classes, the, dis- content of, in Victoria's early years, 937-941 Workingman's Association, the, foundation and pur- pose of, 938-939 Workmen, Act of Parliament against combinations of, 784; effect of industrial revolution upon, 788 Workmen's Compensation Acts, 1060, 1077 Wotton, Sir Henry, 372 Wren, Christopher, 611, 612 Writs, legal, 116 Writs of Assistance, 749 Wulfstan, the Dane, 45 Wulfstan of Worcester, 79 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the poet, 346 Wyatt's Rebellion, 360 Wycherley, William, 610 Wyndham, George, 1074 Yakub Khan, 1007 Year of legal memory, the, 178 Yeomen, in the fifteenth century, 285 ; in the seventeenth century, 595, 596; in the eighteenth century, 791 York, 22 ; vale of, wasted by William I, 77 York, Dukes of, see Edward, Frederick Augustus, George, James, Richard York, House of, causes of triumph of, 265 ; causes of fall of, 275, 276 Yorke, Philip, Earl of Hard- wicke and Lord Chancel- lor, 706, 719 Yorkshire, domestic system in, 784 Yosktown, surrender of Lord Cornwallis at, 775, 776 Young, Arthur, 700, 824, 894 Young, Edward, 802 Young England Party, the, 942, 989 Young Ireland Party, the, 943, 952 Yuan Shih-Kai, 1080 Zamindars, 970 Zanzibar, 1032 Zimri, 548 Zulu War, the, 1007, 1030 Zurich, battle of, 845 ; the Peace of, 976 Zutphen, battle of, 391 Zwingli, Ulrich, 307, 349, 365 r J^HE following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books on kindred subjects An Introduction to the Social AND Industrial History of England BY EDWARD P. CHEYNEY Professor of European History in the University of Pennsylvania Cloth i2mo Illustrated $1.40 net " This is a type of history that is destined to become more common. It sketches the primitive and the mediasval organization of social life and industry ; the economic changes that accrued with the expansion of England in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and those that were brought in by the industrial revolution in the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The reign of individualism follows, with the restrictions upon it by increasing public control, as in factory and sanitary legislation, modified land ownership, and new pub- lic services, as in the telegraph, etc. Lastly comes the gradual displac- ing of competition by the voluntary associations of labor and capital, with the present tendency to a substitution of public for capitalistic enterprise. 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Adjunct Professor of Politics in Columbia University Readings in American Government and Politics Cloth i2mo $1.90 net The success which has been attained by the source-book method of study has induced Professor Beard to issue the present volume, in which are contained all those documents and original sources to which constant reference is made by in- structors in American government. The author has experienced in his own teach- ing no small degree of inconvenience on account of the necessity of making constant citations of material to be studied in various volumes. He has, there- fore, issued the present collection of readings in order that specific references to the source-book may be cited in every instance in the accompanying text-book. An Introduction to the English Historians Cloth i2mo $1.60 net A brief course in English history should introduce the student to the authorities on special topics and periods who should be studied with care. To solve this problem in part, Dr. Beard has prepared this handy volume of extracts chosen from Stubbs, Freeman, Gardiner, Green, Hallam, Lecky, Macaulay, and other English historians of note. To each extract is added a short biographical note designed to introduce the student to the materials on which to base a critical appreciation of the author's views. "Dr. Beard's 'Introduction to the English Historians' both from the peda- gogical and the research points of view deserves unqualified commendation. It is intelligently discriminating in its selections, liberal and mature in its comment, and in its arrangement it shows the results of thorough scholarship and fruitful class-room experience. It should save both teachers and students of English history a vast amount of time and labor." The Independent. " The study of English history is indispensable to any intelligent discussion of our own relation to the political conditions of the world as it is and as it is likely or liable to be. In such a. study as the times demand, an endless amount of time goes to useless research work. Hence this book with six hundred pages of read- ings from the masters in English historical writings. This is a service to scholar- ship which will be appreciated by any one who but glances through its pages Great credit is due Dr. Beard for this service." Journal of Education. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York "A WORK UPON WHICH WE CAN UNRESERVEDLY CONGRATULATE THE AUTHOR AND HIS COUNTRY." The Athenaeum, London. The Government of England By A. LAWRENCE LOWELL President of Harvard University Formerly Professor of the Science of Government Author of "Colo- nial Civil Service," etc. In two volumes. Bound in the style of Bryce's "American Common- wealth." Cloth, 8vo, $4 net The New York Sun Calls it: "The remarkable work which American readers, including even those who suppose themselves to be pretty well informed, will find indispenseable. . . ; it deserves an honored place in every public and private library in the American Republic." M. W. H. "Professor Lowell's book will be found by American readers to be the most complete and informing presentation of its subject that has ever fallen in their way. . . . There is no risk in saying that it is the most important and valuable study in government and politics which has been issued since James Bryce's 'American Common- wealth,' and perhaps also the greatest work of this character pro- duced by an American scholar." Philadelphia Public Ledger. "It is the crowning merit of the book that it is, like Mr. Bryce's, emphatically a readable work. It is not impossible that it will come to be recognized as the greatest work in this field that has ever been produced by an American scholar." Pittsburgh Post. "The comprehensiveness and range of Mr. Lowell's work is one of the reasons for the unique place of his 'Government of England' for its place in a class by itself, with no other books either by Brit- ish or non-British authors to which it can be compared. Another reason is the insight, which characterizes it throughout, into the spirit in which Parliament and the other representative institutions of England are worked, and the accuracy which so generally char- acterizes definite statements; all contribute to make it of the highest permanent value to students of political science the world over." EDWARD PORRITT in The Forum. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York The Government of American Cities By WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO, PH.D., LL.B., Pro- fessor of Municipal Government in Harvard University. Cloth, 8vo, $2.25 ; postage, 77 'cents " It is doubtful if a more scholarly and unprejudiced presentation of the tendencies of the times, snowing the faults and advantage of our systems of municipal management, has before appeared. The book will be appreciated everywhere." The Boston Globe. "... a fresh contribution to a weighty and important public .discussion." Philadelphia North American. By THE SAME AUTHOR The Government of European Cities Cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net ; by mail, $2.19 "The most effective work now done in political science is that going on in the field of applied politics. Avoiding abstract prin- ciples and a priori speculation, it addresses itself to examination of the actual organization of public authority and of the way in which governmental function is carried out. In ' The Government of European Cities' (Macmillan) , Prof. William Bennett Munro of Harvard has made a valuable addition to this literature. He gives a detailed account of the way in which municipal government is formed and carried on in France, Germany, and England. The style is clear, straightforward, and unpretentious, and the treatment is steadily confined to the subject in hand without any attempt to point a moral or aid a cause. At the same time references to American municipal methods frequently occur as incidents of the explanation of European procedure, and these add to the value of the book for American readers. The writing, while succinct, is copious in detail, and only administrative experts in the countries respectively considered could check off all the statements made ; but the work itself affords intrinsic evidence of its painstaking accuracy. One cannot read the book without being deeply im- pressed by the essential simplicity of the principle;; upon which European municipal government is constituted." The Nation. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York