The S^orr of OUR ENGLK GRANDFATHERS GEO. P. BROWN MA SAXOI CE THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF Mrs . Earle Brown €^ NORTH 6 E A Wm The Story of Our English Grandfathers AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF OUR NATION George P. Brown Author of "The Elements of English Grammar," etc. PUBLIC-SCHOOL PUBLISHING COMPANY BLO-Mit«3TON, Illinois Copyright 1903 GEORGE P. BROWN Bloomington, Illinois Education GIFT B75 PREFACE This little book is intended to furnish a back- ground for the study of the History of the United States. It is an epitome of the history of the development of political and industiial freedom in England, from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the death of Queen Victoria. In the preparation of the book the author has tried to use language familiar to pupils in the seventh year of the Course of Study in our Ele- mentary Schools. There is considerable repeti- tion of things presented in previous chapters, and sometimes there is mention made of matters to be more fully treated in subsequent chapters, for the purpose of helping the pupil to look both forward and backward, and so to prevent him from losing his way among the numerous per- sons and events in the panorama which his im- agination constructs. There are three distinct uses that can be made of the book: 3 76S 4 Preface 1. It can be read, under the leadership and by the help of the suggestions and questions of the teacher, by pupils in the seventh year of the Elementary Course of Study. 2. It can be used as a text-book in the first half year of the eighth grade preparatory to the completion of the History of the United States, studied in the grades below. 3. The author believes it can be made a val- uable study of the History of England in the High School, by giving a sort of bird^s-eye view of the entire movement preparatory to a fuller treatment of causes and details necessarily omit- ted from this volume. This involves going over the ground twice as is now done, but it gives the outline view before the more exhaustive study of the subject. It would take too much space to make due acknowledgments to the authors of the many histories that have been consulted in the pre- paration of this little volume. The illustra- tions are not numerous but effort has been made to have them authentic where authentic pictures were attainable. CONTENTS, PAGE. Introduction 5 The Roman and the Saxon Invasions, 55 -B. C.-1066 a. D. I. The Romans and the Britons, 55 b. C.-449 a. d. . 11 II. The Saxon Invasion, 449-830 25 III. King Alfred and the Danes, 830-1066 . . 34 IV. The Early Government of England .... 54 The Norman Kings, 1066—1154. V. William the Conqueror, 1066-1087 .... 60 VI. What was Feudalism, 1000-1450 74 VII. How the Common People Lived 82 The Plantagenet Kings, 1154-1485. Vni. Henry II., 1154-1189 88 IX. Indoor Life of the Barons 101 X. Richard L, 1189-1199 107 XL How the People Lived 116 XII. King John and the Great Charter, 1199-1216 . 123 XIII. City Schools and Sports 138 XIV. A Short Story of a Long Period, 1216-1485 . . 141 5 6 Contents ' The Tudor Kings, 1485-1603. XV. Henry VII., 1485-1509 153 XVI. How Industries Grew 166 XVII. Martin Luther, 1483-1546 172 XVIII. Henry VIIL, 1509-1547 . . ' 180 XIX. How the People Lived 196 XX. Edward and Mary, 1547-1558 201 XXL Elizabeth, 1558-1603 212 XXII. Who were the Puritans 239 The Stuart Kings, 1603-1688. XXIII. James L, 1603-1625 245 XXIV. Virginia 258 XXV. Charles I., 1625-1640 ........ 264 XXVL New England 279 XXVIL Oliver Cromwell, 1599-1658 285 XXVIIL Charles IL, James IL, 1660-1688 .... 301 XXIX. New York 314 XXX. Pennsylvania 317 XXXL William III., 1689-1702 320 The Hanoverian Kings, 1714. XXXII. A Short Story of Three Reigns, 1702-1760 . . 331 XXXIII. George III., 1760-1820 . ...... 340 XXXIV. The Story of the English Parliament ... 352 XXXV. Discoveries and Inventions 365 XXXVL Queen Victoria, 1837-1901 373 THE STORY OF OUR ENGLISH * GRANDFATHERS, INTRODUCTION. The white people who first came to this coun- try were Europeans. Those who settled on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, were Englishmen. The ancestors of the English were those Germans who lived north of the Elbe river in Germany, and near to the coast of the North Sea. If we call the early English people our grandfathers, we must claim those early German people as our great-grandfathers. From this it is evident that the Americans, the English, and the Germans are all members of one great family, or race. This is known as the Ger- manic family. In history it is called the Teu- tonic race. Many of the present inhabitants of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland have ancestors of another race, called the Britons, who lived in England when our great-grandfathers, the Germans, first came into the island. They are known in history as the Celtic race. Indeed, very many English- men have Celtic as well as German ancestors. So it appears that all the people in Great Britain and Ireland are closely related by blood to one 8 Introduction another and to the Americans. We shall see later that the Celtic blood that has commingled with the Germanic has helped to cause a marked difference between the English and the Ameri- can people on the one hand, and the present German people of Europe, on the other. But in all essential particulars the three nations are one great family, and ought to live in peace and friendship with each other, as is most be- coming to a family. The early settlers in the United States were Englishmen. When they became a separate natidn they framed a plan of government which is called our Constitution, and which is the most fundamental and binding of all our laws, be- cause it states what are the commanding rights of the people, and how the government must be carried on to protect these rights. While this constitution differs in some respects from the constitution of England, yet the rights of the people are practically the same in both nations. So true is this that the Constitutional Law of England, called the "Common Law,'^ is the law in every state of our union, provided the state legislature has not enacted a law that super- sedes it. This is the same as declaring that what our English Grandfathers had long ago agreed upon as right and just both in government and in Introdxiction 9 business shall be the law that must govern us when we have no law of our own bearing upon the matter in dispute. So it appears that if an American would know the early history of his own customs and laws he must know the early history of the English people. This book is a brief history of those customs and events in the lives of our English Grand- fathers which it concerns us all to know, and which the young people of America need to learn if they would fully understand the History of the United States. Tacitus, one of the greatest of Roman his- torians, wrote as follows of our German great- grandfathers : ^^A fine, unmixed, and independ- ent race, unlike any other people . . . with stern blue eyes, ruddy hair, of large and robust frames, but with a strength which only appears when roused to sudden effort. They will be the slaves of no man ; they respect their women, and hold them in love and honor. They con- sider no disgrace equal to that which is the sure reward of a man who shows himself, a coward in battle. Fierce and cruel ip war, they are content, when the war is over, to lay aside the sword and spear, and to plough their fields and to cultivate their lands in peace and quiet?' THE ROMAN AND THE SAXON INVASIONS. 55 B.C.— 1066 A. D. I. THE ROMANS AND THE BRITONS. 55 B.C.— 449 A. D. Twenty centuries ago all the western world was ruled by the Romans. Rome, the wealth- iest and most beautiful city in the world, wcs the capital of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar, a great Roman general and one of the greatest of statesmen, had conquered the Gauls (who then lived in France) and had brought them under the rule of the empire. (60 B. C.) The Gauls and the Britons who lived in England be- longed to the same family, and while the war against the Gauls was going on, the Britons had sent soldiers across the channel to aid their friends. Caesar had found it harder to subdue that portion of Gaul near to the English channel because of the assistance given to the enemy by the Britons. After the Gauls had been con- quered, Caesar determined to punish the Britons n 12 The Roman and Saxon Invasions for their interference. About 1,950 years ag( fifty-five years before the birth of Christ — he sailed with an army of Roman soldiers across the straits of Dover. (It is only twenty-two miles across this channel, and the Romans could see the white cliffs of Dover from the harbor from which they set sail.) THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER. When he arrived on the coast of Britain, Caesar found a large army on the shore ready to dispute his landing. The Britons were armed with spears, and bows and arrows, and, be- sides they had war-chariots with sharp swords projecting from the ends of the axles. When The Romans and the Britons 13 these were driven among the enemy many were cut in pieces. The Britons were frightful in appearance, being large men, with long hair and beard, and wearing ox-horns fastened to their helmets. The Romans were afraid to land in the face of so terrible a foe. So they drove their transports along the coast hoping to find some point where their vessels could be brought nearer to the shore. Not succeeding in this, and being unwilling to return without striking a blow, the standard bearer on one of the vessels leaped into the water, calling to the soldiers to follow him if they would not see their standard captured by barbarians. To lose a standard was a great disgrace, and immediately the water between the boats and the shore was filled with armed soldiers. They made their way with difficulty through water waist deep and in the midst of a shower of spears and arrows. Their armor protected most of them from the weapons of the enemy, and as soon as they approached the shore where the water was more shallow, they ran together into groups or companies in the form of solid squares, having twelve men in each rank and ten ranks, one behind the other, in each company. Three of these squares made a Roman cohort" and ten cohorts a Roman legion. The legions then arranged themselves in line of battle so that one cohort or company could as- 14 The Roman and Saxon Invasions sist and protect another, and these soUd squares of soldiers moving together attacked the enemy with a power the Britons could not withstand. They were driven from the field with great slaughter, not for want of courage but because they were merely an armed mob attacked by a A NATIVE BRITON. disciplined army. The desperate courage with which they fought convinced Caesar that his army of 10,000 soldiers was too small to follow up his first victory with any hope of success. He staid in Britain but three weeks and then returned to Rome. The next year he again invaded The Romans and the Britons 15 Britain with a picked army of 25,000 men. The Britons sought to stay his march of destruction but all in vain. One stronghold after another was carried by storm, and no army of the Britons could stand against the Roman legions in the open field. After Caesar had taught the Britons the lesson that they could not give aid to the enemies of Rome except at a fearful cost, he withdrew with his whole army. He thought that now the Britons would remain at home and attend to their own affairs when a quarrel should again arise between the Romans and the Gauls. It was nearly 100 years after this and long after the great Caesar had been assassinated by his friend Brutus and the other conspirators in the Senate House in Rome, that another Roman army large enough to overcome all opposition invaded Britain. The leader of this army was, at first, Suetonius, and afterward, Agricola. The latter was one of the greatest Romans of his time. A fierce and bloody war was waged for many years. At length, by superior arms and better military discipline, more than by superior valor, the Romans became undisputed master of that part of Great Britain now called England. Agrir cola built a chain of forts between the Clyde and Forth, from sea to sea. These served as 16 The Roman and Saxon Invasions the northern boundary of the Roman dominion and as a defense against the barbarous Picts and Scots who then inhabited what is now Scotland. After the time of Agricola a high wall connecting these fortresses was built across the island. The Romans continued to rule over the Brit- ons for about 350 years; nearly as long as from the discovery of America by Columbus until now. The Britons had many brave leaders during their long war with the Romans. Among these was Caractacus. After many battles in which he had fought with great courage and sometimes with success, he was finally taken and carried captive to Rome. When he was brought be- fore the Emperor Claudius he said: ^^I am in your power and you can do vv^ith me what you will. I am here because I was faithful to my country and would not promise to be your slave and obey your laws. You can put me to death, but you can gain greater honor by setting me free.'^ . The emperor admired his manly courage and patriotic spirit, and ordered that his life be spared and that he be kindly treated. Another name, which for a long time was en- shrined in the hearts of the Britons, was that of BRITON COIN. Queen Boadicea. She The Romans and the Britons 17 was the wife of a British chieftain who, at one time, had been cruelly humihated and insulted by the Romans to whom he had come with a message from his countrymen. Before his death her husband made Nero heir to the throne of the Iceni jointly with his two daughters. He hoped by this act to gain the Roman Emperor's protection for his family and people. But no sooner had the king died than the Romans seized all. When Queen Boadicea protested against this outrage the Roman sol- diers bound her to a post and publicly whipped her. They shamefully insulted her daughters also. All the Iceni, in their rage at this insult to their royal family, rose in rebellion against the R,omans and swore that they would drive them into the sea. They raised an army of 230,000 soldiers, while the Romans numbered only 10,000. This great army was led by the queen, and at the beginning she was everywhere victorious, even capturing liOndon. But her army was lit- tle more than an armed mob. In the decisive battle that soon followed, this great force was cut to pieces and Boadicea killed herself to avoid being carried captive to Rome. We see in Caractacus and Boadicea examples of the noble character and love of liberty of that people who first inhabited Britain, and who were 18 The Roman and Saxon Invasions the ancestors of the Irish and the Welsh who now Uve in America. When you visit England you will probably drive out over Salisbury Plain on a Roman road built more than 1,600 years ago. This road ran in a straight line from one city to another, up hill and down dale, never going round a hill but always over it. The other old Roman roads have the same character. All run in a straight line from start to finish. The design was to make each road the shortest distance between two towns. They did not use carriages and wagons in those days, but they either rode on horseback or walked. Merchandise and all kinds of freight were carried in packs strapped on the backs of horses and mules, in the same way that such things are carried through the mountains to-day. They could, therefore, go by a straight line from one place to another more quickly than by a winding road. The Romans were great architects also. W^e find the remains of Roman buildings in England that must have rivaled in their magnificence some of those in the city of Rome. They built ^'camps,^' or towns, and surrounded them with strong walls. The Roman name for camp was castra. Many of these camps afterward grew to be cities and towns. The word '^castra" was sometimes changed to '^ Chester.'^ So we have The Romans and the Britons 19 20 The Roman and Saxon Invasions towns called Ro-chester, Man-chester, as well as Lan - caster, Tod - caster, Don - caster, Caster- bridge, and others. They were once Roman garrisons. The Britons, like the Gauls, were heathen who are supposed to have had a mysterious kind of religion, and whose priests were called Druids. Their places of worship were the for- ests and groves, and the oak and mistletoe were revered as sacred. The mistletoe is all that re- mains to us of the religion of the Druids. But something would be lost from our Christmas festivals if the mistletoe were left out of them. The most sacred place of worship of the Brit- ons was not an enclosed building like our cath- edrals, but it consisted, as is supposed, of im- mense stones some of them thirty feet long, set up on end in the ground. They were set in two circles, one within the other. Some ten miles from Salisbury, on an old Ro- man road, you will find the ruins of one of these cathedrals of the early Britons. It is now called Stonehenge. What religious rites were per- formed there no one knows, but the influence of the religion upon the people appears to have been more humane than was that of many of the other heathen religions of the continent. The Romans continued to rule over the Brit- ons for more than 300 years. During this The Romans and the Britons 21 period the Britons were converted to Christian- ity by the influence of Helena, a native of Britain, who was the mother of Const antine the Great. (300) Constantine was the first Christian em- peror of Rome. The Christian religion was the religion of Britain, until about 100 years after the Romans withdrew from the island. They went away, much to the sorrow of the Britons, who had come to depend upon them for pro- tection from the painted barbarians of Scotland whom not even the Romans could subdue. They were called the ^'Picts,'' because of the custom of coloring their skin. Many Britons from Ireland, called Scots, also lived in Scotland and joined the Picts. For fifty years after the Romans withdrew the Britons carried on a defensive war against the Picts and Scots who were the ancestors of many of the people who now live in Scotland and in the northern part of Ireland. It seems that when the Romans came the Britons in the island consisted of two different tribes; those in the north, called by the Romans ' the Picts, and those in the southern part, known to the world as Britons. The Roman rule had not taught the Britons to be self-reliant, and when the Picts scaled the boundary wall which the Romans had built, the Britons called on the Romans for assistance. When this call was unheeded, they 22 The Roman and Saxon Invasions asked the German barbarians for help. So it appears that the first of the German invaders came in on invitation of the Britons themselves. They afterwards proved to be very troublesome guests, but for a while they acted as friends and drove back the Picts, and Hved peaceably on the lands the Britons gave them for their serv- ices. But in the year 449 A. D., five hundred years after Caesar's invasion, a great horde of German barbarians from the continent settled in Britain, and, after many years, killed most of the Britons and drove those who survived into the moun- tains of Wales or over into Ireland. In those beautiful poems of Alfred Tennyson, "The Idylls of the King,'' you can read the legendary stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. These are stories of the Britons in their struggle to defend themselves against these new enemies. According to them, Arthur, with his magic sword, Excalibur, aided by his Knights of the Round Table, waged suc- cessful war with these invaders for many years. But the magic of the German spirit was stronger than that of Arthur's sword, and by reason of this spirit the Saxons not only overcame the Britons, but the English nation has since grown to be mistress of not only the British Isles but of m.uch of the world besides. These barbarians The Romans and the Britons 23 from Germany were the Saxons and the Angles, who came to be known afterwards as the Anglo- Saxons. All the descendants of these mvaders of England are called Anglo-Saxons to this day, and yet quite as many Danes and Normans set- tled in England as Angles and Saxons. Per- haps you will learn later why the name ^'Anglo- Saxon " outlived all the names of the other peo- ple who united with these first invaders to make the English nation. The fact that England was an island separ- ated from the continent by a stormy channel and the North Sea, made it easier for the germs of freedom in the Anglo-Saxon spirit to grow into a free government. Other Germanic races on the continent had this spirit at first, but it was quenched for a long time by the opposition of other nations that had it not. The English were left more to themselves, and could more easily defend themselves against the attacks of foreign enemies because of their insular position. I'he fact that Britain was surrounded on all sides by the sea had many advantages which will appear later on. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What three nations belong to the same family? What reason have the Americans for regarding the English as our parents? What reason for calling the Germans our grandparents? What people lived in Britain before the Romans invaded it? Who was Julius 24 The Roman and Saxon Invasions Caesar? Why did he lead an army against the Britons? How long after the invasion of Caesar did the Romans undertake the con- quest of Britain? What part of that which is now Great Britain were they unable to conquer? Why did they build a wall from sea to sea across Britain ? How did the Romans build roads? What does "castra" or "chester" mean in the names of English towns? How long did the Romans hold Britain? How long after they re- turned to Rome did the Germans begin to come in? Why did they come at first? What was the religion of the Britons before they became Christians? Through whose influence did they become Christians? What trees and plants did the Druid priests call sacred? In what kind of temples did they perform their religious rites? Give reason for the opinion that the ancient Britons belong to the same family as the Gauls? What is the present name of the country of the Gauls? Of the Britons? Of the Picts and Scots? How long after Julius Caesar did the Anglo-Saxons begin to invade Britain? BOADICEA. When the British warrior queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods, Sought, with an indignant mien. Counsel of her country's gods. Sage beneath a spreading oak Sat the Druid, hoary chief; Every burning word he spoke Full of rage, and full of grief : " Princess ! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 'Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues. "Rome shall perish, — write that word In the blood that she has spilt; Perish hopeless and abhorr'd. Deep in ruin as in guilt.' ' * * — William Cowper. II. THE SAXON INVASION. 449—830 For many centuries a great many people called the Teutons have lived in northern Europe. They are also known as the Germanic race. They include the people of Norwa}^, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and much of the present German empire, as well as a part of the inhab- itants of Austria. Another and different race inhabit Russia, who are known as Slavs (Slavz.) The Latin race is different still. They include the Italians, some of the Spaniards, and, pos- sibly, other people of southern Europe. The people once living in France were the Gauls, or Celts, and were of the same race as the Britons, as you learned in the preceding chapter. The present inhabitants of France are the descend- ants of a union of the Celts with the Teutonic people called Franks. They are generally classed with the Latin races; perhaps because of a sim- ilarity of language. The Teutonic, the Slavic, and the Celtic races are the inhabitants of north- ern Europe to-day, as they were 2000 years ago. 25 26 The Roman and Saxon Invasions Now the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes belonged to the original Teutonic race. They lived in Holland and Denmark and the Germans east of them were pressing hard upon them for more room, and crowding them westward toward the North sea. They were a heathen people who worshiped such deities as Thor, and Tiw, and Woden. (The days of the week are named from some of these gods of our German grand- parents. Wednesday is Woden's-day — Woden was the king of the gods and of war; Thursday was Thor's-day — Thor was the god of lightning and thunder ; Sunday and Monday were the days sacred to the worship of the Sun and Moon; Friday was the day on which honor was paid to Friga, the protector of the home; Saturday was sacred to an unknown god called Soetre; Tiw was the dark god to meet whom was death. His name has been preserved in Tuesday.) The Germans were a strong, hardy people who believed in freedom and who had a govern- ment resembling a democracy. They were cruel, and so, too, were their gods. When men wor- ship cruel gods they are apt to be cruel toward their fellow men. The Saxons first came into the island on the invitation of the Britons, who asked them to come over and help them to drive back the bar- barous tribes of the north. They were glad to ac- The Saxon Invasion 27 cept the invitation of the Britons to make Britain their home and in return for it they assisted in expelUng the northern barbarians. This was soon accomphshed by the combined efforts of Britons and Saxons, and the sea rovers received as their reward the island of Thanet at the mouth of the Thames, where they settled with their fam- ilies and friends. (This is not now an island but is part of the main land.) When other Ger- mans learned how fair was this country they too came in large numbers. They considered that the land belonged to any one who was strong enough to take and hold it. The Britons now repented that they had asked these powerful barbarians to be their allies. They had ex- changed one foe for another more powerful and cruel than their old enemies of the north. The first to come, uninvited, were the Jutes from Jutland in Denmark, and they drove the Britons out of the county of Kent which ad- joined the island of Thanet. The Saxons who were near neighbors to the Jutes, joined in the invasion in much larger numbers, and, together, the two tribes, after a struggle lasting many years, drove the Britons whom they did not kill into the mountains of Wales, or across the Irish sea into Ireland. About the same time the Angles, or Engles, who were neighbors of the Jutes and Saxons, came over in still greater num- 28 The Roman and Saxon Invasions bers and landed at different points north of the mouth of the Thames river, and began an attack upon the Britons all along the eastern shore to the Humber river. The Britons called all of these invaders Sax- ons, perhaps because they all used in battle a short, broad-sword, or knife, called Sax; or it may be because the Saxons were most numer- ous and active in the early part of the invasion. The country conquered by the Angles was known to Europeans as Anglia and many years later, when all these tribes had joined together to repel the invasion of the Northmen, the Sax- ons, Angles, and Jutes came to be known to Europeans as English. The Engles seem to have given their name to the country y while the Saxons gave theirs to the language. For many generations the language used in England by the common people was called Saxon. These three tribes all had similar customs and laws as well as a common language. It was 500 years after Julius Caesar first land- ed in Britain with his Roman army that the Jutes made their invasion into Kent under the two leaders, Hengist and Horsa. It was another 200 years and more before the Saxons had suc- ceeded in driving the Britons out of the greater portion of Southern England. The Britons were driven westward, year by year, very much as The Saxon Invasion 29 the white man has driven the Indians of North America towards the Pacific. The Romans did not desire to destroy the Britons but to rule over them. They protected them in such rights as they granted to them, and the Britons be- came prosperous and contented as subjects of Rome. But our German grandfathers were not content to rule over the Britons, granting to them the rights of subjects; they sought to ex- terminate them, and permitted none to Uve among them except as slaves. Little kingdoms arose among the invaders. These were Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, Middle Anglia, East Anglia, North-Umbria ; seven in all. They were often at war with one another.* This was the time in the history of the world when Charlemagne was seeking to unite all the nations of the continent of Europe into one great empire. Egbert, king of the West Saxons, did in England what Charlemagne was trying to do on the continent. He became over-lord of all England. It was nearly 400 years after the Saxons first invaded Britain before Egbert, the king of the West Saxons, conquered the other six kingdoms and became the chief ruler of England. He ♦Note that Wessex is a contraction of West-Saxons, Essex, of East-Saxons, Sussex, of South-Saxons, Middlesex, of Middle-Sax- ons. 30 The Roman and Saxon Invasions was not king but over-lord, for the freedom lov- ing Germans did not like the name of king and refused to make Egbert the absolute ruler. It was a kind of confederacy of seven different kingdoms. Two hundred years before these great victories of Egbert the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity. Gregory the Great was pope of the Roman Catholic church at the time (A. D. 600), and he sent the great preacher, St. Augustine, as mis- sionary to England, who, with the aid of many other priests, succeeded in persuading the Eng- lish, as we shall now call them, to accept the Christian religion in place of the religion of their fathers-. This did more to promote the civiliza- tion and prosperity of England than any other event that ever happened in that island. Why was it important? First, it was important because it brought the Latin language into England, and with it the learning of the world. All books were then written in the Latin tongue. There were no printed books, and no written language except Latin. The Roman Catholic churches were the seats of learning, and they made the English acquainted with the rest of Europe, and the rest of Europe acquainted with England. Since the withdrawal of the Romans the people of The Saxon Invasion 31 Europe had had but Httle knowledge of what was done in England. It was known only as a dark land inhabited by fierce barbarians. Second^ it united the different kingdoms into one people and under one leader in the church, and so prepared the way for a united nation. Third, the church introduced the custom of bequeathing property by will. Fourth, it encouraged belief in the doctrine that kings were appointed by God to rule the people. This is known as the ''divine right of kings. ^' The English had previously elected their kings, believing that the ablest man should rule. They never fully accepted the doctrine of this divine right, and finally rejected it alto- gether. But it caused a closer union among the people at this time, and at a later period it was contended for by both the church and the kings. Fifth, their wars were no longer wars of exter- mination as they had been before. Christianity had taught them something of the sacredness of human life. The church declared that every sol- dier had a right to life as soon as he stopped fighting and laid down his arms. As 3^ou think more about these things that Christianity brought to our barbarous grandfa- thers, the more important they will appear. They made them respect law by teaching that God was the author of it. They were 32 The Roman and Saxon Invasions still savage and cruel but not so savage and cruel as they had been before they became Christians. As they learned to regard the rights of others they found that others were more will- ing to acknowledge their rights; and they found, too, that it was better for them to live in peace and friendship with one another than in a state of constant warfare. This has now come to be the belief among the people of every nation, and the time is rapidly approaching when it will be- come the practice among all the different na- tionSj in their intercourse with one another. A parliament of nations will, some day, settle all disputes between governments, without resort- ing to the bloody wars that are now a disgrace to Christian civilization; and then there will be a confederation of the world. The introduction of the Christian religion among our heatheR fore- fathers was the beginning of the movement to- ward the reign of universal peace. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who were the Teutons? What are the three great races that now control the civiUzed world? Which one of these is now the greatest race? What are the three great nations belonging to this race? Where can you learn about the early religion of the Teutonic race? Why did the Germans first enter Britain? Point out on the map the location of the great wall built by the Ro- mans across England. Where was the island of Thanet? Is it an island now? When did the two great Saxon leaders first invade southern England? Which tribe of invaders finally gave its name to Britain? Which one gave its name to the language? How many fhe Saxon Invasion S3 years after Caesar first entered Britain did the Saxons begin their invasion? How long after the beginning of this invasion were all of the seven kingdoms united under Egbert as over-lord? When was Christianity first introduced among the Britons? By whom? When was it first introduced among the Saxons? By whom? How did Christianity help England? THE COMING OF ST. AUGUSTINE. " Forever hallowed be this morning fair, Blest be the unconscious shore on which ye tread, And blest the silver Cross, which ye, instead Of martial banner, in procession bear; The Cross preceding Him who floats in air, The pictured Saviour!— By Augustine led, They come, — and onward travel without dread, Chanting in barbarous ears a tuneful prayer, — Sung for themselves and those whom they would free ! Rich conquest waits them: — the tempestuous sea Of Ignorance, that ran so rough and high. And heeded not the voice of clashing swords, These good men humble by a few bare words, And calm with fear of God's divinity." — William Wordsworth. IIL KING ALFRED AND THE DANES. 830 — 1066. We have learned that Britain was first invaded by the Romans and that during the 350 years and more of their sojourn in the island the Brit- ons became Christians, and adopted many of the manners and customs of the Roman people. Later, (450 A. D.) our German grandfathers, the Angles and Saxons, began an invasion for the purpose of driving the Britons out of the island. This war of conquest was carried on for more than 200 years and until a large number of the Brit- ons were killed, and the remainder driven into a narrow strip of territory along the western shore. Our last chapter left these Anglo-Saxons, about 200 years later, an industrious and prosperous people united under one government, with Eg- bert, the king of the West Saxons, as the over- lord of all England. (830 A. D.) But the rule of the house of Egbert had hardly been acknowledged and peace among the war- ring kingdoms declared, before another tribe of 34 King Alfred and the Danes 35 invaders, called the Northmen, came in upon them in great numbers. They came in large ves- sels, called ^^Long Ships, ^^ each propelled by sails THE LONG SHIPS OF THE NORTHMEN, and fifty oars, and filled with warriors armed with swords and spears, battle-axes, bows and arrows, and shields. They had pictures of horrible drag- 36 The Roman and Saxon Invasions ons painted on their sails, and figures of the heads of savage animals adorned the prows. They would row up the rivers, attack the towns, seize upon everything of value that could be carried away, burn the homes, and kill the peo- ple who did not flee into the forests on their ap- proach. Then they would sail away in safety. Later these f ree-booters came in large numbers with their wives and children, and sought to make England their permanent home. They were called Northmen and came, principally, from the northern part of the peninsula of Den- mark. They were Teutons, and first cousins of the Angles and Saxons, speaking a kindred language and having similar customs and laws. They were heathen who worshiped the same gods that the Saxons had formerly worshiped, and they were even more cruel and relentless than those who first drove out the Britons. There are many stories in the Norse Mythology of the lives and deeds of their gods and goddesses, which are especially interesting to us because they tell us what our German grandparents thought about religion and the future life. Among these is a strange story, called the Nibel- ungen-lied, which tells of the wonderful deeds of the early heroes of the German people. Wag- ner's great German operas are these stories told in music that is as wonderful as are the stories.* *See Wagner Opera Stories, by Grace Edson Barber. King Alfred and the Danes 37 These Northmen were very fond of war and despised or pitied those who staid at home and Hved in peace. They beheved that the gods loved those who died in battle, but that those who died in bed at home were shut out from Val- halla. Valhalla was the abode of the gods, and here the souls of brave warriors who had died in battle fought with each other every day, were healed of their wounds at sunset, and feasted with gods and heroes every night. These Danes, or Northmen, kept coming in larger numbers into England and overran the country. They were often defeated by the Eng- lish but were oftener victorious. They gained possession of one kingdom after another of those that had been united under Egbert. Finally the great kingdom of West Saxony, of which one of Egbert's grandsons was king, yielded to them and the Danes appeared to be masters of all England. (871 A. D.) For fifty years after the death of Egbert the war went on. Egbert's son Ethelwulf was king for a time and after his death his four sons came to the throne one after another in quick succession. The name of the youngest was Alfred. He was only twenty-two years old when he became king and for a time he was a king without a throne. But he lived to be one of the greatest kings that ever ruled over England. 38 The Roman and Saxon Invasions When Alfred was a child no one supposed that he would ever become king — there were so many of his brothers between himself and the crown. He was educated for a priest. He traveled much in Europe and studied at Rome. He was a great lover of books, and before he was a man in years he took rank among the learned men of his time. There was only one book written in English, and but very few Englishmen could read even that. The language used in the church was Latin, and it is said that many priests who read the service in the churches did not know the meaning of the words they read. Alfred was a devout Christian and longed to help his people to read the Bible for themselves. When his brother next older than himself was king, Alfred was one of the bravest and most successful generals in the army. He became king after his brother's death, but his people had so great fear of the Northmen that they no longer dared to take the field against them. Alfred withdrew into the wilds of the forest to wait for their courage to revive, and he hid himself for some time in its deep recesses. But his pursuers were on his track. To escape them it is said that he disguised himself as a peasant and was employed by a farmer to take care of his cattle, and assist his wife about the house. He was all the time studying how to overcome the Danes, King Alfred and the Danes 39 and waiting for an opportunity to strike an ef- fective blow for the freedom of his country. There is a story that he was one day sitting by the fire in the farmer's kitchen making a bow. His mistress had set some cakes before the fire to bake, and had left him to watch them, and turn them at times to keep them from burning. Between his thoughts of his people and the jnak- ing of his bow he forgot the cakes, and when the housewifereturned they were burned to a crisp. She scolded and beat him roundly, ex- claiming, ^^Drat you, man! never to turn the loaves when you saw them burning. I'ze warrant you ready enough to eat them when they are done.'' There is another story that when Alfred wished to learn the strength and designs of the Danish army he disguised himself as a minstrel and entered their camp. He was a young man of great beauty, very skillful as a harpist, and a sweet singer. He soon became so popular among KING ALFRED. 40. The Roman and Saxon Invasions the Danish soldiers that they took measures to prevent him from leaving the camp. By and by suspicion arose that he was more than a minstrel and he was about to be seized as a spy when, by the assistance of friends, he was able to steal out through their lines at night, while a severe storm was raging, and throwing himself upon a swift horse that was in waiting for him he reached his army in safety. The Eldermen — Earls — re- proved him sharply for his recklessness, but the information he gained was of great service to him in the battle that soon followed. One day while hiding in the farmer's hut, word was brought to Alfred that a band of English had attacked a party of Danes and put them to flight. This renewed his courage and hope. He put himself at their head, and many others com- ing to his support, he fell upon a large band of Northmen and put them utterly to rout. He did not stop with a single victory, but pushed on and was soon at the head of a large army of his countrymen who had hurried to his standard.* Victory followed victory until finally Alfred was king of the West Saxons again as his grandfather had been. The king soon discovered that if he would re- sist successfully the incursions of the Danes he must meet them on the sea. So long as they could sail up and down the coast and the rivers King Alfred and the Danes 41 unopposed, they could land, attack and burn a town, and get away in safety before the English could come to its defense. So he made a treaty with the king of the Danes, whose name was Guthrum (878 A. D.), by which a boundary line was drawn between the territory held by the Northmen and that of the Saxons. Then Alfred set to work to build ships with which to meet the other hordes of Northmen who roamed over the sea to rob and pillage the towns on the shores. In a short time he had a fleet able to cope with the ''long ships'' of the Northmen, and was able to protect his people from the Northern pirates that had so long preyed upon the towns on the sea coast and rivers. Alfred was not only a great warrior ; he was a great statesman also. His is the noblest name in all English history. Professor Freeman, who is a historian of the highest rank, says of King Alfred: ^'No other man on record has ever so thor- oughly united all of the virtues both of the ruler and the private man. The virtue of Alfred, like the virtue of Washington, consisted in no marvelous display of superhuman genius but in the simple, straight- forward discharge of the duties of the moment. Washington, soldier, statesman, and patriot 42 The Roman and Saxon Invasions though he was, had less distinction than Alfred as a Christian and scholar/' Alfred was the captain of his people and, also, their law-giver and teacher. He divided the people into parishes, each hav- ing a hundred men able to bear arms, and made ALFRED AT WORK. each parish responsible for the wrong acts of its members. It is said that in many parts of Eng- land theft was unknown and that one could travel unharmed '^with a bosom full of gold.^' He King Alfred and the Danes 43 wrote books and poetry, and began the trans- lation of the Bible into the Saxon language. He had many different things to do and di- vided the time so as to give a certain portion of it to each task. Clocks were unknown and even the hour-glass was not used in England. He marked the time by burning candles. These he divided by colored bands into equal parts. One of these parts would bum for an hour. He invited wise men to his court from the cen- ters of learning in Europe, in order that his peo- ple might be benefited by their knov/ledge. He was known everywhere as the man who always told the truth. All the world now knows him as Alfred the Great. After many years the Danes discarded their heathen religion and through the influence of the priests became Christians. Let it be remembered that during this period the king of England could be chosen by the chief men of the kingdom, provided they were not pleased with the person whom the king had named as his successor. The divine right of the king's children to rule after him was not yet acknowledged, though a member of the royal family was generally king. But the idea of di- vine right was growing, and it was fostered by the teachings of the church. 44 The Roman and Saxon Invasions The people were divided into three distinct classes : 1. The Eldermen or Earls. 2. The Churls, who were freemen, but were unlearned and were not nobles nor gentlemen. 3. The Laborers, who were serfs, and were held as property by the other two classes, but could not be sold away from their homes. The churls at first had the right to a vote in choosing the king, but they neglected to exer- cise it until they lost it entirely. We shall see later that this right was afterward denied by the kings to the earls, also, but the people, when they had a competent leader, always enforced it against tyrants who disregarded their rights. Seventy-five years after the death of Alfred the Anglo-Saxons had again come into control of all England, and the Danes had become good Englishmen. The English nation had settled down into comparative peace, under one gov- ernment for Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Danes, when another invasion by the Northmen from across the sea called them again to arms to pro- tect their homes and defend their liberties. So long as there was a strong king like Alfred and his immediate successors at the head of the Eng- lish government, the northern rovers of the sea sought easier conquests. But a time came when the rulers w^re weak men. In 1017 A. D. a King Alfred and the Danes 45 strong Danish ruler, whose name was Canute, came to the throne of England. But Canute proved to be one of the best rulers that England ever had. He became a Christian and a warm friend of the English, and sought in every way to protect the liberties and advance the interests of the English and Danes alike. Again, for more than fift}^ years, England was free from foreign invasions and Northmen and Englishmen little by little united into one nation in which the Saxons, under the leadership of Godwin the Saxon, became the most powerful influence, and in 1066 A. D., Harold, the son of Godwin, was chosen king. Harold did not be- long to the royal family. But with his election arose a new and more powerful enemy. This was William, the duke of Normandy, who claimed the English throne both by inheritance and by previous agreement with Harold. The invasion of England by the Normans began immediately, and the influence of this invasion will appear throughout the suc- ceeding pages of this history. You will do well to remember that the SaxonB and Angles — that is, the English — had always been the strong and endurin^^ people since they entered the island. The Danes and Northmen were powerful soldiers, but in the arts of peace 46 The Roman and Saxon Invasions they were inferior to the Anglo-Saxons. How will it be after the final settlement with the Nor- man invaders is made? Before we enter upon the study of that ques- tion we should learn something of the form of government under which the English lived at the time of King Alfred and for more than 150 years afterward. Every parish or village, called a hundred^ was governed by a village council, consisting of a certain number of the wisest men of the parish. The parish was held responsible for all the wrong- doing within its borders, and it was the business of the village council to try all persons charged with crime. Any one so charged had to prove that he was innocent before he was acquitted. This has been changed since then, and now, both in our country and in England, those who charge a person with a crime must prove that he is guilty before he can be punished. In France, however, it is the rule, to this day, that the pris- oner must prove that he is innocent in order to escape punishment. This sometimes works great wrong to the accused. But our rule often per- mits the guilty to escape. And yet it seems to us that it is better that the guilty escape than that the innocent be unjustly punished. When one was charged with a crime in King Al- fred's time the village council selected twelve men King Alfred and the Danes 47 of the parish in which the offense was committed, to Usten to the evidence and decide whether the person charged was guilty or not guilty. These twelve men were called a jury. So we MAP OF ENGLAND Showing the division between the Saxons and the Britons. see that our present court and jury came down to us from early England, and are more than 1000 years old. 48 The Roman and Saxon Invasions Whenever the Saxons seized any new terri- tory from the Britons they divided it into shares. The people in each share, or shire, were governed by a shire council, who explained the laws, and also acted as a court to try offenders. This shire council governed a larger territory than the par- ish council, and was also responsible for the good order of the shire, or county. This was the ori- gin of our county court. There was also a Council of the Wise, who were the advisers of the king. The members were chosen by the king from the great families. This council was the beginning of the present British House of Parliament, and of the American Con- gress. Its chief duties seem to have been to give counsel to the king, and to select a new king when the throne became vacant. They gener- ally selected one of the royal family, but there was no law that compelled them to do so. Thus you see, in the early government of the English, the beginnings of the present form of the English government and of that of the United States as well. Not only did our government begin more than 1,000 years ago, but our history began to be writ- ten then. King Alfred was the first to write down an account of what took place in England during his reign. (878 A. D.) This record is now known as the ^^Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' and King Alfred and the Danes 49 it grew in size and importance for many years after his death. From it are gained most of the facts that appear in the different histories of the Enghsh people concerning the early period before any but the priests could read and write. Since all the books were then written in the Latin tongue, every one who would read of the deeds of his own people or of other nations was com- pelled to learn the Latin language. It is not quite true to say that all the books in England were written in Latin previous to King Alfred. More than one hundred years be- fore this a poet by the name of Caedmon com- posed the first English poem, the ^ ^Creation of the World . ' ' This was written in Saxon . About fifty years before Caedmon, the Venerable Bede wrote a history of England in prose, now known as Venerable Bede's History of the Church. He was an Englishman, but he wrote in Latin. It is said that Bede was called ^Tenerable^^ be- cause he lacked but little of being a saint. There is a story that when old and blind the roguish boy who led him about stopped in an open field and told him that an assembly of the people were before him who waited for him to preach to them, when, in fact, no one was present. When he finished his sermon the boy was terri- fied to hear all the stones cry out ^^Amen ! Ven- erable Bede! Am^n! Venerable Bede!'' If 50 The Roman and Saxon Invasions the people believed this they would have felt justified in calling him a saint. It is interesting to know something of the laws which King Alfred wrote down for the govern- ment of the people. He said that they were not made by him, but that they had grown up to be the laws and the customs of the English people before he became king. He feared to make any new laws himself lest they should not be ap- proved by people in all parts of his kingdom. The following are a few examples of the laws which Alfred selected and which history calls '^Alfred's Dooms.'' The word doom means law J or decree. 1. ^^Do not injure the widows and the step- children, nor hurt them anywhere; for if ye do they may cry unto me and I will hear them, and I will then slay you with my sword; and I will do so to you that your wives shall be widows and your children step-children. (Step means or- phaned.) 2. If a man have only one garment wherewith to cover himself, or to wear, and he give it to you in pledge (in pawn), let it be returned before sunset. If you do not so, then he may call on me and I will hear him; for I am merciful. 3. Judge thou very evenly; judge not one doom to the rich and another to the poor; nor one to thy friend and another to thy foe. King Alfred and the Danes 51 4. If a man fight in the presence of an arch- bishop, or draw his weapon, he shall pay a fine of 150 shillings; if before a bishop or an earl he shall pay a fine of 100 shillings. 5. If a man who has no relatives on his fa- ther's side fight and kill a man, if he have ma- ternal relatives let them pay one-third of the value of the man's life; and the guild (commu- nity) to which he belongs a third part; for the other third, let him flee. 6. If a man strike out another's eye let him pay a fine of 66 shillings and 6 pennies and a third part of a penny. 7. If the shooting (fore) finger be struck off, the fine is 15 shillings; for its nail, it is 4 shil- lings." Why was the forefinger considered of greater value than the others? The following are taken from the laws made by Canute for the government of the English people nearly 150 years after King Alfred : 1. "We command that every man above twelve years of age make oath that he will never be a thief nor harbor one. 2. Let every freeman become a member of a hundred, and a tithing. (This gave him a right to protection, and required him to obey the laws or be punished.) 3. Let no man take by force what belongs to 52 The Roman and Saxon Invasions him, but is in the possession of another, before he has twice demanded his right in the hundred. If the hundred refuse justice let him go to the county court and get leave to seize his own.* 4. Let there be a village council held three times a year, and a county council held twice a year, unless there be need oftener; and there let the laws be explained and judgments rendered. 5. Every man is entitled to hunt on his own land, but not on the land of the king. 6. If a man die without making a will, then let not the lord of the manor draw more from his es- tate than belongs to him by law. And let his property be distributed very justly to the wife and children and relations, to every one accord- ing to the degree that belongs to him.'' The reader will notice that Alfred did not make new laws. He stated in simple language that all could understand, what were the customs that had grown up among the people and de- clared that the people must obey them or be pun- ished. These customs and others that grew up later have long been known as the Common Law of England. Laws made by a parliament or legislature are called statute laws, or simply statutes. We shall see that after many years had passed and the people had suffered a long time from ♦The hundred was the parish governed by a parish council. King Alfred and the Danes 53 laws made by the king which were not the com- mon customs of the people, but were oppressive and unjust to them, then the people asked that men be chosen to help the king to make just laws. The men so chosen were called a par- liament. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who were the Northmen? What was their beUef about the fu- ture Hfe? What was the relation between Egbert and Alfred? How old was Alfred when he became king? Who was the king of the West Saxons? Were the Danes or the English the stronger in war? Who became leaders in times of peace? Who led the last Danish invasion? What kind of a ruler was Canute? There is a story about his commanding the sea not to wet his feet. Was there any wisdom in that? What were the three classes among the people? What was the original meaning of shire in England? How did Alfred compare with other kings in learning and wisdom? How do the historians rank him among English rulers? When did William the Conqueror invade England? ALFRED. " liehold a pupil of the monkish gown, The pious Alfred, king to justice dear! Lord of the harp and liberating spear; Mirror of princes ! Indigent renown Might range the starry ether for a crown Equal to his deserts, who, like the year, Pours forth his bounty, like the day doth cheer, And awes like night, with mercy- tempered frown. Ease from this noble miser of his time No moment steals; pain narrows not his cares — Though small his kingdom as a spark or gem. Of Alfred boasts remote Jerusalem, And Christian India, through her widespread clime, In sacred converse gifts with Alfred shares." — William Wordsworth. IV. THE EARLY GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND. Our great-grandfathers of the German race loved freedom. Hamilton Wright Mabie says of them,* that they ''had the love of play and of work to a degree which made them bold fight- ers, brave sailors, and true poets. They loved danger, and their heroes were men who thought little of death and a great deal of getting things done. They pushed obstacles out of their way, and overcame difficulties not only with fortitude and patience, but wdth joy in their hearts. They had not the love of beauty which made the Greeks the artists and teachers of the older world ; but they had in their souls a deep love of truth, of power, of action, of. qualities w^hich make men alive, keep them free, and give them authority. They dreamed not of beautiful figures like Apol- lo, but of masterful gods like Odin and Thor. They thought of life as a tremendous fight, and they wanted to acquit themselves like men en- ♦Norse Stories by Hamilton Wright Habie, published by Rand, McNally & Co. 54 The Early Government of England 55 during hardships without repining, doing hard work honestly and with a whole heart, and dying with their faces toward their foes. Their heaven was a place for heroes, and their gods were men of heroic size and spirit/' At the time when Caesar carried the Roman power into Britain the barbaric Teutons would permit no man to rule over them. Every mem- ber of a community was a freeman who was jealous of his persotial liberty. They chose their wisest and strongest men for leaders when there was fighting to do, but they reserved the making of laws to themselves. These were en- acted in an assembly of all the people. Their government was a pure democracy. But they were not all alike, and some families grew to be more wealthy and influential than others. These were known as the Wise men or Eldermen of the tribe, who were the advisers of the chief. This was the kind of government the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons took with them to England. These three tribes lived in that part of Ger- many bounded on the south by the river Elbe and extending northward in the peninsula as far as the Danes. The Angles occupied the central part of this district, the Saxons joining them on the south and the Jutes on the north. The three tribes weie a confederacy, speaking one 66 The Roman and Saxon Invasions language and having similar customs and laws. As early as the invasion of Julius Caesar the con- federacy was known as the English Folk. The Angles being much the largest and most power- ful tribe gave their name to the union. It was the Saxons who went to southern England in greatest numbers, and civilized Europe first be- came acquainted with them. This explains why all the invaders were called Saxons by the Roman historians. The Aitgles settled north of the river Thamies and formed the kingdom of Anglia. There were, then, two classes in societ}^; one was the Eldermen or Earls, and the other was the Churls or free common people. In the be- ginning every freeman was a land owner. But as time went on the prisoners taken in war and the criminals who had forfeited their right to freedom, but not to life, were reduced to slavery and were held as property by the wealthy land- owners. They were called Thralls, or people held in thralldom. After these freedom-loving Germans came to England, and had to fight' with the Britons for every rood of land they acquired, it became neces- sary to give the chiefs, or generals of the army, and the earls much more power. Calling the people together to determine what should be done in every emergency that arose was not The Early Government of England 57 practicable. And so it came about that the free common people did not assemble to make laws and determine policies, but these things were all done by the generals and the witan, or wise men. The wise men at length came to be rev- erenced as nobles or lords and the leader as a king. But for many years the lords held the right to elect a successor to the king when a vacancy occurred. When Alfred came to the throne the need of a strong man at the head of the people had be- come evident to all. The church, too, for many years had been teaching obedience to the laws of the church because they were God's laws. The church had a divine right to rule in all mat- ters of religion, and when the church consecrated a ruler and bestowed on him its blessing as the Lord's anointed, he then became a ruler by di- vine right. So we can understand how the be- lief in the divine right of kings must have made great progress among the people of England more than a thousand years ago. Another change that took place among the Enghsh people before the time of William the Conqueror was the growth of a sentiment that those would receive the special favor of God who liberated their slaves. This belief had been fos- tered by the Christian church. It would seem that to liberate the slaves would be to elevate 58 The Roman and Saxon Invasions them to the dignity of freemen, but on the con- trary it really helped to degrade the free common people to the condition of slaves. This happened, as the historians tell us, in this wise: While the seven English kingdoms were inde- pendent, each of the other, the voice of the free common men was an acknowledged power in the land; but when these kingdoms united into one government under an overlord, or emperor, as he would now be called, the influence of the com- mon freemen in the government ceased, and the officers of the empire were chosen b}^ the king and became his dependents. The great officers of the state became the servants of the king. One was master of his stables, another of his kitchen, an- other of his forests, and the like. These were me- nial services which the former free German f arme:* would have scorned, but because these officers were servants of the Lord's anointed they thought themselves ennobled by personal attend- ance upon him. This new order of nobility sup- planted the old earls who were descendants of a long line of noble ancestors. Each servant of the king had his personal servants who were his dependents; these dependents had still others de- pendent upon them, and so on to the lowest oi - aer. Each superior was pledged to defend his dependents against the assaults of enemies and The Early Government of England 59 of lawless bands in return for the service they rendered him. Such a system had no room in it for the old- time free man who acknowledged no ruler nor lawgiver but God, and who lived upon his own farm where his home was his castle. There was no safety for either his property or his life, save in the protection of some lord whom he must serve in return for such protection. The small farmer was compelled, therefore, to make the best terms he could with his more powerful neighbor; and these were hard enough. His farm was joined to the lord's estate and he must work for his lord from two to three days every week. The rest of the time he could de- vote to farming on his own account. He was degraded from a free man to a villein, or serf. He was better than a slave only in this, that his master could not sell him except with the land, and the house in which he lived. A similar kind of bondage as this prevailed in Rus- sia until a few years ago, when the Czar, Alexan- der in., ordered all the serfs to be set free. Instead of only two classes in English society, the earls and the freemen, there eventually came to be the king and royal family, the nobility, the gentry, the villeins, and the slaves. It will be seen later how the people lived after William the Conqueror got control of all England. THE NORMAN KINGS. 1066 — 1154. V. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 1066 — 1087. Within twenty-five years after the death of Alfred (901) his successors had taken possession of all the Danish holdings north of the river Thames, and the Saxons were once more in control of all England. While this conflict was going on, Rolf, the Ganger, another pirate chieftain from the Northland, invaded France and won a home in that portion of French territory lying south of the English channel, and on both sides of the river Seine. (912) Rolf was a man of great stature, of enormous physical strength, and barbarous as a Dane. He was called the Ganger, or Walker, it is said, because there was no horse in Norway tall enough to lift his feet from the ground as he rode. He was, therefore, compelled to walk, 60 William the Conqueror 61 or ''gang." The French king was no match for him in courage or generalship, and was finally compelled to make a treaty with him very much like that which Alfred made with Guthrun. Within fifty years these Danes had become Christians and the Duke of Normandy a loyal dependent of the King of France. The Danes were a peculiar people. They were brave, cruel, and irresistible as warriors, but wonderfully hospitable to the influence of the gentler and nobler qualities of the people among whom they came to live. So it has ever been that while they have absorbed the nobler qualities of their neighbors and have, eventually, followed their lead toward gentler manners, they have infused, in return, much of their daring and energy into their associates, and have added to the strength and effectiveness of the whole people. This was especially true of their union with the Anglo- Saxons in England. The Saxons gained mili- tary courage and skill from the Danes and the latter, in turn, were made gentler, and more just and forgiving by their association with the Saxons. William, the great-great-great-grandson of Rolf, became Duke of Normandy when eight years of age, his father having died while on a pilgrimage to the Ploly Land. While he was 62 The Norman Kings yet a lad of eighteen he led an attack against an army of rebels who denied his right to rule. History tells us that, ^'Boy as he was, horse and man went down before his lance/' At another time he put to ^'rout fifteen soldiers with only five men at his back.'' ^'No knight under heaven was William's equal . " So thought even the old warriors when he had grown to full manhood. Edward the Confessor, a descendant of Alfred, was then king of England. At one time he had promised William that he should be his successor to the throne. But on his death-bed Edward named Harold, the son of the great Saxon, Godwin, as king and the king's Council confirmed his choice. Some years before this Harold had been driven in a storm upon the coast of Normandy, and was seized and brought before Duke William who compelled him to take an oath that he wbiild support his claim to the throne of England \'^hen it became vacant. Harold was compelled to choose between this unjust demand and death. He took the oath required, but when his people chose him as their king he thought it his duty to obey them. "William was a relative of Edward while Harold had no such claim to the succession, Ms father being ''low bom." William was William the Conqueror 63 furious when he heard of this treachery of Harold, as he called his act. He immediately invaded England with an army of veteran soldiers clothed in steel armor. A battle was fought on Semlac Hill, near Hastings, where Harold was killed by having an eye shot out by a descending arrow. At the fall of their king the English fled, and William .the Duke became William the Conqueror. He declared that by right he was the true successor of King Edward, and not a few of the Danes in the north of England agreed with him. But history tells us that he had no valid claim to the Enghsh crown except as he was elected by the assembly of the wise. William compelled the Council to elect him king after he had defeated Harold's army so that he might claim the crown by election as well as by conquest. Whether William had any rights or not, there were some reasons why the Pope of Rome, who had great influence in such matters at that time, preferred Wilham to Harold, and the people of Europe were led to believe that Harold was the usurper and that William was the rightful successor of King Edward the Confessor. The death of Harold made the conquest of Britain easier, and Wilham gradually brought 64 The Norman Kings the country under his control, and within five years became undisputed master of all the lands under English rule. It was possible for him to accomplish this because the English had no leader who could take the place of Alfred, or of Harold. When the English had a great leader they were generally victorious. William proved to be a hard and cruel master, but we shall see before we complete our study of English history that it was because of this hard and relentless tyranny of the Norman kings that the English and Norman subjects finally won for themselves a higher degree of freedom than they had yet known. In fact, every invasion of England resulted, in the end, in making the English people more united and more powerful than they would have become without such struggles. What were the results of this conquest? King William claimed that he was not a usurper but the rightful successor to King Ed- ward the Confessor. By a law made by WilUam that declared all the followers of Harold to be traitors, a large part of the landed property of the English people came into the possession of King William. All the lands of a convicted traitor, in those times, became the property of the king. No one could gain any right to these lands except by the grant of the king. William the Conqueror 65 But William used this great power with the wisdom of a great statesman. He left the smaller landholders in possession of their homes, but stripped the English lords of their great estates. These estates he granted to his Nor- man nobles. He made a law that no one should be put to death for any political offense, and the death penalty was seldom inflicted for any crime. But his laws permitted mutilations of the body in punishment of crimes, that, in many cases, were even worse than death. He used his power over the land to reward his faithful Normans with large wealth, and to win the middle classes among the English. In this way his government became very strong. These changes were made gradually as he acquired new territory. The time came later when the king relied upon his English subjects to do battle for him against his Norman nobles when they rebelled against his authority. King William did another thing which has grown into a blessing for the English people; he established separate courts for civil offenses and for religious, or church, offenses and refused to acknowledge that the church was superior to the government of England. The civil courts decided all questions of justice among the people, while the church courts 66 The Norman Kings decided all questions of religious belief and worship. This kept the affairs of state separate from those of the church. But William con- ceded some rights to the church courts to pimish and reward churchmen that finally caused a conflict between the king's courts and those of the church. Another thing which has proved of value to the English people, was the Domesday Book which the king caused to be made. This book is a record of the survey of all the lands of Eng- land and of its re-granting either to Englishmen or to Normans. This re-granting of the land by the king made every landholder his personal tenant. A description not only of the tenant's land but of all his other property was entered in this record, or Domesday Book. Alfred's Doom-Book, as you have learned, was a book of laws, but William's Domesday Book was a record of all the land and other property in England together with the name of each tenant. It was probably called Domesday Book because the things written therein were settled with the certainty of the doom pro- nounced at the day of final judgment. WilUam had it made that he might know what taxes each of his subjects was able to pay. Your later study of English history will show that the unity of England under one strong and William the Conqueror 67 permanent government had its true beginning in the Norman conquest, rather than under King Alfred. All the former unions of the Saxon kingdoms, under one ^'over-lord" (as he was called before the conquest) were continued so long as there was a strong ruler like Alfred on the throne. When a weak over-lord gov- erned, the union began to fall to pieces. But during the reign of William and that of his son, the English government became so firmly es- tablished throughout the land that weak kings did not greatly endanger its existence. The Norman conquest made England a nation in a fuller sense than did the rule of King Alfred, for it bound every Englishman to the king as his tenant. Besides this the Normans ruled by law. The law might be a hard one but the EngUsh knew what it was and could depend upon its enforcement. Alfred wrote down some laws, but the knights and nobles decided most of the questions that arose among the people of their districts as they chose. The wisdom of William in winning the plain people to him was made apparent when his Norman subjects in France and his barons in England rose in rebellion against him. He called upon his English soldiers to follow him to France, and they obeyed. They soon forced those rebellious Normans into subjection to 68 The Norman Kings their Duke. This shows what they would prob- ably have done in England against the Norman invaders if they had been led by a great general like William. To give counsel to the king in the making of laws, two assemblies, called the Council of the Wise, or the ^^Witan,'^ and the Assembly of the People were known in England long before Alfred's reign. King William changed the character of these assemblies by issuing a summons to the barons whenever he wished their advice. From this practice has grown, by slow changes of form, the present House of Lords in England. The Senate and House of Representatives in the United States are the descendants of this Witan parliament. Not only is this true, but almost every department and office of the government in England and in the United States has grown to what it is from something that was found in the government of William the Conqueror. In William's reign the population of England numbered hardly more than one million and a half (1,500,000) ; not so many as are now found in some of the cities of England. Even Chicago has many more people in it than were then in all England. Of this number more than half had been limited in their freedom and more than 25,000 were serfs. These serfs William the Conqueror 69 had scarcely more liberty than had the black slaves of the South previous to our civil war. The king was a great lover of the chase, and he made severe laws to protect his game in his forests. The crudest thing he did w^as to make a new forest in one of the thickly settled dis- tricts in England. To do this he drove from their homes thousands of Englishmen who were living on this land and we have no reason to think that he made any provision for them. He seems to have turned them out to starve. He was the author of the curfew law in Eng- land, which required that all people should be in their homes and all lights put out at the ringing of the curfew-bell in the evening. The Norman conquest was the beginning of great changes in the language used in England. The Normans used the French, and the English used the Saxon language. The language of the Normans did not supplant the Saxon. The two grew together side by side for 150 years. In the year 1200 there were three different languages used for different purposes. 1. The language of common speech and of W-itings for the common people was the Saxon. 2. The language and literature of the ruling classes was French. 3. The S( holars of the nation and all church- men wrote and spoke Latin. 70 The Norman Kings From such different sources came our present English, which is a modified form of the Saxon, mixed with many words derived from the French and the Latin. The most marked effect of the union of these three languages into one was the dropping of the inflections from the words taken from each of these languages. This dropping of the in- flections is the chief reason for calling the English a grammarless tongue. Some scholars have declared that we have no such science as English Grammar, because our language has so few inflections. By inflection is meant the changes in the end- ings of words to denote their meaning or office in expressing the thought. In Latin, for example, homin is the root of the word that means vian; change in to o^ and we know that the word is in the nominative case, as homo; add is and it is in the possessive case, as hominis; add i and it is an indirect object (dative case) homini; add em — hominem — and it is a direct object; add e and homine is in the ablative case, and has the meaning of a phrase beginning with from, in, by, or with, as from a man, with a man, etc. The Norman French was inflected in a simi- lar manner, though the changes were fewer. The same was true of the Anglo-Saxon. The William the Conqueror 71 English language has but few such changes to show the particular uses of the words in sen- tences. In architecture the Norman conquest was the beginning of marked changes. The Nor- mans built castles and churches all over England in what is now known as the Norman style ; and this style is quite common in America to-day, for large buildings. The Norman conquest is considered by his- torians as the most important event in English history, unless we regard the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, nearly five hun- dred years before, as more important than that. William the Conqueror died on the 9th of Sep- tember, 1087, after ruling over England about twenty years . The cause and manner of his death do not comport well with his great qualities as a ruler. Although he was one of the greatest statesmen and warriors of the world, he was wanting in some of the qualities that belong to the greatest men. At the time of his death he was carrying on a war in France and had at- tacked and captured the small town of Mantes a short distance from Paris. His only reason for anger against the people of this city was that the king of France had spoken slightingly of him and made him the butt of a silly jest. This so enraged William that he ordered the town to 72 The Norman Kings be burned, and took a personal delight in help- ing forward its destruction. While riding through the streets of the burning city his horse stepped upon a burning brand, and maddened by the pain, plunged so violently as to throw the king, and of the hurt thus received William died. We could wish a nobler death for a man to whom the English nation is indebted for so much that has contributed to its greatness. The true character of William does not appear in those acts that caused his death. He be- lieved in law, loved justice, and kept his word. He wias not content to rule as a conqueror, but secured an election by the ^ ^Council of the Wise Men,'' who, by the English law, could elect a king. When his brother, Otho, a bishop of the church, and also Earl of Kent, who had been left in command during William's absence in Nor- mandy, had ruled badly, and treated the people unjustly, William, on his return, threw him into prison. Now it was against the law of the church for the king to punish a bishop. When Bishop Otho protested, against William's assumption of the power of the church, William replied: ^ ^Neither as my brother nor as bishop do I pun- ish you, but it is the Earl of Kent whom I send to prison." William had most of the virtues and many of the vices of the Danes who were his ancestors. William the Conqueror 73 He was barbarous, passionate, and merciless, but he was one of the greatest statesmen and generals the world has ever known. There is a popular tradition that during the time of King Alfred there was such a reign of peace throughout his kingdom that a man could travel in safety where he would with a bosom full of gold. This was literally true during the latter part of the reign of King William, so com- plete and thorough was the system of govern- ment he established. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who was Rolf the Ganger? What was the character of the North- men? At what time did they invade France? Who was Duke William? Find what relation he bore to Rolf. When did Duke William invade England? What reasons had he for claiming the English throne? Who was king of England at that time? Where was the battle fought in which Harold was defeated? What was the Domesday Book? What did William's census show to be the population of England? How many were freemen? What differ- ent languages were in use in England at this time? By whom? How many years did William rule? What is the story of his death? What things did William do that helped to make the English people a nation? VI. WHAT WAS FEUDALISM? 1000—1450. Feudalism is a strange word, and its meaning is very vague to the people of our time. But it was well understood by the inhabitants of Europe one thousand years ago. At that time the king was held to be the real owner of all the land in the country over which he ruled. He granted large tracts to his generals and other great men of the kingdom on condition that they do homage to him for it, and give him military service when called upon. When a lord or baron or other great man did homage he knelt before the king, unarmed and with bare head, and, placing his hands between those of his master he said: ^^Hear, my lord, I become liege-man of yours for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and death. God help me.'' Then the king kissed him, by which act he granted to him title to more or less land, according to his rank, which was to belong to him and his 74 What Was Feudalism? 75 heirs forever unless he or they proved traitors to this oath. By the same ceremony the lord or baron would invest his tenants, or dependents, with land from his estate. Each lord and knight was required to bring with him to the king's wars a certain number of armed soldiers, and to support them at his own expense. He had to make other payments to the king, also, and because the people had little money, in the very early times, they paid what was due the king in cattle. The word, feude, is from an early German name for cattle, feoh, and so we come to the original meaning of this strange word. To a great statesman or powerful warrior the king would grant a large tract of land, which was called a dukedom, perhaps ; to others would be granted a county, to others a township, and to a common freeman a farm larger or smaller according td the value of the service he could render. The ruler of the largest tract would be called a duke ; of a smaller tract a baron or lord ; of a county, a count ; of a less amount a knight or squire; and he who secured a small grant was called a churl. You have learned that the low- est order of husbandmen were serfs or villeins (villins), who had some rights that their masters were bound to respect, but they were not far above the condition of slaves. 76 The Norman Kings DOING HOMAGE. What Was Feudalism? 77 In return for this land the tenants of the king, whether they were high and powerful, or of the lower rank of freemen, were all required to do four things : 1. When the king went to war they must go with him and fight for him and bring with them the required number of armed soldiers. How many each should bring, if any more than him- self, depended upon the size and value of the es- tate which had been granted to him. 2. When a daughter of the king was married the tenant must give a certain amount of money ks a wedding present, larger or smaller according to the size of his estate. 3. When a son of the king came of age the feu- dal lords and gentry must give the amount agreed upon to pay for his horse, his armor, and his arms, and, also, for the expense of becoming a knight, which seems to have been a costly under- taking. 4. If the king were taken prisoner in war the tenant must pay a specified share of the amount required to ransom him. On these conditions the tenant could enter upon his estate. Now the lord or knight made a similar agreement with his tenants ; and if those tenants had other tenants, a similar agreement was made with them. And so all the freemen in the land were tenants of the king or of some 78 The Norman Kings one of his king^s tenants. Such was feudalism as it existed on the continent of Europe. Now William the Conqueror made a law that in England every freeman should consider him- self the tenant of the king first of all; his second duty was to his land-lord^ from whom he had received his rights to the land on which he lived. This law made it difficult for the great lords to unite in a rebellion against the king, for the tenants of the barons were sworn to support the king in preference to them. Every free house- holder was more dependent on the king for his home than upon the baron. There were four distinct classes of subjects after William became king of England. 1. The barons, who constituted the king^s councilors. 2. The knights and freemen, who were ten- ants of either the king or the barons, but who had more rights and privileges than were en- joyed by the lower classes. , 3. The villeins, or husbandmen, who were serfs, belonging to the land, but had some rights of property and some personal rights which the land-lord must respect. 4. The slaves, or thralls, who had no personal rights whatever, but could be bought and sold like cattle. This system of land tenure regarded the king What Was Feudalism? 79 as the supreme power in the nation. But any king who disregarded the legal rights and well being of his barons and freemen could not con- tinue to rule very long. The rulers of England have always understood that the English people would not consent to be treated as slaves, and have generally governed according to the laws made by the law-making powers. When they have refused to do this they have generally paid the penalty in one way or another. There are some things in the land-laws of England at this time that have come down from this feudal period. For example, the oldest son inherits the landed estate, and in both England and America when a person dies without heirs, and there is no will, the property comes into posses- sion of the government instead of being divided up among the community in which it is located, and which has given it much of its value. These are survivals of the former notion that every- thing belonged to the king. Feudalism subjected every one to the system, gave immense power to a few in Hie government, and encouraged tyranny over the lower classes. Before it was brought into England every free- man was, in theory at least, a free man, and his rights were considered in making the laws. After William became ruler the king was the only free man in the nation, and in later times 80 The Norman Kings the people themselves came to think that he ruled by right of his birth. This was afterward understood to mean that God had made the king of superior clay, and had given to him the right to rule over his fellow men. For 600 years this notion prevailed throughout the most of the civilized world and it has not yet died out in some countries. But the belief is growing that although a man may be unlearned and poor and have little power, ^^ A man's a man for a' that and a' that.'' Because this is the ruling belief among our own people this nation is rapidly becoming a leading power in the world, i:nd is the hope of the oppressed in every land. As we look back from our present state of freedom. Feudalism seems to be wholl}^ bad. But when we view it as a step in the develop- ment of human government from that state in which the individual acknowledged no authority superior to his own will, which prevailed among the Germans in early times, its real value will be discovered. It* was the first attempt to organ- ize a government in which law was enforced to secure order. It was an order that reduced the weak to servitude but it was a step toward that higher state of freedom we now enjoy, in which just laws regulate the rights and duties of all classes. What Was Feudalism f 8l SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Describe the ceremony of doing homage. What ga\'e the name feudalism to the early system of government? To whom was all the land supposed to belong? How did the tenants pay their rent to their superiors? What had to be paid to the king? How did the feudal law in England differ from that on the continent? What dis- tinct classes of people lived in England during the feudal period? Did the feudal system give to the lower order any right that the higher orders were bound to respect? For how long did it prevail in Eng- land? VII. HOW THE COMMON PEOPLE LIVED. The home Ufe of the Enghsh people, during the leign of Wilham the Conqueror and for sev- eral hundred years afterward was very different from what it is now. But our present home life has grown from these rude beginnings and it will be well for us to make some study of the way the common people lived 850 years ago. You remember that when William had con- quered England he declared that the people had committed treason who had supported Harold the Saxon, and that their lands had been for- feited to the crown. He had all the land sur- veyed and records were made in a book called Domes-day. He then re-granted the land to the people thus making them his tenants. To each landlord he assigned a large estate, to a knight a less amount, and to a common freeman, or churl, a much smaller quantity. He took large estates for himself in different parts of England. The people were divided into classes. The lords or barons were the class next to the king, How the Common People Lived 83 who must pay the king rent by bringing soldiers to support him in his wars and by paying money besides. These nobles had large holdings in different parts of the realm which they culti- vated through their agents, or leased to other persons for money or for service. Below the rank of freeman there was a class of husbandmen called villeins — a word from which our word villain has come. But these villeins were honest folk enough: much honester than their rulers, no doubt. These husbandmen were half-slaves and half-free. That is, they could not leave their homes for others whenever they chose, nor could the lord of the manor sell them, nor drive them from their homes. They belonged to the land. They were obliged to work about 150 days in each year for the manor-lord to pay for the use of from 30 to 40 acres of plow-land, and for pasture and woodland for their stock and pigs, and for their fuel. They lived in a little village of huts built on a lane or street. At the head of the street and some distance from the village was the manor-house, or residence of the manor-lord or his agent. The land of these husbandmen was divided among them in a peculiar way. If we suppose that there were 10 families in the village, then the land around the village would be divided into sections, or fields, each having ten strips forty 84 The Norman Kings rods long and four rods wide. There would be as many such fields as would give to each farmer his proper amount of land, which, as has been said, was about 30 acres, each farmer having one strip of his land in each one of these fields. It is probable that this method of division was followed in order to give each man his share of the good land, as well as of that which was not so fertile. The strips were separated by narrow strips of sod-ground (^^balks^^ as the farmer calls them) which were the only fences allowed. From the manor-house the village and fields would pre- sent something of the appearance of a large spi- der's web, the village being in the centre. These ten farmers must all cultivate their strips in the same way. Very little opportunity was given for anyone to excel his neighbor in his methods of farming. They knew nothing about enriching the land. All they knew was that the land must rest, and it was the practice to cultivate each strip every other year. So each villein would cultivate only half of his land each year. You can see that a careless farmer, who allowed weeds to grow upon his strips, could cause much harm to others, and there would arise, for this and other reasons, many quarrels among neighbors that would not make life in the village supremely happy. They had the simplest and rudest farming How the Common People Lived 85 tools — their plows being made mostly of wood, and drawn by oxen. (There are old men now living who can remember when the plows used in this country had wooden moleboards.) These farmers were compelled to cultivate their fields at such times as they were not required to work for their manor-lord. They worked for him about three days each week throughout the en- tire year. You learned above that the common people were of three classes. Some were slaves, who were obliged to do their lord's bidding at all times. The law gave them little protection. Some were comparatively free men who rented their farms from the manor-lord or the king, paying him in service, or in products of the farm, or in money. But most of them came in time to be villeins or serfs, whose services were defi- nitely set forth in the laws of the district or county. The villein in Oxfordshire who had a farm of thirty acres was obliged to perform the following services each year (or pay instead the specified amount of money set down as the value of each item) as rent for his land, and for the protection of the lord against robbers who prowled about the country, waylaying travelers and robbing homes that were unprotected. The Norman Kings WORK DONE BY THE SERF FOR HIS LORD. Shill'gs. Pence. *82 days' work between Michaelmas (Sept. 29) and June 24 valued at ^-penny a day 3 5 Hi days' work between June 24 and August 1 worth 1 penny per day 1 1^ 19 days' work between Aug. 1 and Michaelmas worth 1^ pence per day 2 4A 6 extra days, bringing another man to help, worth 12 1 extra day with 2 men for reaping, board being furnished. . 2 Half cost of one carriage of wheat 1 Half cost of one carriage of hay 1 Plowing and harrowing 1 acre G 1 plowing called "groserthe" H 1 day's harrowing of oat-land 1 1 horse load of wood A Making one quarter of malt and drying it 1 1 day's work washing and shearing sheep \ 1 day's noeing h 3 days' mowing. . 6 1 day's nutting A 1 day's work carrying to stock h ToUage (tax) once a year at the lord's will. You see from this that a farmer^s life in early England was not an easy one. When you re- member that in addition to all this service he must cultivate his own farm for food and cloth- ing for himself and family, there was Httle time left for recreation or self -improvement. What did he get for all this service? 1 . The use of about 30 acres of plow-land. ♦From "Economics and Industrial History," by Henry W. Thurs- ton, from which volume much of the information of early English methods of life has been obtained. How the Common People Lived 87 2. The use of grass-land sufficient for hay for his cattle. 3. Pasture land on the commons for his cat- tle in summer. 4. Privilege of the woods in which his hogs fattened upon the nuts and roots. 5. Privilege of gathering wood from the for- est for his house fires. In addition to all the other exactions the far- mer could not sell an ox or a sheep without mak- ing a present to the lord, nor give his daughter in marriage without paying the lord for his con- sent. There was one compensation for this slavish service. The farmer was reasonably sure of a home, and of food, clothing, shelter, and protec- tion for his family. By attending strictly to business he need not starve, nor perish from eold. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What was King William's ground for claiming that all the land of Englishmen who opposed his invasion belonged to him? What was the Domes-day book? How did he bind the common people to him? Into what classes were the people divided? How was the land divided among the villeins? How much land did each farmer have? How much of the time could he work for himself? Where was the manor-house located? How much land did each laborer work for himself each year? If he had paid his rent in money how much would it have amounted to? What was his chief compensa- tion for his hard fate? THE PLANTAGENET KINGS, 1154—1485. VIII. HENRY II. 1154 — 1189. It was nearly seventy years (67) after William the Conqueror died that Henry II. became king. He was the greatgrandson of the great William on his mother ^s side, who was a Saxon princess. His grandfather, Henry I., who was the son of the Conqueror, won much favor from the English people by choosing his wife from the Saxon ladies of rank. But he greatly offended the Norman barons by this choice. This was the period when there was a wide so- cial gulf between the Normans and the English. The Normans despised the Anglo-Saxons, and the latter hated and feared the Normans. Henry I., and later his grandson Henry II., tried to treat with even-handed justice both Normans and Saxons, and to encourage a feeling of f riend- 88 Henry II 89 ship between them. So it came to pass that when the Norman barons united in rebellion against the king, the Englishmen came to his defense and reduced the rebels to submission. Henry I. pleased the people still more by granting to them certain rights and privileges which he wrote down in the form of an agree- ment, or charter, and signed with his great seal on his coronation day. This was the first writ- ten charter or constitution that had ever been granted by an English king to his subjects. When kings afterward sought to disregard the agreement signed by Henry I. the people in- sisted that they should make and sign a new charter similar to the old one. Finally the rights granted by these charters came to be re- garded as the fundamental law of the kingdom. Henry I. is known in history as Henry Beau- clerk, or ^The Fine Scholar, '^ because he was able to read and write. Indeed, his father had given him the best education that the great schools of Europe afforded. The father of Henry H. was Geoffrey, Duke of Anjou. Anjou was a province in France. Geoffrey's wife, the mother of Henry II., was Matilda, the daughter of Henry I. Henry II., was therefore English on his mother's side and French on the side of his father. History tells us that Geoffrey was accustomed to wear a sprig 90 The Plantagenet Kings of the broom plant (planta genista) stuck in his helmet as a plume. By this he came to be known as Geoffrey Plantagenet, or Geoffrey Broom- Plant. For this reason Henry II. is known in history as the first of the Planta- genet Kings. It should be remem- bered that in these early times many people re- ceived their names or surnames from their oc- cupation or from some personal peculiarity or relationship that distin- guished them from others ; such as Smith, Brown, Black, Weaver, Smith-son, John-son, Coeur-de- Lion, etc. (The chiefs and warriors among the American Indians have for a long time re- ceived their names in a similar way.) In these olden times it was a badge of distinc- tion for a man to have a surname. The knight, Ivanhoe, in Walter Scott's great novel had but one name. Thomas a' Becket seems to have been known at first as Thomas. His father's name was Becket. Later Thomas came to be distinguished from other Thomases as Becket 's A SPRIG OF BROOM PLANT. Henry II 91 Thomas, or Thomas of Becket, or Thomas a^ Becket. Now historians call him Thomas Becket. Henry II. brought his father^s surname with him to England, and he and his successors for more than 300 years were known as the Plan- tagenet Kings. Their reign is called the Plan- tagenet dynasty. Later historians are now call- ing this period of 331 years the Angevine rule, from Anjou, the native country of Henry II. They seem to think the birthplace of King Henry more worthy to give name to the d^masty than the sprig of broom in a Frenchman's helmet. When Henry came to t^he throne a power had grown up in England, and on the continent, that was even greater than the power of kings. This was the church. CBy the Church is meant the Holy Catholic Church, of which the Pope is the head.) In fact, throughout the continent of Europe there were in every nation two dis- tinct governments, each making its own laws, having its own courts, and pvmishing or reward- ing its own subjects. The one known as the State was different in different countries; the other, the Church, or Ecclesiastical Government, was the same in all. The bishops and archbish- ops of the Catholic Church were the rulers of the church in every country. We see, therefore, that the people were divided into two classes 92 * The Plantagenet Kings known as churchmen and laity. The bishops, and priests, and teachers, and all persons who did service of p.ny kind for these were church- men. Of these there was a great multitude. If a churchman violated the laws of the king's gov- ernment, the bishops declared that he could not be punished by the state courts, but only by ec- clesiastical or church courts. The laity \Yere all the people not so employed, although they were members of the church. The church taught the people religion; it was the seat of all learning; it was the friend of the poor and helped those in distress; its mis- sion was one of love and helpfulness. The kings and their officers were often cruel and ignorant; many of the lords and knights could not read, and this was often true of the kings themselves. The common people, of course, were densely ignorant. But the kings of England believed, and acted upon the belief (when they were strong enough), that all offend- ers against the laws of the kingdom should be tried in the king's courts, and punished by the king's officers if found guilty. This was the only way, they declared, in which justice could be meted out to all alike. The story of Thomas a' Becket is an interest- ing one and shows the great power of the church at this time. Henry II 93 Thomas was the son of a former mayor of London. Both his father and mother were Nor- mans. Thomas was an only child and his father 2:ave him the best opportunities for an educa- tion that the times afforded. He studied in the London schools of highest repute, became a proficient in all the feats and graces of chivalry under the tuition of a chivalrous knight, and then entered the University of Paris to study theology. He did not become a great scholar, much less a learned theologian. But his mind was active and vigorous and his manners cap- tivating to his associates and popular with peo- ple in general. He began life in a lawyer ^s office, where he worked for three years. His father failed in business, and he was compelled to make his own way. But his accomplishments were varied and the office was abandoned for something that promised a higher and more im- mediate preferment than he could obtain by the practice of law. His cleverness attracted a power- ful bishop, named Theobold, who trained him for the priesthood. King Henry II., while yet a very young man, came to know and appreciate the talents of Thomas, and chose him for his prime minister. He soon proved to be one of the ablest statesmen in Europe, and Henry be- stowed great honors upon him and wealth sec- ond only to that of the king. He and Henry 94 The Plantagenet Kings were bosom friends, and Becket was loyal to every wish of his sovereign. Ere long Henry conceived the idea of resisting the power of the church, and to secure his end he made Thomas archbishop of Canterbury. Some say that he did this against the protest of Becket himself, who preferred to be prime minister, and that Becket warned Henry that if he became a church- man they should quarrel about the rights of the church. When he was made Archbishop of Can- terbury his whole character seemed suddenly to change. He became the austere priest, tortured himself by wearing a shirt made of hair, and sought only to advance the power and extend the privileges of the church. As prime minister he had insisted that both churchmen and laity must be tried by the state courts for offences against the laws of the state. Now, after he had become archbishop, he declared that church- men were not subject to the king's court, but to the ecclesiastical courts. He soon became the king's strongest opponent in every attempt he made to weaken the power and independence of the church. He sought in every way to en- rich the church at the expense of the barons. Once King Henry, who was at the time in France, in a moment of angry impatience be- cause of some act of disloyalty of his archbishop, cried out in the presence of his nobles, 'Will no Henry II 95 one deliver me from this base-born priest?^' Four of the knights, who hated the archbishop, immediately set out for England, and pursuing Becket into the cathedral of Canterbury, mur- dered him at the very altar. This was a most heinous offense against both the state and the HENRY DOING PENANCE. church. To atone for his angry words King Henry, at that time one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe, was compelled to do the most humiliating penance. Dressed in the clothes of the humblest citizen, he walked barefoot, in the presence of the court 96 The Plantagenet Kings and of the people, to Canterbury Cathedral, and kneeling at the grave of Thomas a' Becket, the bishops, each in turn, scourged him with a whip upon his bare back. He then threw himself upon the grave of Becket and lay there all night, presumably in prayer for forgiveness. It is not probable, however, that his heart was so sore over the death of his enemy as his actions would imply. But these acts of his show how strong was the church in England only 750 years ago, since it could compel one of the proudest and most powerful of kings to so humble himself in order to atone for a few angry words spoken against one of his own subjects. The manner of Becket ^s death and his loyalty to the church caused him to be proclaimed a saint by the pope, and to be honored as a martyr by the people. Rags stained with his blood were among the most sacred relics, and hundreds of thousands made pilgrimages to his tomb, where, it was believed, miracles of healing the sick, and giving sight to the blind, and many other wonders, were worked by the spirit of Saint Thomas, who continued for many years to be the most popular saint in England. The poet Chaucer, the father of English poetry wrote some poems called Canterbury Tales, which describe one of these pilgrimages. Henry II., like his grandfather, Henry I., was • Henry 11 07 of great service to England, because he sought to estabhsh laws by which the common people should be protected from the tyranny of the bar- ons and from such rulers as Stephen, the imme- diate predecessor of Henry II., who was a weak king. During Stephen ^s reign the laws were not enforced, and disorder prevailed everywhere. The will of the barons, or of the king, was the only law. Stephen was king for nineteen years after the death of Henry I., and during this period hatred between the English and the barons revived. Henry II. changed all this, and under his reign the animosity between Saxons and Normans be- gan again to disappear, and the people began to unite into one nation which was neither Nor- man nor Saxon, but English. Under this king the English nation, as we now know it, was born, for Henry II. established a form of government whose laws were made by ])arliament and the king, and not by the king alone, nor alone by the bar- ons who governed their own subjects. But his parliament was chosen by himself, and not by the people. The reign of Henry II. was, like that of his grandfather Henry I., a long and prosperous one to England. Each reigned thirty-five (35) years. Henry died in 1189 disappointed and sorrowful because of the undutiful conduct of his 98 The Plantagenef Kings rebellious sons, and after having begun reforms in the government that have given him a place in history among her greatest rulers. Some of the most important of these reforms were: 1. He provided for courts to be presided over by learned and just judges. These courts were held in different parts of England at fixed periods and open to all classes of people. Be- fore this was done the barons were the judges and often decided cases in favor of those who gave them the largest bribe. The decisions of these king^s courts were the beginning of the common law of England. 2. He struck the feudal system a fatal blow by ordering that the barons pay a certain amount of money as a war tax, instead of joining the king in his wars with the number of soldiers re- quired of them by the feudal law. Why would this weaken the power of the barons? 3. These reforms developed in time into a representative form of government in which a parliament chosen by the people gave aid to the king in making the laws. 4. Henry II. stood stoutly for the supremacy of the state courts over the church courts in all cases of crime against society. His conflict with Thomas Becket is said to have arisen from the refusal of Becket to surrender a churchman, Henry II 99 guilty of murder, to the king's officers to be tried and punished by the king's court. The murder of Becket compelled King Henry to yield this right to the church for a time on pain of expul- sion if he refused. The death of Becket, there- fore, greatly strengthened the power of the church in England beyond what it was at the death of William the Conqueror, and this power steadily increased until the reign of Henry VIII. 5. Henry II. was the first to give to a grand jury of twelve men the authority to present those charged with crime for trial. This trial was not like ours, but consisted of tests in which God was supposed to intervene to protect the innocent. If the accused could hold a red-hot iron in his hand, or could walk barefooted on burning coals without being burned, or would sink when thrown into the water (to float on the water was proof of guilt), or could do certain other improb- able things, the court declared that he was inno- cent of the crime of which he was accused. Henry II. appointed a treasurer to receive the taxes, fees, fines, etc., from those who collected them, and which made up a large part of the king's revenue. The settlements between the sheriffs of the counties and the treasurer were made at a table covered with squares like a checkerboard. These squares were used in esti- mating the amount due, and also in counting out 100 The Plantagenet Kings the money received. People knew very little about arithmetic in this early time. This check- er table received the name of exchecker, or ex- chequer, as it was then spelled, and the treasury office of England is called the English Exchequer to this day. The clerks or secretaries were called chancellors (from a Latin word which means a screen, behind which the clerk sat when at work.) And so the English now have a Lord Chancellor, or Secretary of State, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Clerk (or Lord) of the Treasury. Judges were appointed to travel from one town to another, to settle disputes and try criminals; but the king found it extremely difficult to select such as would resist bribes. Because of the dishonesty of some of these judges the king allowed the people to appeal to him for redress. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. How was Henry II. related to William the Conqueror? How did he receive the name of Plantagenet? What was his family relation to Henry I.? To William the Conqueror? What is another name for the Plantagenet dynasty? Why more appropriate? How long did the family of Henry II. rule in England? What two gov- ernments were carried on side by side in England during this period? What distinguished a churchman from a layman ? Who was Thomas Becket? Tell the story of his quarrel with the king and of his death. Tell the story of the king's punishment by the church. Where, in England, is the Canterbury Cathedral? Why did so many people visit the tomb of Thomas Becket? What did Henry II. do to make a better government in England? How was it determined at this time whether a man was guilty of a crime charged against him? What was the duty of Henry's grand jury? Compare it with the duty of a grand jury to-day. INDOOR LIFE OF THE BARONS. At the time of the Norman conquest the man- ner of life of the EngHsh people was very rude, even among the highest classes. The dress of the wealthiest was plain and made of coarse and poor material. The Normans dressed in better style, and had acquired a culture from tbeir con- tact with the French and the Romans that made them look with disdain upon those whom they considered an inferior race. But the homes of these were rudely constructed and poorly fur- nished, even when compared with those of many wage-earners of the present time. The Normans built manor-houses and castles in all parts of England. The latter were for protection against foes. The manor-houses were the homes of .the barons or knights. The king, as you have learned, preferred to grant several estates in different parts of England to a great lord, rather than to give him the same amount of l^nd in one place. This plan gave the barons less local influence and less power. The castles 101 102 The Plantagenet Kings were not intended for homes but for forts, to be occupied by soldiers. But these castles were used as dwellings by the nobles and their re- tainers in times of danger. King William is said to have owned forty-nine castles in different parts of England. Fifty others were owned by the barons. The castles that were first built were very in- MANOR-HOUSE. f erior to those erected a hundred years later. The ruins of the latter show them to have been forts of great strength. In the story of Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott, will be found a description of one of these. The home life of even these cultured barons was very rude, when judged by present stS,nd- ards. There was one large room in each manor- Indoor Life of the Barons 103 house that was used for many dijfferent pur- poses. It was the dining-room for the lord and all his retainers. The table was made of boards laid on trestles, and often extended from one end of this long hall to the other. At the head of the table sat the lord, and on either side his family and guests. The master sat where everything that occurred at table could be seen by him. Between this group of gentle folk and the retainers a very large salt- cellar was placed in the middle of the table. Those who sat below the salt were of lower rank. The nearer to the salt these dependents sat the higher was their station. The meal consisted chiefly of meat and bread, with some leeks, or onions, or peas, or beans, or, sometimes, cabbage. Potatoes were unknown at that time. Those be- low the salt drank water. The gentry drank home-brewed ale or cider. Tea and coffee were not known in England, and sugar was a luxury for the richest and seldom tasted by the poor. Not until the time of Henry 11. was wine im- ported from France, from the vinej^ards owned by the king. It was used only by the wealthy. The food was served on slices of bread instead of plates, one slice to every two persons. These pieces of bread were called trenchers. Upon each trencher was a piece of meat and some one of the vegetables mentioned above. 104 The Plantagenet Kings Later they used wooden trenchers. Forks were unknown, and the hunting-knife or dagger suppHed the needs of those who wished to use something more than fingers and teeth. Even many years later it was thought by some pious people to be wicked to use forks. They thought that if God had intended man to use such things he would have made them for him. When the evening meal, or dinner, was fin- ished, the table was taken down, the boards and trestles removed, and the evening entertain- ment began. This consisted of feats of skill by jugglers, songs by wandering minstrels, or danc- ing and wrestling matches. Most of the retain- ers sat around the wall on the floor. There were no chairs, and a few rude benches having cush- ions stuffed with straw served as seats for the ^'quality folks. '^ On hooks and pegs upon the walls were hung buckets, scythes, baskets, empty sacks, deer's heads, boars-heads, bows and ar- rows, spears, swords, axes and the like. When the entertainment was over the gentle folk retired to rooms furnished with rude beds of straw, without sheets or blankets. The clothes they wore during the day were all they had to keep them warm during the night. The retain- ers covered the floor of the dining-hall with straw, which served as a common bed for all. It was 200 years after the conquest before fire- Indoor Life of the Barons 105 places with chimneys were in use in either castles or manors. There was a place for fire with a hole in the roof above for the smoke to escape. When these discomforts were endured by the rich, what must have been the condition of the poor? Their huts were made of sticks and daubed with clay, inside and out. Glass was unknown, and fuel expensive. Salt was poor and very dear. Much of the food was in a partial state of decay, and was the source of the prevail- ing diseases. When the black death came there is no wonder that half the population of England became its victims, for cleanliness was known to but few. The out-of-door amusements and sports were hunting and hawking for the rich, and wrestling, running, leaping, quoit-throwing, and the like, for those to whom hunting was forbidden. In- door games of chess, checkers, and dice-throwing were in use during the reign of William, but cards were unknown until 200 years later. The harp and the lute, or guitar, were the instruments of music, and many of the nobility became pro- ficient in the use of them. King Richard the Lion-Heart ed, the great-great-grandson of Wil- liam the Conqueror, was a musician of great skill in singing and in playing upon both the harp and the lute. 106 The Plantagenet Kings SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What was a manor-house? A castle? Why would not King William permit the great lords to have their land all in one place? Describe the indoor life of the barons and their retainers. What was their principal food? Who sat below the salt at table? What were the evening entertainments and games? Why did they not play at cards? What was the drink of the common people? Why must the homes have been uncomfortable in winter? What was a tren- cher? Why so called? Why were not the lower classes allowed to kill game? What was hawking? What were the out-door sports? X. RICHARD I. 1189 — 1199. England had been ruled by foreign kings since the invasion by William the Conqueror — 123 years. Those who preceded Henry II. were Nor- mans, but Henry was a Frenchman. He had spent his life in France at the court of his father, the Duke of Anjou, who had little in common with such men as Duke William of Normandy, or with Englishmen. Richard, who was Henry ^s oldest living son, received the English crown on the death of his father (1 189) . He knew hardly anything about the English people, and could not even talk with them in their own language. But he was an ideal knight of the time, chival- rous, generous, brave, and forgiving when in an amiable mood, but passionate, tyrannical, and cruel in his fits of anger. His deeds of valor became the wonder of the world, and they made him the idol of the English people. When he was made a knight he took oath ^^to be loyal to the king, to defend the church, and to 107 108 The Plantagenet Kings render aid to every lady in distress/' On tak- ing the oath the king, his father, had struck him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, as Richard knelt before him, and had said, ^^In the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, I dub thee knight. Be brave, ready, and loyal.'' Richard was ever brave and ready but never loyal. He and his brother John rebelled against their father, helped France to defeat him in battle, and by this disloyalty broke their fa- ther's heart. When Henry heard of John's un- expected treachery, he turned his face to the wall and said: ^^Now let things go as they will; I care no more for myself or the world" — and so he died, muttering, '^ Shame, shame on a conquered king." Richard's first act, after his coronation, was to prepare to join France and Austria in a cru- sade for the capture of Jerusalem. These crusades were military expeditions undertaken at different times during a period of about two hundred years. They began in this wise : A Christian monk, known among his fellow monks as Peter the Hermit, went on a pilgrim- age to the Holy Land to worship at the tomb of the Saviour. Jerusalem was then in the posses- sion of the Turks, who were Mohammedans. The Mohammedans and Christians were deadly Richard /• 109 enemies and often at war. ' Peter suffered much from the cruelty of the Turks on his pilgrimage. He returned filled with indignation that the tomb of his Saviour should be in the hands of in- fidels. The people regarded pilgrims to the Holy City as very holy men, and resented injury to them as a crime against their religion and an insult to their Divine Master. Soon after his return, Peter began to exhort men everywhere to join in a great army and drive the infidels out of Jerusalem. (1094.) It was the beginning of the first crusade. (It was called crusade because every soldier wore on his breast the sign of the cross, or ^^crux," as it was then called.) This was about thirty years after William the Conqueror invaded England. This crusade was disastrous to Peter and his fol- lowers, who expected God to protect them from famine and the Turks, and so did not prepare to defend themselves. A second crusade was more successful. The Holy City was finally taken by the Christians who held it for many years. But it was re- taken by the Turks about two years before Rich- ard became king. This was nearly one hundred years after Peter preached the first crusade. At this time in the history of the world great events moved slowly. Richard prepared for the crusade by raising 110 The Pl'antagenet Kings large sums of money from his English subjects. He taxed them very heavily, sold privileges of free trade and free government to cities and towns, and bestowed offices in the church and in the government upon the highest bidder. With the large sums thus obtained he hired an army of soldiers, equipped them in great splendor, and joined Philip, king of France, and Leopold, grand duke of Austria, at Sicily, whence the three armies set sail for Palestine. But the fiery Richard could not live in peace with two other sovereigns who thought them- selves his equals. He soon quarreled with Philip, who withdrew with his whole army, and re- turned home, leaving Richard to prosecute the war without his aid. Then he made a mortal enemy of Duke Leopold, by tearing down Leo- pold's banner, which had been raised upon the walls of a captured town, and putting his own in its place. He declared that a king's standard had precedence over a duke's. The Duke of Austria then went home with his soldiers and Richard was left alone. His personal deeds of valor and skill as a general made him the hero of this crusade, and gave to him the name of Coeur-de-Lion (Lion Heart). He was well named, for he ha'd both the courage and cruelty of a lion. But his army was too small to make his own courage of much avail in a war against Richard I 111 RICHARD LANDING IN PALESTINE, 11^ The Plantagenet Kings Saladin, an equally brilliant warrior and the hero of the Turks, whose army greatly outnum- bered that of Richard. He made peace with the Turks, on condition that, for three years, three months, three weeks and three days free and safe pilgrimage should be given to all Chris- tians who sought the Holy Sepulcher. This seems a small return for all the lives and treasure that were sacrificed in this war. Richr- ard gained the glory for which he hungered, but it was tarnished by the conviction of both his friends and foes that his own pride and inordi- nate selfishness were the cause of the failure of the great enterprise. He abandoned his army to return as best it could, and set sail for Eng- land, where his brother John was seeking to rob him of his throne. His boat was wrecked in a storm, and he was cast upon the shore of Duke Leopold's dominions, with but a single com- panion. He attempted to make his way in dis- guise as a minstrel and on foot, but was discov- ered through the indiscretion of his companion, arrested, and thrown into a dungeon in a lonely castle, where he was imprisoned for more than a year. (There is a story that Blondel, his devoted Mend, sought to discover the place of his im- prisonment by singing songs under the walls of many castles in Leopold's dominions. His Richard 1 113 perseverance and devotion were finally rewarded by hearing the voice of Richard take up the song and sing it through to the end. Blondel imme- diately returned to England with the glad news that Richard was yet alive. After a time the Emperor Charles of Germany, offered to set him free for a great ransom. The money was raised by the English, who idolized their hero, and Richard was set at liberty. When he was free King Philip of France wrote to John, 'The devil is loose; take care of yourself.^' It was needful that Richard should also take care of himself to escape the assassins that John set on his track. Sir Walter Scott, in his story of Ivan- hoe, tells how secret was Richard^s return to England, and also gives an account of the part Richard took in releasing Ivanhoe from im- prisonment. Scott's novel, 'The Talisman,'' tells of Richard's feats in this crusade. When the people learned that he was in Eng- land they received him with great rejoicing, for they had no love for his brother, John. But Richard did not seem to care how much it had cost his subjects to ransom him, nor did he feel any gratitude for their devotion. He again demanded money, and having taxed them all that they would bear, and sold over again the offices and privileges they had once paid for, he immediatelv left them for France, where he had 114 The Plantagenet Kings large possessions inherited from his father, and never again returned to England. Richard was a military hero, but a very poor king. But he did one good thing. He left Archbishop Hubert Walter in charge of his kingdom during the latter years of his reign, and Walter ^^did much to train the people to habits of self-government.'^ He taught them how to select a jury for the courts of law, and how to choose representatives for various civil duties. ^^He educated the people against a better time to come." Richard was killed while storming a little walled town in France, by an arrow from the bow of a common soldier. In his fits of anger he had been guilty of great cruelty toward those of the town who had fallen into his hands, but when he was dying of his wounds he called for the archer who shot the arrow and generously pardoned him for kilUng his king. (The town was one in his own dominion, that had refused to deliver up to Richard some buried treasure that had been found.) At the same time he scorned with bitter mockery the priests who pleaded with him to repent of his sins before he died, and to make restitution to those whom he had robbed. One who knew him said that ^^had an angel from heaven bid him abandon what his anger prompted him to do he would have Richard I 115 answered with a curse.'' But, bad as he was, he was more admired for many generations by the EngUsh people than was any other of the early kings. He was England's king for ten years, but did not spend ten months upon the island during that period. He was of service to the English nation by leaving them for a few years to themselves and permitting them to carry on their business and their local affairs with some freedom. They were thus prepared to resist the tyr- anny of King John, who became one of the ablest and the worst of the kings of England. Some historians consider Richard to have been a statesman of superior ability, whose acts were seasoned with discretion, except when his passions were aroused. Had he lived to be as old as his father, they think that he would have proved himself as great a king as he was great in war. He was a man of heroic deeds and a chivalrous knight, and these were a mantle that covered a multitude of faults in the opinion of the English people. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. How long was Richard I. king of England? How much of this period did he spend in England? State how he was made a knight. How did he treat his father? Why were the crusades undertaken? What was the experience of Richard in the Holy Land? On his homeward journey? Why was his crusade a failure? Were the crusades helpful to the advancement of a better civilization? Tell the story of Blondel. Of llichaid'y death. How was the absence of Richard from home a blessing to the English people? XI. HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED. In chapter VII. we saw how the common people in England paid for the use of the land from which they obtained food, clothing, and shelter for their families. They were required to work for the lord of the manor more than one hundred and twenty-five dsiys each year, and to pay other taxes besides. For many years before William the Conquer- or^s reign, and long afterward, the plain people of England were nearly all tillers of the soil. Each family raised the flax and the wool which they spun into thread, and wove into cloth, and then made into clothes for members of the house- hold. Some of their garments were made from the skins of domestic animals or of those killed in the forests. Their shoes they made of wood. They raised the wheat or oats which they pounded into flour, in stone mortars. From this their bread was made. Each man made his own tools, such as plows and harrows, and mended them when broken. 116 How the People Lived 117 Very early in the history of England, mills which were run by water, or by the wind, were built to grind the wheat and oats. This was a great advance upon the practice of pounding the grain in a mortar. By the time of Henry II. some changes had slowly grown up. It was found to be more profitable to have one man A HAND LOOM. do all the blacksmithing for the village while those for whom he worked did his farm work for him. This was the beginning of the ^ ^system of division of labor'' now prevailing throughout the world. The lord would also permit this man to pay his rent by making and mending 118 The Planlagenet Kings the farm tools belonging to the manor. It was m this manner that blacksmithing became a trade. The man who gave his whole time to this kind of work became more skillful and could make better tools than the farmer could make for himself. In a similar way the trade of the carpenter grew up. The villager more skillful than the others in working in wood would give most of his time to carpentering and receive in pay the labor of those whom he served, or else they would pay him in the produce of their own farms. The trade of the weaver was one of the first to become established in every town or village. Some of the parents or grandparents of chil- dren now attending school remember that in their homes, when they were children, the m^other and daughters spun the wool and flax and wove the yarn into cloth, and then made it into clothes for members of the family. So you se^ that some of the features of home life, in the time of Henry 11. , continued to be the manner of life of country people until a few years ago. There are families in America to-day, where spinning and weaving and blacksmithing and carpenter- ing are done by the parents and children on the farm. Farmers raised from the soil what was neces- sary for food. The manufacturer changed the How the People Lived 119 products of the land into those forms that made them more useful and added to the comforts of life. The first of these trades mentioned by the historians, that grew up in the towns, were Millet. WOMAN CARDING WOOL. those of the butchers, bakers, bricklayers, dyers and fullers, saddlers, plumbers, and helmet- makers. Of course there were carpenters, and blacksmiths, and weavers there also. People 120 The Plantagenct Kings slowly discovered that it was economy to divide up the labor so that some men should do all the butchering, or carpentering, ratfier than that every man should do these different things for himself. For many years there was little exchange of products between different communities, and but little money was in circulation. If a man wanted a horse, and owned cattle or sheep, he would seek to exchange what he had for what he needed. This kind of trade is known as barter. But as the people grew richer, and villages be- came towns and cities, trade between those towns increased. Little by little the products of foreign countries were brought into England for sale. Henry II. encouraged the building of towns. Fairs were held once or twice a year, to which people from the manors in the vicinity would bring their products to exchange for others which they needed. Pedlers, who were gen- erally foreigners, then as now, would bring to these fairs more costly articles of foreign mer- chandise, such as silks, and shawls, and jewels, which the wealthier people would buy. These fairs could not be held without the king's con- sent, but he did not often refuse his permission when the town paid him for a license. By and by a new class of traders who were How the People Lived 121 called merchants arose in the larger towns. They would sell the people domestic goods and foreign luxuries and take in exchange their farm prod- ucts. These latter they would sell to the inhab- itants of the town or transport them to larger towns where they were in demand. This carrying business called for another class of workers to transport merchandise from one place to another. For a long time this was packed on the backs of horses and mules, be- cause the wagon roads were usually impass- able. The wagons and carts in use were very heavy and clumsy, the wheels being made of solid plank cut in circular form. They were drawn by several yokes of oxen. Something very like this is the method of transportation of the farmers in Mexico at the present time. The bad roads made transportation in carts and wagons very difficult during most of the year. This occupation of transporting merchan- dise from one town to another grew along with other vocations of the people and as wealth and population increased. The feudal system required the lord of the manor to care for all unfortunate persons who from defects of body or of mind were not able to take care of themselves. 122 The Plantagenet Kings SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What was the common occupation of the people of England dur- ng the first 1,500 years after the Roman invasion? How does a machine differ from a tool? What were the forces of nature first used to do man's work? How did the trades grow? What were some of the first trades ? What is meant by division of labor? What is barter? Who first brought foreign goods into the country? How were people and merchandise transported from one place to an- other? Why? Name the good things that belonged to the feudal system. XII. KING JOHN AND THE GREAT CHARTER. 1199—1216. John was Richard's younger brother, and the favorite son of Henry II. He had been brought up in England and had all the exter- nal qualities of a knightly gentleman. He was quick, vivacious, and genial, with a social charm that captivated men and women whom he chose to please. He read good books and was so well informed that learned men found him a pleasant companion. He had even greater political and military genius than his father. But, in speak- ing of his moral character, the English historian, J. R. Green, says of him ''he united into 6ne mass of wickedness all the influence, the selfish- ness, the cruelty and tyranny, the shameless- iiess, the superstition, the indijfference to honor and truth" that had for generations belonged to the family of the Plantagenet rulers in France. He was the worst of traitors to his brother Rich- ard; he murdered with his own hand Arthur, the son of his oldest brother, who was the rightful 123 124 The Plantagenet Kings ful heir to the EngHsh throne; he was faithless to his wife, and starved to death Uttle children who were heirs to property he wished to seize for himself. He scoffed at religion, ^^but he never stirred upon a journey without hanging relics about his neck. But with the supreme wickedness of the Angevine race he inherited its profound ability.^' Such was the character of the king who was compelled by the barons, the bishops, the knights and the burgesses, to sign a charter that made it treason against the fundamental law of the land for him to practice his tyranny upon Englishmen. You have learned in a former chapter that Henry I. was the first king of England to grant a charter setting forth the rights of the people. This he did voluntarily on the day of his corona- tion, and this charter was the first written con- stitution of England. They were not new rights, but very old ones, which William Rufus, Henry^s elder brother, had disregarded during the thirteen years (1087-1 100)of his reign. (Will- iam Rufus was a tyrannical king who was killed while hunting in the great forest which his fa- ther, William the Conqueror, had made by driv- ing from their homes the people who lived within its boundaries. The people believed that the death of Rufus was a punishment sent upon the son for the sins of his father.) King John and the Great Charter 125 This charter of King Henry I. pleased his peo- ple greatly, and his long reign of 35 years, dur- ing which he was, for the most part, true to his pledge, so confirmed these rights in the thought and practice of the people that subsequent tyrants could not wholly disregard them. Now, a charter is a written statement by the government that grants certain privileges or rights to the citizens. The Great Charter is so called because of the importance of the rights it granted to the English people. It was written in Latin. (It should be remembered that all the laws and records of the English were written in Latin at this time (1215), and for many years afterwards, while the English language was tak- ing form by its use in oral speech.) ^^Magna Charta" are the two Latin words origi- nally written at the head of the agreement, which mean the great charter; that is why the charter is generally called ^ 'Magna Charta.'^ The kings, under the feudal system, when King John came to the throne, (1199) had become very powerful, and some of them were cruel ty- rants. John was the meanest and most cruel of them all. The rights of the Normans and the English were alike disregarded by him, and English and Normans united in demanding that he sign an agreement, containing 63 articles, which they had drawn up, and which bound 126 The Plantagenet Kings him to observe their rights as therein set forth. This was eighty years after the death of Henry I. These were not new rights, as you have learned, but very old ones. Many of them had been ac- knowledged as the rights of the English people long before the Normans came in. You should keep in mind that the English people now joined with the Norman barons in demanding that these rights be acknowledged. (The former unions had been between the king and the peo- ple against the barons.) King John was com- pelled to sign these articles. He intended to set them aside after the storm had blown over, and the country had become quiet again. The barons had little faith in his promises, but they thought that a written agreement would be more enduring than an oral one. They had copies of the charter placed in each of the great cathedrals for safe keeping, so that if one were destroyed another might be procured. A copy is still preserved in the British Museum. The way in which the barons compelled John to sign the articles was as follows : When they first presented the charter to him for his signature they said: ^ These are our claims, and if they are not instantly granted our arms shall do us justice." The king was furious, crying: ''Why do you not demand my crown also? I will not grant to you liberties that King John and the Great Charter 127 would make me your slave.' ^ The barons with- drew and began to gather an army. The mayor and citizens of London joined them. All the great Enghshmen and wealthier citizens were, at this time, on the side of the barons; only a few knights stood with the king. King John was powerless and finally yielded. The two parties met in an open field upon an island in the river Thames, about three miles from Wind- sor, which was one of the castles of the king. The name of this field is Runnymede, which is a name famous in English history because of this event. There King John signed the charter in the presence of the barons on June 15, in the year 1215, nearly 700 years ago. Why is this charter so famous, and so import- ant to both the English and American people? It is because this was the first written consti- tution formed by an agreement between the people and the king, and in settlement of their differences. (That of Henry I. had been a voluntary gift to the people as a mark of his kindness and justice.) It declared the right of all the people of Eng- land to some degree of freedom to live and pur- sue their own happiness without the interfer- ence of the ruler. It was the Englishman/s first declaration of independence, and its first ac- knowledgment by the government. To give his 128 The Plantagmet Kings people the freedom they demanded he said would make him a slave. He had not learned, and never did learn, that by granting freedom to his subjects his own freedom was made the more secure. It will not seem to you that the freedom granted by this charter was very great when we compare it with the freedom we now enjoy, bat it was the beginning of the people's emanci- pation from such tyrants as King John, who seemed to think that neither barons nor people had any rights that he was bound to respect. It was, also, the beginning of the over-throw of the feudal system. That the Normans and Anglo-Saxons joined together in these demands does not seem so strange when we remember that the Normans were cousins of the English. All of the Teutonic race, down deep in their hearts, believed in lib- erty. But the Northmen had been in France foi* 200 years, and had adopted so many of the ideas of government, and so many of the customs of the French, that it took several generations of life with the English people for their old love of liberty to revive. After John had died and Henry HI. had be- come king, he tried to ignore the charter and re- fused to observe it. But the barons and citizens again declared that the charter was the law of King John and the, Great Charter 129 THE PROTESTING BARONS BEFORE HENRY III. 130 The Plantagenet Kings the land which the king must obey, and they de- manded that an assembly of the chief men of the liation should be regularly called together by the king to help him obey it. This was the first parliament under the Norman rule that assem- bled because the people demanded it. Simon de Montfort was the great leader of the people in the reign of Henry III. He spoke for them in (lemanding of the king that he establish a par- liament of lords, and bishops, and gentlemen, who should be called together to consult with the king whenever he wanted money, or desired to do anything that affected the liberty of the people, or the prosperity of the country. This was the beginning of the law that the king should not tax the people without the consent of parliament. This law was often violated afterward, but the people never ceased to re- gard it as one of their rights, and Charles I. lost his head, more than 400 years afterward, chiefly because he defied the parliament by levying taxes upon the people without its consent. We will now examine some of these sixty- three articles of the ^' Magna Charta" that have come down to us, and you will see why it was important that representatives of the people should help the king to carry them out. Among the most important were the following: 1. **To none will we (the king) sell, to none King John and the Great Charter 131 will we refuse, to none will we delay Right and Justice.'^ It appears from this that the king and the judges had not formerly given to a man what was rightfully and justly his due unless he paid money for it. We may infer that they had de- nied a man justice altogether provided his ad*- versary would pay a sufficient sum to the king, or to the king's officers, or, else, they would de- lay action upon a case indefinitely and so delay justice. This neglect to consider the complaints of the people was one of the charges made against King George III. by our revolutionary fathers more than five hundred years afterward. Justice is no longer refused in our courts nor is it often sold. But it is frequently delayed far too long. But this is not for any evil pur- pose, as it was formerly. 2. "The Court of Common Pleas shall not follow the King's circuit but shall be held in certain fixed places." The judges had been going about with the king from one of his castles to another. This iilade it very difficult and expensive for these who had suffered wrong to obtain justice from the king's court. 3. Another article provides for the holding of courts in each county four times a year, by two judges. In the United States the Court ic 132 The Plantagenei Kings held in fixed places iii the different states. So, too, each state has a supreme court, district courts, and county courts, all held at fixed places and at regular periods. These are all substantially the same courts that were prom- ised by King John in articles 18 and 40 of the great charter. 4. ^^No freeman shall be arrested, or im- prisoned, or dispossessed of his tenement, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any wise proceeded against unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the laws of the land.'' You will remember that in the reign of King Alfred, 350 years before, the village councils often called a jury to determine the guilt cr innocence of the accused, and that during the reigns of Henry 11. and Richard I. the people had exercised this right. Now the people said to King John that this must go into the supreme law of the land, so that no king could disregard it without being guilty of breaking this agree- ment. So it was put into the ^' Magna Charta," which they thought was more powerful than the king because it expressed the will of all the people. If a man was charged with an offense the question whether he was guilty or not must be decided by men who were his equals, or peers. Lords and gentlemen could not sit on a jury to try a common farmer or a merchant. King John and the Great Charter 133 They must be men of the same rank in life as the accused. At the present time all men are peers before the law in the United States; nor is there one set of laws for farmers, another for merchants, another for churchmen, and another for gentlemen. But the same law applies to all. Now all these rights have come to be ours, inherited with the ^' Magna Charta^' which the people of England compelled King John to sign. 5. Another important article of the great charter, which is the law of the land in England and America today, runs as follows: ^'No free- man, merchant, or villein (laborer or husband- man) shall be excessively fined for a small offense; the first shall not be deprived of his means of livelihood; the second of his mer- chandise; the third of his implements of hus- bandry.^' The distinction between frfeemen and others does not exist at the present time, and the law still forbids that any poor man shall be stripped of all that he has by fines, or to pay his creditors. In many of our states much more than the tools he works with are free from seizure for debts or fines. The reason for this is evident; for how could a man ever earn enough to enable him to pay his debts or keep him from the poor- house, if all of the tools and property which he uses in earning money were taken from him? 134 The Plantagenet Kings But there was nothing in the great charter that forbade imprisoning a man for debt, and this was often done until quite recent times . The poet Whittier, only a few years ago wrote a poem entitled ^^A Prisoner for Debt/^ in which he expressed his strong indignation that men should be put in prison in the state of Massachusetts and in the city of Boston, because they were poor. It is said that this poem helped to secure the repeal of the law that permitted imprison- ment for debt when the man was not able to pay. As stated above, there were 63 articles in the original contract between the people and King John, but. a large majority of these ceased to be regarded when the feudal system was abol- ished. They applied only to that. The story of the^ Great Charter has been briefly told, but it took a very long time to get it obeyed by all the kings and judges in England. It was granted, in substance, thirty-eight times by dif- ferent rulers, and even at this time the king of England when crowned, and the president of the United States, when installed into office, take a solemn oath that they will not violate the provisions of this charter that yet con- tinue to be the common law of these nations. In our own Declaration of Independence, made in 1776, 550 years after the reign of King King John and the Great Charter 135 John, the wrongs complained of by our revolu- tionary fathers against King George III. were nearly the same as those which the ^* Magna Charta " forbade. The Declaration of Inde- pendence and the Constitution of the United States are in substance these articles of the '^Magna Charta/' and because King George III. would not obey them the American barons and yeomanr}^ fought the Revolutionary War and gained their independence of the English crown. It is certainly right to affirm that this great charter was the English people's declaration of rights against the despotic rule of the king, and may be regarded as their first declaration of in- dependence of any sovereign who denied these rights to Englishmen. As the barons anticipated, King John signed this agreement only to break it at the first fa- vorable opportunity. Some years previous to the granting of the charter he had quarreled with the Pope, and had been expelled from the church by the Ro- man pontiff, and his subjects had been told that he had no claim to their loyalty and obedience. The French king was directed by the Pope to in- vade England and take possession of it. Now, while the English hated John's tyranny and wickedness, they hated more to be subject to France, and they rallied to the defense of their i^6 The Piantagenet Kings shores. The French fleet was overwhelmed by the English sailors, but John was afraid to trust his own people. He suddenly yielded to all the Pope^s demands, and even went so far as to surrender his crown to the Bishop of Rome and receive it back as the Pope's vassal ; that is, he acknowledged the Pope as his feudal lord, and did homage to him as such. (See ^^doing homage,'' on page 76.) The Pope then immediately ordered the French king to desist from his invasion of England, and John thought that he was saved from all his enemies except the English. He then invaded France with an army of his dependents and of hired foreign soldiers, and joined with another large army, composed of Flemish and German soldiers, and fought a battle against France for the recov- ery of Normandy, which he had lost in a pre- vious war. The French king was victorious and John escaped across the channel to Eng- land. Then it was that the barons and knights demanded of him the ^^Magna Charta." After he had signed and taken the oath to be true to his agreement he immediately called upon the Pope to declare that his contract with his people was not binding, and to send him sol- diers to help him hold England for the church. Both of these things the Pope did, but without avail. The English barons called the French King John and the Great Charter 137 to aid them, and together they marched against the forces of John. It was at this time that John was attacked by a fatal sickness and died before the decisive battle had been fought. Then the EngUsh paid the French for their assistance and young Henry, the son of John, who was but nine years of age, was crowned king, as Henry IH. King John died in 1216, having reigned seven- teen years. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What was King John's relationship to William the Conqueror? Name some of his good and some of his bad qualities. Have you read Shakespeare's description of him given in his play of King John? Who gave to the English their first charter? What is a charter? Why is the charter signed by King John called the Great Charter? What caused the English and the Normans to unite against the king? Were the rights granted by the Great Charter new rights? What did John say when the barons made their demand? Why did he not undertake to go to war with his barons as Henry III. did later? Where was the charter signed? When? How many years ago? How many articles in the charter? Why are most of these of no force now? What are the five that are, at this time, our most cherished laws? Who may be called the first George Washington of the English race? When John granted the charter to the English people what were his relations with the Pope of Rome? What did he do to obtain the assistance of the Pope against his enemies? Did the Pope's assistance enable him to conquer the French? After he had been defeated in France and had been compelled to sign the Great Charter what did he do next? What was the result? XIII. CITY SCHOOLS AND SPORTS. London had grown to be an important city during the reign of Henry II. We learn from- the earUest historians what was taught in the schools, and how they were conducted. The schools were taught by the priests in connection with the churches. There were three famous schools in London St. Paul, St. Peter, and the Abbey of our Lady. ^'On feast days there are festivals in the church. The scholars spend much time in debating. They have much prac- tice in the use of imperfect and perfect syllo- gisms. Some debate for display, or merely to get the better of their opponent. Others for to discover the truth in regard to the question in dispute. Those are judged happy who use a great heap and flood of words. The young orators seek to persuade as well as convince, and study to observe the rules of their art, and to omit nothing that is necessary to make the argument complete. The boys of different schools compete with one another in writing 138 City Schools and Sports 139 verses, and contend about the principles of gram- mar and rules of the past and future tenses/^ The reader must bear in mind that the lan- guage which was used in these schools was Latin, the same as that in which all the books were written and all correspondence was carried on. Holidays were spent with the masters like other days, except that the children engaged in sports. The school-boys brought gamecocks to school and ^'all the forenoon they delight themselves in cock-fighting. '' In the afternoon '^they go into the fields to play at ball." The gentlemen and business men ^^come forth on horseback" to view the sport. Every Friday during Lent a sort of tourna- ment was held in the field, when the young men on horseback contended with each other in practicing the feats of war. In Walter Scott's story of Ivanhoe is a vivid description of a real tournament among the wa,rriors. The school- boys' tournaments were probably an imitation of this. On Easter holidays they had sham §ea fights on the river Thames. Another feat is described by a historian of that period as fol- lows: ^^A shield is hung upon a pole, fixed in the midst of the stream, a boat is prepared without oars, to be carried by the force of the water, and in the fore part thereof standeth a young man 140 The Plantagenet Kings ready to give charge upon the shield with his lance; if so he breaketh his lance against the shield, and doth not fall, he is thought to have performed a worthy deed; if so be, without breaking his lance, he runneth strongly against the shield, down he falleth into the water, for the boat is violently forced with the tide; but on each side of the shield ride two boats, fur- nished with young men, which recover him that falleth as soon as they may. Upon the bridges, wharves, and houses by the river^s side, stand great numbers to see and laugh thereat/^ On holidays in summer the boys and young men practiced leaping, dancing, shooting with a bow, wrestling, throwing heavy weights, and the like. In the winter they indulged in bull- fighting, and bear-baiting and games upon the ice. These latter are described as follows : 'They make themselves seats of ice as large as millstones ; one sits down, many hand in hand to draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall together. Some tie bones to their feet and under their heels, and shoving themselves by a little peak-staff do slide as swiftly as a bird flyeth in the air or an arrow out of a cross-bow. Some- times two run together with poles, and hitting one the other either one or both fall, not without hurt; some break their arms, others their legs; but youth desirous of glory of this sort exercise themselves against the time of war/' XIV. A SHORT STORY OF A LONG PERIOD. 1216 — 1485. The family of the Plantagenets ruled in Eng- land from the beginning of the reign of Henry II., 1154, to the death of King Richard III. in 1485, a period of 331 years. During their reign many changes occurred, some of which were favorable to the growth of liberty, but many of them, for a time, robbed the people of the rights which the charters had granted. Kings, like John, often granted charters without intending to do what the charter promised ; but an agree- ment that was written and signed remained to the people as evidence thai could not be ques- tioned, and eventually it became part of the es- tablished law of the kingdom. It should be borne in mind that these charter-rights and the decisions of the King's Courts are now known as the ^'Common Law of England." Henry III., the son of John, became king of England when but nine years old, and reigned fifty years. The Pope of Rome was his guar- dian until he became a man, and the bishops 141 142 The Plantagenet Kings had great influence in directing the government during his minority. After Henry came of age he wished to set aside the ^^Magna Charta/^ but the barons resisted. The barons had learned the lesson that if they wished to succeed in op- posing the king's wishes they must have the knights and freemen, or yeomanry, with them. During the long absence of Richard I., as you have learned, these barons had made friends with the plain people, who joined with them in demanding of John the great charter. So too, when Henry III. wished to ignore the char- ter, the barons and people compelled him to obey it and to call a parliament to help him to do so. This was the first parliament in which the lords, knights and burgesses were repre- sented. You learned in a former chapter that one of the barons, whose name was Simon de Montf ort, took the lead in this great movement, and won a high place in the hearts of English- njen for defending their rights against the tyranny of the king. It will be well to remember that the first English parliament was held six hundred years ago and that there sat in this parliament 28 barons, 120 churchmen and a goodly number of members from the cities and counties who were called burgesses and knights of the shire. These county members afterwards became the A Short Story of a Long Period 143 English House of Commons and the barons and churclmien became the House of Lords. These houses correspond to our House of Representa- tives and Senate. The main difference is that the House of Lords is composed of members of Parhament by right of birth, while the members of the Senate are elected by the Legislatures of the states for a term of six years. Simon de Montfort was the first George Washington of the English speaking race. Edward L, the son of Henry IIL, came to the throne after his father's death. He is known in history as the third one of the great kings of England after the Norman invasion. The other two were William the Conqueror and Henry TI. Edward was large-minded enough to see that a free and just government in which everything was done according to law gave the greatest freedom and happiness, not only to the people but to the king also, and increased the power and greatness of the nation. Because of this superior wisdom he was greatly beloved by all the English people, and since he was more Eng- lish than Norman he was called the first English king since the death of Harold. Now, the English government claimed that its rule extended over the Scots, but the people of Scotland did not admit this. Edward deter- mined to settle this question by force and 144 The Plantagenet Kings marched against the Scots with a large army. He was everywhere victorious, until a great leader arose from the Scottish people named William Wallace, who inspired the Scots with CORONATION CHAIR. (Stone of Destiny.) renewed courage, and led them to victory in many battles. But Edward was too great a gen- eral, and could command too large an army to A Short Story of a Long Period 145 justify the Scots in the hope of ultimate success. Wallace was finally defeated, taken prisoner, and executed as a traitor by the English courts. Ed- ward now determined to settle the matter for all time, and although he was an old man he started with a larger army than before to com- pel the Scots to acknowledge his authority. But he died in camp before he reached Scotland. In his war with Scotland Edward I. seized and carried to London the ^^ Stone of Destiny^' upon which the kings of Scotland had been crowned for many generations. The stone was built into a chair which has ever since been the coronation chair of the English rulers. The picture shows it as it appears in Westminster Abbey to-day. His son. Edward II., who succeeded him, was a weak king and a poor general. He called the army back to England, but some years afterward started with another, numbering 100,000 men, to the relief of Sterling Castle, which was be- sieged by the Scots. Robert Bruce, was now leader of the Scottish forces. He was a great general at the head of -a small army. He met the great army of Edward II. with only 40,000 soldiers. A battle was fought at Bannockbum, in which the English were defeated, and 30,000 of their army slain. From that day to the union of Scotland and England under one king 146 The Plantagenet Kings no foreign ruler was ever the acknowledged king of Scotland. (There is an old story ^ "The Scottish Chiefs/' written b}^ Jane Porter, in which the heroic deeds of William Wallace are told in a very enter- taining way. "The Tales of a Grandfather'' is another book in which Walter Scott has told this story truer to history than is that in 'The Scottish Chiefs.'' There are, also, many stories of the strange and bold adventures of Rob- ert Bruce, which you will find both interesting and profitable to read. They are found in every good library.) During the reign of Edward III., the suc- cessor of Edward IL, a great pestilence broke out in England. It is known in history as the Black Death. It reached London from the continent in August 1347, and soon spread over every part of the island. It re- turned fourteen years later, and again in 1369. During these twenty-two years it is believed that one-half of the people in England died. This reduced the number of laborers on the farms and greatly increased the price paid for labor. For many years the landlords had been ac- cepting a money rent from the farmers instead of villein service. The king and parliament at- tempted to keep down the price of labor by en- A Short Story of a Long Period 147 acting severe laws to punish those who refused to work for the old wages, but ways were found to evade them. The whole industrial system of England was changed by this pestilence. The death of one- half the farmers resulted in freeing the other half from the serfdom imposed by the feudal laws. This was a long step toward freedom. So we see that unexpected good came from what seemed at that time to be evil and only evil. It was more than 150 years from the death of Edward III. to the reign of Henry VII. During that period there was continued strife at home or with other nations, and between the state and the church. Both the sovereigns and the churchmen wanted more power and more money, and the people wanted more freedom. Matters seemed to grow worse, so far as the liberties of the people were concerned. But gimpowder had been discovered, and they had begun to use muskets in the place of battle axes and bows and arrows. This put the common peo- ple on more nearly equal terms with the mailed knights and lords. A musket in the hands of a churl was more dangerous to the knight than was the knight^s sword to the churl. When the knight's armor was no longer a de- fense against the churl's bullet, the knight be- 148 The Plantagenet Kings came more respectful and considerate in his treatment of his inferiors. It was at the battle of Crecy, in 1346, that cannon were used for the first time. They were not very dangerous to the enemy, for they were made of wood boiind with straps of iron. But they made a loud noise, and were the beginning of those guns that now throw a shell weighing many hundred pounds a distance of twenty-one miles. Let it be remembered that the reign of King Edward III. has ^'brought us face to face with modern England.'^ The structure of the govern- ment to-day is in all essential particulars what it had become during his reign (1336 to 1360). Under him all the different departments of gov- ernment became established by law and the courts of justice took on that form they have preserved to the present time. He was the great lawyer king and .was, in one sense, the father of the English constitution. The laws of his reign are the laws of England and of Amer- ica to-day and will be enforced by the courts, provided no later laws have repealed them. It is true that under these forms of law very much evil was done by the kings who followed Ed- ward, and who placed in the offices men as wicked and tyrannical as the kings themselves. But these bad things could be done because the A Short Story of a Long Period 149 representatives of the people permitted them to be done. If the people had always stood for freedom and had elected patriots like Simon Montfort to represent them in parliament, the kings would not have been permitted to oppress the people as they did. When the people do not care enough for their freedom to elect honest and patriotic men for their lawmakers they do not deserve to be free. It was in the reign of Edward IV., in 1470, that the first printing press was set up in England. Caxton was the first printer, and is said to have printed ninety-nine books in his lifetime. From Edward III., who succeeded Edward II., to Henry VI., was one hundred years, and during nearly all of this period England was carrying on war with France. The English were finally defeated and driven out of France by a young girl; whom the French called 'The Maid of Or- leans," but who is known in history as Joan of Arc. (1440) Her story is a very interesting and pathetic one. Every American boy and girl ought to read it. It shows the wonderful power of a strong conviction, a noble purpose, and a pure heart, to bring great things to pass. For thirty years, from 1455 to 1485, the rival houses of York and Lancaster contended for the throne of England. It was called the War of the Roses, because one party chose the white 150 The Plantagenet Kings rose for its emblem and the other the red rose. These roses had terrible thorns, it would seem. It was a war between the nobles of England and very many of them were slain. Not much good seems to have come of it, more than that it opened the way for the Tudor family to come to the throne. But it really did more than this. It gave the death blow to expiring feudalism. This war closed with the overthrow and death of Richard III., and the crowning of Harry of Richmond as king. You can learn much about Richard and the times in which he lived by read- ing Shakespeare's play of ^^King Richard III.'' In the next chapters you will learn something of the reign of the Tudors in which many things occurred of great importance to England and to America. One peculiar thing about the War of the Roses was that common people were not much dis- turbed by it. It was a war between the great feudal lords who employed professional soldiers and their own retainers to aid them; but they did much of the fighting themselves. The com- mon people carried on their business much cs usual, and were about as prosperous as in times of peace. The country grew rich all the time, except in great lords. They killed one another until not half a dozen great families remained. In King John's time there were from twenty- A Short Story of a Long Period 151 five to thirty of these great f amiUes in all Eng- land, but during the following reigns they had greatly increased in numbers and wealth. In the War of the Roses those who made the quarrel were the ones who did the fighting. GEOFFREY CHAUCER. It was in the reign of Richard. II., who suc- ceeded Edward III., (1370-1390) that the first great book, since the English poem of Caed- man in 664, was written in the English tongue by Geoffrey Chaucer, who is called the father of English poetry. It is a collection of poems, known as 'The Canterbury Tales, ^' and they tell us much about the social life of the English people at that time, which cannot be learned from any other source. The book in its original form shows what the English language was 600 years ago. The French of the Normans, the Latin of the scholars, and the Anglo-Saxon of the English had become mixed together in the daily speech of the people, and Chaucer's Tales gave it a literary form quite distinct from the other languages from which it sprang. The poet, Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare's contem- porary, who wrote the Fairie Queen in the reign of Elizabeth, called these poems "a, well of Eng- lish undefiled." 152 The Plantagenet Kmg§ There was no printing press in Chaucer's tinre/ and all the first copies of Chaucer's book were written with a pen. The first books were printed in England about one hundred years later. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. How long did the Plantagenets rule? What constitutes the Com mon law of England? Do you think that the early education of Henry III. made him more favorable to arbitrary rule? Give rea- son for your opinion. How did the rule of Edward I. differ from that of Henry III.? Tell of the Battle of Bannockbum. What was the Stone of Destiny? Where is it now? When were the first cannon used by the English in battle? How did gunpowder work toward the greater freedom of the common people? What were the Wars of the Roses? How did they differ from other wars? What were the two rival houses at this time? What was the effect of these wars upon the feudal system in England? How long did they continue? Who was the last of the Plantagenet kings? Did he belong to the House of Lancaster or to the House of York? Name three of the greatest Plantagenet kings. THE TUDOR KINGS. 1485—1603. XV. HENRY VII. 1485—1509. The Wars of the Roses came to an end with the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485) where Rich- ard III. was slain and Henry Tudor won the crown of England. With this battle the Plan- tagenets ceased to rule and the reign of the Tu- dors began. The Plantagenet family had ruled England for 331 years in which long period much good had been done by them, mixed with not a little that was evil. The kings that did most for the liberties of the people during this period were Henry II., Edward I. and Edward III. These three worked for improvement in the gov- ernment by giving the representatives of the king^s subjects some voice in making the laws. They were Plantagenet kings, but they loved the English people more, if they did not love 153 154 T^he Plantagenet Kings themselves less than did most other rulers who belonged to this family. Edward IV. was the last of this house whose reign of twenty-two years (from 1461 to 1483) made any permanent impression upon the gov- ernment. It was he who set at naught much that Edward III. had done to establish a free parliament and give to the people a voice in the making of their laws. He was personally very popular; keen and capable as a soldier and a statesman, but of a dissolute charactei. His reign was the beginning of that despot- ism which became very oppressive under the Tudors. The rights of the people to a voice in making the laws by which they were governed were ignored, and the will of the king became the law of the land. How it was possible for one man to so change the character of the government of freedom-loving Englishmen we have not room in this little book to tell. But so many perils were besetting the business of the country and the wealth of the church, and there was so much discontent and revolutionary spirit among the common people, that the wealthy and powerful in the land were glad to have a king on the throne who was brave enough and strong enough to protect the country from these many dangers. And so it happened that the kings of England ceased to be consti- Henry VII 155 tutional kings governed by the great charter, but became despots who declared that they had a right to do wrong if it so pleased them. It was a despotism which continued until Oliver Cromwell took off the head of Charles I., the last of the kings who claimed to rule by divine right. After Oliver Cromwell, as you will see later, con- stitutional government, with a House of Com- mons and a House of Lords to represent all classes of citizens, took the place of the despot- ism that had done so much evil and not a little good in the reign of the Plantagenets, the Tu- dors, and the Stuarts. But it should be remembered that these despotic sovereigns observed the forms of consti- tutional law in practicing their tyranny. They chose parliaments that would do their bidding. The history of the people of Europe is divided into three long periods. They are called : 1 . Ancient History ; 2 . History of the Middle period ; 3. Modern History. Ancient history closes with the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the northern barbarians (400-500 A. D.) Modern history begins about the time of the accession of the Tudor family to the throne of England (1400). The Middle 156 The Tudor Kings period was the long interval of 1,000 years which in Europe, was marked by the prevalence of the Feudal system. This system, as you have learned, made the king of a country the over- lord of the other lords and barons, who did him homage, but some of whom were often more powerful sovereigns than he. You have seen how King John was compelled, by twenty-five barons and the representatives of the middle classes, to sign a charter granting to them cer- tain very important rights, which he at first re- fused and declared that to grant them would make him their slave. The feudal system did not foster arbitrary monarchy, but quite the contrary. Under that system every class had its own peculiar rights, and the rights of the lords were only sec- ond to those of the king. The breaking up of the Feudal system tended to encourage the arbitrary rule of the monarch, for the reason that the barons could no longer command their vassals to fight against the king. So the king's power increased as that of the lords grew less. In England the Feudal System had ceased to exist when ^ 'Harry of Richmond" be- came king. The War of the Roses, as you have learned, was especially fatal to the great lords and barons. Most of these, on both sides, were killed before these civil wars ended. Henry VII 157 With the breaking down of the Feudal System there was a corresponding breaking away from the rule of the church over the thoughts of men. The Protestant Reformation, led by Martin Luther, expressed the strong protest of the Ger- manic race against the right of the Church of Rome to dictate what men should think and teach about religion. At this time began the conflict between the ar- bitrary power of the king and the freedom of the people on the one hand, and that between the authority of the church and the right of free thought in religion on the other. The beginning of these conflicts marked the beginning of Mod- em History. THE TIIDOR FAMILY. The Tudor fam- ily began to reign in England with the accession of Henry VII. in 1485. The mother of Henry VI. was the grandmother of Henry VII. But the grandfather of Henry VII. was a Welsh gentleman whose name was HENRY VII. 158 The Tudor Kings Owen Tudor. Harry of Richmond, his grand- son, was the Duke of Richmond when Richard III. was king. Henry's father and mother were both Enghsh, while all the Plantagenet kings had either fathers or mothers who belonged to foreign families. Henry VII. was therefore a truly English monarch and he was the first king of the Tudor dynasty. He was not next to the throne by birth, but the birthright successor was too weak to make head against Richard III. and the ho.use of York. Might helped to make right in this case. In his play of Richard III. Shakespeare de- scribes the battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard was defeated and slain. It may not be exactly true to the facts of history, but it is true to the spirit of the time, which is the more im- portant thing. The manner of Richard's death and the crowning of Henry on the battlefield as told by Shakespeare are, probably, true to history. There were five Tudor sovereigns in all. They were: Henry VIL, Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the last three being children of Henry VIII. Of these Henry VIII. and Elizabeth were two of the ablest and strongest rulers England ever had, and much happened during their reigns to which we in Henry VII 159 America are indebted for our ideas of freedom and of government. Henry VII. was not a great king. He ruled twenty-four years and acquired great wealth by very questionable means. He used some of his wealth to pay the ^'yeomen of the guard/'^ which was the first standing arm}^ in England. It was not a large one, but it was the beginning of what is now that great army which is contin- ually on duty in tim^s both of peace and war, and which is paid, not by the king, but by the parliament of England. That is to say, it is paid by the people of Eng- land, through their rep- resentatives in the House of Commons. If one visits the tower of London to-day he will find the yeomen of the king^s guard dressed in the same uniform that they wore in the time of Henry VII. Whenever the king yeoman of the guard . 160 The Tudor Kings passes in state along the streets of London this guard accompanies hijn. It was a necessary protection in the time of Henry VII., for he had many enemies who sought to take his life ; but it is now only a guard of honor to the king. Henry VII. had a good reason for making a strong government, and for having a strong guard to protect him. He was the leader of the house of Lancaster, and the great family of York were his natural enemies. He sought to unite the two families by taking for his wife a lady of high rank who belonged to the Yorkists. This converted many of his enemies to friends, but many enemies remained who continually sought his life. He also determined to break up the practice, common among the wealthy nobles, of main- taining large retinues of soldiers, which were a never-failing source of disorder wherever the no- bles assembled, and a constant menace to the king when the nobles were his enemies. A law was enacted abolishing this custom and the king revived the Court of the ^^Star Chamber' ' to en- force it. (This court was first created by Wil- liam the Conqueror to protect the Jews from persecution and robbery by the Christians.) Heavy fines were imposed upon all offenders and much money came into the king's treasury from this source. One day King Henry made a visit tienry VII 161 of friendship to one of the greatest lords of Eng- land. The lord in honor of his king received him with great pomp and ceremony. The re- tainers of this lord were drawn up in line on both sides of the way for a long distance to do honor to their sovereign. When the king's visit was over and he was taking his departure he said to his host, in bidding him adieu : "1 thank you, my lord, for your good cheer; but I cannot endure to have my laws broken so openly and in my presence. My attorney must speak with you.'' That little talk with the king's attorney cost the noble fifty thousand (50,000) dollars, which would be equal in value to nearly half a million at this time. By methods such as this Henry at his death had become one of the richest kings England ever had. This court was called ^'Star Chamber/' it is said, because the ceiling of the room in which the court assembled was decorated with stars. There is a better reason for this name given by Mr. Green, the historian. He states that since the Jews were the bankers of the king and of all who wished to borrow money, and since the Jews, before the court was created, had no legal rights in the country on account of their religion, and were not permitted to bring suit in the courts of law to compel the payment of bonds that had been given to them for the 162 The Tudor Kings money they had loaned, the king formed a special court for them, and it came to be called Star Chamber, because ^'Starr^^ was the Hebrew name for a promissory note, or bond. During the reign of Henry VII. much was done to establish more firmly the ideas that the personal will of the king was superior to parlia- ment in determining the laws that should gov- ern England. His successor, Henry VIII., as you will learn later, was even more arbitrary than his father, but so great was his personal pop- ularity that much was forgiven him by the plain people, who did not feel the weight of his iron hand so heavily as did the higher classes. The Yorkists made several attempts to start a rebellion against the king, but the people in general were loyal to Henry VII. They loved peace, and preferred a strong man at the head of the government, even if his right by birth to the throne was uncertain. Besides, he had been elected by Parliament, which alone could give him a legal title to the crown. At one time a priest carefully instructed an impostor by the name of Simnel to act the part of Warwick. Now Warwick, who was held prisoner in the Tower, was nearer to the throne by birth than was Henry. The Yorkists pre- sented Simnel to the people as Warwick, who, they declared, had escaped, and quite an Henry VII 163 army was collected and invaded England. They were easily defeated by the king^s troops, and the king showed his contempt for Simnel by setting the pretended Warwick to work in his own kitchen as a scullion. The true Warwick was still in the Tower and was shown to the people by order of the king. At another time it was reported that the princes whom Richard III. had murdered to clear his own way to the throne, had not been murdered, but that the younger of them had es- escaped and was seeking assistance to gain his rightful inheritance. The Yorkists chose a man by the name of Warbeck, who declared himself to be the prince, and told a plausible story of his escape from his enemies. For five years this pretender was kept before the people and even the rulers of France, Austria, Scotland and the Emperor Maximilian gave more or less aid to the plotters, believing that the true prince had appeared. Warbeck invaded England with an army but the English would have nothing to do with him. His force was attacked and Warbeck, the leader, ran away, like the cow- ard he was, and sought protection in a monas- tery. Henry showed the same contempt for him that he had shown for Simnel. But subse- quently he became troublesome again, and was executed by the king^s order. It was the pre- 164 The Tudor Kings tender Warbeck who caused the execution of the unfortunate Earl of Warwick. The earl was convicted of conspiring with Warbeck for another invasion of England, and for this both met their death on the scaffold. It was during the reign of Henry VII. that Columbus went from court to court on the conti- nent begging for aid to explore the Atlantic Ocean in search of a direct route to the East In- dies. The brother of the great navigator went to ask aid of Henry, but he was captured by pi- rates and was retained so long that when he finally arrived in England Columbus had set sail under the patronage of the king and queen of Spain. It has been thought by some that but for this Henry VII. would have had the honor of helping Columbus to discover America. But we may well doubt this. Henry was a shrewd and practical man of business but he had no imagination, and a strong imagination was needed to support such a visionary enterprise as that of Columbus was then thought to be. In the latter years of his reign Henry became unscrupulous in wringing money from the wealthy, without burdening the poor. He died in 1509 at the age of fifty-two. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS, what marked ohange in the government that began with Edward IV.? What were the social conditions that favored this change? What Henry VII 165 are the three periods of history? About what date did the middle period begin? When did it end? What system of government pre- vailed during the middle period? Why did the breaking up of the feudal system favor arbitrary rule of the king? What conflicts in the opinions of the people marked the beginning of modem history? Who was Henry VII.? Why was he called a Tudor king? When did he come to the throne? Have you read Shakespeare's play of King Richard III.? How long did Henry VII. reign? What can be seen in London to-day that is like the bodyguard of Henry VII.? What made it necessary for Henry VII. to make a strong personal government? What was the origin of the Court of the Star Cham- ber? Why called "Star Chamber"? Tell the story of the punish- ment by Henry VII. of a great noble for keeping too many servahts. What conspiracies were entered into by the Yorkists to dethrone] Henry VII.? XVI. HOW INDUSTRIES GREW. You learned in Chapter XI how the different industries began in England. The people at length discovered that it was more economical to divide up the labor of a community so that certain men should follow special trades. In this way each would work for others and they would work for him, and he would not be com- pelled to do everything for himself. So manu- facturers, or makers of articles that many peo- ple needed for use, established themselves in the towns. As the towns grew several persons were needed to work at each trade. Some would make better articles than others and the same workman would make different grades of goods. How should the price be regulated so that the manufacturer should receive for his products neither more nor less than they were worth? There were three classes of workmen in every trade : 1. The master workman, who carried on the business and employed others to work for him. 166 How Industries Grew 167 2. The journeyman, who had served seven years' apprenticeship in learning the trade and was now free to work for wages, or to become a master and carry on a business for himself. 3. The apprentice, who was required to de- vote seven years to learning the trade, and who lived with the master, or at his expense, during his apprenticeship. The work done by the master was, perhaps, more valuable than that done by the journey- man, and the work of the journeyman would sell for more than that done by an apprentice. To determine what price should be paid for every kind of product, the master workmen in each trade united in an association, or guild, and some one was selected by the guild to pass upon each piece of work and fix the price at which it should be sold. In these guilds we seem to find the beginning of our labor unions. As the people became more wealthy by carry- ing on trade, and as money increased, they be- gan to pay money, instead of service, to the king and to the lord of the manor. These payments came to be known as taxes, to distinguish them from money paid for the use of the land, which was called rent. So long as the towns were small and there were but few craftsmen in each, all the crafts united together into one guild, or association. 168 The Tudor Kings But when the towns grew to cities there were enough men in each craft to make a guild. These guilds regulated the amount and the price of all manufactured articles. They would diminish the amount produced when the de- mand fell off, and increase the supply when the demand was great. In this way prices were maintained. The guilds also decided how many apprentices each master workman might have. They would not permit the number of journey- men to become greater than the masters could employ. . , This kept in the hands of a few black- smiths all the work in blacksmithing, and so too, of the wood carpenters, the weavers, the tailors, the plumbers, and all other craftsmen. These rules applied only to towns. In the country, where agriculture was the vocation of the peo- ple, each home manufactured for itself what it needed, or paid the village craftsman for it in personal service of some kind. You have been wondering perhaps how any of the people freed themselves from the service to the. manor lord so that they could carry on trade for themselves. It happened in this wise: The towns, Uttle by little, as they grew, would buy privileges of the king for money. Among the first of these privileges w^-s that of holding fairs, or markets, where people came to buy and sell. Later they Hovf Industries Grew 169 bought the right to make their own laws for car- rying on their business; and so one privilege after another was bought, until the people were permitted to pay in money instead of personal service, what the Feudal law demanded of them. This was called ^^Commutation of Services/' be- cause their services were commuted, or changed, to a payment in money. The king and lords were often in need of money, and the wealthy towns could afford to pay a good round sum for the privilege of man- aging their affairs in their own way. You re- member that Richard the Lion Heart raised large sums by selling such rights to towns and cities. You will conclude that the industries Werie under the control of these guilds more than they were under the control of the king. They fixed the quality, the quantity, and the time and place of sale, and also the price of every article. This guild system of regulating manufactures continued to control production in most cases until a quite recent period ; say, 200 to 250 years ago. When commerce with other nations be- gan to grow in England, and demand for goods for the foreign trade increased, capitahsts be- gan to invest mone}^ in manufactories and disre- garded the laws of the guilds in the employment of labor. Laborers who were not skilled jour- 170 The Tiidor Kings neymen were employed quite freely, and in towns where this was done the guilds were bro- ken up. This caused a scramble among labor- ers for employment which reduced wages, made employment uncertain, and increased poverty and crime among the working classes. The breaking up of the guilds and of the feu- dal system of land tenure, by which the poor man was sure of a home, greatly increased the number of homeless and dependent poor people, while it gave opportunity to others to become very wealthy. So, you see, that in the earlier years of the in- dustrial life of the English people, similar ques- tions as to the rights of labor and the rights of capital arose that prevail at the present time in both England and America. The govern- ment undertook to fix by law the wages which the laborer should receive, but the conditions were so different in different parts of the king- dom that the laws often worked injustice to both the employer and the laborer. It should be borne in mind that there was but little machinery used in any industry except what we may call tools. Wind-mills and water- mills came early into use for grinding grain, but it was not until it was discovered that steam could be used as power that machinery for doing many different kinds of work was invented. How Industries Grew 171 We shall see, later, how this discovery affected the industries. So long as everything was done ^'by hand'' goods were produced in small quan- tities, and the guilds were able to control them in large measure. One peculiarity about English life from the time of King John to that of Queen Elizabeth was that the people in the country and smaller towns looked to their ministers to perform mauy different kinds of service. They not only in- structed the people in religion, but they were the teachers of the children, the doctors, the lawyers, the advisers, and directors of the par- ish government, and in every way the leading men in the community. You may remember that in our own colonial days for a hundred years after the landing of the pilgrims, the min- isters were the chief men at the head of public affairs in every community. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. How many classes of workmen were there in each trade in the time of the Tudors? What was a guild? What association of workmen at this time corresponds to it? Who declared what should be the price at which the different kinds of articles manufactured should be sold? How long must an apprentice work to learn a trade? How was it that the towns and cities first began to free themselves from the hard rules of service imposed by the feudal system? What did you learn about this in the story of Richard the Lion Heart? What was the beginning of the overthrow of this system? Was there much machinery in use during the guild period? What were the duties of the .priests and preachers during the first three dynasties? XVII. MARTIN LUTHER. Martin Luther was born in Germany in 1483. His parents were free peasants. That is, they were free from service to feudal lords and could choose where they would live and what vocation they would follow. They would have been called ' 'freemen^ ^ in England, to distinguish them from the villeins. Luther's family was, therefore, a very humble one. His father was a common laborer, working as a slate-cutter and afterwards as a miner, and finally he set up a forge and became a blacksmith. He made money enough in his shop to send Martin to a Latin school. In a short time the boy distin- guished himself in his studies and his father de- termined to make a lawyer of him and sent him to ^ higher school taught by the Franciscan monks. He and some other poor boys united in a glee club and sang on the streets, and in this way they paid part of their expenses. A wealthy lady of the city became interested in Martin's fine tenor voice and sought his ac- 172 Martin Luther 173 quaintance. Her interest grew because of his superior intelligence and gentle manners and disposition. She encouraged him to gain an education and gave him some pecuniary assist- ance. He completed the college course at the age of twenty-two. But he did not become a lawyer, which greatly disappointed his parents. The preaching of an eloquent priest filled him with a desire to save the souls of men rather than, to defend their property, and he entered a monastery imme- diately after his graduation. There he pur- sued the study of the history of the church and of the Bible, and became acquainted with. the lives of many of the churchmen of high rank. His study and his observation ixlike convinced him that the practices of the churchmen in many particulars did not conform to the life and teach- ings of the Great Teacher. After three years, in the monastery he became professor in the Uni- versity of Wittenberg. About eight years after Henry VIII. became king (1517) Luther began to attack with great boldness, in his lectures at the Unversity, some of the practices of the Pope and the bishops. He contrasted the Master, washing the disci- ples^ feet, with the Pope, holding up his great toe to be kissed ; the Saviour, bearing the cross, with the Pope carried in state through Rome on 174 The Tudor Kings men^s shoulders ; Christ driving money changers out of the temple, with the Pope selling to wealthy men for large sums of money certain privileges called indulgences, which were for- bidden to the people in general. These and other differences between the Great Teacher and the churchmen he set forth in eloquent sermons, and even in pictures for the common people who could not read. He beheved in the doctrines of the Catholic religion, but declared that the leading churchmen had become Corrupted by wealth and power and were no longer followers of the meek and lowly Nazarene ; and that they believed that religion consisted in forms rather than in purity of heart. He said that the prac- tices of these churchmen ought to be reformed. Because he protested so stoutly against them he was called the great protestant; and because he insisted upon a return to the simple and pure rehgion of the early Christians he was called a reformer. You have seen in the story of Henry II. how very powerful the church was even in England. Luther, single-handed and alone, undertook to break this power, and to give to the people everywhere freedom to forsake the form of worship dictated by the Church of Rome, for another form of worship dictated by himself. The German people were aroused by hig Martin Luther 175 preachings and his writings, and determined to protect him from punishment by the pope and cardinals, and from the kings and princes who wished to have the rule of the church continue. Luther was declared by the church to be a heretic, and the emperor decreed that he was not fit to live on the earth. But before it came to this the German people and some of the German princes, had discovered that although Luther might be a heretic, he was struggling for something that they thought was right and they would not permit his enemies to take his life. Luther stood at first for reform- ing the practices of the church but later he would have overthrown it altogether had it been in his power to do so. There was another class of scholarly men, like Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, who stood for something different but quite as important. They sought to lead the people into a wider and deeper knowledge, not only of religion, but of history and of the world. They taught that freedom to think was the birthright of all men. Some of the churchmen did not love this class of heretics much better than they loved Luther » But since they did not interfere directly with the church and the practices of churchmen it was not easy to proceed against them. It happened also that Henry VIII, who, in 176 The Tudor Kings the early part of Luther's career, wrote a book in answer to Luther's attacks upon the church and for this was called by the Pope ^ The Defender of the Faith/' became afterwards an enemy of the Pope, and, although he never approved of Luther's reform, he became willing that the power of the Pope should be crippled by those who did. You can see that these things all united to make it more difficult for the other sovereigns of Europe to unite with the Pope in stamping out the Reformation in Germany before it had spread among the people. After the people had come to understand that a larger religious freedom carried with it a larger freedom in thought and in government, no monarch was sufficiently strong to check for long the spread of the Reformation. Catherine de Medici tried to crush it out by attempting to murder all the Protestant Huguenots in France in a single night, in what is known in history as the Massa- cre of St. Bartholomew; but that attempt seems to have resulted in placing a Protestant, at heart, on the throne of France a few years later. This was Henry of Navarre. The Reformation was a movement toward a larger freedom in religion, in knowledge, and in government, and for this reason the world will ever hold the memory of Martin Luther in grate- Martin Luther 17^ ful remembrance. The influence of this protest upon the Roman CathoUc Church itself has been to promote a larger freedom of thought and a purer practice than existed when Martin Luther nailed his protest against the practice of religious teachers to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Freedom to worship God according to the dic- tates of the conscience of the worshiper owes a great deal to Martin Luther. He was the first to demand for the people the right to read the Bible in their own tongue, and to decide for them- selves what duties it imposed upon them. But if we would be fair in our judgment of him we should bear in mind that he did not believe that others should have the same freedom to decide for themselves what were the teachings of the Bible, that he claimed for himself. He was quite as ready to regard Protestants who did not agree with him as heretics, as the bishops of the Catholic Church were to so regard him. There was some truth in the charge that he was quite as much of a pope in his disposition as was the Bishop of Rome. But he had not the Pope's power, and so it came to pass that many differ- ent sects, or denominations, of Protestants, sprang up, and this number is increasing as tim.e goes on. Every one is now permitted by the law to interpret the Bible as seems most reason- able to him, and to teach his views to others. 178 The Tudor Kings The Emperor of Germany had condemned Luther, but he was too busy with more impor- tant matters, for two or three years, to give any attention to the preaching of an eccentric priest, as he conceived Luther to be. Before the other matters were settled the great preacher had won many of the German princes and their people to his cause. It was then impossible for the Emperor to arrest and punish Luther as he had intended to do. His friends were too numerous and too powerful. They hid Luther away in a lonely castle in a forest, where he spent much of his time in translating the Bible into German; and he wrote many tracts which were distrib- uted among the people. The Emperor finally decreed that the princes should be free to wor- ship as they chose, but the people were required to believe what the princes believed. There was not much freedom about this, but the Germans had a grievance of long standing against Rome, and this gave them an opportun- ity to free themselves from a tyranny that had been galling them for many years. There were wars between the conflicting pow- ers, and many conflicting interests united to fa- vor the Protestant cause. When Luther died it seemed as if the Protestant religion would su- persede the Catholic in all of northern Europe in a few years ; but it soon became evident that Martin Luther 179 the reformers had many trials to undergo before rehgious freedom could be secured. Luther became a churchman when twenty- two years old, and died at the age of sixty-two. At the time of his death there were several sect3 of Protestants, who dishked each other quite as much as they dishked the mother church. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. When was Martin Luther bom? Compare this date wit!i that of the beginning of the reign of the Tudor family. Who v/as hi3 father? What vocation did his father wish Luther to follow? Why did he go into the church? What was his reason for attacking the practices of the churchmen? In what univcr. ity did he begin his lectures? What new movement was going on amon.7 the scholars? Would men naturally conclude that freedom of con- science and freedom to think ought to bring freedom to act accord- ingly? Bid Luther believe in the right of every one to a free con- science and freedom of thought? In what respect, if any, was the early Protestant Church freer than the Church of Rome? What did Luther do to make the German people familiar with the Bible? Why did not the authorities punish Luther as a heretic? What do you think of the prevalence of the spirit of toleration among men at the time of the Reformation? XVIII. HENRY VIII. 1509—1547. Model-n history did not fairly begin in Eng- land until the reign of Henry VIII. His father cleared the way by disarming the few great bar- ons and lords who survived the Wars of the Roses, and subjecting them to his will. He es- tablished peace and a reign of law under which the people prospered and grew rich. They had no influential voice in the government, but so long as they were not oppressed, were not taxed too heavily, and were left free to carry on their business under just laws, they were willing that the king should rule the country. Henry VII., as has been said, was a shrewd man of business, who sought to increase the wealth and comfort of the nation. He was con- tent to live at peace with other nations, and to extend trade and commerce at home and abroad. But when his son, Henry VIII., became king, a great change began. The young king was but eighteen years old when he took the place of his 180 Henry VIII 181 father. He was young, handsome, well edu- cated, a lover of sports, ambitious, and popular with the people. They called him '^ Bluff King Hal." They thought him ^ 'every inch a king.'^ Indeed, throughout Europe he was spoken of as the ' 'handsomest and kingliest king in Europe.'' This could not be truly said of him in later years, as his picture testifies. He chose Wolsey for his prime minister on coming to the throne. Wolsey had been in the service of his father's prime minister, and he and Henry were close friends. Wolsey became, ere long, one of the greatest statesmen that Eng- land ever had. His influence among the crowned heads of Europe was so great that it was said that ''England held the peace of Europe in the hollow of her hand." Wolsey, Hke Henry VH., was an advocate of peace. He thought peace better than war for England, and that Henry could gain greater renown by acting as peace- maker than by fighting. For twenty years Wolsey was Henry's trusted servant, but Henry was the master from the first. He preferred war to peace, and had soon spent all the great fortune his father had left him in his ambitious schemes to recover Eng- land's former territory in France. He engaged in several wars and it is said that he never lost a battle; but he gained little, either in territory 182 The Tudor Kings or in power by all his fighting. Like Richard, the Lion Heart, he was the idol of the English people, and, like Richard, he continued to de- Holbein KING HENRY VIII. In the later years of his reign. mand of them large sums of money to pay his debts. Hmry VIII 183 But the thoughts of men had moved on a long distance since the time of Richard I. Martin Luther, as you have learned, had placed himself at the head of a movement among the Germans to break away from the Church of Rome. These Protestants were also active in England and France. There was also, as you have learned, a new learning beginning to be taught by the great scholars of the world, which held that man's mind was free to discover new truth in science and elsewhere, even though some of this truth did not agree with the teachings of the church. In short, the people had begun to think more for themselves, and this was the beginiiing of modem life and modern history. Now, Henry VIII. set his face hard against the new religion, but encouraged the new learn- ing. He wrote a book defending the Catholic Church against the attacks made by Luther and the other Protestants, and sent a richly-bound volume to the Pope. His holiness was pleased, and rewarded him by giving him the title of De- fender of the Faith. (This is one of the titles of the king of England to-day, but it does not mean the same as when Henry received it.) During this period of twenty years Wolsey had served Henry and the church faithfully, and with great ability. He had become cardinal of the church and very wealthy. He lived in grand 184 The Tudor Kings style, only inferior to that of the king himself. He endowed a great school, called Cardinal Col- lege (now Christ Church) at Oxford, and another at Ipswich. He planned great things for the spread of education throughout England, but Henry's demands for money for his own schemes prevented their fulfillment. It is said that in his household were ^^^e hundred persons of noble birth who did service, and that the head servants were knights and barons of the realm. This pomp and display were signs of power at that time; the greater the pomp the greater the power. But Wolsey was too great a statesman to be the most obedient of servants. The king's de- sire to join in the wars of the other great powers he strongly opposed. This gave his enemies the opportunity to question his loyalty to the king, which they were not slow to improve. But so long as Wolsey was successful in doing the work the king set him to do he kept him in office, for he knew how great was his ability. Wolsey had shown to Henry the power of England, and when the time came for him to declare his independ- ence of the church, Henry knew that he could take the step without great peril to himself or his kingdom. He had learned that ^^his ene- mies were quite as much afraid of him as he was of them." Henry VIII 185 Wolsey was expected, as prime minister, to provide Henry with the money he needed, but as these demands increased he found it more and more difficult to persuade parUament to vote as he ordered. He told them that they and the country were dependent upon the king, and that it was a kind of treason to refuse to supply the king^s needs. So long as there was no war, he could find ways to obtain the money for the expenses of the gov- ernment without calling a parliament. For eight years there was no war and no parliament. Both Wolsey and the king believed that the only use of a parliament was to vote money. But when the king determined to undertake an- other war the parliament must be called, for the law was very plain that a war tax required the approval of the king's councilors. The par- liament assembled and Wolsey went before them with his demand. But the members remained silent, refusing to consider the matter in the pres- ence of Wolsey. The cardinal appealed to the speaker, who was the great Sir Thomas More, but More dropped upon his knees before the pow- erful chancellor and said: ^'I have no power to reply to you till I have received instructions from the hou se . ' ' The cardinal could do nothing more, for he was not the king. If Henry had made the demand in person, probably it would 186 The Tudor Kings have been granted. You will learn of a similar scene, one hundred years later, in the reign of Charles I., and in that case it was the king him- self who made the demand. King Henry had harder work in store for Wol- sey than forcing money from an unwilling par- liament. This was to secure from the pope a bill di- vorcing Queen Catherine from the king. Cath- erine was the' daughter of Ferdinand and Isa- bella of Spain. She had been betrothed, per- haps married, to Prince Arthur, Henry's older brother. But Arthur dying at the age of six- teen years (1502), King Henry VH. arranged for the marriage of Henry, then only twelve years of age, to Catherine. A year after Hen- ry's accession to the throne, at the age of nine- teen, he was formally married to Catherine. As there was a law in the church forbidding a man to marry his brother's widow, a dispensation was needed from the Pope to make the marriage legal. This had been provided by Henry's father, so no irregularity existed in the cere- mony. All of Henry's sons died in infancy, and but one daughter, Mary, grew to womanhood. He came to believe, (or professed to believe), that God had cursed his marriage with Catherine, because she. was his brother Arthur's widow. Henr}' Henry V in 187 VIII. now denied that the Pope had any author- ity to set aside one of God^s laws, and demanded of Clement, who was the head of the church, that a divorce from Catherine be granted. This was the last and greatest labor imposed upon Wol- Holbein CARDINAL WOLSEY, sey. Wolsey failed; indeed, there was no pos- sibility for any man to succeed in this undertak- ing, because of the great power of Catherine's relatives, one of whom was then Emperor of 188 • Tke Tudor Kings Germany and the most powerful monarch in all Europe. Because of Wolsey's failure the king stripped him of all his wealth and offices and finally or- dered him to the Tower, ^^to be tried and exe- cuted'^ for treason. A fatal sickness seized him on his way from York to London, which forced him to rest at the Abbey of Leicester. As he entered the gate he spoke feebly to the good abbot and his brother priests who met him, and said: ^'I am come to lay my bones among you.'' Later, on his death- bed, he was ever talking of the king. To an of- ficer of the Tower he said: ^^He is a prince of most royal courage; sooner than miss any part of his will he will endanger one-half of his king- dom. Ah, sir, had I but served God as dili- gently as I served my king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs . " In Shakespeare's drama. King Henry VIII. , Wolsey says to Cromwell, his friend and trusted servant : "O Cromwell, Cromwell, Had I but sen'^ed my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." * So died Cardinal Wolsey, who raised England to great power among the nations of the earth. He was born among the lowly, a child of the peo- ple, but lived and died a firm believer in a gov- Hmry VIII 189 ernment for England in which the king's will was supreme; that alone, he declared, w^ould save England from civil strife and final subjec- tion to a foreign foe. He approved of the di- vorce, because he wished Henry to form an al- Hance with France by making a French princess queen of England. But the great nobles desired an alliance mth Spain and war with France. Henry had schemes of his own which some other minister than Wolsey must help him to work out. You should bear in mind that the English people held Wolsey responsible for the oppressive acts of the government, because he was the min- ister and adviser of the king. Henry, the real cause, was idolized during Wolsey's life, while Wolsey himself was generally hated by all ex- cept his intimate friends. Shakespeare says that he was ''Lofty and sour to those who loved him not; But to those who sought him sweet as summer." The divorce that Wolsey failed to obtain from the Pope, Henry determined to secure by other means. He declared that the church in Eng- land was free and independent of the Church of Rome, and of right ought to be. What the Church of Rome refused he commanded the Church of England to grant, and it was done. His marriage with Catherine was set aside and 190 The Tudor Kings his marri^-ge with Anne Boleyn (Ann Bul-in) was privately solemnized a short time afterward. Henry^s act in setting at naught the authority of the Pope was a challenge to the authority of the church, which was immediately accepted. The conflict that followed filled England with a thousand perils and threatened the king with the loss of his crown. You can hardly, imagine, judging from present conditions, the dangers which at that time beset the king on every hand. Nearly all the English people believed in the Catholic religion, but Henry was careful to make it clear that his conflict was not with the relig- ious faith and worship of the church, fie simply declared that his country was free from govesm- ment by the bishop of Rome. The king pro- claimed himself to be the governing povver of the church, while he admitted that the Pope was the supreme authority in all matters of religious faitho The king's new minister, Thomas Crom- well, was a Protestant, faithful to Henry's cause, and probably the ablest pilot in England to steer the ship of state through the storm that was now raging. The church owned one-fifth of all the land in England and some of the most power- ful lords, as well as bishops and priests, believed that Henry's claim to be the head of the church in England was treason against the divine law. But the education of the people since the time . Henry VIII '191 of Edward IV. (seventy years) had caused them to regard the king as supreme in the government. Henry agreed with Cromwell that the will of the king must be enforced with an iron hand, but that everything must be done according to the laws of the land. The king saw Wolsey's mis- take in trying to force parhament. He pro- ceeded to win the people and parliament by showing them that the interests of the king and their own interests were the same, and that they must support him if they would not become subject to a foreign power. There was a law of long standing in England which declared that any man who acted as the representative of the Pope to enforce his author- ity in England was guilty of treason, and that those who obeyed this representative were also traitors. Wolsey had disregarded this law and acted as the Pope's legate with Henry's approval and consent. The law had been ignored for many years and was considered a dead letter, but Thomas Cromwell saw in it the means of bring- ing the churchmen into his power. He declared that all the churchmen and the people who had obeyed them had committed treason. Henry im- mediately granted a pardon to all the people, but omitted to pardon the bishops and the p"riests until they paid him a very large sum of money and took an oath of allegiance to the King 192 The Tudor Kings as the supreme head of the church in Eng- land. Those who would not take this oath either fled from England or were executed as traitors. Nearly all submitted. Thus the church and all its wealth became subject to the king by law. Cromwell did everything according to the forms of law, but when the king called his parlia- ment and council together he summoned only such as were known to be of the king's party. So the will of the king was the will of parliament. Henry was a man of unbounded courage in meeting an open enemy, but Cromwell worked upon his fears until he became a coward in his dread of secret foes. Cromwell filled the coun- try with his spies, whose business it was to dis- cover the thoughts of men. Then he would in- vent some new oaths of allegiance which honest men must refuse to take if they would not perjure themselves. In this way he brought to their death many of the greatest and best men of Eng- land. Among the first whom he beheaded was Sir Thomas More, whom all Europe regarded as the greatest, the purest and the best of English- men. His offense was that he would not swear that in his conscience he approved of the divorce of Queen Catherine. Yet both the king and Cromwell knew that the king had no more loyal subject than More in all the realm. But he Henry VIII 193 would not call God to witness to the truth of a lie. The latter years of Henry, during the ministry of Cromwell, were a reign of terror among most of the people of note and influence throughout England. Only the Protestants were safe. The common people knew nothing of what was being done at court and Bluff King Hal remained their hero to the end. But both the king and Crom- well knew that where there was no intelligence there could be no constancy. Bad as this all seems to us now, the seeds of liberty of conscience and of freedom of the peo- ple were sown during this reign, and that of Ed- ward which followed, as never had been done before. Cromwell died the same manner of death that he had caused to be inflicted upon Sir Thomas More. Angered because his minister had ad- vised and persuaded him to marry a German princess, whom he could not endure because of her awkwardness and ugliness, Henry entered a charge of treason against Cromwell and hur- ried him to the block. Of the private character of Henry, especially after his divorce from Catherine, not much good can be told. He married five wives during the last fourteen years of his life. He beheaded two of these (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard), 194 The Tudor Kings divorced one (Anne of Cleves), one died a natural death (Jane Seymour, mother of Ehzabeth) and one survived him (Catherine Parr). The three children who survived him were Mary, whose mother was Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth, whose mother was Anne Bole^m, and Edward, the son of Jane Seymour. In the last seven years of his reign, after the execution of Cromwell, there was little to com- mend. He was pope of the English Church for fourteen years, and robbed the Cathohc Church of most of its lands and of its rich plate and jew- els, which were the gifts of pious people for cen- turies before. These all were wasted upon fa- vorites and in riotous living. He decreed that the doctrines of the Catholic Church should be the doctrines of the Church of England, and be- headed many of the great for treason, but Crom- well, while he lived, induced him to close his eyes to much of the Protestantism of the realm, and so heresy grew apace. During the last seven years of his life all but the lowest classes came to hate the king for his cruel exactions, and for his immoral life. He died unlamented, but with the independence of the English Church fully established as the law of the land. His was the first declaration of the independence of Eng- land. It was made by the king and was in- tended to apply only to the king. We shall Henry VIII 195 learn later of another declaration of independ- ence by the English people against the tyranny of their king. Arbitrary monarchy, which began with Ed- ward IV., reached its highest point in the reign of Henry VIII., and began to totter, to its fall be- fore he died. But it was not until the execution of Charles I., ninety years afterward, , that arbitrary monarchy received its death blow. Henry died a natural death, notwithstanding the wickedness of his later life, after be had reigned thirty-six years. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who was Henry VIII.? By what name did the people call him? Hov.' did he differ from his father? Who was his first prinie minister? What was Henry's success in war? How did he gain the title of De- fender of the Faith? What did Wolsey do for education in England? Bid Wolsey approve of Henry's love of war? Why? Who was Henry's wife? What service did Henry demand of Wolsey which he could not perform? Why could he not do it? How did the king punish him? Tell the story of Wolsey 'h disgrace and death. (Read it in Shakespeare's "King Henry VIII.") How did Henry finally secure a divorce? What did he give as grounds for ^ divorce? What was Henry's Declaration of Independence? Did he still hold to the Catholic Faith? By what trick did Henry establish by law his right to all the wealth of the church? Who succeeded Wolsey? Upon what plea did Henry order the execution of Sir Thomas More? How many wives did Henry have after he divorced Catherine? What was the fate of each? How many years did Henry reign? XIX. HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED. ^Trom the middle of the twelfth to the mid- dle of the fifteenth century was the period when the guilds controlled the industries in England/' That was a period of 300 years, from 1150 to 1450, or from the reign of Henry II., the Plantag- enet king, to Henry VII., the first Tudor king. This statement is not strictly true. In many places the guilds did not come into control of the industries until long after 1150, and they re- mained in control long after 1450. This latter was especially true in the rural districts. But in the large cities, and other centers of foreign trade, the first statement holds good. How was business carHed on after the guild period? Or perhaps a better form of the ques- tion would be, what was the industrial system that gradually took the place of the guilds? You remember that in the guild system the master workmen could determine how many should work at any trade, how much work should be done, and for what price it should be sold. 196 How the People Lived 197 They sought to supply only the demands of the people of the town and of the country immedi- ately surrounding the town. When foreign trade began, men began to pur- chase a quantity of raw material and work it up into manufactured goods to sell either at home or abroad, as a demand arose c The first manufacturer of this kind was called a clothier. He purchased wool and paid for having it made into cloth. There were men to do each part of the work. One set of men carded the wool and furnished it in rolls to the clothier; others spun these rolls into yam; another set, the weavers, wove the wool into cloth. Still others were the fullers and dyers, who prepared the cloth to be made into garments. One person might, also, re- ceive wool from the clothier and return it in cloth to the clothier, performing all the different stages of transformation in his own home. The laborers worked by the piece, or pound, return- ing the number of pounds of rolls or of yarn, or of cloth, corresponding to the amount of wool received. The clothier, whom we now call the manufacturer, then sold the cloth to tailors, or to merchants, or to any one who would pa}^ the market price — sometimes more and sometimes less. This was a transition period from guild industry to factory industry. It continued in England for at least 250 years, or from 1450 to 198 The Tudor Kings 1700, and the factory period did not become su- preme mitil the power of steam had been dis- covered and machinery had been invented for doing what had been done before by hand. While the industries were slowly going through these changes for six hundred years, the ques- tion of money became an important one. At fitst the king permitted individuals to coin money,' but required that it should be of a given purit}^ and weight. These men after a while either reduced the weight or added more alloy to the coin. This Was called ^^clipping the coins. ^' The king would punish these coiners of money for this by cutting off their fingers, or hands, or ears, or some other part,of the body, more or less, according to the amount they had stolen from the coins. By and b}^, the govern- ment took in hand the business of coining money and then the kings themselves took to ''clipping tho coins"; but there was no one above them in the nation to clip their fingers and ears to correspond. It is said that Henry VIII. and his immediate successors debased the English shilling until it contained less than one-seventh as much silver as it ought to have. This caused everything that people had to buy to rise to several times its real value, while the wages paid for labor did not rise one half as much. In this case the sovereigns became thieves and How the People Lived 199. robbers, and they were the more infamous be- cause they robbed the poor. It was when Queen Ehzabeth restored the coin- age to an honest standard of purity that busi- ness of all kinds began to prosper. Money is the medium of exchange. A shilling should contain a shilling's worth of silver if it is to be given in exchange for a shilling's worth of flour or of wool. If it contains less silver than justice requires, some one is sure to be defrauded, and it is quite apt to be the poor man who has not the oppor- tunities of the rich to protect himself. But little by little this and all other important mat- ters of government came to be directed by par- liament, and then the purity and weight of the coins remained unchanged, or were changed by due process of law so that no one suffered loss. Facilities for transportation grew even more slowly than the industries changed. The first coach in England was used by Queen Elizabeth. It was heavy and clumsy, made without springs, and went bumping over the rough roads to the great discomfort of its royal inmate. It often required ten or twelve horses to pull it through the mud, and they could not go faster than a walk. But little was done, by the government to secure good roads until a short time before our Revolutionary War. (1776) People trav- eled on horseback, and goods were transported 200 The Tudor Kings on the backs of horses and mules. But carts for transporting merchandise were used long before coaches were made. Queen Elizabeth was car- ried about in a sort of sedan chair which her courtiers bore upon their shoulders. When she took a long journey she generally rode on horseback. Did you know that the wives of George Wash- ington and of John Adams could not attend the inauguration of their husbands, as presidents, because they were not able to ride the long dis- tance on horseback, and because there were no roads for the heav}^ coaches then in use? Eng- land was some better off at that time, but the difference was slight. When the improvement of the roads began, it progressed more rapidly in England than in America. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. During what period did the Guilds control the industries in Eng- land? During what dynasty? Describe the industrial system that gradually took the place of the Guilds. What is money? Who were the first money coiners? How did they defraud the public? How were they punished? Who next robbed the people by ''clipping the coins"? To what extent were the coins debased in the reigns be- tween Henry VIII. and Elizabeth? When she restored the money to its full value what was the effect upon the business of the country? How was the first royal coach constructed? How many horses were required to draw it over the bad roads? XX. EDWARD AND MARY. 1547 — 1558. Henry VIII. died at the age of fifty-six after a very active and arbitrary reign of thirty-eight years. The Tudor family had ruled England for sixty-four years, which was the life of two generations at that time. A majority of the English people had been born under a govern- ment that acknowledged the right of kings to have their own way. But a star, yes, two stars, had arisen in the east, by whose light the divine right of the people ^^to life, liberty and the pur- suit of happiness" was to be discovered. One of these stars was called the ^'new learn- ing," -which taught that the people should have freedom to gain knowledge and to think as their reason prompted. The kings and priests had long thought for the people. They were now to begin to think for themselves. The other star lighted the way to freedom in religion which should eventually permit every 201 202 The Tudor Kings one to worship as his conscience directed. The scholars were apostles of the ^^new learning^' ; the ^ ^reformers " were apostles of the ^^new religion. '^ But the ^'new religion'^ found no favor in the eyes of Henry VIII. He would endure it so long as it aided hini in his personal conflict wit!i Rome, but when his own purpose was served he would have no more of it. He could not trust his government to the • Catholics, however, and so was compelled to leave it in charge of the Duke of Somerset, who was a Protestant. By Henry^s order Parliament made a law that his three living children should be heirs to the throne in the following order : 1. Edward. 2. Mary. 3. Ehzabeth. Edward was but ten years old when he became king. He was the sixth king of England bear- ing that name. For this reason he is known as Edward VI. EDWARD. * , Edward being too young to conduct thie af- faires of state, his f ather, . before his death, named a regency or council who should carry on the government in Edward's name tintil he should be eighteen years old. This council was composed of /'men of the new learning,"-, most of-^whoni were of the ''new religion'^ also. This gave Edward and Mary 203 great hope and comfort to the Protestant party in England who soiight to change at once the forms of worship, as well as some of the religious doctrines that Henry had tried to enforce. To counteract the tendency toward disorder in re- ligious practices the Book of Common Prayer was prepared, which has been used by the Church of England, with slight changes, down to the present time. The Book of Common Prayer, arranged by Cranmer, was printed in the, English language, and took the place of the service in Latin which had been used in all Catholic churches for 1,500 years. . ' The government by Edward's Council brought great suffering upon the laboring people, and the reforms in the church services were disliked by the country folk generally. The country peo- ple were not so favorable to changes in religious doctrine and practice as were the inhabitants of towns and cities. King Edward was a boy of delicate health and of a weak constitution, but he had a very active and precocious mind. The following exr- tracts from his private jpurnal show ,a maturity of thought remarkable and almost pathetic in a boy thirteen years of .ag€, .arid they are inter- esting also as showing the g^ttit^ude of his sister, Mary, towards the Reformation. [The saying of 204 The Tudor Kings mass was forbidden by the English law, but Mary still continued it in her private worship.] (edward^s journal, 1550.) (March 18.) The lady Mary, my sister, came to me at Westminster, where, after salutations, she was called with my Council, into a chamber ; where was declared how long I had suffered her mass, in hope of her leconciliation, and how now being no hope, which I perceived by her letters, except (unless) I saw some short amendment, I could not bear it. She answered, ^^that her soul was God's and her faith she would not change, nor dissemble her opinion with contrary doings. '^ It was said, ^^I constrained not her faith, but willed her not as a king to rule, but as a subject to obey; and that her example might breed too much inconvenience." (19) The Emperor's (Charles, of the German Empire) ambassador came with a short mes- sage from his master of war if I would not suffer his cousin, the princess, to use her mass. To this was no answer given at this time. (20) The bishops of Canterbury, London, Rochester, did consider that to give license to sin, was sin; but to suffer and wink at it for c. time might bo borne if all haste possible should be used to euro it. Edward and Mary 205 (25) The ambassador of the Emperor came to have his answer, but had none, saying, ''that one should go to the Emperor within a month or two to declare the matter." Edward died when he was sixteen years old. (1553) and his sister Mary Tudor, the oldest daughter of Henry VIII. ascended the throne by will of Henry VIII. and by act of ParHament. The Council of Edward VI. undertook to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, but the nation denied her right, and Mary sent her to the block for no fault of her own. QUEEN MARY. Mary Tudor was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. She became queen after the death of Edward VI., 1553-1558, by order of her father, as stated in his will, and also by an act of Parliament. She was true to her Spanish ancestry and to the Catholic church. With her coming to the throne the Protestant party was driven from power and the Catholic party restored. She showed, at first, a generous disposition, but counselors, among whom were the greatest rulers and churchmen of the w^orld, persuaded her to try to stamp out Protestantism in England. She inherited the strong will of her father, and soon entered upon a course of perse- cution of Protestants that caused her name 206 The Tudor Kings to be execrated by those who were opposed to the return of the English church to its former relations with the Pope of Rome. The first acts of her reign were to repeal most of the reformatory acts of Edward^s Council and Parliament. Her determined purpose was to restore papal authority and to marry her cousin Phihp, who was ,then prince of Spain and King of Naples. The majority of the Enghsh people did not strongly oppose a return to Cathol- icism, for their life under the Protestant rule of Edward^s Council had been a hard one. But they bitterly opposed the queen^s marriage with Philip, which would make Spain the ruling in- fluence in the English government. The plain people rose in rebellion under the leadership of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was a gentleman of in- fluence and a Protestant. This rebellion was put down, and it seems to have hardened the heart of Mary against the party of reform. Mary was married to Philip in July, 1554, and papal authority over the church was restored by act of the Parliament that Mary had called, and the law commanding the burning of heretics was again enforced. The influence of Philip in this matter may be seen in the following extract from a private letter to his sister: ^^With the intervention of the ParUament we have made a law, I and the most illustrious Edward and Mary 207 queen (Mary) for the punishment of heretics and all enemies of the church; we have revived the old ordinance of the realm which will serve this purpose very well." (This was the ordinance for the burning of heretics.) Mary^s loyalty to the mother church and her devoted love to her husband brought to her no happiness. Her husband did not return her affection, but left her after their marriage and never came back to England during her lifetime except for one brief visit. She had to ^^tread the wine-press alone." The church for which she sacrificed so much did not help her in her sore need. Heresy continued to spread in her own kingdom in spite of all the '^burnings." Many people, even of her own faith, disapproved of her bloody persecutions, and she was hated by all of her Protestant subjects. During her short reign of five years no less than 280 persons were burned to death in different parts of England for heresy. Among these were Cranmer, who had issued the divorce against Mary^s mother, Bishop Latimer, and Bishop Ridley. When these two preachers had been bound to the stake and the fagots lighted, Latimer cried out: ^^Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man ; we shall light such a candle in England to-day as, by God's grace, shall never be put out." 208 The Tudor Kings So terrible was the persecution of the Prot- estants that the five years of Mary's rule were known for many years afterward among the Protestants as the reign of Bloody Mary. But we must remember that we are now speaking of a period in which it was the common practice, if not the common belief, that heresy was treason against God, and should be punished by burn- ing at the stakeo Most of the Protestants con- formed in their outward lives to the commands of the queen, biding the time when they should be able to act according to their own convictions. But there were a few who would be true to their consciences, whatever the queen might order. These were the martyrs. According to the best authorities, 400 of these perished in one way or another, by Queen Mary's orders. It is prob- able that a majority of the English sympathized with Mary in her attachment to the teachings of the Roman church, but they could not approve of her treatment of those who believed and taught another faith. Her persecutions were abhor- rent to the English people in general, whether they held to the old faith or the new. The Catholic cause was weakened by her efforts to strengthen it. You will remember that when Henry VIII. was king he and his minister, Cromwell, selected their victims from the highest and most power- Edward and Mary 209 ful class in England. He proposed to root out treason by cutting off its head. But though Mary and her minister, Pole, could have laid their hands on earl and baron, knight and gen- tleman, whose heresy was notorious, and though, in the queen's own guard, there were many who never listened to mass, they dared not strike where there was danger that they would be struck in return. 'They took the weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his work-shop, the husbandman from his plow; they laid hands on maidens and boys, who had never heard of any other religion than that which they were called upon to abjure: old men tottering into the grave and children whose lips could just lisp the words of their creed; and of these they made their burnt offerings; with these they crowded their prisons and when filth and famine killed them, they flung them out to rot/^* Mary seemed to try to destroy treason by cutting off its feet. The queen was sincere ; by which is meant she was faithful to what she believed to be her duty. She undoubtedly believed that the hap- piness of her subjects here and hereafter de- pended upon their return, as a nation, to the old faith. She was not wanting in love for her *Green's Shorter History of England 210 The Tudor Kings people but she lacked wisdom to discern that the new faith had already taken deep root in their minds. She died a disappointed and broken-hearted woman, after she had reigned five years and failed in every undertaking that was near to her heart. Before we brand her as ^'Bloody Mary ^' we ought to consider whether the perse- cutions she ordered were of her own chocsinr, or whether she followed the advice of her coun- selors against her own better feelings. One ruler's mistaken notion of duty sometimes works as great harm as does the cruel selfishness of another. King Henry was selfish and cruel; Queen Mary was conscientious and dutiful; and yet Henry reigned beloved by the majority of the English people, while Mary's death was cause for general thanksgiving. As a woman there was much in her to approve, but she was wholly unfit to discharge the duties of arbitrary ruler of England at that period in the growth of the nation. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Why did Henry VIII. leave the government of England i:i the hands of Protestants? How old was Edward VI. when he became king? When did he die? What great book was prepared for UoO in the church during his reign? Wliat was the effect of the government of Edward's council upon the Knp:".:.'r.i people? Who was Mary Tu- dor? What relation was she to Ferdinand and Isabella of Sp-tl ? Edward and Mary 211 What was her reUgion? Wliat was one of the first acts of her gov- ernment? How was she received at first by the people? Whom did she subsequent!}- marry? What seemed to harden her heart against the Protestant-;? Can you explain how it was possible for l\Iary to secure an act of Parliament that the Church of England should re- turn to the Roman Catholic fold? WTiy was the queen called Bloody Mary? How did most of the Protestants escape persecu- tion? How did the persecutions of Mary affect the English people? What can you say on behalf of Mary as a woman? XXI. ELIZABETH. 1558 ~ 1603. On the death of Mary her half-sister Ehzabeth was proclaimed queen without opposition. Both Catholics and Protestants hoped for her favor. She had conducted herself as a good citizen during Mary's reign, and her Cathohc subjects hoped that she would find some middle ground on which she could rule without turning over the government to foreign influence and sanc- tioning bloody persecutions on the one hand, or giving the control of the government to bigoted Protestants on the other. Many of the Protestants on the contrary had a firm conviction that she would set up a strong Protestant government which would persecute the Catholics as Mary had persecuted them. She evidently determined from the first to be the queen of the whole English people, Cath- olic as well as Protestant. Before we begin the study of her reign it will be well to learn something of the character of 212 Elizabeth 213 Elizabeth and her personal fitness to be the arbitrary ruler of England, such as her grand- father, her father, and her sister, Mary, had been. Elizabeth came to the throne in her twenty- fifth year. Her education, under the great teacher, Roger Ascham, had been thorough and complete. She could read and write the Latin and Greek languages with ease, and could con- verse in the French, Italian, and German. She excelled in music, as well as in a knowledge of philosophy and history. She had her father^s bluff and hearty manner of address, his love of popularity among the common people, his fearlessness, his strong will and self-confidence, his pride, his indulgence in uncontrolled outbursts of anger, and much of his intellectual power, and ability to estimate the usefulness and trustworthiness of men. In her fits of anger she would ''swear at her minis- ters like a fish-wife, '^ and box the ears of her courtiers for what she called their insolence. She was like her mother in her self-indulgence, her love of gaiety and wit, her inordinate love of praise, her enjoyment of pomp and display, and her coquetry and lack of womanly delicacy. She had a passionate love of dress. It is s^id that her wardrobes were filled with more than two thousand rich and costly gowns. 214 The Tudor Kings Historians say that she was incapable of either sincere love or hate for any individual, ^^^K*- ^■^p^f^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^Hl^ Hlii^M^SJjjj^^^^^^H ^¥^ 4 ^^m^^^^M ^^^^^^^^^^^V/ \ ^ I^^^^^^^^^^^H^^H£rvv-.."^^^^^M| lyfl^^^^^^^l QUEEN ELIZABETH. ZttccTiero but that she loved her country and her people with an almost passionate devotion. She sought Elizabeth 215 to serve them by restoring order, both in re- Ugious worship and in society; by reheving them from burdensome taxes; by giving Eng- land peace; and by defending her crown from all foes whether at home or abroad. For these things she labored persistently for forty-four years and at her death England had not only been redeemed from her low estate but had again risen to a position of first rank among the nations of the earth. Her people were the freest and happiest in the world, and were fast becoming the wealthiest. As the first lady in the society of the court, Elizabeth was much like Anne Boleyn, (Bul-in) her mother. As sovereign she was Hke Henry Vin. in many things and far surpassed him in her desire for peace and her devotion to the welfare of her people. In society no flattery was so coarse and fulsome as to displease her. She would enjoy for hours the discourse of those who recounted her praises. In the council- chamber she would broojc nothing of this, but considered all questions in the spirit of a shrewd and diplomatic man of business. She marked out no well defined path to the goal she sought. This caused her to appear uncertain and often vacillating, until she saw clearly the next step to take : she decided upon only one step at a time. She worked her way from day to day and year 216 The Tudor Kings to year with unerring tact, ^^ never crossing a stream until she came to it/' EHzabeth never had any strong reUgious con- victions; they were all political. She had a Tudor's love for personal power and arbitrary rule, but she knew how to yield graciously when the people demanded it, and every such con- cession increased the nation's love for her. A new spirit of freedom was working among men and Elizabeth was great enough to feel and di- rect it without attempting to crush it. She had many personal faults, judged by our present standards, but her greatness and her good for- tune combined to give her a place in history that no other English ruler has since achieved. ELIZABETH AS SOVEREIGN. When Elizabeth sent a messenger to the Pope to announce her accession to the throne, the Roman Pontiff refused to recognize her as queen unless she acknowledged him as her feudal lord. You will remember that King John had conveyed his kingdom to the Pope and had received it back as a feudatory of the Roman See. The Pope now claimed his superior lord- ship over England. He also declared that Eliza- beth had no right to the throne by the laws of the church, because her mother was not the lawful wife of Henry VIII. The Pope had never con- Elizabeth 217 sented to the divorce of Catherine, and to Henry^s marriage with Anne Boleyn. This answer from the Pope made it plain to EUzabeth that her only safety la}^ in a union with her Protestant people, and she at once made per- manent the choice of a Council from the able and conservative members of that party. William Cecil, who had been an officer in the reigns of both Edward and Mary, was chosen her prime min- ister, and he served her in that office for forty years. Cecil was a Protestant at heart, but he considered it his duty to obey the laws of the realm, whether his sovereign was Protestant or Catholic. When Elizabeth came to the throne England was in a wretched condition. The nation had been dragged into foreign wars by Philip of Spain and humiliated by defeat, and now Philip was to become an active enemy. The two parties in England were on the verge of a civil war. The English people were discontented with their hard lot and ready for rebellion. The govern- ment was in debt and had no money in the treas- ury. There was neither army nor navy to de- fend the land from threatened invasion by num- erous enemies. Whether the nation should rise again to power, or should cease to exist as an independent people, seemed to depend upon the wisdom of a young woman who came to the 218 The Tudor Kings throne as an arbitrary didtator of the fortunes of England. No Enghsh monarch ever faced so many difficulties and dangers, and none ever achieved so brilliant a success. She called a Parliament of moderate Protest- ants, and they gave their attention to the quell- ing of the religious storm that was raging. The Church of England was firmly established in this reign, never again to be overthrown. The queen became head of the church in power, but not in name. She chose for her minister of the church the great Bishop Parker who was both coura- geous and wise. It was his duty to restore order in the church, and he did it. The queen did not seek to interfere with the private thoughts and convictions of the people, but they must obey the laws in their conduct. The laws required all to attend church, and forbade the priests to preach any doctrine or conduct any service other than the law sanctioned. Wrangling was for- bidden, and, in time, so much social order was restored as the strong arm of the law could en- force. The queen, as has been said, sought to im- prove the condition of the people by livmg at peace with other nations. Her repeated order to her Council was 'There must be no war." In this she followed in the footsteps of Wolsey rather than in those of her father. By -a pro- Elizabeth 219 longed peace, and through the increase of com- merce with other nations and the encourage- ment of industries at home, she hoped to make the Hves of the poor easier and happier. She im» posed no taxes upon the people, but paid the ex- penses of the government and the national debts out of the revenues of the crown which the laws had established. She was called penurious and even miserly, but in time the wisdom of her course became apparent. The people's condi- tion improved, and they gave their queen the credit for it. Year by year loyalty to the queen grew, until it became a passion among her sub- jects, both Catholic and Protestant. Elizabeth could not have done this without the aid of her ministers, but it would have been impossible for her ministers to have done it without the queen. She undertook to maintain peace abroad by what is called diplomacy. At that time diplo- macy among nations consisted chiefly of a net- work of artful deceptions. Ehzabeth was very skilful in making unfriendly nations believe what she said, and in awakening so strong a hope that she would do as they wished that they were willing to wait. Every year of peace added to the strength of England to defend herself against her enemies when war finally came. More than one of the rulers of other nations wished to marry Elizabeth, and for some years she kept their 220 The Tudor Kings representatives dancing attendance at her court. Her main object was to gain time for the dis- cordant elements in the nation to come into a closer union through a growth in patriotism and loyalty and love for order and peace. Elizabeth not only supported the new religion, to the degree that seemed safe to the internal peace of her kingdom, but she was an earnest ad- vocate and patron of the new learning. By the encouragement given to it in her reign England attained a high place among the nations of the earth in literature, in science, and in philosophy. This period was called the Elizabethan age of literature, and it continued to the reign of Charles I. The bright particular star of this age was Shakespeare, but there were many others who, at that time, were thought by many to far excel him. The master mind in philosophy and sci- ence was Francis Bacon. These and such as these were the fruit of an age which could not have been if Mary had been queen of England for fifty years. This period of greatness would have come some time, no doubt, but it would have been long delayed. Twelve years passed before the rulers of Europe discovered that Elizabeth had been play- ing with them, and that she had determined to live and die the sole ruler of her country. For various reasons her excommunication by Elizabeth 221 the Roman pontiff had been delayed » It is probable th^.t he hoped that the influences at work would induce Elizabeth to return to the mother church. The decree of excommunica- tion was issued in 1570. This decree might be said to set a price on the head of the queen „ By it the subjects were told that to be loyal to the queen was to be disloyal to the church. While this decree only strengthened the loy- alty of most of her subjects, it increased Eliza- beth's danger. But she lived on and on from year to year, and many of the Catholics became her most loyal subjects. It was eighteen years after her excommuni- cation before Philip of Spain, having despaired of securing her hand, sent the fleet called the In- vincible Armada and a large army to invade England, and to take possession of the English throne. England had been granted to him by the Pope on condition that he would go and take it. The English people rushed to arms as if by common impulse, and great armies assembled to resist the landing of the Spanish forces. You may learn something of the courage and spirit of Elizabeth from her address to her army which had assembled to defend her crown. As reported by one writer, she spoke as follows : ^'My loving people: we have been persuaded [urged] by some that are careful of our safety, 222 The Tudor Kings to take heed how we commit ourseflf to armed multitudes^ for fear of treachery; but I assure you that I do not wish to Uve to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I come unto you at this time, not for recreation and sport, but being re- solved in the midst and heat of battle to live or die amidst you all; to lay down for my people my honor and my life, even in the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and f-eeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, and think foul scorn that Parma [the Spanish general] or Spain [Philip] or any prince of Europe shall dare* to invade the borders of my realm to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I will myself take up arms; I my- self, will be your general, and the judge of every one of your virtues in the field/^ THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA. Philip^s generals came to take possession of Eng- land with 131 large warships, an army of 20,000 trained soldiers and 8,000 sailors, and nearly 20,000 more soldiers to follow immediately. There is a story that when this Invincible Ar- mada, as Philip called it, entered the English Elizabeth 223 channel, the great Enghsh sailors, Lord How- ard, Captain Drake, Captain Hawkins, Captain Frobisher, and others, were playing a game of bowls on Plymouth green. When the messen- ger brought the news that the fleet w^as in sight, Lord Howard would have set sail at once to at- tack it, but Captain Hawkins declared that there was time enough to finish the game and whip Philip afterward. Francis Drake agreed with him, and the game was finished. They then sailed out toward the Spanish fleet. The commander of the fleet had orders to stop for nothing until he reached Dunkirk, a port on the continent opposite the mouth of the Thames river, and then to carry the Spanish army, there assembled, across to England and await the sur- render of the English crown. So the Armada did not stop to send to the bottom of the chan- nel the little fleet of little ships (eighty in num- ber) at Plymouth, and this little fleet followed after them to be ready to deal with any strag- glers from the Spanish fine. When one of the Spanish ships ran into another and dropped be- hind, the English captains seized upon it and found a large number of elegant swords which were to be presented to Philip^s officers of state as soon as the Spanish government was set up in England. The Spanish army at Dunkirk, which was then 224 The -Tudor Kings a Spanish port, was taken on board the ships, but, by this time, a large number of EngUsh boats and merchant vessels had joined the English fleet, and they appeared to be so plucky, and to move so rapidly, and to fire such large balls from their big cannon, that the Invincible Armada did not care to come out from the bay of Dun- kirk into the open sea where Hawkins, and Drake, and the rest could get at them. The English had to ^^smoke them out'' of Dunkirk by setting on fire some scows filled with tar barrels and other combustibles, and then leaving them for the wind to drive in amongst the great galleys and fine ^^galleasses'' that were the pride of wealthy and powerful Spain. In their haste to get out of the way of the burning scows some of these fine boats cut their cables and began to drift about, knocking against each other in hopeless confusion. Their only hope was to get out of the harbor into the open sea, but when once out the little ships of the English ran up close to these floating palaces and fired their cannon balls through their sides, sinking some of them, killing hundreds of soldiers packed closely within, exploding their powder- magazines, shooting holes into their fresh-water reservoirs, and then they sailed away before the slow-moving Spaniards could get at them. The enemy declared that the cannonading of the Eng- Elizabeth 225 lish was the loudest, the most rapid, tho most de- structive of anything ever known in war. (Prob- ably they thought the same of Dewey^s fleet in Manila bay.) The English ships could sail twice as fast as the great ships of the Spaniards. It should be remembered that there were no steam- ships at that time. The largest of these Span- ish vessels were propelled by oars that were worked by galley slaves. Well, this fight was kept up v/ith very little damage to the English, ufitil the Spaniards de- termined to set sail and leave the pesky wasps behind and come back at them from another quarter. The English had not destroyed the ^Tnvincible Armada, '^ but even its invincibility could not endure many hours of such terrific fire. When they got out to sea the Spaniards found that many of their ships had no anchors, having left all they had in Dunkirk bay. So the only thing for them to do was to keep sailing. Then a storm arose, which drove them toward the north. The great vessels were not built to with- stand the storms of the stormy North Sea. They either went on the rocks or down to the bottom. A few of them sailed northward around the Brit- ish Isles and 53 of the 134 that had set out, finally reached Spain. Of the 30,000 soldiers and sail- ors who started out to take Queen Elizabeth 226 The Tudor Kings prisoner, only a few hundred ever returned to their native land. Do you ask why the English did not pursue them and send them all to the bottom of the sea without trusting to the storms to finish the de- struction they had begun? The reason seems to be that Elizabeth^s government had no of- ficer at the head of the department of the navy who saw the necessity of preparing an ample store of everything that would be needed when the ^'unconquerable fleet^^ should arrive. Not enough powder and balls had been provided to shoot holes enough into the Spanish fleet to sink it. So the English captains were compelled to return to port, because some officer had blun- dered or neglected his duty. Some say that Queen Elizabeth inherited the stinginess of her grandfather, Henry VII., and would not permit her minister to make the preparation needed to meet the enemy. She seems to have relied upon the people to provide what was needed at their own private expense, for the government had less than forty ships of its own. Before the Armada started north, about 140 craft of all sorts joined the English fleet, only thirty-three of these belonged to the government. The rest were supplied by the cities, especially London, which alone armed and manned as many vessels as did the queen ; the rest were equipped Elizabeth 227 by private citizens. Of all this number only one was destroyed by the Spaniards, and that was a small vessel belonging to Mr. Cock, who was himself killed in the fight. Sixteen of these 140 vessels did nearly all the fighting. At a later period, when Philip was ready with another fleet to invade England, the merchants, without the aid of the government, sent a fleet down to Spain which entered the Spanish har- bor where Philip's ships lay at anchor, burned or sunk nearly all of them, and then sailed home again in almost as good a condition as w^hen they first set out. Sir Francis Drake called this ^^the singeing of King Philip's beard." So it seems that our English grandfathers long ago taught their American grandsons how to enter a Spanish harbor, destroy a Spanish fleet, and take possession of a Spanish city without much peril to life or limb. The defeat of the Armada seems to have quickened the beat of every heart in England. Business at home, commerce abroad, explora- tions and settlements in the New World, capture of the treasure-ships of Spain — new life mani- fested itself everywhere. Within forty years after that event the great age of English literature reached its culmination. Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Raleigh, Hooker, Hobbs, Ben Jonson, are but a few of the great 228 The Tudor Kings lights whose works still illumine the literature of the English race. This great victory secured the independence of England, and established her supremacy on the sea. It stimulated the growth of Protestantism, and made England a Protestant nation. It established for all time the right of the representatives of the people in Parliament to determine the policy of the gov- ernment in all things that concerned religion and property. The Elizabethan age was great because the people were great, and their queen and government were content to move slowly from one step of advance to another as the peo- ple saw their way. LATER YEARS. The personal danger to the queen increased as the power of England increased. Her ene- mies, after learning that Protestant England was able to cope with Catholic Europe both in diplomacy and in war, resorted to conspiracy to rid the world of this powerful leader of the Prot- estant movement. Until the defeat of the Ar- mada it was believed that England would fall an easy prey to the armies of Spain and Franco whenever they chose to act in concert. Mary, Queen of Scots, was declared by them to be the rightful queen of England. She de- manded that Parliament should by law recognize Elizabeth 229 her as Elizabeth's successor. This was refused although she was the next by birth in the royal line. The English would not have a Catholic sovereign. Mary was the daughter of Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII. , and, therefore, cousin to Elizabeth. Mary was driven out of Scotland by her Protestant subjects, and took refuge in England. What to do with her was a hard ques- tion for Elizabeth. So long as she was there she was the center of conspiracies against the life of the queen. Elizabeth's Council demanded that she should be put to death, since she would be a constant menace to the peace of England so long as she lived, whether in England or elsewhere. Elizabeth refused for a long time to resort to such extreme measures. She finally yielded to the entreaties of Cecil and signed the wart-ant for her execution, but commanded the secretary not to deliver it to her ministers until she should so order. It seems that it immediately found its way to Cecil, then Lord Burleigh, and Mary was executed at once, lest Elizabeth should change her mind if there were any delay. This act was received with horror throughout all Europe, and then began the secret plots against the life of Elizabeth. Elizabeth abhorred the shedding of blood, but there seemed to her and her Council no other way to stamp out the secret conspiracies that 230 The Tudor Kings were formed at many points in England. To seek the life of the sovereign was treason, and persons who were convicted of it by the courts were sent to the block. As many such traitors were put to death by Elizabeth as were burned at the stake in the reign of Mary. We see from these events, and from many oiihers like them before and since the reign of Elizabeth, how groat was the cost to our English grandfathers of our present liberty of worship, and of our freedom to govern ourselves. Nor should we harbor feelings of bitterness against the rulers of those days, nor towards the Catholics and Protestants for their hatred of one another. It was a time of sharp conflict of opinion about what was right. The Catholics believed that the Protestants were traitors against God's government; the Protestants be- lieved that there was a purer religion than that represented by the lives and practices of many, and especially the upper classes, who professed the Catholic faith. Religion and politics were intermingled, and many things were done by ambitious politicians in both the church and the state which were contrary to the teachings of both the Catholic and the Protestant faith. Elizabeth was half Catholic in her convictions, but she had no religious feelings. To her the church was merely a political power which must be reckoned with by the ruler of the nation. Elizabeth 231 In estimating the personal character of Ehza- beth we must not forget that she was, in her mind, two different persons in one. As the daughter of her mother she was frivolous, and vain, and false as Anne Boleyn; as her father's daughter she had inherited much of the strength of Henry VIII. without some of his glaring de- fects. She was great in spite of her defects, as was her father. The reign of Elizabeth made permanent the Church of England and its relation to the gov- ernment. It also was the source of two relig- ious movements : 1 . The one was away from all legalized forms of religion toward freedom to worship God ac- cording to the dictates of conscience — Puritan- ism. 2. The other was a movement from the Church of England back toward the Roman Catholic Church — Catholicism. Elizabeth did not approve of either, and the conflict between the former class, at first called Puritans, and the government, led in after years to a great revolution in England, which will be considered in another chapter. Elizabeth died in 1603, having ruled as queen of England for forty-five years. Shakes- peare, the contemporary of the queen, in his drama of King Henry VIII. , makes Archbishop 2^2 The Tudor Kings Cranmer, at the christening of the infant Eliza- beth, give utterance to the following prophecy : "Let me speak sir, For heaven now bids me ; and the words I utter Let none think flattery, for they'll find them truth. This royal infant (Heaven still move about her!) Though in her cradle, yet now promises Upon this land a thousand, thousand blessings. Which time shall bring to ripeness : She shall be A pattern to all princes living mth her, And all that shall succeed : Sheba was never More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue, Than this pure soul shall be ; all princely graces That mould up such a mighty piece as this is With all the virtues that attend the good Shall still be doubled on her ; truth shall nurse her, Holy and heavenly thoughts shall counsel her; She shall be loved and feared ; her own shall bless her; Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn. And hang their heads with sorrow : Good grows with her; In her days every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine what he plants, and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors. God shall be truly known, and those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honor And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. She shall be to the happiness of England An aged princess ; many days shall see her And yet no day without a deed to crown it.*' This has the form of that praise said to be very pleasing to Elizabeth, but history declares thrt Shakespeare but faintly voiced the sentiments of the English people when she ceased to rule. SOME GREAT BOOKS OF THE TUDOR PERIOD. The reign of the Tudors not only caused a great impetus toward religious and political Elizabeth 233 freedom ; it gave also some of the greatest books in the EngUsh tongue. The six greatest of these were : 1. Utopia. This was written by Sir Thomas More, whom Plenry VIII. put to death because he would not publicly declare that the king could take the place of the Pope in granting a divorce. More was a true Englishman, but he believed that the Pope was the supreme authority in mat- ters of marriage. The meaning of '^ Utopia ^^ is nowhere. Why did he call his book ^^No-where"? His wish was to describe an island such as did not then exist, but such as he hoped Britain might some day become. ^^Nowhere^^ was the name he gave to this island, and his book, Uto- pia, was the description of it. It was the first of these six great books written in 1526. 2. The second, in order, was The Fairie Queen. (1580) This is a long poem of twenty- four parts, or cantos. It is the story of a knight called the Red-Cross Knight, and of a beautiful maiden called Una. Like Utopia, this poem had a hidden meaning. It represents the strug- gle of good against evil in the world, and sug- gests with becoming delicacy that Queen Eliza- beth is the moving force for good in England. It is a famous book by Edmund Spenser, the sec- ond great poet of the English nation; Chaucer, the father of English poetry, being the first. 234 The Tudor Kings 3. The third of these books, the Book of Common Prayer, compiled under the direction of Cramner, was first printed in the reign of Ed- ward VI. (1549) The book now used in the Church of England is a modification of this, but the changes that have been made do not detract from the greatness of the original. 4. The fourth is Shakespeare's Dramas. He wrote his plays in the reigns of Elizabeth and King James I. Many other famous authors lived at that time, among whom were Ben Jon- son, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sir Walter Raleigh, but none of them now takes rank with Shakes- peare. 5. Francis Bacon's Essays is another one of the great books that properly belongs to the Tu- dor period, though Bacon did most of his liter- ary work during the reign of James I., the first Stuart king. He was the author of other works on philosophy, which are sometimes called the beginning of the scientific method of thinking. He is sometimes called the father of modern science. 6. The greatest book of all is the English Bible, which was translated by scholars in the reign of James I., but they belonged to the Eliz- abethan period of English literature, and the translation should be credited to the Tudor period. Elizabeth 235 The manners of this period were crude and boorish, often, when measured by the present standards, but no time has excelled that of the Tudors in the greatness of its men. OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE. One thing happened in the Tudor period that deserves mention, though it has little to do with the freedom, the art, or the literature of the peo- ple, nor with their industries. It is more nearly related to science. In the reign of Queen Eliz- abeth (1582) the pope ordered that on a certain day everybody in all Christendom should drop ten days out of the calendar. This meant that Christmas and every feast day, or fast day, or holiday, should come ten days earlier than it had come before. This new style of dating events applied to business transactions, the dating of letters, and to everything that had a date at- tached to it. The Roman Catholic countries all obeyed this order, but England gave no more heed to it than she had given to any other order of the Pope. It will be remembered that the pope had excommunicated Elizabeth from the church of which he was head, but to which Eliz- abeth had never belonged. It would hardly be expected, therefore, that she would obey the Pope's order to change the calendar in England. In the eastern part of Europe it was the Greek 236 The Tudor Kings and not the Roman church that directed what the people should believe, and how they should worship, and they did not obey the order of Pope Gregory. But throughout Catholic Europe the change was made. This introduced into the world two styles of dating events. Christmas in the New Style came ten days sooner than it did in the Old Style. The order of Pope Gregory was a very wise one, and should have been obeyed by everybody, whether Catholic, or Protestant, or Greek. It was wise, because the calendar had gone ahead of the seasons ten days since it was established and if it kept on long enough midwinter would come in June by the almanac, instead of in Jan- uary. How could that be? It happened in this way : When the Emperor Julian made the first cal- endar it was not known just how long it took the earth to revolve around the sun. They knew it was 365 days and about 6 hours. But the ex- act time is 36*5 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 49 seconds. So the calendar makes the year 11 minutes and 11 seconds too long. When Greg- ory was Pope (1582) the error had grown through the centuries since Julian (350 A. D.) to ten days, and Christmas was in the calendar where the 5th day of January ought to be. It was a good thing, therefore, for all the civilized people Elizabeth 237 in the world to have the calendar corrected, but it was 175 years before England adopted the new style, and Russia follows the old style to this day. When England made the change the error amounted to eleven (11) days. The Russian calendar is now 12 days ahead of ours. We now count every fourth year a leap year and give it 366 days as the Julian calendar did. How does the new style avoid the growth of 1 1 minutes and 11 seconds of error each year? This problem is suggested to those who do not know the answer. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who was Elizabeth? Trace her relationship to William the Conqueror. What was the hope of the Catholics and of the Prot- estants when she came to the throne? What do you know of her edu- cation? How was she like her father? Like her mother? How did the Pope receive her? Was she Protestant from religious con- viction? What was the condition of the country? How did she stop ^v^angling over religion? Why did she insist upon maintain- ing peace with other nations? Who were her two greatest ministers? Why was her reign called the Elizabethan Age of Literature? How was she able to maintain peace so long? In her diplomacy was she truthful? How long before the Pope finally excommunicated her? How did that increase her personal danger? Why did Philip delay so long before opening war upon England? How long had she been queen when the Invincible Armada ap- peared? How many ships of war in the fleet? How many soldiers were ready to invade England? Tell the story of the English cap- tains and their game of bowls on Plymouth green. How did the size of the English fleet compare with that of the Spaniards? Tell the story of the naval battle and of smoking the enemy out of Dunkirk harbor. How many Englishmen were killed? How many ot the 238 The Tudor Kings English vessels took any important part in the fight? What effect did this great victory have upon the English people? Upon the other nations? How did it increase the danger of the queen? Who was the head of the conspiracy against Elizabeth? Why did the Eng- lish Parliament refuse to declare Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's successor? Name the six greatest books in the Elizabethan age. What is the difference between the New Style and the Old Style of reckoning time? Why this difference? )!- XXIT. WHO WERE THE PURITANS? You have learned that from the tune Martin Luther began the great Reformation, some eighty years before the period we are now study- ing, there were two classes of religionists in Europe at war with each other; the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. At first the Protestants merely asked to be let alone and to be allowed to worship as they thought best. But when they grew stronger some of their lead- ers began to insist that they alone had discov- ered the truth, and that all other sects of Prot- estants, as well as the Catholics, ought to wor- ship according to their direction. They were even more tyrannical than the Catholic bishops and priests, and much more so than the Pope. The Protestants became divided into sects. The followers of Luther were called Lutherans, and the followers of Calvin were called Presbyterians because they were governed by a council called a presbytery. The Calvinists and the Luther- ans on the continent soon began to quarrel with each other, and in some cases they came to hate 239 240 The Tudor Kings each other more than either hated the CathoHcs. It was a time when people had narrow and bigoted views about all matters and were very su- perstitious. Each sect believed it knew God's thoughts and will, and that all other sects were teaching a false doctrine about him that would ruin the souls of those who accepted it. The case in England was somewhat different. The Protestants remained protesters against the Pope's authority to dictate what they should think or how they should worship, but until the coming of James I. they submitted to the dicta- tion of their own sovereign concerning the forms of worship, while they held themselves free to think as seemed to them most reasonable. A number of translations of the Bible had been made into both the English and German lan- gviages. But the books were very expensive and difficult for the common people to obtain. Neither the church nor the rulers were generally favorable to the circulating of the Scriptures among the people. But Henry VIII., in the midst of his church reforms, ordered that a copy be chained to every pulpit and that all be free to read it. Edward VI. and Queen Eliz- abeth ordered that the people should be free to read the Bible or to listen to the reading of it by others. It became the book most diligently read by all the plain people and Who Were the Puritans f 241 the gentlefolk. The inhabitants of London crowded the churches daily to listen to those ^ Vho could read well and had audible voices. '^ The great poet and scholar, John Milton, was the noblest example of the English Protestants. We would now call him a Christian gentleman, seriously religious without bigotry. But the great mass of Protestants were not scholars. They had little sympathy for the '^new learning/' but the Bible revealed to them a new order of life, whose chief virtue was its purity from the sin and wickedness so prevalent in the high life of the period. They believed in this purity of life with their ' Vhole mind, and soul, and strength.'^ By the ^^fashionable folk'' they were called Puritans, in derision; but they accepted the name as an honorable distinction. If we remember that these middle and lower classes of Englishmen read only the one book, the Bible, that they believed this to be God's word to the world, and that they read and studied it until much of it was committed to memory, we will understand why it was that so much of the language of the Bible was used by these Puri- tans in their every-day speech. WTien the sun burst through the dissolving mists on the morning before the battle of Dun- bar, Oliver Cromwell hailed it as a sign of victory with the words of David: ''Let God arise, and 242 The Tudor Kings let his enemies be scattered. Like as the sun riseth so shalt thou drive them away.'' The names of children, and some surnames, were taken from the Bible, and many of them are still found among the descendants of Puri- tan families. The soldiers and officers in Crom- well's army had such names as Ebenezer Rest- in-the-Lord, 0-be-thankful Johnson, Solomon Praise-God, and the like. A strong desire and firm resolve to reform the government and to strike down the wicked and sinful in high places grew from year to year among the Puritans. They were not satisfied with the mild form of Puritanism of John Milton. They wanted something more active. As the Puritans grew in numbers and strength sects arose among them. The strongest of these was that of the Presbyterians. A professor of divinity in Cambridge University by the name of Cartwright was the leader of this sect. No Spanish inquisitor, the most cruel of all Catholic persecutors, was ever so despotic and cniel as he. For those who were not Presbyterians he had only one punishment; that was death. He de- clared that ^^all spiritual power, all creeds, all forms of worship could only be determined by an assembly of Presbyterian ministers." They were to declare what every one should believe, and to punish those who disbelieved. All who did not Who Were the Puritansf )243 SO believe were heretics. Of these he wrote: ^'I deny that these heretics, even if they repent of their heresy, should be pardoned. They should suffer death. Heretics ought to be put to death now. If this be bloody, and extreme, I am con- tent to be so counted, for with me must be count- ed the Holy Ghost.^' It seems to us impossible that a leader in a Christian church could advocate such wicked- ness and call it religion. But it must be remembered that such men read their Bibles with only one idea in their minds. They could see nothing in it but death to unbelievers, and it appeared to them that those who denied their own interpretation of the Bible's words should die. When we learn that such were the teachings of Protestants who pro- fessed to believe in freedom of worship, those who are Protestants now will find some excuse for the persecutions by the Catholics at that time and before. They will charge these evils more to the ignorance and intolerance of men than to their wickedness. We shall see later how great a part these sects of Puritan Protestants played in England after King James and King Charles had worn out their patience in trying to enforce their own claims of divine right to do wrong without much regard to those whom they wronged. 244 Tlie Tudor Kings SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who were the Puritans? Who was John Milton? What weak- ened the union and power of the Protestants on the Continent? What caused the great difference between the two classes of Puritans represented by John Milton and Professor Cartwright? What book did the Puritans know by heart? What difference do you see be- tween the spirit of such Puritans as Prof .Cartwright and the counsel- ors of Queen Mary? Why was it that the spirit of religious perse- cution ran so high in this period? THE STUART KINGS. 1603—1714. XXIII. JAMES I. 1603—1625. We have now come to a period in this story of our English grandfathers in which occurred the last and bloodiest struggle between the rul- ers and their subjects. The Tudors and the Plantagenets had all declared that the will of the king was supreme, but they had generally sought to make it so under the forms of law. The many charters that the kings had granted gave the peo- ple a right to representatives in a parliament that should help to make the laws for the nation, especially those regulating taxes. It has often been repeated in these pages that these charters and the laws and decisions made to enforce them in the different reigns came to be regarded as the constitution of England. In this there is a marked difference between the constitution of England and that of the United States. 245 24G The Stuart Kings The Plantagenet and the Tudor rulers gener- ally controlled the Parliament, and only such laws were made as they approved. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Par- liament felt a greater independence, but Eliza- beth was so much beloved by the people that she generally had her way with the lawmakers. All of these monarchs believed that they alone had the right to make the laws of the nation, but they often found it to their interest to throw the re- sponsibility for an unpopular law back upon the Parliament, and claim the credit of its repeal when it met with too much opposition. While they all claimed to rule by right of birth — which is another name for ^ ^divine right' ^ — they were careful to have the Parliament declare them elected according to the ancient law of the realm, and to secure an act of Parliament when they wanted money. Elizabeth died intimating her wish that the King of the Scots be her successor. Parliament immediately elected James VI. of Scotland, who was the son of Mary Stuart. (Mary would have been queen of England by right of biith, but there was a law of Parliament that forbade a Catholic to sit on the throne.) James was king, therefore, both by right of inheritance and by act of Parliament. But he cared little for the en- dorsement of Parliament. He held that the James t m English throne was his by divine right, and that ParUament had no authority in the matter. Who was this King James? The Stuart family had filled the throne of Scotland for 232 years. The father of Mary, Van Dyck, JAMES I. Queen of Scots, was a Stuart king. Her mother was the daughter of the sister of Henry VIII. James was not a Tudor in personal dignity. He had '^a big head, a slobbering tongue, rickety legs, goggle eyes, and wore quilted clothes,'' as 248 The Stuart Kings a protection against assassination. '^His gabble and want of personal dignity, his coarse buffoon- ery and drunkenness, his pedantry and want of physical courage' ' were all in marked contrast to the Tudor sovereigns. But he was more of a man than this description would indicate. He had much native ability, was a ripe scholar, shrewd of observation, and ready of wit. He was an extensive reader and had a good memory. He prided himself on knowing theology better than the bishops. Henry IV. of France said of him that he was the ^ Wisest fool in Christen- dom. '^ He spun many theories, but could never weave them into garments that would fit any practical demand. Such a personality was utterly unfit to rule England. When the Tudor statesmen spoke of their sovereign as absolute and supreme, they meant that he owed allegiance to no foreign ruler, nor to the Pope. But James meant by it that his people had no rights except those he chose to grant them. He had said, and often repeated, that ^^as it was blasphemy to dispute what God can do, so it was presumption for a subject to say that a king cannot dp this or that;'' and he declared that the bishops had the same rights in the church that he had in the state. There were many Protestants in England that believed in all the essential requirements of the James I 249 Church of England, but objected to the wearing of gowns, and genuflections that seemed to them only imitations of the practices of the Catholics, and which they thought it wrong to follow. They a3kcd that they be permitted to omit in their church service these forms which their con- sciences forbade them to use. James replied in anger : ^^I will make you conform or I will harry you out of the land.'^ Enough has been said to show how impossible it was for the people of England and their new king to live peaceably together. James believed in the supremacy of the Church of England, and declared himself to be its head as Henry VIII. had done before him. During Elizabeth's reign Parliament had come to be acknowledged as a very important part of the government, but the queen called for its assistance no oftener than was necessary. With the queen's consent a law was passed forbidding the sovereign to levy taxes upon the people, ci duties upon imports and exports, without tie consent of Parliament. Although Elizabeth opposed every other form .of worship than that of the English church, ^he often closed her ears and eyes to religious doc- trines and practices that she did not approve. So it happened that a good deal of freedom of worship grew up during her reign. James soon 250 The Stuart Kings changed all this and enforced the law of conform- ity in worship with great rigor. The members of Parliament were generally good churchmen, but they did not believe in being too severe on those who were not. The two classes who wished forms of worship different from those of the English Church were the Catholics and the Puritans. Both of these were bitter against the tyranny of King James. James tried to rule without a parliament after his first experience with one, and to raise money by illegal means; but after some years, when these means failed, he was compelled to call a new Parliament. The only condition upon which it would vote him money was that he yield some of his lofty pretensions to being a monarch by divine right, and that he obey the English constitution and refrain from taxing the people without the consent of Parliament. Whenever Parliament set forth these demands his divine majesty would grow very wroth, and send them home about their business. He would then try once more to get money by what he called his ^ ^prerogative, ^^ which really meant by his right as king. He would fail and then call another Par- liament. Each Parliament made greater de- mands upon him than the former one. He was finally compelled to yield in the matter of illegal taxations, but he held to his persecution of the James I 251 Puritans and the Catholics for their refusal to conform in their worship to the forms of the Church of England. This persecution of the Puritans caused many of them to leave England. They went first to Holland and afterwards to America. In 1620 some of them set sail from Holland in the ship Mayflower. The last town they stopped at in England after they set sail, was Plymouth, where, you remember, the great English sea cap- tains were playing their game of bowls when the ^^Invincible Armada'^ came up the channel. So it came about that the spot on which the Puri- tans first landed in Massachusetts was called Pl3niiouth, and the stone on which they first set foot when they left the ship was called Ply- mouth Rock. Wlien you go to Boston you will spend a day in visiting Plymouth, and you will look upon Pl3niiouth Rock and remember that this is where the Puritans landed in December, 1620, and that they came because King James I. of England would not allow them to worship in England in the way that their consciences told them was right. And you should remember, too, that it was not a Catholic but a Protestant king that denied to them this freedom. You may wonder how a king could disregard the rights of the people for years, as James and 252 The Stuart Kings his son Charles did, and still continue to rule and to heap insults upon the people's representative in Parliament. It was for the following reasons: 1. For many generations the people had looked upon their rulers with great reverence and as superior beings who could do no wrong as kings. When wrong was done they blamed the sovereign's councilors. In Elizabeth's reign their loyalty to the person of the ruler had become something akin to worship. The repeated claims of James that he had a divine right to be obeyed were taken up by the bishops and clergy and preached from the pulpits. James had won the support of the bishops by claiming for them a divine right to be obeyed in the church. Most of the people were ignorant and simple- minded, and many of the better educated were persuaded that the king's claims were reason- able. They thought that if Parliament would obey the king all would be well. While a major- ity of the members of Parliament opposed the king, it is probable that a majority of the people believed in his divine right to rule. 2. There were laws on the statute book, sel- dom enforced, some of which supported the king's claims, and the lawyers and courts de- fended the king during a large part of his reign. The judges were appointed by him and must James 1 253 do his bidding or give place to those who would. 3. The kings of England had always dis- solved the Parliament and sent the members home whenever they chose. This was the es- tablished law of the nation. So you see that when Parliament talked back to James and re- fused to vote him money unless he ydelded to their demands that he should reform his prac- tices, and cease his unreasonable claims to arbi- trary power, he might say to them, as King John said to the barons: ^'I will not yield up those rights that would make me your slave." He would then dismiss Parliament and it could do no more, for to continue to legislate after the king had ordered it dissolved would be treason. But the time came in the reign of his son, Charles, when the Parliament passed a law for- bidding the king to dissolve it, and you will see later what came of it. The Parliament did one thing that had never been done before. It brought an action in the courts against the king^s lord chancellor, Francis Bacon, for receiving l)ribes, and the king was compelled to send him to the Tower, after the court decreed that the charge was true. The Parliament declared that if it was true that under the laws of the realm the king could do no wrong, 254 The' Stuart Kings it was not tnie that his councilors could do no wrong, and that they should be punished for the wrong they sanctioned. This was the first step toward bringing the king to account personally for his misdeeds. Van Somer, FRANCIS BACON. This lord chancellor, Francis Bacon, was at this time a very famous man throughout the world. It is probable that no man in Europe before or since was so ^'clever'' as he. He was very great in intellect, but in moral character James I 255 and uprightness he was Uke many other men of his time. Nothing of the kind has ever been written in Enghsh equal to Bacon^s Essays. It would be well if you would study them and, after you have mastered their meaning, would commit some of them to memory. . No one has ever said so much that is true in so few and so fitting words. Bacon was, also, the discoverer of a new method of finding out truth. We call it now the scientific method. This method has made it possible for us to harness the forces of nature, and make them do the hard work of the world, and so become servants of the human race. And yet this man was sentenced to imprisonment for life for deciding cases brought before him, as judge of the court, in favor of the party who gave to him the largest bribe. His excuse was that all the other officers and judges did the same thing. There were many other great writers who lived in the time of Elizabeth and James I. The best and greatest thing that was done for all English-speaking people in this reign was a new translation of the Bible into the English language. An English historian says of it : ^This EngUsh version of the Bible remains the noblest exam- ple of the Enghsh tongue.'^ It was James who ordered the translation to be made, and fifty- 256 The Stuart Kings four very learned men were chosen by him to do it ; of these, forty-seven are known to have taken part. It has been in use for nearly 300 years, and has had great influence in preserving the purity of the English language among the people. Another very important thing for England was the union of the countries of Scotland and England under one king. While it is true that the Tudors were the most arbitrary of English monarchs, and that Eng- land was, practically, an absolute monarchy under their reign, it is also true that freedom in religious opinions and in thinking upon all sub- jects grew rapidly during this period. So long as the ruler was English and could win the love and admiration of the people they would endure a good deal of arbitrary government. During this long period the conviction grew that freedom in worship and freedom to think im- plied freedom to act, and when James I., who was not an Englishman but a small-minded and ar- rogant Scotchman, came to rule over them, many were quite ready to deny him autocratic power. The divine right claimed by James was quite an- other thing from the divine right assumed but never claimed by Elizabeth or Henry VIII. EUzabeth and Henry had a sort of divine right that rested in their regal spirit and character. James was too inferior a man to be accepted James I 257 without question as an autocratic king. That king rules by divine right whom every one re- gards as the ablest and fittest to rule. James undertook to ^liarry the Puritans out of England/^ and many of them came to Amer- ica. But he raised a storm that swept his son Charles ofT his throne and to his death, and, as one historian has said, '^made it impossible for the king henceforth to harry any one out of the land.^^ Kmg James died in 1625, after he had '^har- ried^' the English people for twenty-two years, and five years after the Pilgrim Fathers began the first English settlement in Massachusetts. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who was James I.? How was he related to Elizabeth? To Mary Stuart? What law forbade Mary Stuart to be queen, even if she had been alive when Elizabeth died? Describe the personal ap- pearance of James I. What did Henry IV. of France say of him? What did he claim as his right as head of the state? As head of the church? What rights did he grant to the bishops? What was t'lc Church of England? By what name is it now known in this coun- try? What effect did the persecution of the king and bishops have upon the Puritans? Tell the story of the Pilgrims. Where is Plym- outh Rock, and why so named? Explain why it was that the Eng- lish people endured the tyranny of James and Charles for so long. Would they permit it at this time? Were all the men in England permitted to vote for representatives in Parliament? What is meant by Vac English maxim that "the king can do no wrong"? What wa? the first step taken in the reign of James I. toward the punishment of a king for breaking the laws? Write a paper on "James I. and His Times." XXIV. VIRGINIA. We have now come to that time in the history of our English grandfathers when their story must blend more or less with that of our Ameri- can grandfathers. The name of Virginia was first given to all the territory claimed by the English, extending from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida. It was named in honor of Elizabeth, the unmarried Queen of England. The name was first given by Sir Wal- ter Raleigh, who attempted to found a colony there during the reign of Queen Bess. But his colonists were decayed gentlemen who came over to pick up bags full of gold, and then return to England to spend it in riotous living. They had no thought of working with their hands. Of course the Indians and famine made short work of them, and it was not until the reign of James I. that the first permanent settlement was made at Jamestown. John Smith, of Po- cahontas fame, became the leading man in the colony about the time that the Dutch began to settle in New Netherlands. (1610) When the 258 Virginia 259 Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth (1620) this colony could boast of an Assembly of Burgesses, or prominent citizens, who were making laws for the settlers. This was the beginning of re- publican government in Virginia. When King James I. heard of it he was very wroth, as was his custom when anyone but himself enjoyed any liberty. But his arm was not long enough to reach across the Atlantic, and political free- dom continued to grow. The people who came to Virginia were cavaliers or royalists, while those who went to New England were Puritans. Now it happened that in 1619 a Dutch vessel sailed up the James river with a cargo of black slaves from Africa. These were bought by the. cavaliers, and by their coming a whole Pandora . box of woes was opened upon this country which finally led to the great civil war in the United States, which ended in the overthrow of negro , slavery. The Indians in Virginia had never been friendly ^ to the settlement of the whites upon, their hunt-, ing grounds. They secretly planned a massacre of all the English in Jamestown and vicinity. A friendly Indian informed the settlers in James- town of their danger only a few hours before the time appointed for the slaughter. ''On the: evening before and on that morning the savages came unarmed, as usual, into the houses of: the > 260 The Stuart Kings planters, with fruits, fish, turkeys, and venison to sell. In some places they actually sat down to breakfast with the English. At noon the In- dians, rising suddenly and everywhere at the same time, butchered the colonists with their own implements, sparing neither age, sex, nor condition. Three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children were killed in a few hours. ^' The Indians were driven off by the people of Jamestown, who had been warned in time, but most of the whites on the plantations were killed. King James, who did not like the republican in- dependence that was growing up in the colony, declared that this fight with the Indians was ev- idence that the colony was a failure and he revoked its charter. But this king by divine right died soon after- ward, and Charles I. left the Virginians to them- selves. He had enough to command his atten- tion in England, with his Roundhead parlia- ments and the Puritan dissenters who treated his divine right with scant courtesy. The Virginia colony was ever a firm supporter of royalty. When Cromwell came into power Virginia was the last to acknowledge the Com- monwealth, and it was the first to welcome with loud acclaim the restoration of Charles II. But this loyalty cooled when the English gov- ernment began to interfere with the conmiercc Virginia 261 and business prosperity of the colony by legisla- tio-i that took away the rights of the people to G3ll their goods where they could get the best [):ice for them, and to buy what they wanted waere they could get it the cheapest. England wanted all the trade of the colonies upon her own terms, which were high prices for what the English merchants sold to the colonists, and low prices for what the colonists sold to the English. All this was after Charles II came to his throne. During the last years of Cromwell, the Protector, it is said that Virginia sent word to Charles that she would raise his standard in the colony if there was any hope of his success. Charles advised his American friends to wait a little, until England had been worn out by the military despotism of Cromwell. The restored king always had a warm place in his heart for Virginia, and some historians declare that be- cause she held him to be king before he had been restored to his English throne he fondly spoke of her as his ^^Old Dominion." Virginia was known as the Old Dominion long after the Amer- ican Revolution. It was in the reign of William and Mary that the first congress of representatives of the colo- nies was called to meet in New York. William's war with France extended to America. It is called by some historians ^^King William^s War/' 262 The Stuart Kings and by others the 'Trench and Indian War/^ It began by a terrible slaughter of defenseless peo- ple in Schenectady, New York. A band of French soldiers stole down secretly from Canada (which then belonged to the French) and entered Schenectady in the dead of night. They ran through the town howling like sav- ages, firing guns, and setting fire to the buildings. The ground was covered with snow. The peo- ple rushed from their burning dwellings only to be slaughtered by the brutal foe. Men, women and children were ruthlessly murdered, and the town was reduced to ashes. Representatives of the colonies immediately assembled to provide ways and means for de- fending themselves. This assembly is chiefly important as being the First American Congress. It was the first union of the colonies for their common defense. We must remember that government by the people had to grow in America as it did in Eng- land. It grew much faster in America, but even here its growth was very slow. The wish of the people was to be ruled by a king. Not till the king's acts became very oppressive would they ever complain. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. How much territory did Virginia at first include? Why was it so named? Who attem{)ted to found the first colony? Why was it Virginia 263 unsuccessful? When and where and by whom was the first perma- nent colony established? Which is the older, Plymouth or James- town? What offended James I.? When and by whom were slaves first imported? Tell of the Indian Massacre. How was Jamestown saved? What difference between the people who went into Virginia and those who colonized New England? What cooled the loyalty of Virginia? Give the story of the beginning of King William's War. What was the first congress of the colonies? For what purpose was it called? XXV. CHARLES I. 1625—1649. When we compare the reigns of the Tudor sov- ereigns, one with another, each is seen to be dis- tinctly different from the one that preceded it. But the reign of Charles I. was a continuation of that of his father in all matters of civil and relig- ious liberty and rights of property. These were matters that most concerned the people at that time. The nation had high hopes that the kingly Charles, whose private life was as pure as his manners were princely, had learned by the mis- takes of his father, and like Elizabeth, would yield to the manifest wishes of the people. But that was not to be. This was a time when peo- ple differed greatly in opinion, and whether roy- alist or of the party of Parliament, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, each thought that his party was wholly right and that every one who thought differently was wholly wrong. The spirit of tol- eration and of compromise had not yet been born. Charles believed himself to be the only 2G4 Charles I 265 free man in England. No Englishman had any civil or religious rights that he felt bound to re- spect, if those rights conflicted with the right of the king to have his own way. Charles was twenty-four years old when he be- Van Dyck. CHARLES I. came king in 1625. This was five years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in Massachusetts. In person he was attractive. He had a kingly bearing, was courteous in manner, amiable in disposition, temperate in his habits — and his 266 The Stuart Kings private life was beyond reproach — qualities quite the opposite of those of his father. But he had never learned how important it is for a king to. speak the truth and to keep his word. He was neithei faithful to his friends nor honorable to- wards his foes. After prosecuting a long and somewhat hu- miliating suit for the hand of a Spanish princess and being rejected, he married a princess of France, Henrietta Maria, who was a devoted Catholic. This displeased Protestant England. He retained his father^s prime minister, the Duke of Buckingham, a man of courage and ability and a believer in the divine right of the king to do wrong if that was his pleasure. The people were not pleased with that. It was the established law of England that the king could not be punished for any wrong doing. If wrong was done, it was the king's minister who was legally responsible for it. If he did not wish to take the responsibility he could resign. The Parliament under James had punished two ministers, but their offenses were their own and not the king's. The next step would be to call the minister to account for the king^s wrong- doing. Buckingham was the king's minister of state affairs, and Laud was his minister of church affairs. Both were willing servants of the king who had determined to secure order and peace Charles I 267 in the government and chuich by compelling the people to do his bidding in all things. Charles got along after a fashion with his Par- liaments until they asked him what use he in- tended to make of a large sum of money that he demanded of them. He told them that it was their business to vote the money and his right to spend it as he saw fit. The Parliament did not like this very well. It had been the custom of Parliament for very many years to grant tuimage and poundage to the king for life. This meant that all duties on goods imported into England were to be the king's. Tunnage was a tax on liquors and wet goods of all kinds, and poundage a tax on all other kinds of imports. But Parliament voted tunnage and poundage to Charles for only one year. This greatly en- raged him. He refused to accept it, and sent the members home, declaring that he would rule without their help. But he collected his tunnage and poundage all the same without any grant from Parliament. Never before had a Parlia- ment refused to give the king his import duties for life, and this offensive action widened the breach between the Parliament and the king. The expenses of the king's court, of his favor- ites, and of his wars, were great, and debts had accumulated beyond his power to pay. He was 268 The Stuart Kings obliged to call another Parliament. But that was more stubborn than the former, and would give him no money until he signed another charter. This new charter declared that the king should never again (1) Impose taxes without consent of Par- liament : (2) Nor compel the people to give his soldiers shelter and food in their own homes : (3) Nor enforce martial law in times of peace : (4) Nor send persons to prison without giv- ing the reason for which it was done. This agreement was called a ^'Bill of Rights.^' The king was in such straits for money that he was obliged to sign this bill, and so these four de- mands became four laws of the land. The king objected to the last one most of all, for it prevented him from bringing offenders be- fore his Star Chamber Court and having them fined, imprisoned, or otherwise punished with- out trial by their peers. You may remember that the Star Chamber Court was created by William the Conqueror to enable the Jews to col- lect their debts from the Christians. No Jew had, at the time of William, any legal rights whatever, and this Star Chamber court was en- tirely outside the laws of Parliament. The king or his officer decided what should be done in Charles I 269 every case. It ceased to be a court of the Jews when the Jews, after many years, were granted the same rights as other Enghshmen and could sue and be sued in the reofular courts of law. But 270 The Stuart Kings it was revived by Cardinal Wolsey as an instru- ment of the arbitrary power of King Henry VIII. It was abolished in the reign of Charles, by act of Parliament. Charles found it very difficult to raise money enough by his tunnage and poundage, for he was a very extiavagant king and his officers made great demands upon him. He would get into quarrels with other nations for the purpose of turning the attention of the people from his ef- forts at home to weaken the influence of Parlia- ment. So long as the voters sent such men as John Hampden, and Eliot, and Pym to Parlia- ment it was impossible for him to bring the gov- ernment under his personal control. Henry VIII. could do this by getting the people to elect his friends, and so, too, could Queen Elizabeth in most cases. When she could not have her way she would yield with so much grace and with such loving words to her people that the}^ almost regretted having insisted upon their rights so stoutly, and would be sure to give her all she asked for sometinie afterward. But Charles seemed to think it below the dignity of a king to win tlie love of his subjects. So when he wanted money he would look up some old law, that had long ago gone out of use, and try to enforce that. He found one that gave the king the power to levy ship-money in times Charles I 271 of national danger. This meant that he could call upon the seaports and other cities for money to pay for ships to be used in defending the na- tion against foreign foes. His judges told him that he could call upon all the merchants and busi- ness men to help pay the expenses of u^ing these ships. He tried it. John Hampden, a wealthy merchant, replied: ^'I could lend you money, but I would not dare to violate the great charter which is the constitutional law of England, by paying to you taxes except by a law of Par- liament." For this answer the king sent Hampden to prison and kept him so close that, when com- pelled to release him, he was so changed that ^^he looked not the same ever afterward.'' This scheme for raising money failed. There were too many men of John Hampden's opinion. Matters went on from bad to worse. The king would make promises only to break them, after he had been given what he asked. He would sign an agreement with Parliament that he would make no arbitrary arrests and on the same day he would enter Parliament bringing with him to the door an armed guard, and order the speaker to point out men who had said some- thing in debate that displeased him, in order that he might arrest them and send them to prison. It was in 1642, seventeen years after he had 272 The Stuart Kings come to the throne, that Charles, on the morn- ing of January 4th, had solemnly declared that he would protect every member of Parliament from unlawful arrest or violence. On that same day he came down to the House of Commons with a guard to arrest five members for what he was pleased to call treasonable language in debate. He said to the speaker: ^^By your leave, Mr. Speaker, I must borrow your chair for a little.'' Then the king told the house that he had come for the bodies of Pym, Hampden, Hazelrig, Hol- ies and Strode, and asked the speaker to point them out to him. The speaker fell on his knees (as had long been the custom in addressing a a king) and said: ^^Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak but as the house directs.'' Seeing how impossible it was to have his way at that time, the king replied: ^Well, my eyes are as good as another's. I see the birds have flown. But I shall expect you to send them to me when they return." (In the story of Henry VIII., a similar scene is described. Sir Thomas More was then the speaker.) Charles went from the hall, humiliated by his failure, and as he passed out the members from their seats cried out: ^Trivilege!" ^Trivilege!" 'Trivilege!" They meant by this that Charles had violated one of the most sacred privileges of Parliament in thus breaking in upon their Gharks I 27a KING CHARLES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 274 The Stuart Rings deliberations. This was a crowning insult to the people's representatives, and both the royalists and the supporters of Parliament now saw that civil war was at the door. The Parliament in which this scene occurred is known in history as the ^Xong Parliament." All othfer Parliaments had been dismissed when they displeased the king, but a law had been passed, and Charles had signed it, which forbade the king to dissolve Parliament without its own consent. He had signed this, and one abolishing the Star Chamber Court, and several other bills, very hateful to him, for the sake of getting a large grant of money. But it soon became evi- dent that he proposed to use the money to gather an army strong enough to expel Parliament, pun- ish the leaders of the opposition, and overawe the people. The church still retained much of the old power it had in former times. What it now demanded was that all people should worship according to its form. All must use the Book of Common Prayer, the priests and bishops must wear robes, they must bow and kneel toward the east, they must bend the knees and bow the head in pass- ing the altar and when certain names were spo- ken. But Archbishop Laud, the king's chief officer of the church, said that it was not neces- sary that all the people should believe what they Charles I 275 said and did in their worship. All he required was that they should act as though they be- lieved it. Unless they would conform to this order they must be punished and no one was al- lowed to preach any other opinions than those held by the archbishop, nor were people per- mitted to worship together in any place unless they followed those forms. The honest people did not believe it right to say to God nor act in their worship of him what they did not believe to be true. Many Englishmen who were believing church- men did not favor such rigid rules, and all the dissenters bitterly opposed them. Their claim was that they should be permitted to worship as their consciences dictated. Although this was their claim, few of the dis- senters had the spirit of toleration. The Calvin- ists believed that their forms were the sacred ones, and declared that they, too, were for uni- formity. They would compel the Episcopalian, the Baptist, the Congregationalist, and the Cath- olic to worship by their forms and none others. The Long Parliament had followed a period of eleven years in which there was no Parliament, and the people were becoming accustomed to the arbitrary rule of the -king and archbishop. They felt that it was better to bear the ills they had than fly to others that they knew not of. 276 The Stuart Kings Archbishop Laud and Charles then thought of another step towards conformity. The Scots had decHned to follow the English fashion, and neglected to conform to English practices in their worship. Laud undertook to compel them to do so and thus met his own doom. The Scots rose in rebellion and having driven the English army out of Scotland followed it into Eng- land. The Scotch army refused to return until it was paid, and it was to obtain money that Charles called the Long Parliament together. This was also the time when Charles was compelled to sign the reform laws which took from him the powers he claimed as a king by di- vine right. The attempt to coerce the Scots again aroused the English to their own bondage to arbitrary power in both church and state. The insincerity of Charles in signing the reform laws became ap- parent when it was discovered that he was en- deavoring to call in foreign soldiers to fight against his own subjects and reduce them to his will. Then it was that both sides began to pre- pare for a civil war. Among those prominent in the Long Parlia- ment was one Oliver Cromwell, a country gen- tleman of the Puritan faith, who had been quietly farming his small estate during the eleven years that Charles had ruled England without a Charles I - 277 Parliament. We shall learn more of him later. The king began the civil war, which was waged for three years between the royalists who be- lieved in the supreme riile of the king, and those Englishmen who believed that a Parliament com- posed of the representatives of the people should be supreme in the government. Through the military genius of Oliver Cromwell the party of the Parliament prevailed over the royalists and the king. The king was taken prisoner, and after some honest attempts on the part of the Parliament to make a compromise with him on a form of government, very similar to that which England now enjoys, and after repeated proof that the king was wholly treacherous and insin- cere, seeking only for time and an opportunity to take off the heads of his opponents, it was de- cided by a commission appointed by Parliament that he must lose his own head. He was tried, condemned and executed in the early part of the year 1649^ after a stormy and eventful rule of twenty-four years. His reign was a continued warfare between the two principles of the abso- lute rule of the nation by one man, and the abso- lute rule by the representatives of the people in Parliament. In the story of Oliver Cromwell you will learn how it happened that the English nation again 278 The Stuart Kings placed a king upon the throne, after the over- throw of the monarchy notwithstanding the opportunity to set up a repubUcan form of government. You will follow also, in that story, the fortunes of Charles during the three years of the civil war, and until his death. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who was King Charles I.? What can you say of the private character of Charles? What were his defects as a king? By Eng- lish custom who was held responsible for the Avrong acts of the gov- ernment? What was the quarrel between Parliament and the king concerning Tunnage and Poundage? What was the New Charter which Charles was compelled to sign? What is it called in history? Which of these laws abolished the Star Chamber Court? Relate the history of this court. What was ship money? What success did Charles have in collecting it? How did Charles violate the ''Privi- lege" of Parliament? How long did Charles rule without a Parlia- ment? Who was Archbishop Laud? What did he demand of the people in regard to worship? What made it necessary for Charles to call a new Parliament? Why did Charles sign the bill that for- bade him to dissolve the Parliament without its consent? What followed when it was discovered that he intended to use the money granted him to hire foreign soldiers to reduce his subjects to submis- sion? What was the result of the defeat of the royalist army ? XXVI. NEW ENGLAND. It was while James I. was king in 1620 that the little ship, Mayflower, brought over 102 emi- grants, including twenty families of Puritans, and landed them in the woods where now is the little town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. We call them ^^Our Pilgrim Fathers/' They were known in England as ^^Brownists,'' or the follow- ers of Brown, one of the many small sects of Puritans that was composed principally of la- boring people of small wealth and influence, but rich in firm religious convictions, and strength of will. Their sufferings from hunger and cold during the first winter were great, and death soon thinned their ranks; but others came with supplies from time to time, and the colony sur- vived and afterwards became a refuge to others of their faith from the royal oppression that was especially heavy on this particular sect. For nine years from the coming of the Mayflower emigration from the mother country was very slow. The colony numbered less than four 279 280 The Stuart Kings hundred in 1629, but when Wentworth and Laud began their ^^thorough^' work of making Eng- land Episcopahan, the persecuted Congrega- tionahsts began to/seek a home in the New World. The Puritans had been electing Par- liaments at home and Charles had been dissolv- ing them. At length the king concluded, as you have learned, that he would rule England with- out a Parliament. For eleven years the king and Wentworth and Laud harried England be- yond the endurance of many Dissenters, and they came to America in large numbers. During those eleven 3 ears 20,000 emigrants settled in New England alone, many of them being lead- ing men in wealth and station in the mother country. They belonged to the Congregational, ■ or Independent, party for, the most part, who, at home, prided themselves on their toleration, but they would allow no one to live in their col- ony who did not conform to their forms of wor- ship and government. In America they were as intolerant as the Presbyterians and Episco- palians, were in England. While the struggle between the king and the people had been in progress Virginia and Mary- land had also been settled by EngHsh emigrants. The Catholics established a government in Mary,- land, and gave notice to all Englishmen that everyone would be free to worship in that colony New England 281 according to any form he might choose without molestation b}^ the government. We would do well to remember this. Virginia was also very free in this matter from the beginning. In every colony representatives of the people formed a Parliament or House of Commons for the government of the colony, subject to the pro- visions of their charter, which was their consti- tution. The charter was given by the king. For a number of years after the coming of the Pilgrims there was very little money in the col- ony. Business was carried on by barter, which was the exchange of one article for another. After a time they began to use corn for money, and the people preferred it to silver. They would buy and sell articles of small value for a certain number of quarts, or '^potles," or pecks of corn, and the richest man was he who had most corn. Plymouth colony purchased the land on which they settled, and a large tract besides, from the English company that had bought it of the king. They promised to pay 1,800 pounds sterling ($9,000) for it within six years. This was a very large sum, and they had no money. So they began to trade with the Indians for furs, pa3dng them in wampum (Indian money) . This wampum they made from seashells, which they cut into round disks about the size of a penjiy, 282 The Stuart Kings making a hole in the middle by which they could be run on a string. With this shell money they paid for their furs, and with the furs they paid the English company for their land. Later they secured a charter which gave them title to all the land from a '^rivulet'' called ^^Co- hasset^' on the north to the Narragansett river on the south, and extending westward ^^to the West- ern Ocean.'' One year before this grant the Massachusetts Bay Company obtained a charter giving them control of all the land from three miles north of the Merrimac river to three miles south of the Charles, and extending ^^from the Atlantic to the Western Ocean." It is evident that King Charles was ignorant of the amount of land he was granting to his Puritan foes, and that he knew nothing of the distance from the Atlantic to the 'Western Ocean.'' The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Com- pany gave the colonists the right to make their, own laws, provided they did not conflict with the laws of England. This was the beginning of republican government in New England. In 1630, ten years after the landing of the Pil- grim Fathers, Boston was founded. It was named from a town in England, the home of some of the members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Its first name was Shawmut. In the government which this colony set up New Eng'/ind 283 the church was the ruUng power and the minister was a man high in authoritVo Those who denied the doctrine of the church as they taught it were not thought worthy to be citi«ens of the colony. The government of England under Charles I. and Laud was freer than that of Boston for many years. When these Bostonians came to Amer- ica to find freedom to v/orship God it was for themselves and not for others that they sought this freedom. They seem to have been very like their English oppressors in this particular. Such was the beginning of our present free- dom. For many years Baptists like Roger Will- iams were expelled from the colony, and a few Quakers were even cruelly treated because they did not worship like the Congregationalists. But necessity, in time, compelled all sects to unite for a common defense against a common foe, and this co-operation for tlie common good cam3 at length to soften the bitterness of re- ligious prejudice. After a longer period the government of the state was separated from the government of the church, and the laws of the state gave freedom of worship to all citizens, whether they were Congregationalists or noto SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. How many Pilgrims came over in the Mayflower? What was the name of this sect in England? Why was emigration so slow dur- mg the next nine years? Why was it so rapid during the eleven year? follo^vi2lg? What can you iay of the religious tolerance of 284 Ths Stuart Kings these dissenters in New England? . WTiat colony was the first to pro- claim freedom, of worship? How: was business carried on in the ear- liest years of the colony? What passed as money among the whites? 00 Among the Indians? How did the Plymouth Colony pay for their land? How far west did the land extend which the king griinted te the different companies? When was Boston founded? Wlmt in- duced sects to become more tolerant as time went on? XXVII. OLIVER CROMWELL. 1599—1658. THE COMMONWEALTH. 1649—1660. Oliver Cromwell was born in April, 1599, one year before the birth of King Charles. He was four years old when King James came to the throne of England. Cromwell's account of him- self was: ^^I v/as by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height nor yet in ob- scurity.'' His great-grandmother was the sister of Thomas Cromwell, who, you remember, suc- ceeded Wolsey as prime minister of Plenry VIIL But his great-grandfather was Richard Will- iams, who was a Welshman and a trusted agent of Thomas Cromwell and afterwards of Henrv VIIL In Oliver's marriage contract, he is named ^'Oliver Cromw;ell, otherwise Williams." At what time the family substituted the name of Cromwell for that of Williams is not known. Oliver was educated at Cambridge University, and was a strict and uncompromising Puritan from boyhood. He was not a lover of books, 285 286 The Stuart Kings but he mastered one book thoroughly. That was the Bible. In after years it became his habit OLIVEH CROMWELL. to use the language of the Bible freely in express- ing his thoughts. His enemies spoke of him Oliver Cromwell 287 as a ^ ^canting hypocrite. '' But he was never that. Cromwell grew up to be a man of influence in the Puritan community in which he lived. This was in the county of Huntingdon, a few miles north of London. He was a member of the last Parliament that was dissolved by Charles in a fit of anger because it refused to do his bidding. But he was a silent member, having spoken but once, and then very briefly. A very exciting scene occurred in the House just before this Parliament was dismissed. You will remember that the king had signed a bill known as the ^Tetition of Rights,'^ passed by the former Parliament. But when he had secured the mone}^ that he asked for, he refused to obey the new charter of liberties which he had been compelled to sign. This Parliament in- sisted upon the king's keeping faith and the king sent an order to the speaker commanding Parlia- ment to close its session. The speaker was loyal to the king and arose to read the order. Then two members hurried forward, seized the speaker and held him down in his chair.' The doors were locked and before the speaker was permitted to read the king's order, Eliot's resolutions were passed denying the right of the king to violate the laws of the land, and declaring that Parlia- ment was determined to protect the liberties of the people granted by the Petition of Rights. *See picture on page 284. 288 The Stuart Kings Charles had hurried a troop of soldiers to the House to enforce his order, but just before they arrived the resolutions had been adopted, and Parliament was ready to adjourn. Cromwell went home, as he was ordered, and worked upon his farm for eleven years, watch- ing the course of events but saying and doing little. He was waiting for God to reveal to him his duty. His study of the Bible had convinced him that if God had anything for him to do he would make it known to hinj. Buckingham, the king^s minister, had been assassinated by a personal enemy whom he had injured, and Charles had induced one of the great- est of the Parliamentary leaders, Thomas Went- worth, to take his place. Wentworth was one of the ablest men in England, and had been the leader of Parliament in its opposition to the king. The Puritans branded him as a traitor, and final- ly took off his head, but for eleven years he ruled England, Ireland and Scotland with a ''rod of iron.^^ His motto was 'Thorough," which meant that there should be no compromise with those who opposed the king. All opposition was accounted as treason, and the people, especially in Ireland, were slaughtered by thousands. Archbishop Laud was also making "Thor- ough'^ his rule of action in the Church of Eng- land. The judges who were appointed by the Oliver Cromwell 289 king and most of the lawyers went with the ^ Thorough'^ party. It was a reign of terror, but there was outward peace. The people were stu- pefied ])y fear. But the time came when death was thought to be better than the tyranny they endured. You must ever bear in mind that this was a time in England when people could not tolerate any opinions or practices different from their own, either in religion or government. They would yield to a force they could not withstand, but if they had the power they would force their opponents to yield to them. In the church the Episcopalians tried to compel the dissenters to conform, and the dissenters wished to force the Episcopalians to follow their practice. In gov- ernment the king sought to compel the Parlia- ment to obey him, and the Parliament insisted upon the implicit obedience of the king. Neither party was willing to yield anything to the other. Cromwell was hated by the Presbyterians, be- cause he believed in toleration. He would give up some of his own convictions to those who op- posed him, provided they would give up some of theirs. But he, too, drew the line on Catholics. After the king, his archibshop. Laud, and his minister, Wentworth, had ruled by their divine right for eleven years, and had finally goaded the Scots into a war in which the English were 290 The Stuart Kings ingloriously defeated, the time came when the government must have more money to meet ex- penses and pay off the army than it was able to raise by all of its prerogatives, both lawful and unlawful. Parliament must help by imposing a tax upon all the property in the kingdom. It was for tl^is reason that the ^^Long Parlia- ment was called. It was a long one for the rea- son that the king could get nothing from Par- liament until he had signed a law that forbade him to dissolve it without its own consent. It was finally dissolved by force by Cromwell, four years after the death of the king (1653) and nineteen 3^ears after it first assembled. 'The Long Parliament^' was made up of the very flower of the English gentry and the edu- cated laity.'' It was an aristocratic, rather than a popular assembly. Oliver Cromwell was a member of this assembly. A friend of the king, writing of that time, said that ''one morning he perceived a gentleman speaking in Parliament very ordinarily dressed in a plain suit made by a poor tailor, with plain linen not very clean,. and a speck or two of blood upon his little hand; his hat without a band ; his stature of a good size ; his sword stuck close to his side ; his countenance swollen and reddish ; his voice sharp and unmus- ical ; his eloquence full of fervor. It lessened my reverence for this great council that this gen- Oliver Cromwell 291 tleman was so very much hearkened unto.'' Another says: ^ ^Cromwell expressed himself with passion, but with such a commanding man- ner and with such wisdom that he governed and swayed the house. He had most times the lead- ng voice in its deUberations." We see that this silent man of the former Par- liament had now become a power in the councils of the nation. Hardly had the Long Parliament convened when Thomas Wentworth — now Lord Stafford — the king's minister, was brought to trial for treason. There was no law by which he could be convicted of the crime. He had merely obeyed the king's commands and used his power to en- force the king's authority as the king directed. But three-fourths of the people of England held Wentworth to be dangerous to the life and liberty of every Englishman, and, law or no law, he must die. Parliament knew and ^Wentworth knew that the issue was Stafford's head or the heads of the people's representatives." The king signed his death-warrant, and seems to have felt no gratitude for his great services. This base desertion of a faithful servant is the deep- est stain upon the character of Charles. Wentworth was sent to the block, being the first victim of the people's right of revolution, and of self-defense. 292 The Stuart Kings For five more years the king and the Parlia- ment continued to debate the question whether the one or the other should be absolute ruler of the land, but the mendacity of the king finally made it plain that his promises were made only to be broken. Then came three years of civil war. Cromwell had become first in Parliament ; he was now to become first in war. He had everything to learn, but he learned very rapidly. During the first year of the war the king^s forces were generally successful. But Cromwell dis- covered a remedy for the defects of the people^s army. He said: ^^It is plain that men of re- ligion are w^anted to withstand these gentle- men who fight for honor.'^ So he gathered an army of earnest, praying Puritans who believed their cause to be God^s cause, and that he would strengthen their arms. He introduced a new method of training the troops, which was something like that of the Romans who conquered the early Britons. The cavalry went into battle in '^close order, ^^ riding knee to knee, and the foot-soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder, or as nearly so as the use of their weap- ons would permit. The force of the shock of the cavalry when it struck the opposing army over- whelmed it. CromwelPs cavalry was never beaten when he was the leader. His new tactics Oliver Cromwell 293 and new organization of the forces for battle are called in history the ''New Model." The last great battle with the king was that of Naseby. Charles was there and as brave a warrior as Cromwell. But he and his army held ''the clownish army of Parliament and the raw recruits in hearty contempt." The cava- liers had made a wooden image or idol, in the form of a man, which they called the god of the Roundheads (the Puritans). This they carried forward amidst ''howls and jeers of scorn" as they came into battle. Each army had regiments of cavalry to the right and the left of the line of battle, and the foot soldiers were between. History tells us that Cromwell did not reach the battle-ground until six o'clock in the morn- ing of that eventful day, after riding all night with his troop of Ironsides, 600 strong. He was commander of the cavalry, but not, at that time, commander-in-chief. The battle began, the Royalists being the first to move forward to the attack. The army of Parliament was in bat- tle array upon a rising ground. The infantry closed with a shock, but neither side yielded. CromwelPs horse were on the right flank. Part of them rushed to the attack of the enemy's horse in front, while Cromwell, with his Ironsides, 294 The Stuart Kings went round to the right and attacked the RoyaUst horse on their left flank. The enemy's cavalry could not sustain this double attack in front and flank, and soon broke and scattered. Then Cromwell collected all his troops, except one regiment sent to pursue the fugitives, and forming another line of battle fell upon the flank of the enemy's infantry that was pressing hard the Puritans. This they charged again and again in front and flank, but they could not break it, until some infantry in reserve came to their assistance. Then the Royalist infantry broke and fled. Prince Rupert, the king's general of horse, who was called the best cavalry general in Europe, had attacked the Puritan cavalry on the left of the Parliamentary army in the first part of the engagement, and compelled them to give way. But instead of holding his horsemen in check and bringing them to the help of the Royalist foot-soldiers, he rode with his troops after the fugitives, and when he returned the battle was lost. Immediately the king attempted to form again the fugitives that had rallied to his standard, and Cromwell once more formed a third line of bat- tle and advanced to the attack. Charles seemed determined to meet him and conquer or die on • Oliver Cromwell 2^5 the field, but one of his generals seized his horse by the bridle and exclaimed : '^Will you go upon your death in an instant?' ' The king turned his horse ^^in a half -conscious way/' and instantly all his companions wheeled and fled and the king's cause was lost to him forever. Naseby was the decisive battle of the war. Charles retreated to Oxford and within six months surrendered his person to the Scots and became a prisoner of war. Cromwell had now proved himself to be the greatest general in England, if not in Europe. For four years after the battle of Naseby Charles lived a prisoner. During this period the king's friends fought a second civil war with the Parliamentary army. Cromwell was every- where victorious, and in the battle of Preston, three years after Naseby, the Royalist forces were cut to pieces. But victories did not bring peace. The king still lived, and while he was alive his friends at home and abroad were working for his restora- tion to his throne. Among his papers captured at the battle of Naseby were unmistakable proofs of his promises to bring the Catholics back into power, while, at the same time, he was ne- gotiating with a Presbyterian Parliament for terms of settlement. No one knew which party Sd6 The Stuart Kings he intended to betray, and Parliament knew from past experience that they could not depend on anything he promised. But the Puritans were at war among them- selves. Most of those who were in Parliament were either Presbyterians or Episcopalians. Cromwell and his party were Independents, sometimes called Congregationalists. They were more tolerant than the other sects, and for this reason were hated even more than the Catholics by the Presbyterians. Parliament was ruled by the Presbyterians who wished to restore Charles to the throne on condition that he would make the Presbyterian creed and catechism the supreme law of the church, and compel every one to worship according to their forms. Charles would not do this, but promised to yield to their wishes so far that they agreed to bring him back to power fearing that the Independent arm}^ would take control of the government. The army sent in a written remonstrance to this agreement, to which the Commons gave no heed. The arm}^ then came to London and sent Colo- nel Pride with a band of armed men to ^^purge'' the House. One hundred and forty-three Pres- byterian and Royalist members were expelled from Parliament by force. This is known in history as ^Tride's Purge.^' The remainder then voted to bring King Charles to trial. Oliver Cromwell 297 It does not appear that Cromwell took any part in these proceedings, but he was a member of the court of sixty-two that tried the king. They brought in the verdict that Charles was '^a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy of the good people of the nation, '' and the sen- tence was that he ^ ^should be put to death by severing his head from his bbdy/^ In three days the sentence was executed, and Charles I., King of England, Ireland, and Scotland, went to his final reward. Cromwell voted for his execution and was active in persuading others to do the same. He is reported to have called it a ^^cruel necessity.'^ ^^Either the king's head or mine'' was his evident conviction. The English nation and all Europe shivered with horror. When the Long Parliament convened five- sixths of the people of England rejoiced. Now, after the execution of the king, five-sevenths of them thought of the remnant of the House of Commons as traitors and regicides. All regarded the trial and conviction of the king as a violation of the law of the realm. The right of revolution — the higher law — was not then acknowledged by the nation. The preservation of peace and order in the land now depended upon one man, Oliver Crom- well, who was the idol of the army which had done this deed. The trial of the king was merely 298 The Stuart Kings a '^drum-head court-martiar^ — outside of civil order and civil law. Rebellion and disorder broke out afresh in many quarters. Cromwell stamped it out in slaughter most bloody. Then came the attempt to set up a new government called ^The Com- monwealth.'^ Cromwell was a great general, but not a statesman great enough to establish a free government in England in the midst of the many warring factions, each of which believed that it alone knew the will of God, and that all others were preachers of false doctrine and ene- mies of their country. Cromwell continued to be the idol of the army and his was the arm of power. They named him "Protector of the Commonwealth, '^ and he became one of the most arbitrary rulers that England ever had. But he so used his power that England recovered her former position as one of the leading nations of the world, and the crowned heads of Europe bowed in homage to the "Great Protector. '^ But the people hated Cromwell's government and within two years after his death the monarchy was restored, with King Charles II., the son of Charles I., on the throne. It was the army that set up the Com- monwealth, and the army brought back the king. But the arbitrary rule of the king by divine right was never again to be acknowledged by the Oliver Cromwell 299 English people. From this time the ^ ^Council of the Wise" of the ancient Saxons was to protect the liberties of the people from the tyranny of kings. This council was called Parliament as before, but its power was now acknowledged by the na- tion, and the king could not henceforth rob the people of their constitutional rights without the corisent of the House of Commons. It some- unics, yes, too often consented. That was be- cciu.se the people did not always elect to Parlia- ment honest and true men, who could not be I :i':^ed with money nor with office to betray their trust. Cromwell died in 1659, five years after he had become Lord Protector. There were then few in England to do him reverence, and for nearly two hundred years history wrote his name among those of tyrants, traitois and murderers. The poet, Milton, who knew him well, spoke not so ill of him; ^'Our Chief of Men," he named him. The world has since discovered that ''all the ends he aimed at were his country's, his God's, and truth's" as he understood them. He v/as great in most things that make men gieat. Those things for which he is most blamed must be charged to the intolerance of his age, and his want of statesmanship of the highest order. He desired to be elected king by Parliament, because he believed that as king he 300 The Stuart Kings would have greater power to set up a free gov- ernment in England. But the generals of the army refused to consent to place another king upon the throne, and the people continued to think that he had no right to the power he wielded. Therefore he could maintain order only by force, and he ruled England by martial law, which was most hateful to all England. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What relation was Oliver Cromwell to Thomas Cromwell, the successor of Cardinal Wolsey? What did he mean by describing him self as a "gentleman"? When did Oliver Cromwell first enter Par- liament? What happened when Charles I. sent an order to this Par- liament to dissolve? How did Cromwell spend the next eleven years? What was the motto of Charles and his ministers in their treatment of dissenters and of those who opposed the king's claim to divine right? What compelled the king to call another Parliament? What was one of the conditions on which they voted the money he asked for? How long did this Parliament sit? What had the eleven years of study and of waiting done for Cromwell? What was one of the first acts of this body? By searching you may find some excuse for what is generally considered a base desertion of a faithful servant by the king. How long after Stafford's execution before the civil war? What was Cromwell's remedy for the weakness of his array? Describe the battle of Naseby. How long was the king a prisoner? What weakened the Puritan cause? When was the second c\\\\ war fought? To whom alone does historj' give the credit of the entire overthrow of the royalists in this war? Why did not these ^dctories bring pkcace? Describe "Pride's Purge." What was the decree of the court that tried the king? What effect did the execution of the king have upon Englishmen and upon Europe? How did Cromwell maintain order? How was he regarded by foreign nations? What was his title? Why not that of king? XXVIII. CHARLES 11. AND JAMES II. 1660—1688. When Oliver Cromwell died a large part of the English people called for the restoration of kingly power. They had groaned for years under the tyranny of the army and of Cromwell The Pro- tector, and had forgotten the greater tyranny of Charles I. and his two ministers. Charles II. was known to be a merry fellow, and England thought she would enjo}^ a ^^merry monarch" after the rigid rule of Charles I. and of Cromwell, both of whom took life too seriously. But how could Charles 11. be brought to the throne while the Rump Parliament (what was left of the Long Parliament after Pride's Purge) and the Military Council, and Richard Cromwell were the ruling powers and opposed to his return? It happened in this way : General Monk was, next to Cromwell, the gen- eral of highest rank in England. He had been a revolutionary commander and a staunch sup- porter of Cromwell. When the Great Protector 301 302 The Stuart Kings died Monk was in Scotland at the head of a large army that would follow wherever he led. He had discovered how impossible it was to estab- lish a republican government in England in the midst of so many opposing opinions and so much intolerance. He saw, too, that the English had not yet been weaned from the habit of look- ing to the royal family for a king to rule them. He called upon the young Protector, Richard, (who had been declared his father's successor) and upon his Council, to order a free election of a free Parliament by the people. Those in power refused to do this, for they knew that it would bring in the king. Then General Monk came down to London with his army and told Parlia- ment, Protector, and Council, to give place to a council selected from the great men of the nation who believed in toleration and in the mainten- ance of the constitutional rights of Englishmen. It was this body that invited Charles, the son of Charles I., to become Charles II., King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Charles came in 1660, after promising that his father's enemies should be forgiven; that their rights to property should be protected ; that they were all to start anew; and that the nation should be governed henceforth according to the Constitution of Eng- land as the ancient charters, and Parliaments, and kings had declared it to be. Charles II and James II 303 So Charles II. came home, and there was great rejoicing among the people. This merry gentle- man would, henceforth, rule over a merry Eng- land — so they then thought. But alas! The merriment of King Charles was soon found to be of a sort to make the hearts of all the better classes of English people burn with shame and indignation. The king's court, which ought to be in every country where there is a king, the best example of a high order of society in the kingdom, was the most wicked and profligate ever known in England. . Its profligacy was equaled only by the court of Louis XIV. in France, the most dis- solute of French monarchs, and the bosom friend of Charles. Both were secretly plotting to- gether for the return of the English church to the Roman Catholic fold. The pledges of the king to the people were soon forgotten. He held in contempt those who stood for conscience, duty and purity, calling them hypocrites who were using these pretensions as a cloak to conceal their own secret and selfish aims. He had neither gratitude nor honor; loved no one but himself, and hated no one. A supreme contempt for mankind seemed to be his ruling sentiment. He loved pleasure, and to secure it he would yield to his Parliament when he thought his head would be in danger should he refuse. He would say : 304 The Stuart Kings ' 'I have no desire to begin my wanderings again. '^ But the Parhament first called by the king was little better than the king, during the first half of his reign. The great burst of loyal senti- ment when he was called to the throne, resulted in the election of merry men of his own class, and a new election was not called for many years. But even such men as belonged to his set were compelled to protest against the tyranny of this merry monarch when the people began to threaten another rebellion. During this reign there was a great plague in England, which was especially severe in London. Eight thousand died in a single week, and more than 100,000 perished before it abated. This was in 1665, when our merry monarch hud been only five years on the throne. His merry court all fled from the country in teiror, but, to the credit of Charles, he remained at his post. With all his faults he was no coward. In the next year, in September, was the great fire in London. It burned for five days, destroy- ing 13,000 homes and business houses and eighty- nine churches. The plague was caused by the filthiness of the city and want of drainage. The fire was so dis- astrous because of the large number of wooden buildings in that part of London.. After it had burned for five days it occurred to some one to Charles II and. James It SOS blow up the buildings in front of the line of the fire. This done, the conflagration ceased. Dur- ing these two years of pestilence and fire England was not so merry^ and was never quite so merry afterward. It was found that these merry men, with their ^^merry monarch'' were not good rulers. They had gone to war with the Dutch to please Louis XIV. of France, and the Dutch war fleet had swept the English from the sea, and while the plague was raging they sailed up the river Thames and burned the warships of the English that lay at anchor near. the shore. This will remind you of the feats of the Saxons and Angles when they first invaded Briton. At this time (1667) Milton published his 'Tar- adise Lost." It is a great poem, telling of the loss of freedom and happiness to man by the com- ing into the world of sin and wickedness. The coming in of Charles II. seemed now, to many Englishmen, to threaten the loss of their freedom and happiness because of the sin and wickedness of the king and his advisers. Five thousand Quakers were in prison because of their religion, and John Bunyan, the author of ^Tilgrim's Progress," and thousands of other pious people, were in jail because of their piety. Probably the Christian world would never have had ^Til- grim's Progress" had not John Bunyan been im- 306 " The Stuart Kings prisoned in Bedford jail, where he had time and opportunity to write it. One of the artful dodges of Charles to secure the support of the Puritans who dissented from the Church of England was to advocate a law giving to all people in England the right to wor- ship as their consciences bade them. This would give the Catholics the right to set up their churches again and would be of great assistance in the revolution contemplated by the king. But the dissenters chose to be persecuted by the Episcopalians rather than to help Charles bring the Catholic church into power again. The secret conspiracy of Charles with Louis XIV. of France, was unknown to the people and even to the king's own councilors. Charles had, from the beginning, sought to secure a standing army large enough to enable him to put down rebellion when the time was ripe for the over- throw of ' Protestantism, and for the establish- ment of Catholicism as the religion of England. The Parliament long suspected him of some de- sign against the established church, and would often refuse to grant him supplies until certain orders of his were countermanded. Charles would yield for the time, but he never ceased to plot. The king of France would send him large sums of money when Parliament would refuse to grant what he asked. Charles had a^^reed to / / Charles II and James II 307 send assistance to Louis when hard pressed by foes, and Louis had promised the same to Charles.. To prepare the way for his revolution Charles ap- pointed to the important offices of the state and of the army many Catholics, and in the Church of England priests and bishops were found who were Catholics at heart. Now there was a law that forbade Catholics to hold office, but the merry Parliament had paid little regard to its en- forcement. The plan of Charles was to declare suddenly for the Catholic religion and with his own standing army, assisted by one from France, he would be able to put down all rebellion with an iron hand before it could gather strength enough to make head against him. He be- lieved that his people would nevei suspect their merry monarch of so serious a scheme as that, and he conthmed to play the idler and the pleas- ure seeker, to conceal from them his true design. In this he succeeded to a great extent. But the demand for a new Parliament became so loud and imperative that Charles finally yielded. The new Parliament revived the law excluding Cath- olics from office and Parliament then discovered how near to their fulfillment the designs of the king had advanced, when they learned how man^^ of the high offices of state and church were filled by Catholics. But the people in general knew little of their 308 The Stuart Kings danger, and Charles, by another artful dodge, made them beheve that he had been slandered and insulted by his accusers. There was a sud- den reaction, and another burst of popular loy- alty to the ''Merry Monarch,'' who was again restored to public favor. He again began his scheme of filling the offices with Catholics pre- paratory to the overthrow of Protestantism in England. Fortunately the king died at the time when the people were willing to trust him with abso- lute power in compensation for what they be- lieved their unjust suspicions of his loyalty to the constitution. Before his death he was form- ally received into the Catholic church. Re- ligion was never a matter of the heart with him, but only a matter of state policy. It was a time when Protestantism seemed to be tottering to its fall all over Europe, and Charles wished to com- plete its ruin by carrying England over to the Catholic communion. He died in 1685, after having ruled twenty-five years. He had an intellect worthy of a better heart, of worthier convictions of duty, and of higher ideals of life. He seems to have been bgrn deficient in moral sense. Aaron Burr, who was once vice-president of the United States, is his counterpart in American history. It will be well to bear in mind that all these re- Charles II and James III 309 ligious wars and dissensions in England arose from the belief that it was the business of the gov- ernment to declare what the religion of the peo- ple should be. When the American people set up their government it was declared that the state should not undertake to establish a religion of any sort, but that the people should be free to choose for themselves in what church, if any, they would worship. No man is barred from holding office because of his religion. We should not forget one good thing that has come down to us from the reign of Charles II. This is the habeas corpus law. For many hundred years the king or his private council had been permitted to arrest a man and throw him into prison and hold him prisoner for any length of time without trial. By this practice any one whom the king suspected of being an enemy, or whom he disliked, could be deprived of his lib- erty at the king's pleasure, and for an indefinite period. A law called ^^ Habeas Corpus^ ^ was enacted during the reign of Charles II., which gave to every Englishman the right to be brought before the court immediately upon being arrested, and to have his accuser state why he was arrested. The judge would then determine whether his ar- rest was legal or not. If the arrest was approved by the judge the law required that he should be 310 The Stuart Kings tried for the offense not later than the second term of court after his imprisonment. A judge who refused a prisoner his habeas corpus was se- verely punished. If set free by the court he could not be again imprisoned for the same of- fense. This was a very ancient right acknowledged by the Great Charter given by King John, but every king of England had been able to disregard the right by securing a decision from the courts, and to send the people to prison at will. This habeas corpus law was the first to so guard the people's rights that the king could no longer im- prison his subjects without stating why they were arrested, and without giving them a speedy trial when the arrest was legal. ^'Habeas Corpus^' is a Latin phrase, and means ^Take the Body.'' These were the . first two words of the order, given to the sheriff by the judge, which commanded him to bring the per- son arrested into court for trial. This law is regarded by all Englishmen and Americans as one of the greatest protections to their liberties. KING JAMES II. We are now at the threshold of what may justly be called the ^^Glorious Revolution." James, the brother of Charles II., who had sue- Charles II and James II 311 ceeded to the throne, was distrusted and feared by the people. Once when James was caution- ing his brother Charles to be more careful and not expose himself so recklessl}^ to the danger of assassination, Charles laughingly replied: ^ ^Nev- er fear, Jamie, the English people will never kill me to make you king." But they afterward made James king to escape what they thought would be a greater evil. James came to the throne determined to re- turn with it to the Roman Catholic Church. He declared that God had appointed him to that particular work, and he entered upon the busi- ness with all the reckless daring and courage which his father showed in his defense of his di- vine right. He openly violated every law of the land that stood between him and his object, dis- regarding even the prayers of the Catholics and the advice of the Pope that he should proceed with less haste and more discretion. It was not long before all England awakened to the danger that threatened Protestantism, and the nation rose almost as one man to the defense of their religious independence. Mary, the daughter of James, was the next heir to the throne, and she was the wife of Prince William of Orange, one of the greatest men in Europe at that time, and a firm Protestant. The lords and gentlemen and prominent men of 312 The Stuart Kings business all oyer England united in an invitation to William to come and place Mary upon her father^s throne. He hesitated because her fa- ther was the king, but when he learned that James was plotting to take her rights from her, he came over with a fleet and army. King James hastened to meet him in battle, but he soon discovered that he was deserted by even the officers and soldiers of his army, who shouted for William and a free Parliament. James, who had come three years before to take England with him to Rome, now fled alone in terror from his country, and soon landed on the shores of France, a fugitive from his home and kingdom. William and Mary were chosen to reign over England together, but to William was given all the power that belonged to the throne. He is known in history as William III. The two other Williams among the English kings were William the Conqueror and his son, William Rufus. Then began the great revolution in the English government which has made it a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, by raising the House of Commons to the supreme power in the land. Charles II and James II 313 SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Tell the story of General Monk's part in the restoration of the monarchy. When and by what body was Charles invited to the throne? What was the private character of Charles? What gave him a long lease of arbitrary power during the first part of his reign? What two calamities occurred during his reign? Why did they come? To what are we indebted for "Pilgrim's Progress"? For what was Charles plotting during his whole reign? How did he hoodwink the people? What was his conspiracy with Louis XIV. of France? Why was the death of Charles II. especially fortunate when it occurred? Describe the "Habeas Corpus" law passed during his reign. How is it regarded to-day? Who succeeded Charles II.? Tell the story of his brief tyranny. XXIX. NEW YORK. It was ten years previous to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth (1610), that the Dutch had established a colony at the mouth of the Hudson river. They carried on a profitable trade in furs with the Indians, for many miles up the river. When Charles II. was king of Eng- land this Dutch colony had grown to consider- able size and importance. It was known as New Netherlands, and this was its name for more than fifty years. In 1653, when Charles I. was in the midst of his conflict with his subjects, a small settlement of Dutch on Manhattan Island, was made into a city by the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who took upon himself the duty of appointing all the officers and making all the laws for his metropolis, numbering 1,500 souls. This Dutch city was named New Am- sterdam, after the great commercial city in Holland. England and the Dutch were sometimes at war with each other across the water. One day, in the year 1664, a fleet of English 314 New York 315 warships sailed up to the httle city on the island of Manhattan and demanded that it surrender with all of its belongings to the King of England. There was nothing for it to do but to obey. It had no warships and no army able to oppose the fleet, and its little fort was no protection. Charles II. had given to the Duke of York, his brother James, all the land claimed by the Dutch colony, which included much of the present state of New York. When the English fleet demanded posses- sion in the name of the duke the brave Peter Stviyvesant made the best terms he could with the robbers and yielded up the government of the New Netherlands to the English. The col- ony consisted, by this time, of three cities and thirty villages, with a population of ten thousand colonists, mostly Dutch. The Enc;lish conquerors changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York in honor of the Duke of York, Jrmes; and they changed the name of the fort to Fort James in honor of James, the Duke of York. They evidently wished to honor both the title and the man. Afterward the entire territory of the colony received the name of New York. Nine years passed when the Dutch came one morning with a fleet and took it all back again; but it was restored to England one year later by a treaty with Holland, and remained an English colony for 200 years. 316 The Stuart Kings No one thought, at that time, that the Uttle ham- let on Manhattan Island would ever grow; into the Greater New York of to-day. When we think that these events occurred but little more than two centuries and a quarter ago and, when we compare this period with the long, long time it has taken England to grow from the wilderness of the early Britons to its present greatness and power, we wonder what America will be one thousand years from now. The story of our English Grandfathers shows clearly that whether the greatness and power of a nation shall be a blessing or curse to its own people and to the world, depends upon the wis- dom and virtue of its people. The govern- ment of a free people is never better nor worse, for long, than are the people themselves. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Who first settled in New York? What was the colony called? When was it first established? Who was the governor? When did the English take possession of it? Who washing of England at the time? Why was the name changed to New York? What was the population of the colony at that time? XXX. PENNSYLVANIA. The Friends formed one of the religious sects of dissenters during the troubles between the English people and their Stuart sovereigns. They were called ^'Quakers'' in derision, because of certain indications of feelings of repentance that caused them to shudder or shake. But the Friends are now rather fond of the name that has so much of that which is peaceable and gen- tle associated with it. The founder of the sect was a great preacher by the name of Fox. William Penn, wliose father was a wealthy English gentleman, and an admiral in the Eng- lish nsLvy, wa< converted to the Friends' religion by the preaching of Fox. His father cast him off for a time, but later restored him to favor, and said to him as he was dying : ^^Son William, if you and your friends keep to your plain way of preaching and living, you will make an end of the priests. '^ Admiral Penn was a favorite of King Charles II. and his son Wilham succeeded to that re- gard. 317 318 The Stuart Kings These things will explain how it was that such bold dissenters as the Quakers were treated so kindly in America by the Stuarts. The crown owed WiUiam $80,000, an old debt due his father. William proposed to take his pay in American land. So the king made a grant to l>im of the 26,000,000 acres that are now the territory of Pennsylvania. ■ William then called together all the Indian chiel^ who claimed the land as their hunting ground and paid them, also, for their claims on so much of the land as he wished to use for his ciolonyv ; They all agreed in writing to live in peace! with one another. The homes of the col- onists were to be open to the friendly visits of the Indians, and the wigwams of the Indians were to welcome the white men. There was no sealing, and no oath taking, nor any ceremony whatever connected with the making of this agreement, but it was more carefully kept, and for a longer tiraje, than were.tl^se of other colonies that made so mi|p^>* ado about signing and sealing and swear- ing to keep the contracts made between them and the Indians. Kindness and fair dealin;^ were found to win more than seals and oaths. .William laid out a city containing twelve square miles and called it Philadelphia, which means ^ ^brotherly love.^' He was opposed to the name ^Tennsylvania/^ which means ^Tenn's Pejinsylvania 319 Woods/ ^ for his colony, but King Charles insisted that it should be so named in honor of William's father. William feared that the people would accuse him of wishing to honor himself by giving that name. He wished to call it ^^New Wales/' because of the mountains. Peace and prosperity attended this Quaker colony for many years. These people did not believe in fighting but they did believe in in- dustry, economy, and in doing good. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. Tell the story of William Peim. In what reign did he purchase Pennsylvania? From whom was Pennsylvania named? What did William Penn wish to call it? How did Penn treat the Indians? What city did he found? How large did he make it? Compare the relations of the Indians with the Quakerg; with those of the other colonies. Why the difference? XXXT. WILLIAM III. 1689—1702. We have now come to the time (1688) in the story of our EngHsh grandfathers when greater things were done for the civil and rehgious free- dom of all Englishmen than ever before. Kings were to rule no longer by right of birth, nor by what they claimed as their divine right; but by right of law of Parliament, solely. During the reign of William III. Parliament passed a law by which the sovereigns have ever since been chosen. Should the English people wish to change this law, or to abolish the office of king altogether, it is now believed that their representatives would have the power to do this. In William's reign laws were enacted that really transferred all rul- ing power to representatives chosen by the people at free elections. The king's prerogative has been limited ever since to the will of the voters; which is the same as saying that no prerogative exists. A prerogative is a personal arbitrary right of the ruler with which the people cannot interfere. William III 321 Who was this WilHam III. whose reign did so much for England, and for America as well? He was a Dutchman of Anglo-Saxon descent. His father was a Dutch prince, known as the Prince of Orange, sometimes called William WILLIAM III. the Silent. Holland was a republic and Prince William's father was too much of a king and at the same time too much of a democrat to please the Dutch aristocracy who controlled the government. When William III. was a 322 : The Stuart Kings small boy his father died, and he was brought up among those who would not have mourned if he, too, had died. '^His words were watched, his looks observed, and his friends jealously withdrawn. In such an atmosphere the boy grew up silent, wary, self-contained, grave in temper, cold in manner, blunt and even repul- sive in address.^^ Add to all this the fact that he was a child of delicate health from his cradle, and that ^ ^manhood brought with it asthma and consumption ] that shook his frame with constant cough, ^V tod there is little wonder that his face had a forbidding and bloodless appear- ance, and was seamed with deep lines, '^that told of ceaseless pain.'^ These afflictions were the chief cause of ' his personal unpopularity with the English people. They loved ''Bluff King HaP' and the /'Merry Monarch'^ more than the serious, straightforward William. And William had little personal affection for the English. His first and fondest love was for Holland, his fatherland, which was beset on every side by enemies. The most powerful of these was Louis XIV. of France, who, as you have learned, had secretly conspired with Charles and James to drive protestantism out of Europe. William's only hope of saving his country was through aid from protestant Eng- land. This the English kings had determined William III ' 323 he should not have. Parhament and the Eng- Ush protestants had continued to urge upon their sovereigns, but with no success, that- the safety of the nation depended upon the success of William. If protestant Holland was made subject to France they feared that protestant England would be the next victim. We know now, what the English people did not know then, that their own sovereigns were plotting to drive out of England the protestant religion and constitutional liberty. What claims by birthright had William to the throne of England? None whatever. His mother was the daugh- ter of Charles I., it is tme, but his wife, Mary, and Princess Anne were the daughters of James II. The children of James II. were nearer to the throne. Mary was the older of the two sisters, which made her heir-apparent. When James II. abdicated by running away, Mary had the first right to succeed him. But William refused to go to England as the ^'gentleman usher ^^ of the Queen, and Mary refused to be queen unless her husband was chosen king. The matter was final- ly settled by giving the throne to both of them, with the title of ^^King and Queen of England. Ireland and Scotland,^' and giving all the power to William. This settlement took place in 1869. 324 The Stuart Kings When James fled to Paris it was with the intention of bringing a large army of French soldiers into England and of compelling his sub- jects to submit to his rule. But he seemed to be utterly incapable of doing anything in an effective way. Louis gave him two fleets and some soldiers but they accomplished nothing, and Louis XIV. was finally compelled to acknowl- edge William as king. GOVERNMENT BY PARTIES. You know that in the United States there are always two great political parties. The party that can command the most votes governs the, country. It will interest you to know that before the reign of William III. government by party was unknown. There were too many parties and the king had too much personal power. Now, for the first time, two great parties arose which came to be known as Whigs and Tories. Both of these names were first used as words of con- tempt. The original Toiy was a wretched outlaw hiding in the bogs of Ireland. The original Whig was a Scotch covenanter of the lowest order of intelligence and mode of life. Neither name had any meaning as applied to these political parties. We may conclude from these vulgar epithets that party rancor and William III 325 calling each other low names began at the beginning of party rule. The Tories included those who stood for the old ideas of divine right, the king^s prerogative, and the like, and the Whigs favored a move- ment toward a more republican form of govern- ment. IMPORTANT REFORMS. When William became king he joined with Mary in a solenm promise that they would not disobey the laws, nor raise money without the consent of Parliament, nor keep up a standing army, nor violate the Great Charter in any other way. The Petition of Rights, which had been so vigorously insisted upon by Parliament in the reign of Charles I., now became the law of the land by joint action of king and Parlia- ment. It had really been the law ever since the time of King John, but the kings had seldom respected it. They declared that their prero- gative was superior to all charters and to all laws passed by the people's representatives. Another important law was enacted during this reign. This was that the king could only act in accordance with the advice of his minister. It required that the chief minister, as well as the king, should sign all orders issued by the king. This made the minister directly respon- 326 The Stuart Kings sible for all the acts of the king. The king could not act without him. This has been the law of England ever since. (See close of chapter XXVIII.) These agreements between king and Par- liament did not make peace in the land. The Whig Parliament was opposed by the Tories, and there were many friends of James in the kingdom, especially in Ireland and Scotland, who were working for his restoration. When James ran away to France the government of Ireland was in the hands of his friends. The general of the Irish forces was Tyrconnel, a violent enemy of protestantism and of the English. Nearly all of the inhabitants of Ireland were catholics, and they had a large army that was in favor of the restoration of King James. So James came over from France with some French soldiers and took command of this army with the intention of joining with the catholic forces in Scotland and northern, England in a war against William. William led the English army into Ireland where James brought on his forces to meet him. After a hard struggle William was everywhere victorious, but while he was subduing his ene- mies in Ireland, the French were defeating his fleet in the channel. The English admiral had turned traitor and withdrawn his forces, leaving William 111 327 but a few Dutch vessels to meet the enemy. The French had no army at hand with which to follow up the success of their fleet, and before one could be brought over William had returned to England after having put to rout James and his Irish forces. The acts of James and his threats against the supporters of protestantism disgusted many of his most influential friends. A second battle between the French fleet and the combined fleets of the English and Dutch resulted in the over- throw of the French. Then France gave over her efforts to drive William from the English throne. Wh}^ was it that France, then the most pow- erful nation in the world, was so persistent in her warfare against William? It was because William was the acknowledged leader of the protestants of Europe and had come to be regarded by European nations as the greatest statesman on the continent. With the overthrow of William, Louis XIV. believed that the protestant people would be compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of the Catholic church. The great statesmanship of William was able finally to unite all the protestants of Europe and England and, also, the emperor of Germany against France, and then Protestant- ism was saved. 328 The Stuart Kings The active and fiery soul of William had burned up the delicate constitution with which he had been born, and he was compelled to leave to the able Duke of Marlborough the prose- cution of the war that was to establish forever the right of the protestant religion to life and liberty upon this planet. The final battle between the opposing armies took place at Blenheim in 1704, two years after the death of William, in which the forces led by the French were nearly all killed or taken pris- oners, and Louis XIV. fell in a few hours from the autocrat of the destinies of Europe, to the common level of the other rulers. The man who had worked for this all his life, who was a great soldier and yet generally un- successful in battle, who turned every defeat into a victory for his cause, who by the force of his intellect and character could win those to its support who were repelled by his unattractive personality, who patiently and persistentl}^ plot- ted and planned for more than thirty years to preserve the liberties of his beloved fatherland, was William III. of England. His heart was not in England. He ascended the throne that he might maintain the right of protestants all over Europe to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In working for this end he worked William III 329 mightily for the liberty and future glory of the EngUsh people. He was ' disliked and often in- sulted by the representatives of the nation, and was more than once on the verge of resigning his crown in despair of ever doing any service worthy of a king for a people who so misunder- stood him and whom he did not understand. William would not have been so unpopular among the middle class of Englishmen if they had known him better. But we must bear in mind that there was no daily press in those days, and that the only information the people re- ceived came to them through pamphlets written by pei'sons, some of whom favored one notion and others, another. So it was that they got only partial and onesided views of public mat- ters. Many of the writers of these pamphlets belonged to the ^^ smart set" who hung about the royal court and who cared more for pleasure and merry society than for the liberty of their coTmtr}^ These did not like William, who was too serious minded to care for such things, and who enjoyed the society of his Dutch generals more than that of a brilliant court. But William was no sooner laid to rest among the great in the burial ground of Westminster Abbey, than the veil fell from the eyes of the English people and they saw in their 330 The Stuart Kinq^ king one of the greatest of English sovereigns. He died in 1702, thirteen years after he as- cended the throne. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. . . Who was William III.? Why is the reign of William III. nota- ble? Tell of the early Hfe of William. Why was he not personally ■popular with the English? For what reason did he accept the Eng- lish throne? By what right did he become king? What was done for the civil and religious freedom of the people during his reign? When did government by parties begin? What names were given to them? What reforms did William pi*omise? Did he do what he promised? Tell of William's struggle with the Irish army and with the French. Why was France so hostile to William? Where did the great battle for Protestantism in Europe take place? How long after William's death? Who were the Protestant generals? When did William die? What was England's estimate of him after he was dead? THE HANOVERIAN KINGS. 1714- XXXII. A SHORT STORY OF THREE REIGNS. 1702 — 1760. When William III. died Princess Anne, the sister of Mary, became Queen. Very little that is of any interest or of historical value can be said of her. She had scarcely more intellect or character than her father, James II. The in- teresting person in her reign was the Duke of Marlborough who won the battle of Blenheim and was a good statesman as well as a great gen- eral. He was the man, and probably the only man in England, who could take the place of William III., and execute what William had so ably planned. He should be remembered as the great defender, on more than one battle-field, of protestantism in this its final struggle for life and liberty. Our own religious and political freedom is much indebted to this great captain. 331 332 The Hanoverian Kings But Anne was a Tory, and the Tories were op- posed to the ^' Whig War '' which had given Duke Marlborough such renown. The Tories were now in power in Parhament, and so Marlborough was removed from his office and appeared no more upon the political stage. We might wish of him, as we do of William the Conquerer, that, being so great a general and so able a statesman he had also been a nobler man. In his private life he seems to have been ever honest, biit he was not always loyal. The one really important thing in Anne's reign was the imion of the Parliaments of England and Scotland into one government. Scotland had had a separate Parliament until then. After the death of Anne, English history for more than fifty years has little to say of the Eng- lish kings. The Wliig party ruled the nation, and a country squire named Walpole ruled tlie Whig party for twenty years. Walpole was prime minister when the new Dutch king came in, and from the first the minister ruled the king. The new king was George I., who was ^^ac stuffy an old drone'' from the Dutch hive as was ever seated upon a throne. His son George II. was another of the same kind and Walpole was virtually king for more than twenty years. Happy it was for England that Walpole believed in the plan of government as Wilham had left it, A Short Story of Three Reigns 333^ and believed also in peace with other nations. He said of himself that he was no reformer. He proposed nothing new in government but held firmly to a constitutional monarchy in which the sovereign was obedient to the will of the people as expressed by the ministers and by a Parliament. Before the fifty years of the rule of the first two Georges had passed, Englishmen had for- gotten that it was possible for the ruler to perse- cute the people for differences of religion, or to destroy the liberty of the press, or to inter- fere with the Courts of Justice, or to rule without regular sessions of Parliament. Walpole did much to promote trade and com- merce throughout England, and the wealth of the people increased greatly during this ministry. Nor did he overlook our American grandfathers. The former rulers had made it unlawful for Americans to trade with other countries than England, and the English merchants would not pay them so much for their tobacco, their furs, their rice, and other products as they could get elsewhere. Walpole had many of these restric- tions removed and permitted them to sell where they could get the best price, and to buy where they could buy cheapest. So our forefathers in America grew rich and prospered along with our grandfathers in Eng- 334 The Hanoverian Kings land. If it had not been for Walpole's interces- sion one can hardly see how America could have grown rich enough to resist successfully the tyranny of George III. In order that you may understand better how George III. could work so much mischief when, for fifty years, his predecessors had been so powerless, you need to know some of the faults of Walpole. He was the first minister of England to bribe the members of Parliament to support him, when he could not win their votes in any other way. Charles II. began this bad business, and Walpole carried it on to an extent never known before. The population of England had grown to 8,000,000 by the end of the reign of George II., and yet the number of voters in the kingdom was only 160,000. This means that there was only one voter for every fifty inhabitants. In- deed many large cities and towns and other pop- ulous communities had no representative in Parliament. In a large number of cases a little hamlet, called a ^^ rotten borough or pocket borough, '^ containing from ten to twenty-five voters, had the right to elect one and sometimes two members to the House of Commons. This hamlet belonged to a wealthy land owner, per- haps, and the voters must elect whom he ordered. A Short Story of Three Reigns 335 When a great land holder owned a dozen such hamlets, or boroughs, he would have a score of members of Parliament to sell to the highest bidder. Walpole would buy them if he needed them. There were deserted boroughs in which there was not a single householder, that still continued to send a representative. When you read the story of ^'John Halifax — Gentleman/^ by Miss Mulock, you will learn how these " rotten borough" elections were conducted. In the early part of the reign of George III., $125,000 were paid out by the prime minister in a single day to buy up these representatives of the people, who were ordered to vote as the minister directed. William Pitt is a name familiar to Americans and more beloved than that of any other Eng- lishman of his time. He came to be known in England as the ''Great Commoner.'^ He be- longed to an old English family that had been poor and obscure until William^s grandfather brought home from the Indies a large diamond which he sold for $675,000. This was a g»eat fortune at that time. William was well educated, first at the great public school of Eton, and afterward at Oxford College. He went into Parliament, when a very young man, from a ''rotten borough" that be- longed to his family. He very soon took a high 336 The Hanoverian Kings place as a strong debater and a great orator. He joined the opposition to Walpole in the House of Commons, and made the hall ring with his elo- quence in many a sharp debate. We know very little of what he said, for no reporters were ad- WILLIAM PITT. mitted to the house, but we know of his influence upon the politicians and upon the people. There is a well-known extract from one of his speeches in reply to Walpole, which the school boys in America have declaimed for three generations. It begins with ^'Tbe heinous crime of being a A Short Story of Three Reigns 337 young man which the gentleman (Walpole) has with such spirit and decency charged upon me I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with hoping that I may be of that number whose follies cease with their youth and not of those who aie ignorant in spite of experience/' (meaning Walpole who had little learning). It is a very stirring speech, but it is doubtful whether Pitt ever said those words. The great Dr. Johnson, the author of the first Dictionary of the English Language, was then writing for the public press his reports of the great speeches in the House as they were re- ported to him by some of the members. Some of these papers, he confessed afterward, he wrote without receiving any report whatever. This speech of Pitt's may have been one thkt Dr. Johnson thought Pitt might have made, or ought to have made. It was Pitt's attacks upon the administration of AValpole that finally drove the latter from office, and it was not long afterward that Pitt was appointed to his place When he had become the ruling power he accomplished great things for England — greater far than had ever been done by any statesman before, and perhaps greater than any one man has ever accomplished since. 33$ The Hanoverian Kings It was Pitt that planned the large movements that achieved such glorious success in the four quarters of the globe, between 1757 and 1761, and it was he that choose the men to execute them. The story of the life of Pitt during these four years is the history of England's achieve- ments during that period. Americans love Pitt for his able defense of their rights when the king (for George III., was king in fact and not merely in name) sought to impose taxes upon our American grandfathers without giving them any voice in making the laws by which they were taxed. They always remember his impassioned declaration: ''If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while a foreign foe was landed in my country I never -would lay down my arms — never, never, never.'' Probably no one but the Great Com- moner would have been permitted to make such a speech at that time without being sent to the Tower for it* Pitt was made Earl of Chatham, by which he became a lord, and a member of the House of Lords, but he always stood firmly for the con- stitutional liberty of Englishmen against the tyranny of King or Parliament. Chatham, like William HI., suffered all his life with a painful disease which often kept him out of the councils of his nation for months at a A Short Story of Three Reigns 339 time, and sometimes for years. The Great Com- moner was born in 1708 and died in 1778. He entered Parliament in 1735, being then twenty-seven years old. He was in the service of England for forty-three years. We shall learn more about him in the story of George III. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. What important union occurred during Queen Anne's reign? Who succeeded Anne? Who was the chief ruler of England during the reign of George I.? What were Walpole's good quaUties as a minister? What were his bad ones? How many people cast all the votes .for members of Parliament when there were 8,000,000 inhabi- tants? What Avas a rotten borough? Who was the first William Pitt? At what age did he enter Parliament? Why called the Great Commoner? What did he do for England? Why did the Americans love Pitt? xxxrci. GEORGE III. 1760—1820. King George III. was the grandson of George II. His father, the Prince of Wales, had died while George II. was still on the throne. His mother, the Princess of Wales, was a very am- bitious woman, who thought her son^s grand- father and great-grandfather had been serv- ants of their ministers rather than kings of England. From his cradle to manhood she was repeatedly saying to her son, ^^ George, George, be king!" He was the most unedu- cated of all the kings of England, but he learned well the simple lesson set him by his mother. He came to the throne in 1760, sixteen years before our American grandfathers decided that they would live no longer as members of his family. These grandfathers loved their broth- eis and sisters in England well enough and could have lived as happily with them as they had done for one hundred and fifty years, but the 340 George III 341 head of the family had determined to ^'be king^^ in the same sense in which Charles I. determined to be king. Charles lost his head; George lost the most promising and vigorous member of the English family. In his private life George III. was a model of good behavior. A charming writer of that time, who knew the family well, has painted in her books a beautiful picture of the home life of the royal household. But in public life George was ambitious to ^'be king" in the narrow sense that made his wishes the law of the land. Any councilor who did not agree with him he held to be his personal enemy. He could brook no differences of opinion between himself and mem- bers of his cabinet or parliament. This made his path a thorny one and finally reduced Eng- land again to an inferior place among the na- tions of Europe. Much that his ministers had gained George lost, for George was no statesman. The king managed to get rid of most of the able members of his cabinet, . and appointed narrow minded men like himself in their places who had no opinion but the king's. He built up a little party known as "The King's Friends'' that advocated whatever he wished. Pitt was still alive but George did not like ministers who were stronger than he. He made Pitt a lord, and this took him out of the House of Commons. 342 The Hanoverian Kings The people did not like this. They thought the Great Commoner had deserted their inter- ests for his personal advancement to a higher social rank. He was greater than any English lord. His acceptance of the title of ^^Lord Chatham'^ reduced him, in their opinion, to the level of the other lords. But Lord Chatham always remained plain William Pitt in all matters that concerned the constitutional rights of the English people. During the fifty years after Queen Anne the American colonies had prospered greatly. They had acquired large wealth and a republican form of government had become established. Representatives chosen by the people made the local laws by which the colonies were governed and declared what taxes the people should pay. The spirit of freedom had grow^n in the land. Now England had large debts to pay. Pittas great military successes on the sea, in Europe, in India, and in Canada, added much to the glory of England but they had cost an immense sum of money; — more than England had in her treasury. The king said: ^'Let America pay part of this. The French and Indian war was fought for their protection. Let them pay part of the expense. We will make a law that shall require them to pay for stamps which they must put upon all their deeds, their mortgages George lit 343 and other contracts, their bank checks, and the Uke, to make them legal. ^^ It was done. But our colonial grandfathers said ^'No!'' very em- phatically. "We are willing/^ they said, "to contribute our share toward the payment of this debt, but you have no right to tax us until we are permitted to send representatives to the English Parliament. Taxation without repre- sentation is a violation of our constitutional rights as Englishmen.'^ Lord Chatham, and Mr. Burke, and all Englishmen that cared much for their constitutional rights agreed with them. But King George and "his friends" said: "We are asking no more of the Englishmen in America than we demand of Englishmen in England. Most of the people in England are taxed without having any direct voice in sending lepresenta- tives to Parliament: more in numbers than all the people in the American colonies. Large cities and towns in many parts of England have no vote for members of Parliament. But those who are sent are considered representatives of all Englishmen whether they vote or not. In this indirect way the ^Ajnerican colonies arc already represented in Parliament.'^ But our colonial grandfathers declared that ii Englishmen in England chose to permit their constitutional rights to be disregarded that was their business. "As for us we will not permit 344 The Hanoverian Kings it/^ And they said this in so loud a voice that it was heard across the Atlantic ocean, and King George finally consented to the repeal of the Stamp Act, though much against his will. Even some of '^ The King's Friends " insisted that he must yield in this matter. Our colonial grandfathers expressed their joy by speeches, and the blowing of trumpets, by fife and drum, bonfires, and cannon shots, and in a great burst of loyalty that flowed over the land. But a little later King George and his friends concluded that they had been too soft with the colonists; that if the}^ had sent a couple of regi- ments of British soldiers to enforce the Stamp Act the spirit of rebellion would have been quelled. "They are only a set of ignorant rag- a-muffins anyway.'^ (These were not precisely the words that our American grandfathers and the king used in this controversy, but what they actually said to each othei amounted to this in substance.) The colonists had settled down into good loyal subjects after the repeal of the Stamp Act, and were willing and ready to do their part when they had any part in what was done. But it was not long until the king and "his friends ^^ again determined to tax the colonies. They made a law that required them to pay a duty on the tea that was imported into their country. George III 345 This tea was all brought in by the English mer- chants. The colonies were not permitted to import it for themselves. Soon a vessel loaded with tea came into Boston harbor. Then it was that the people of Boston held a great meeting. Samuel Adams was there. The people considered Samuel THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. Adams as a wise and safe leader, and they un- derstood him to say at this meeting that these caddies of tea ought not to be landed on Boston soil. It happened a few hours afterward that a band of Indians in their war paint, feathers, and war dress took possession of this ship, rU6 The Hanoverian Kings ^ knocked a hole in every caddy of tea, and then threw it into the sea. They then went away, and dissolving in the crowd of white people that were looking on, they were never recog- nized afterward. The expense of this tea party was charged up against the city of Boston, and King George's two regiments came over to col- lect the bill. Then began that glorious fight for constitu- tional liberty whose shots were ^^ heard around the world.'' Among the friends of America in the English Parliament during the war of the American Revolution, was Edmund Burke, an Irishman. In one of his speeches he said: ^^Our hold upon the colonies is in the close affection that grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges and pro- tection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the ideas of their civil rights associated with our government; they will then cling and grapple to us and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once under- stood that our government may be one thing, and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation, then the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, George III . 347 and everything hastens to decay and dissohi- tion/^ There were eight long, weary years of war be- fore our colonial grandfathers compelled the English government to acknowledge their in- dependence. It does not seem probable that even then it would have been gained but for the unsurpassed greatness of George Washington; great as a general, great as a statesman, great as a man. England seemed to be on the verge of her own destruction a little before the War of the Revolution closed. She stood alone against a world in arms. But it was then as it had ever been. Englishmen were found able to change defeat into victory, and under the great min- isters that now took the place of those ^'friends" of King George, England began to awaken from her stupor, and to shake herself free from her foes who had her by the throat. AVhen she placed her best men in places of command no nation could stand against her. George III. was on the throne for sixty years, but for a part of this long period he was insane at times, and during the last nine years he was both mad and blind. His personal lead- ership ceased and the plan of government by cabinet and Parliament was again resumed. 348 The Hanoverian Kings When Lord Chatham was no longer able to lead the government, his son, known as the younger Pitt, took his place. He, like his father, entered Parliament when a young man, David. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. being only twenty-three years of age. He soon attained to the greatness of his father if not to his masterful oratory. For nearly a quarter of a century the younger Pitt was Gecrrge III 349 the pilot of the EngHsh ship of state. It was the time when Napoleon was com- pelling the nations of the continent of Europe to bow to his superior genius and re- lentless mil. England alone stood her ground, and at the battle of Waterloo finally freed the world from this destroyer of the peace of the world. The younger Pitt was the leader cf England until the battle of Austerlitz. This was the battle in which Bonaparte defeated the combined armies of both Russia and Austria. It was said that ^' Austerlitz killed Pitt.^^ Death had long been standing at his door ^^and this blow to his hopes proved fatal.'' ^^Roll up the map" he said, pointing to a map of Europe that hijng upon the wall, ^^it will not be wanted these ten years.'' He died murmuring, '^My country! How I leave my country!" He was buried in the grave with his great father in West- minster Abbey. Lord Wellesle}", the Duke of Wellington, exclaimed "What grave contains such a father and such a son ! What sepulcher embosoms the remains of so much human ex- cellence and gloiy!" But Waterloo was to be fought nine years afterward (in 1815) and England was again to rise in glory from another life and death strug- gle with her foes. 350 The Hanoverian Kings George III. was still alive. He died five years after the "Great Duke^s'^ victory at Waterloo. While the king was master his was one of the most inglorious of reigns. After the truly great men in England came to rule in his place, no period ever ended in greater glory. You will wonder why the wealthy and power- ful cities and towns in England were content to live so long without having the legal right to vote for members of Parliament who made the laws to govern them. I think Chatham and his great son William Pitt often wondered too. They both attempted more than once to arouse the country to the need of purer elections and a fuller representation of all the people. But those who held the right to vote, many of them the great lords and gentlemen, were not willing to send representatives to Parliament who would make a law that should take their power out of their hands. It was fifty years after the death of the younger Pitt before this reform began. During all this period the rotten boroughs con- tinued to send in their creatures to do the bid- ding of their masters, and a majority of the House of Commons was chosen by less than 200 voters. The faults of George III. were of the head more than of the heart. He really wished to serve his country and to rule as an English George III 351 monarch should. He was sincere but too big- oted in his rehgion to tolerate the religious freedom of all his subjects, and too narrow in his views, and too weak in judgment to appreciate the statesmanship of Lord Chatham and his great son. He was a man of many virtues and for these the common people loved hun. SEARCH AND TEST QUESTIONS. When did George III. become king? How long did he occupy the throne? What was the lesson his mother taught him? What was his notion of being king? Why did he wish to tax the American colonies? Why did the colonists object to it? How did the king answer this objection? What was the "Stamp Act"? Why was it repealed? What was the next attempt to tax the colonists? Relate the story of the Boston "Tea- Party." What war did this act lead to? What was the result of the war? Who was the Younger Pitt? What did the Duke of Wellington say of him? Why was the battle of Waterloo important? Explain why the people of England permitted so small a number of voters to represent them in parliament. XXXIV. THE STORY OF THE ENGLISH PARLIA- MENT. In the time of King Alfred the English Parlia- ment was called the Council of the Wise. We learned in chapter IV. that when the Angles and Saxons first came to Britain, and every man was a freeman, there were among them some who were richer and wiser than the mass of the people. They were called the Witan — the Wise. They were the councilors of the great generals and chieftains. When William the Conqueror became king he chose his councilors from among the officers of his army and the dignitaries of the church. These he would call together whenever he thought of making a new law that applied to them. They were the great Barons to whom he had given large tracts of land which they were to hold as his vassals. That is, they were to pay rent for this land by going with him to war and bringing a certain number of soldiers with them. You remember that these Normans had lived in France and spoke the French lan- 352 The Story of the English Parliament 353 guage. So it came about that these Norman- French kings called the Council of the Wise "The Parliament'' because parler was their word for talk. At first Parliament consisted only of the Churchmen and Barons. They have been a part of the Parliament ever since. You will remember that the archbishops and bishops of the church have been very important men in the government from the time of Alfred to the present. The upper house of the English Parliament is now made up of Lords and Church- men. You will also remember that the great charter that King John was compelled to sign declared it to be the right of the barons to be called in council whenever the king wished to tax the nation for any purpose whatever. In the reign of Henry III. the king was at war with his barons because he insisted upon violat- ing the great charter which he had solemnly promised to obey. Simon de Montfort was the leader of those who opposed the king. He was the greatest of the barons, and believed the char- ter must be amended in order to insure its ob- servance by the king. He said that not only the lords but the middle class of people should be represented in Parliament. Man}^ of the barons were opposed to giving so much power to the 354 The Hanoverian Rings lower class, and they went over to the side of the king. But Mpntfort had the church-men, the county squires, the towns-men, and some of the barons with him. In a battle that followed Montf ort was victorious and the king was taken prisoner. Then he called together a national Parliament of bishops, abbots, earls and barons, also two knights from every county, and two of the chief men of every town, or borough. This was the first Parliament in which all classes of freemen were represented. But in another battle the barons who stood for the king, having been heavily reinforced, were victorious, and Simon de Montf ort was killed on the battle field. The king was then restored to the throne and Montfort^s Parliament was dissolved. But King Edward I., who suc- ceeded Henry III., called a Parliament com- posed of representatives from the same classes of society as that of Montfort, which he con- tinued as his Council during his reign. It was nearly 100 years after Montfort, that the Black Death visited England (see page 146) and swept away one-half of the population. It was especially fatal among the laboring classes. After the plague there were not enough laborers in England to do the woik of the farms, and this brought about changes in the methods of The Story of the English Parliament 355 farming and in the laws that soon drove many of these laborers into crime. They became thieves and robbers. Bands of highwaymen made all travel unsafe, and even homes were sacked in open day. The barons had enough retainers to protect their estates, but their fre- qvient quarrels with each other caused the death of many of the great nobles and lawlessness and disorder increased everywhere. Simon de Montfort has been called the father of the modern house of Parliament and the Eng- lish Constitution. He planted ideas in the minds of the people that finally led to freedom, although many backward steps were taken in the long struggle that followed. We learn that in the reign of Edward III. Parliament was divided into two Houses — the Lords and the Commons. The knights of the counties and the burgesses from the towns made up the House of Commons.. The people in these two reigns concluded that the king had no right to tax them except by vote of Parliament. They often used this power to their own profit and protection. When the king ruled badly and made laws too oppressive, Parliament would refuse to grant the money he asked until he repealed the oppressive laws and promised in future to do as the Great Charter directed. The next Parliament probably would 356 The Hanoverian Kings have other grievances which the king would re- dress, provided the tax was voted. The lawless condition of the i*viral districts and the weakness of the barons to defend their own estates from plunder by the outlaws, or by foes of their own class, caused all lovers of order to favor a strong central government which could bring these law-breakers to justice. In the reign of Henry V. ParUament attained its greatest power. This Henry was, in his youth, it is said, the leader of a disorderly band made up of young lords and squires, but when he came to the throne his character seemed sud- denly to change. He at once arose to the full level of the duties and responsibilities of a king, and England never had a ruler that did so much to establish Parliament as an independent power in the government of the nation. Now for the first time the ^^ Privilege" of Parliament was declared. We remember that when Charles I. entered the House of Commons to arrest five of. the members, the Commons cried ''Privilege! Privilege!" This privilege to act as an inde- pendent department of the government was acknowledged in the reign of Henry V., (1400) two hundred years before James I. came to the throne. Fifty years after the reign of Henry V. Ed- ward IV. began to use and even exceed his pre- The Story of the English Parliament 357 rogatives in making himself absolute ruler. Now begins arbitrar}^ monarchy which con- tinued well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The social disorder made the people prefer an absolute ruler who could keep order, to a free Parliament that could not. But the form of government by Parliament and the king was kept up during this period, though Parliament was merely the bondslave of the king. It was often convenient for the king to shield himself behind the vote of Parliament, when the people complained of heavy taxes. The people cared more for the protection of their property than for anything else. There were certain towns and cities that had long had the right to send members to Parlia- ment. Sometimes they objected to passing the . laws the king wanted. Then the king would send them all home and grant to other small boroughs the right to send up members, provided they would select men who would do what the king ordered. These new members would make the king^s party in Parliament large enough to out- vote the opposition and so the king would have his way without violating the law. It was in this way that the little hamlets gained the privilege of sending representatives to Parliament. No borough or city could send representatives unless the king granted to them the right, and he would 358 The Hanoverian Kings grant it only to those whom he could control. The number of representatives grew from reign to reign, but the number of people who were permitted to send them was small. You now see the origin of those ^^ rotten boroughs'' that later furnished a majority of the House of Com- mons. Even Queen Elizabeth would sometimes bring into Parliament new members from the little boroughs which had never sent representatives before. She did not do this very often for she seldom called her Parliament. She managed to live within her income most of the time, and did not often worry her people with taxes. She and her councilors thought they could govern the country alone, and they generally did it very well. You have learned how much trouble there was between Parliament and the Stuart kings. The king could no longer bring in a lot of new members whenever he was out-voted, but his ministers now began to bribe the members to vote for the king's measures. This was carried on for a long time. Towns grew to be cities and the population grew to be many millions and yet 160,000 English voters sent up all the members to the House of Commons. It is said that even when the population of England had increased to 20,000,000, a major- The Story of the English Parliament 350 360 The Hanoverian Kings ity of the House of Commons was sent up by less than 6,000 voters. An EngUsh society for the advancement of ParHamentary reform at the time, declared publicly and offered to prove that a majority of the House of Commons was actually sent up by 154 persons. After the death of George III. there began to be some improvement. A reform set in that gave to holders of property worth a certain amount, the right to vote. Then other reforms followed that, until the great reformer, Mr. Glad- stone, who had become prime minister, took the matter up in 1885 and gave to every householder the right to vote, and increased the number of members in the House of Commons to 670. The House of Commons worked for four months in the preparation of this last Reform Bill and then the House of Lords, composed of lords and bishops, refused to pass it when it came up to them. This caused great excite- ment throughout England. It was not supposed that the House of Lords would do other than pass the bill that the representatives of the people had agreed upon. Then it was that some pretty ugly things were said by English- men concerning the House of Lords. At a great meeting of the people in London only twenty years ago John Morley, the president of the meet- ing said: The Story of the English Parliament 361 ^^Be sure that no power on earth can separate henceforth the question of mending the House of Commons, from the question of mending or end- ing the House of Lords. '^ Mr. Bright, who was a member of the government, said ^ These Lords are, many of them, the spawn of the plunder and the wars and the corruption of the dark ages of our country/' Mr. Chamberlain, also a member of the govern- ment, said : '^During the last one hundred years the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common good; and during that time it has protected every abuse. It is irresponsible without independence, obstinate without courage, arbitrary without judgment, and arrogant without knowledge." These were all harsh words that foretold harsh action if the lords persisted in resisting the will of the people. They yielded and the Parliament was reformed by giving equal representation to all in the whole kingdom who were householders and otherwise entitled to vote. A House of 670 members could neither be bought nor sold, and the people are now sure that their wishes will be heeded. HOW PARLIAMENT MAKES LAWS. Great Britain and Ireland are now divided into a definite number of parliamentary districts 362 The Hanoverian Kings each containing about the same number of vo- ters. The representatives are elected by the voters in much the same manner as in the United States. The king issues a royal proclamation for the meeting of the Parliament. After it assembles the members of the House of Commons must first elect a speaker who must be approved by the king. (The king always approves.) Then each of the commons takes the oath of office, the speaker swearing first. After this the king in a speech before the joint assembly of both Houses states the causes for summoning the Parliament. This address is considered in both Houses and an answer returned to the king. Then the two Houses are open, and they begin business. The lord chancellor, whoever he may be, is speaker of the House of Lords by virtue of his office. In the United States the vice-president is president of the Senate, and the speaker of the lower House is elected by the members. In England the usual time for the assembling of the Houses is about 4 o^clock in the after- noon. On Wednesdays they assemble at noon and adjourn at 6 p. m. This is called a morning session. There are other morning sessions, some times, that begin at 2 p. m. and close at 7. Members claim the right to speak in debate by rising in their places. If two or more are up the The Story of the English Parliament 363 speaker calls the one who is to speak. In the House of Lords the whole house calls him. In the House of Commons an unruly member can be punished by the House. After the debate upon a bill is closed a vote is taken in a way different from the ^'aye'^ and ^^no" vote in our country. There are two rooms — one on each side of the chamber — called lobby rooms. Those in favor of the bill go into the room on the right, and those opposed go into the one on the left. Then, as they file out, they go by different routes back to their seats, so that the two parties are kept entirely clear of each other. Each party has two tellers, one counts the members as they pass, and the other checks their names on his list. Then the tellers come to the table and the votes on each side are re- ported by one of the tellers for the majority. The members of Parliament sit with their hats on, or are privileged to do so, but when a mes- senger from the king comes, or the king himself enters the Houses, heads are all uncovered ex- cept the king's. (Note the picture in story of Charles I. The members are all standing with hats off while he talks to them.) When a vacancy occurs in the lower House the speaker issues a writ for a new election. If a member becomes bankrupt by losses in business or otherwise, his seat becomes vacant. 364 The Hanoverian Kings Such a misfortune is not so punished in the United States. All members of Parliament of both houses serve without pay. Only persons of con- siderable wealth can afford to stand for an elec- tion. The various rules that govern in the process of enacting a bill proposed by a member into a law of the land, are much the same in the English Parliament as in legislative bodies in this country. Indeed, we copied their rules far back in our colonial days. There are more than five hundred members in the House of Lords, and yet three members make a quorum. In the Commons forty members are required to be in attendance in order that any business can be done. So it seems that while there are nearly 1,200 representatives of the people in both houses, forty-three can pass laws for the coun- try. The attendance of members is often very small unless some exciting question is up. XXX Y. DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS. From the time of Henry VIII. to that of George III. there had been Uttle improvement in the manner in which the English people lived or in the industries by which they paid their ex- penses and saved something for old age. Almost everything was made by hand. Cloth was manu- factured by the same process that it was when the barons were compelling King John to sign the Magna Charta. Skins were tanned into leather by hand, and shoes were made by men working at the bench, as cobblers work now. The roads were almost impassable. They grew worse as population increased, for it was no one's business to keep them in repair. Cities and towns engaged in the manufacture of many things, but their goods had to be carried on pack horses, the same as when the Romans ruled over Britain. There were manufactories in which much work was done by laborers with improved tools, and merchandise of many kinds was pro- duced and sold, both in the home market and in 365 366 The Hanoverian Kings foreign countries. England had grown rich by these industries, but the work was done in the same old way. But during the latter part of the reign of George III. wonderful changes took place. In 1761 an engineer, whose name was Brind- ley, made a canal from Manchester, a town that manufactured a large amount of cotton goods, to Liverpool, the seaport. This gave cheap and rapid transportation of raw cotton from Liver- pool to Manchester, and of the cloth back again from Manchester to Liverpool, where it could be shipped to other points. Very soon canals were constructed between several other cities, but the roads through the country were as bad as ever. In 1767 a spinning machine was invented by Hargreaves, improved by Arkwright in 1769, and further improved by Crompton in 1779. It is now known as the ^'Spinning Jen- nie," or ''Mule," which draws out the wool from the roll, stretches it and twists it into a thread of equal size at every point, and winds the thread on a spindle, all at practically the same time. One machine will work a large number of these spindles, and each spindle will make thread much faster than one person could spin it on the hand spinning-wheel then in use. Discoveries and Inventions 367 These inventions greatly increased the amount of both cotton and woolen cloth made in Eng- land, so that England clothed many of the people of the world outside of the island. But this machine would have been of less value if the manufacturers had been compelled to de- pend upon water and the wind to drive it. It was James Watt who invented a machine in 1765 by which steam could be used in the place of water or wind. At first his machine could only pump water out of the coal mines. It was twenty years before Watt had so improved his engine that it could be used to move machinery of all kinds. In 1785, the year in which Watt perfected his steam engine, Dr. Cartwright invented the power- loom. After this was done it was possible to prepare the wool or cotton or flax for spinning, to spin it, and to weave it into cloth all by ma- chinery that was moved by the powder of steam. The laborers now changed their work from hand labor, in making the different fabrics, to tending the machines that did the work for them. The steam engine, in time, superseded the water mills in all great factories, and millions of yards of cotton, woolen, and linen cloth were turned out where before only thousands of yards were made. Water power was used in the smaller 368 The Hanoverian Kings mills for many years, because of the expense of steam engines. In 1763 a potter, whose name was Wedgewood, set up some potteries and called Mr. Flaxman, the artist, to his assistance, and together they made pottery that excelled that made in Holland and France, which countries were then thought to make the best in the world. We still buy Wedge wood ware at the china stores. WTiile all these improvements in manufactur- ing were going on and for some time before, there were equally great improvements in farming. Mr, Arthur Young traveled much over the world to learn what the best farmers in the world knew about farming. He wrote some books which were widely read by the farmers of England. By following his advice they were soon able to make several heads of wheat, and oats, and blades of grass grow where only one, or none grew before. This greatly increased the wealth of the farmers who were now better able to buy what the factories turned out, by selling to the towns and cities food, and wool, and flax for the workers in the factories. Perhaps the greatest invention and discovery of all for the advancement of the wealth and general prosperity of England was a great book written by Adam Smith in 1776, the year that our American grandfathers made their Declara- Discoveries and Inventions 369 tion of Independence. It was called 'The Wealth of Nations." It told the statesmen who were running the government, and making laws for the land, what laws the country needed in order to make it not only the richest but the happiest and most powerful country in the world. The people and the statesmen now saw what they had not seen before, and believed it, and so the laws were improved in time. But England has al- ways been very slow in improving her laws. During all this time of rapid improvement in f aiming and in manufactuiing there were no means of transporting rapidly the products of the farms and the factories to the seaports and elsewhere. The canals were an improvement on the impassable roads but there were only a few of those and they connected only the large cities. The canal boats moved slowly — not faster than a horse could walk. Public opinion now asked for better roads and the people and the lawmakers took the matter in hand and soon discovered what the Romans had found out nearly two thousand years before, that good roads are essential in carrying on the business of a country. They were supplied when the slow-thinking Englishmen finally woke up to their importance, and then the freight-wagons, the stage-coaches, and the private conveyances increased in number. This helped the commu- 370 The Hanoverian Kings nication between homes and between towns at no great distance apart. But for long distances and great loads good roads were not sufficient and the canals were too slow. But you have learned that when England felt the need of a great man and began to look for him he was pretty sure to appear. George Ste- phenson was a poor boy who made himself an en- gineer. He believed that if steam could run ma- chinery and make wheels go round in a factory, it could also make wheels go round on a road. So he tried it. The wise men laughed at the idea. The great Quarterly Review said: ^'What could be more palpably absurd or ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stage coaches?" But Stephenson did not think it so absurd. He made a machine which he called the ^ ^Rocket, '^ and had a railroad made for it to run upon. Then he called his friends together to test the ^ ^ridiculous absurdity.'' There were two other machines by other invent- ors that came to compete with him. One of them would not budge an inch when the engineer opened the steam valve. The other moaned and groaned and managed to get along about as fast as a man could walk. But Stephenson's '^Rocket" started at once and ran at the rate of 35 miles an hour and drew a nuitiber of cars after Discoveries and Inventions 371 it. This was a great triumph indeed, and the world suddenly discovered that rapid and cheap transportation, the two things needful for the highest success in business, were now provided. (The picture shows how the ^'Rocket" was made, and how the engine was supplied with water from a barrel in the tender.) stephe.nson's "rocket.'' This happened in 1829 — more than forty years after Watt had set his steam pumps to work in the coal mines. It was in 1807 that Robert Fulton, an Ameri- can, built a steamboat to run on the Hudson River. This was the first successful attempt to build a steamboat. When we consider that for fifteen hundred years improvements in the industries of the peo- 372 The Hanoverian Kings pie of England had appeared to be in a protound sleep, it seems wonderful that the people should have awakened so suddenly to their condi- tion, and have performed in so short a time, the wonderful feats that have been described in this chapter. There is nothing in the previous history of the nation that is like it. These re- markable inventions and discoveries put Eng- land in the front rank of the nations of the earth in commerce, and her commerce has called for the greatest navy in the world to defend it. The conflict between parties and nations now is not for political, religious, and social freedom, as it was throughout the world previous to the time of George III., but wars are now carried on, with an occasional exception, to defend the rights of property or to obtain more of these rights. When there is a conflict between the prop- erty rights of individuals they are now and have for centuries been settled in the courts. Persons are no longer permitted to fight with each other to the death with swords or pistols to settle such disputes. The nations now have such a court. It is probable that the next generation of voters in every nation will order that their governments shall bring their causes into this court to be set- tled on their merits, and not seek to settle them by the old barbarous principle that might makes right, and by killing one another. XXXVI. QUEEN VICTORIA. 1837—1901. It was during England's struggle with Bona- parte that her fiist war with the United States arose — the War of 1812. Our English grand- fathers had a great number of warships, and her captains and admirals were able commanders. No navy of any other nation could stand against them. Bonaparte had control of the great na- vies of the world, but Nelson, the English ad- miral, and the other English commanders, swept these off the sea or so crippled them that they were useless. At this time Bonaparte had all the nations of Europe in his power except Eng- land, and he determined to ciush her. So he for- bade all the other nations to trade with the Eng- lish, hoping in this way to ruin her comm.erce. Then England forbade the United States to trade with France and with other European countries, except under humiliating conditions. The United States was not a party to the French 373 374 The Hanoverian Kings and English war, and had all the rights of a neu- tral nation. But England had no love for the United States, and because she thought her unable to defend her rights she did not feel bound to respect what she did not fear. She not only ruined our commerce but stopped our vessels on the high seas and searched them for Englishmen employed as sailors. Often she would draft these into her army, whether they were citizens of our country or not. As many as 600 were thus seized and forced into the English army. After enduring such outrages for a long time Congress finally declared war, and for two years England and the United States fought each other on land and sea. The unexpected happened when the warships of our country captured or destroyed in fair fight some of the best ships of the English navy. The plower England despised was, alone able to meet her on the sea. The war on land added nothing to the military reputation of either nation. The battle of New Orleans, where General Jackson defeated a large force of the British with a very small loss to his own army, was the last one of the war. This, and our naval victories, won for our young nation the respect of all the gov- ernments of Europe, and the mother country began to look upon her growing child, who had Queen Victona 375 left the maternal roof without permission, with feelings akin to pride. We learned in the last chapter that in the bat- tle of Waterloo (in 1815) England defeated and captured Bonaparte, the greatest military genius of the world. Bonaparte was imprisoned on the island of St. Helena, near the western' coast of Africa, after his defeat at Waterloo, where he died six years afterward, in 1821. He began his career as the liberator of the French people, and ended it as the bloodiest of tyrants, execrated by the world. For fifty years after his overthrow the spirit of liberty was quenched throughout Europe, except in England. At length this spirit began again to revive and his- torians now give much of the credit for the po- litical freedom, the people enjo}' throughout Eu- rope to the terrible French revolution. It takes a long time to get a true idea of freedom into the heads of the human race. VICTORIA. George IV. and WilUam IV., sons of George III., wore the crown for a few years after their father's death, but with little credit to them- selves or honor to the nation. Indeed, royalty was of little worth from the death of William III. to the accession of Queen Victoria, the grand- 376 The Hanoverian Kings daughter of George III. She was crowned in 1837, at the age of eighteen. Now began the Victorian era of EngUsh prog- ress. Her government was not arbitrary Uke that of Elizabeth. She ruled through her cabi- net; the cabinet was made up of the leaders of the majority in Parliament. The Parlia- ment, during the latter portion of her reign, was elected by a free vote of all of the English people. The first remarkable event of her reign was the erection of the first electric telegraph (1837). Very soon after this there arose a great agitation among the people for a change in the govern- ment. The refoimers called for a fresh Parliament to meet every year, instead of one every three years. They demanded that every Englishman twen- ty-one years old should have the right to vote for members of the House of Commons: ^ They also asked permission to vote by ballot, so that their powerful opponents could not know how they voted. They wanted the kingdom divided into Par- liamentary districts of equal population. They held that a law-abiding citizen should have the right to vote whether he had any prop- erty or not. Last of all, they demanded that members of Queen Victoria 377 Parliament should be paid a salary. As it then was, only rich men could afford to become mem- bers of Parliament, for they were compelled to pay all of the expenses of such a life and could earn nothing while working for the public. The reformers thought that it was not right that some of the ablest men in the nation should be kept out of Parliament because they were poor. Three of these demands became laws in after years. These were, election by ballot, equal districts, and no property qualification required in order to vote. The other three demands have not yet become laws. All six of these reforms have been laws in the United States from the beginning of our government. The English move very slowly in changing their form of government. But when we con- sider that as late as 1793 a majority of the House of Commons was elected by 154 voters, 40 of whom were lords; and that thirty years after- ward (1823) only one man was allowed to vote for every forty citizens, it seems that when re- forms did begin they moved pretty fast, even in England. Queen Victoria was married to her cousin Al- bert, a German prince, in 1840, three years after she became queen. One of the most notable events in Victoria's reign was the World's Fair, it being the first that 378 The Hanoverian Kings was ever held (1851). The principal building was called the Crystal Palace. The idea of a World's Fair was a new one, and people were afraid of new ideas. Many people, especially in the other nations, stood back to see how it would succeed. But the manufacturers thought it a good chance to advertise their goods, and so it proved. The fair was a great success, and Prince Albert won great credit and much honor from it. It was his idea, and he was the leading spirit in it throughout. Many World's Fairs have since been held in different countries. When the Civil War broke out in America (1861) our English cousins (we speak of them no longer as our grandfathers) were made to believe that our government wished to deprive the south- ern people of their just rights. The English aristocracy had control of the government of England, and really wished that the American union might be overthrown. They declared that it was already destroyed in the hearts of the peo- ple, and that if war did not bring about disunion at once, mutual hatred would do it later. But, by and by, the plain people of England came to understand the matter, and they were in favor of the preservation of the Union. So, too, was Queen Victoria. The middle English- men stood for the Union, notwithstanding the fact that they were suffeiing for want of cotton from Queen Victoria 370 the southern states with which to run their mills. Thev now had votes, and Parliament listened to them. The plain people in England have al- wa3"s been the friends of the plain people in Amer- ica. Even the aristocrats are coming to think that maybe the Scottish poet, Burns, was right when he said : "Then let us praj-^ that come it may — As come it will for a' that — That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, They bear the gree ' , and a' that, For a' that, and a' that. It's coming yet, for a' that, That man to man, the warld o'er Shall brothers be for a' that." During our Civil War the English government permitted war vessels to be built in some of the English shipyards and to set sail to prey upon American commerce. This was in violation of the laws of nations, but the English government probably thought the United States would never be able to punish her for this unlawful act. These pirate ships, or ' 'privateers," (another name for vessels that prey upon commerce) did great dam- age to American trade. One of the worst of these sea-robbers was the Alabama. There were four others, among them the Florida. These rov- ers of the sea were considered so dangerous that few American merchantmen dared to leave their harbor. ^They win the prize. 380 The Hanoverian Kings • When the Civil War closed the United States pressed upon England the people's claim for dam- ages caused by these privateers. Instead of go- ing to war about it, the two governments agreed to arbitrate the case. This meant that they would select disinterested persons from other nations and let them decide the whole question. This was done. The arbitrators decided that England should pay to the United States £3,229,166 13s. 4d. (Our readers can find out for themselves how many dollars and cents this amounted to.) The judges decided also that the English did not really intend to have these freebooters leave their ports, but that they did not take proper care to pre- vent it. Hence they must pay for the damage they did. England paid the money and the ^ ^Alabama claims" were settled without bloodshed. This was the first case in the history of the world when so serious a dispute between two of the greatest nations was settled by arbitration. Why should not all quarrels between nations be settled in this manner? When citizens dis- agree about their business they take their cause into the court where it is decided by the judge and twelve disinterested citizens. The contend- ing parties do not call their respective friends to- Queen Victoria ' 3S1 gether and seek to determine which is in the right by a bloody war. The great nations of the earth have now established an international court at The Hague, a city in Holland, where all differences between nations can be settled as private citizens settle their disputes. At this time (1903) Eng- land, Germany and Italy have a dispute with Venezuela about the payment of money due from the latter. After some fighting and the killing of a score or two of innocent people the whole matter is referred to the international court at The Hague. We are told that the inno- cent people were killed to heal the wounded honor of the German nation. But the time seems near when honor will not be more blood- thirsty than justice. We ate fast coming to see not that ^^might makes right," but that right makes might. Victoria wore the crown for sixty-four years and during her reign the English sovereign has been acknowledged the ruler of more than one- fourth of the world. The sun is ever shining upon some part of England^s dominions. Since the invasion of Julius Caesar the struggle for the political, religious, and social freedom of every citizen has been carried on. Much has been gained, but much is yet to be acquired. 382 The Hanoverian Kings The chief gains in freedom in England have been: 1. Emancipation of the poor from serfdom and involuntary^ slavery to the will of others. 2. Freedom to think as one's reason directs. 3. Freedom to worship as conscience dic- tates. 4. Liberty of action, when the acts are not such as to interfere with the liberty of others. 5. Freedom of the press, by ^yhich persons are at liberty to publish their opinions. 6. Liberty of every citizen to vote for the man he would have to represent him in Par- liament. 7. Freedom of labor from excessive daily toil, especially among the children. 8. Opportunity for every > citizen to have his children taught in school to, read, to write and to^ ^'cast up a^ccounts.^' 9. England has also attained to freedom of trade and of commerce. It would be difficult to recount the different kinds of freedom that have come to the English people through the discoveries that have been made in science and the mechanical inventions and the improvements that have come into use during Queen Victoria's reign. What the world now most needs is freedom from war. Another of the greatest needs of the Queen Victoria 383 CQ 384 The Hanoverian Kings people in England and America is a free reign of justice among those who labor and those who employ labor. Queen Victoria died on the 22nd of January, 1901. Mr. Balfour, who was then leader of the House of Commons, said of her in his address to the House: ^'Sir, it is not given, it cannot, in ordinary course, be given, to a constitutional monarch to signalize his reign by any great isolated action. The effect of a constitutional sovereign, great as it is, is produced by the slow, constant, and cumu- lative results of a great ideal and a great exam- ple; and of that great ideal and that great exam- ple Queen Victoria surely was the first of all con- stitutional monarchs whom the world has yet seen. Where shall we find that ideal so lofty in itself, so constantly and consistently main- tained, through two generations, through more than two generations of her subjects, through many generations of her public men and mem- bers of this House? ' ^Sir, it would be almost impertinent for me were I to attempt to express to the House in words the effect which the character of our late sover- eign produced upon all who were in any degree, however remote, brought in contact with her. The simple dignity, befitting a monarch of this realm, in that she could never fail, because it Qiteen Victoria 385 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1893. [Based on a drawing, by Walter Wilson, of Gladstone addressing the House of Commons, published by the London News, Feb. 18, 1893. By permission of the publishers.] 386 Queen Victoria arose from her inherent sense of the fitness of things. It was no trapping put on for office, and therefore it was this dignity, this queenly dignity, only served to throw into stronger relief and into a brighter light those admirable virtues of the wife, the mother, and the woman, with which she was so richly endowed. ; ^ Those kindly graces, those admirable qualities, have endeared her to every class in the commu- nity, and are known to all. Perhaps less known was the life of continuous labor which her posi- tion as queen threw upon her. Short as was the interval between the last trembling signature affixed to a public document and final rest, it was yet long enough to clog and hamper the wheels' of administration ; and I remember, when J saw: a vast mass of untouched documents which awaited the hand of the sovereign of this coun- try to deal with, it was brought vividly before my mind how admirable was the unostentatious pa- tience with which, for sixtj^-three years, through sorrow, through suffering, in moment^ of weari- ness, in moments of despondency, it may be, she- carried on without intei mission her share' in the; government of this great empire. For her there' was no holiday, to her there was no intermission of toil . Domestic sorrow, domestic sickness, made no difference in her labors, and they Were con- tinued from the hour at whicih she became' The Hanoverian Kings 387 sovereign to within a very few days of her death. It is easy to chronicle the growth of empire, the progress of trade, the triumphs of war, all the events that make history interesting or exciting ; but who is there that will dare to weigh in the balance the effect which such an example, con- tinued over sixty-three years, has produced on the highest life of the people? It is a great life, and had a fortunate, and, let me say, in my judgment, a happy ending/' THE END. INDEX. Absolute Ruler 248 Adams, Samuel 345 Agricola IS Alabama Claims 379 Albert, Prince Consort 377 Alfred 37 America, Discovered 164 Angles 23. 26, 27. 55 Anglia 56 Anglo Saxon Chronicle 48 Anne Boleyn 190 Anne 331 Arbitration 372, 380 Army, Beginning of Standing. . 159 Arkwright 366 Assembly of Burgesses 259 Austerlitz 349 Bacon, Francis 220, 234, 253 Balfour, James, Estimate of Victoria 384 Bannockburn 145 Barons 78 Barter 120, 281 Bede 49 Bible. Permitted to Read. 1 77, 234,240 Bible, King James' Translation. 255 Bill of Rights 268 Black Death 146 Blondel 112 Blenheim 328 Boadicea 16 Boadicea, Poem of 24 Book of Common Prayer. 203, 234.274 Boston 282 Boston Tea Party 345 Bosworth Field 158 Bribery of Members of Parliament 334 Bright, John 362 Brindley 366 Britops, Army 12,13 Bruce, Robert 145 Buckingham, Duke of 266, 288 Bunyan, John 305 Burke, Edmund 346 Caedmon 49 Caesar 11 Calendar 236 Calvinists 239 Canals 366 Canterbury Tales 96. 161 Canute 44 Canute. Laws of 51 Caractacus 16 Cartwright 242 Cartwright, Dr 367 Castra 18 Catherine 186 Catherine de Medici 176 Caxton 149 Cecil, Lord Burleigh 217 Celtic Race 6, 25 Charlemagne 29 Chamberlain 361 Chaucer 161 Christian Religion, Britons 21 " Anglo Saxons 30 " Why Important. . ., 30, 32 Effect of . 67 Charles 1 264 Charles II ... 301 Church 92 Church of England. . . . 190, 194, 231 Churls 44,56 City Schools 138 Civil Courts E-stablished 65 Civil War 292 Civil War in America 378 Claudius 16 Cohort 13 Coinage 198, 199 Columbus 164 Common Law 6. 98 Commonwealth 285. 298 Congregationalists 283 Congress, First American 262 Constantino 21 Coronation Chair 144 Council of the Wise 48 Court of Common Pleas 131 Court, King's 98 Court, Star Chamber 160, 268 Crafts 167 Cranmer 203, 207, 234 Crecy, Battle of 148 Crompton 366 Cromwell, Oliver 276, 285 Cromwell, Thomas 190 Crusades 108 Curfew Law 69 Crystal Palace 378 Danes 37 389 390 Index .Defender of the Faith 183 Discoveries 365 Divine Right 247, 250, 256 Domesday Book 66 Dooms of Alfred 50, 51 Dover 12 Drake, Sir Francis 223, 227 Druids 20 Duke of Marlborough 328, 331 Duke of Somerset 202 Earl of Chatham 338 East Anglia 29 Ecclesiastical Government 91 Edward the Confessor 62 Edward 1 143 Edward II 145 Edward III 146 Edward IV 149, 154 Edward VI 202 Edward's Journal 204 Egbert 29 Eldermen 44, 56 Electric Telegraph 376 Elizabeth 212 Eliot's Resolutions 287 EpiscopaUans 289 Erasmus 175 Essex 29 Excalibur 22 Exchequer 100 Fairs 120 Fairie Queen 151, 233 Feudalism 74, 156 Flaxman 368 Fox 317 Franks 25 French and Indian War 262 Fulton, Robert 371 Gauls , 11 Geoffrey, Duke of Anjou 89 George 1 332 George II 332 George III '. . . 340 George IV 375 Germanic Family 5, 25 Gladstone. 360 Godwin 45 Government at Alfred's Time. . . 46 Government through Ministers. . 325 Great Commoner 335 Gregory the Great 30 Guilds 167 Gunpowder 147 Guthrum 41 Habeas Corpus Law 309 Hague Court of Arbitration 381 Hampden, John 271 Hargreaves , . . 366 Harold 45, 62 Helena 21 Hengist 28 Henry 1 88, 89 Henry II 88,91 Henry III 128, 141 Henry V 356 Henry VII 153 Henry VIII 180 Henry of Navarre 176 Homage 74, 75 Horsa 28 House of Commons 143, 359 House of Lords 143, 360 Huguenots 176 -Iceni 17 Idylls of the King 22 Imprisonment, for Debt 134 Invasion, Caesar 12, 15 Invasion, Saxons 22, 2? Invasion, Hengist and Horsa. . . 28 Invasion, Northmen 35 Inventions 365 Invincible Armada 221 Ironsides 293 Jackson, Andrew 374 James 1 245 James II 310 Jamestown 258 Joan of Arc 149 John 123 "John Halifax Gentleman" 7 335 Johnson, Dr 337 Jury 47,99 Jury of his Peers 132 Jutes 26, 27, 55 Kent 29 "King's Friends" 341 Knights 78 Language, Twelfth Century 69 Latimer 207 Laud, Archbishop 266 Leopold, Duke of Austria 110 Liverpool 366 London 17 London, Great Fire 304 Louis XIV 322 Long Parliament 274, 290 Long Ships , . . . 35 Loom, Hand 117 lioom, Power 367 Luther, Martin 157, 172 Mabie, Hamilton Wright, Esti- mate of Norsemen 54 Magna Charta 125 Manchester 366 Manor-house 83, 101 Mantes 71 Manufacturers 197 Markets 168 Marlborough, Duke of 328, 331 Martyrs 208 Mary 205 Maryland 280 Mary Queen of Scots 228 Massachusetts Bay Company. . . 282 Massacre at Jamestown 259 Index 391 Massacre at Schenectady 262 Matilda, Daughter of Henry I . . . 89 Middle Angha 29 Money 198 Monk, General 301 Montfort, Simon de 130, 142, 353 More, Sir Thomas 185, 192, 233 Morley, John 360 l^apoleon 349, 373 Na.^eby, Battle of 293 Nero 17 New England 279 New Forest 69 New Learning 201 New Model 293 New Netherlands 258, 314 New Orleans 374 New York .........: 314 Norse Mythology 36 Northmen 35 North-Umbria 29 Oath of Knight .' . . 107 Old Dominion 261 Old Style and New. Style 235 Otho, Bishop . 72 Oxford 184 Paradise Lost 305 Parish Hundred 46 Parker, Bishop 218 ParUament 97, 142, 350 Parliament, Story of 352 Parliament, Reform of 360, 376 Parliament, Quorum 364 Penance 95 Penn, William 317 Pennsylvania 317 Peter the Hermit 108 Philadelphia 318 Philip, King of France 110 Philip of Spain 206 Picts 21 Pilgrim Fathers 251, 265, 279 Pilgrim's Progress 305 Pitt, William 335 Pitt the Younger. . 348 Plague, the Great 304 Plantagenet 90 Plymouth 251 Pocket Borough 234 Pole 209 Pottery 368 Presbyterians 239 Preston 295 Prices Regulated 166 Pride's Purge 296 Prince of Orange 321 Prince Rupert 294 Printing Press 149 Prisoner for Debt 134 Privilege 356, 272 Privileges 168 Protector of the Commonwealth. 298 Puritanism 231, 239 Quakers 283, 317 Railroads 370 Reform Bill 360 Reformation 176 Rent 167 Richard 1 107 Richard III 150 Ridley, Bishop 207 Roads 18, 199, 369 Rocket 370 Rolf, the Ganger 60 Roman Legion 13 Roman Road 18 Roman Wall 15 Rotten Borough 334 Roundheads .........:... 293 Runnymede 127 St. Augustine 30 St. Bartholomew 176 Saladin 112 ga^jj 28 Saxons". '. '. '. '. '. *. '. '. '. '. ". *. *. * 23, 26, 27, 55 Schenectady, Massacre 262 Serfs 44 Service Rent 86 Shakespeare 220, 234 Shakespeare, Prophecy of Eliza- beth 232 Ship Money 270 Simnel 162 Shire Council 48 Simon de Montfort 130, 142, 353 Slaves 78, 259 Slavs , 25 Smith, Adam 368 Smith, John 258 Spenser, Edmund 151, 227, 233 Spinning Jennie 366 Soetre 26 Sports 105, 139 Stafford, Lord 291 Stamp Act 342 Star Chamber 160 Steam Boat 371 Steam Engine 367 Stephen, King 97 Stephenson, George 370 Stonehenge 20 Stuyvesant, Peter 314 Suetonius 15 Sussex 29 Tacitus 7 Talisman, The 113 Taxation without Representation 343 Taxes 167 Tea Tax 345 Telegraph 376 Tenants 82 Teutonic Race 5, 25 Thanet 27 Thomas A'Becket 92 Thor 26 Thorough Motto 288 Thralls 56, 78 392 Index Tiw 26 Tories 324 Trades, Beginning of 117 Trade 333 Transportation 199 Trencher 103 Tudor Family 157 Tunnage and Poundage 267 Tyrconnel 326 Union of English and Scottish Parliaments 332 Utopia 223 Victoria, Queen 375 Villeins 59, 75, 78, 83 Virginia 258 Wages 170 Wallace, William 144 Walpole 332 Walter, Archbishop Herbert. . . . 114 Warbeck 163 War of 1812 374 Wars of the Roses 149 Warwick 162 Washington, George 247 Waterloo 349 Watt, James 367 Wealth of Nations 369 Wedgewood 368 Wellington, Duke of 349 Wentworth, Thomas 288 Wentworth, Trial of 291 Wessex 29 Whigs 324 William and Mary 311 William III 320 William IV 375 William, Duke of Normandy. ... 61 William the Conqueror 63 William Rufus 124 Williams, Roger 283 Wine, Imported 103 Witan 68 Woden 26 Wolsey 181 Workman, Classes of 166 World's Fair 377 Wyatt, Sir Thomas 206 Yeoman of the Guard 159 Young, Arthur 368