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Title: The Leading Facts of English History


Author: D.H. Montgomery



Release Date: December 25, 2005  [eBook #17386]

Language: English

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The Leading Facts of History Series

The Leading Facts of English History

by D. H. Montgomery

"Nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the
present came to be what it is." -- Stubbs, "Constitutional History of
England"

Revised Edition

Ginn and Company
Boston - New York - Chicago - London

Copyright, 1887, 1889, 1898, 1901, 1912, by D.H. Montgomery
Entered at Stationers' Hall
All Rights Reserved
313.8


The Athenaeum Press
Ginn and Company - Proprietors - Boston - U.S.A.

I dedicate this book
to the memory of my friend
J.J.M.
who generously gave time, labor
and valuable suggestions
toward the preparation of the first edition
for the press

Preface

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

The attempt is here made to present them in a manner that shall
illustrate the law of national growth, in the light thrown upon it by
the foremost English historians.  The present edition has been
carefully revised throughout, and, to a considerable extent,
rewritten.

The authorities for the different periods will be found in the
Classified List of Books in the Appendix; but the author desires to
particularly acknowledge his indebtedness to the works of Bright,
Brewer, Gardiner, Guest, Green, Lingard, Oman, and Traill; to the
source books of Lee and of Kendall; and to the constitutional
histories of Stubbs, Hallam, May, and Taswell-Langmead.

The author's hearty thanks are due to the late Professor W. F. Allen,
of The University of Wisconsin; Professor Philip Van Ness Myers, of
College Hill, Ohio; Professor George W. Knight, of Ohio State
University; and to a number of teachers and friends for many valuable
suggestions which they have kindly made.

David H. Montgomery

Contents

Leading Dates  xviii
Period
I. Britain before Written History began
II. The Geography of England in Relation to its History
III. Roman Britain; A Civilization which did not civilize
IV. The Coming of the Saxons[1]; the Coming of the Normans
V. The Norman Sovereigns[1]
VI. The Angevins, or Plantagenets; Rise of the English Nation[1]
VII. The Self-Destruction of Feudalism
VIII. Absolutism of the Crown; the Reformation; the New Learning[1]
IX. The Stuart Period; the Divine Right of Kings versus the Divine
   Right of the People
X. India gained; America lost--Parliamentary Reform--Government by the
   People
A General Summary of English Constitutional History
Constitutional Documents
Genealogical Descent of the English Sovereigns[2]
A Classified List of Books
Special Reading References on Topics of English History

[1] Each of these six Periods is followed by a General Reference
Summary of that period.  See pp. 43, 71, 141, 174, 230, 316
[2] For special Genealogical Tables see pp. 124, 140, 161, 172, 179,
207, 323

Suggestions to Teachers

The writer of this brief manual is convinced that no hard-and-fast
rules can be laid down for the use of a textbook in history.  He
believes that every teacher will naturally pursue a system of his own,
and that by so doing he will get better results than if he attempt to
follow a rigid mechanical course which makes no allowance for
individual judgment and gives no scope to originality of method.

The author would simply suggest that where time is limited it might be
well to omit the General Reference Summaries (see, for instance,
p. 43) and to read the text as a continuous narrative.  Then the
important points in each day's lesson might be talked over at the end
of the recitation or on the following day.

On the other hand, where time permits a thorough course of study, all
of the topics might be taken up and carefully examined, and the
General Reference Summaries may be consulted by way of review and for
additional information.  The pupil can also be referred to one or more
books (see the Classified List of Books in the Appendix) on the
subjects under consideration.

Instead of the teacher's asking a prescribed set of routine questions,
the pupil may be encouraged to ask his on.  Thus in undertaking the
examination of a given topic--say, the Battle of Hastings (SS69-75),
the issue of the Great Charter (SS195-202), or "The Industrial
Revolution" and Watt's invention of an improved Steam Engine
(S563)--there are five inquiries which naturally arise and which
practically cover the whole ground.

These are: 1. When did the event occur?  2. Where did it occur?
3. How did it occur?  4. What caused it?  5. What came of it?  It will
soon be seen that these five questions call attention first to the
chronology of he event, secondly to its geography, thirdly to the
narrative describing it, fourthly to its relations to preceding
events, and fifthly to its relations to subsequent events.

The pupil will find that while in some instances he can readily obtain
answers for all of these inquiries,--for example, in the case of the
Great Charter,--in other instances he will have to content himself
with the answer to only a part of the questions, perhaps, in fact, to
only a single one; nevertheless the search will always prove
instructive and stimulating.  Such a method of study, or one akin to
it, will teach the pupil to think and to examine for himself.  It will
lead him to see the inevitable limitations and the apparent
contradictions of history.  It will make him realize, as pehaps
nothing else can, that the testimony of different writers must be
taken like that of witnesses in a court of justice.  He will see that
while authorities seldem entirely agree respecting details, they will
generally agree in regard to the main features of important events.
Last of all, and best as well as last, these five questions will be
found to open up new and broader fields of inquiry, and they may
perhaps encourage the pupil to continue his work on some subject in
which he becomes interested, beyond the limits of the textbook and the
classroom.

Pursued in this way, the study of history will cease to be a dry
delving for dead facts in the dust of a dead past.  It will rouse
thought, it will quicken the pulse of an intellectual life, and it
will end by making the pupil feel the full force of the great truth:
that the present is an outgrowth of the past, and that it is only when
we know what men have done, that we can hope to understnad what they
are now doing.
                                                D. H. M.


Leading Dates

(The most important constitutional dates are marked by an asterisk)

   55. B.C. Caesar lands in Britain (S18)
  449. A.D. Coming of the Saxons (S36)
  878. Alfred's Treaty of Wedmore (S56)
 1066. Battle of Hastings (S74)
*1100. Henry I's Charter of Liberties (S135)
*1164. Constitutions of Clarendon (S165)
*1190. Rise of Free Towns (S183)
 1204. John's Loss of Normandy (S191)
*1215. John grants Magna Carta (SS198, 199)
*1265. De Montfort's Parliament (S213)
*1279. Statute of Mortmain (S226)
 1282. Conquest of Wales (S218)
*1295. First Complete Parliament (S217)
*1297. Confirmation of the Charters (S220)
 1336. Rise of Wool Manufacture (S236)
 1338. The Hundred Years' War (S237)
 1346. Batty of Cr'ecy; Cannon (S238)
*1350. Origin of Trial by Jury (S176)
 1378. Wycliffe's Bible; Lollards (S254)
 1381. Revolt of the Labor Class (S251)
 1390. Chaucer writes (S253)
*1393. Great Act of Praemunire (S243)
 1455. Wars of the Roses (SS299, 316)
 1477. Caxton introduces Printing (S306)
 1485. Battle of Bosworth Field (S315)
 1497. Cabot discovers America (S335)
 1509. The New Learning (S339)
*1534. The Act of Supremacy (S349)
 1536. The Monasteries destroyed (S352)
*1549. Protestantism established (S362)
*1554. Mary restores Catholicism (S370)
 1558. Rise of the Puritans (S378)
 1559. Act of Uniformity (S382)
 1582, 1605. Bacon's New Philosophy (S393)
 1587. Mary Queen of Scots executed (S397)
 1588. Destruction of the Armada (S400)
 1588. Rise of the English Navy (SS401, 408)
 1589(?). Shakespeare's First Play (S392)
 1601. The First Poor Law (SS403, 607)
 1604. The "Divine Right of Kings" (S419)
 1607. Virginia permanently settled (S421)
 1611. The "King James Bible" (S418)
 1622. First Regular Newspaper (S422)
*1628. The Petition of Right (S433)
 1642. The Great Civil War (S441)
*1649. Charles I beheaded; the Commonwealth established (SS448, 450)
 1651. Navigation Act (S459)
 1660. Restoration of Monarchy (S467)
*1660. Abolition of Feudal Dues (S482)
 1665. The Plague in London (S474)
 1666. Great Fire in London (S474)
 1670. Secret Treaty of Dover (S476)
 1673. The Test Act (S477)
 1678. The Disabling Act (S478)
*1678. Rise of Political Parties (S479)
*1679. Habeas Corpus Act (S482)
 1684. Newton's Law of Gravitation (S481)
 1685. Monmouth's Rebellion (S486)
 1687. Declaration of Indulgence (S488)
 1688. The Great Revolution (S491)
*1689. The Bill of Rights (S497)
*1689. Mutiny Act, Toleration Act (S496)
 1690. Battle of the Boyne (S500)
 1694. National Debt; Bank of England (S503)
*1695. Liberty of the Press (SS498, 556)
 1697. Peace of Ryswick (S502)
*1701. Act of Settlement (S497)
*1707. England and Scotland united (S513)
 1713. Peace of Utrecht (S512)
 1720. The South Sea Bubble (S536)
*1721. Rise of Cabinet Government (S534)
 1738. Rise of the Methodists (S546)
 1748. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (S542)
 1751-1757. English Conquests in India (S544)
*1759. The English take Quebec (S545)
*1776. American Independence (S552)
*1782. American Independence acknowledged (S553)
 1784. Mail Coaches begin to run (S566)
 1785. "Industrial Revolution"; Canals; Watt's Steam Engine (S563)
 1796. Vaccination introduced (S537)
 1799. First Savings Bank (S621)
*1800. Great Britain and Ireland united (S562)
 1805. Battle of Trafalgar (S557)
 1807. Steam Navigation begins (S565)
 1812. War with America (S558)
 1815. Battle of Waterloo (S559)
 1819. The Six Acts (S571)
 1829. Catholic Emancipation (S573)
 1830. First Passenger Railway (S584)
*1832. Great Suffrage Reform (S582)
*1835. Municipal Reform (S599)
 1837-1911. Colonial Expansion (S618)
*1838-1848. Rise of Chartrists (S591)
 1839. Postage Reform (S590)
 1845. First Telegraph (S614)
 1845. Irish Famine (S593)
 1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws (S594)
 1857. Rebellion in India (S597)
 1858. Jews enter Parliament (S599)
 1859. Darwin's Evolution (S606)
 1861. The Trent Affair (S598)
 1866. Permanent Atlantic Cable (S595)
 1867. Second Suffrage Reform (S600)
 1869. Partial Woman Suffrage (S599)
 1869. Free Trade established (S594)
 1870. The Education Act (S602)
*1870. Civil Service Reform (S609)
 1870. Irish Land Act (S603)
 1871-1906. Trades Unions Acts (S616)
 1884. Third Suffrage Reform (S600)
*1888, 1894. Local Government Acts (S608)
 1899. The Boer War (S623)
*1906. Labor enters Parliament (S628)
 1908. Old-Age Pensions (S628)
 1910. Imperial Federation (S625)
*1911. Parliament Act; Salary Act (S631)


THE LEADING FACTS OF ENGLISH HISTORY

FIRST PERIOD[1]

"This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of ewar;
This happy breed of men this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."
                        Shakespeare, "Richard II"

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGAN

1. The Earliest Inhabitants of England.

England was inhabited for many centuries before its written history
began.  The earliest races that possessed the country were stunted,
brutal savages.  They used pieces of rough flint for tools and
weapons.  From flint too they produced fire.  They lived by hunting
and fishing, and often had no homes but caves and rock shelters.

Following the Cave-Men came a race that had learned how to grind and
polish the stone of which they made their hatchets, knives, and
spears.  This race cleared and cultivated the soil to some extent, and
kept cattle and other domestic animals.

[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Classified
List of Books in the Appendix.  The pronunciation of names will be
found in the Index.  The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others
are in parentheses.

2. The Britons

Finally, a large-limbed, fair-haired, fierce-eyed people invaded and
conquered the island.  They came from the west of Europe.  They made
their axes, swords, and spears of bronze,--a metal obtained by melting
and mingling copper and tin.  These implements were far superior to
any made of stone.

The new people were good farmers; they exported grain, cattle, and
hides to Gaul (France), and mined and sold tin ore to merchants who
came by sea from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.

This strong and energetic race, known as Celts, eventually called
themselves Britons.  By the time they had adopted that name they had
made a great step forward, for they had learned how to mine and
manufacture iron,--the most useful metal known to man; from it they
forged scythes, swords, and spears.

Such were the people Caesar met when he invaded Britain, fifty-five
years before the beginning of the Christian era.  The great Roman
general called the Britons "barbarians"; but they compelled him to
respect them, for they were a race of hard fighters, who fearlessly
faced even his veteran troops.

3. The Religion of the Britons; the Druids.

The Britons held some dim faith in an overruling Power and in a life
beyond the grave.  They offered human sacrifices to that Power, and
when they buried one of their warriors, they buried his spear with him
so that he might fight as good a battle in the next world as he had
fought in this one.

Furthermore, the Britons had a class of priests called Druids, who
seem to have worshiped the heavenly bodies.  These priests also acted
as prophets, judges, and teachers.  Caesar tells us that the Druids
instructed the youth about the stars and their motions, about the
magnitude of the earth, the nature of things, and "the might and power
of the immortal gods."

More than this, the Druids probably erected the massive stone columns
of that strange stucture, open to the sky, whose ruins may still be
seen on the lonely expanse of Salisbury Plain.  There, on one of the
fallen blocks, Carlyle and Emerson sat, when they made their
pilgrimage to Stonehenge[1] many years ago, and discussed the life
after death, with other questions of Druid philosophy.

[1] Stonehenge: This remarkable structure is believed to be the
remains of a pre-historic monument to the dead, which was, perhaps,
used also as a place of worship.  It stands on Salisbury Plain about
nine miles northeast of the city of Salisbury.  (See map facing
p. 38.)  It consists of a broken circle of huge upright stones, some
of which are still connected at the top by blocks of flat stones.
Within this circle, which is about one hundred feet in circumference,
is a circle of smaller stones.  The structure has no roof.  The recent
discover of stains of bronze or copper on one of the great stones,
seven feet below the surface, strengthens the theory that Stonehenge
was constructed by the race who used bronze implements and who were
later known as Britons (S2).  Consult Professor C. Oman's "England
before the Norman Conquest"; see also R. W. Emerson's "English
Traits," and O. W. Holmes's fine poem on the "Broken Circle,"
suggested by a visit to Stonehenge.

4. What we owe to Prehistoric Man.

We have seen that the Romans called the Britons "barbarians" (S2).
But we should bear in mind that all the progress which civilization
has since made is built on the foundations which those primitive races
slowly and painfully laid during unnumbered centuries of toil and
strife.

To them we owe man's wonderful discovery of the power to produce
fire.  To them we are indebted for the invention of the first tools,
the first weapons, and the first attempts at architecture and
pictorial art.  They too tamed the dog, the horse, and our other
domestic animals.  They also discovered how to till the soil and how
to mine and manufacture metals.  In fact those "barbarians" who lived
in "the childhood of the world," and who never wrote a line of
history, did some things equal to any which history records, for out
of wild plants and trees they developed the grains and fruits which
now form an indispensable part of "our daily bread."

Finally, through their incessant struggles with nature, and incessant
wars among themselves, those rude tribes learned to establish forms of
self-government for towns or larger districts.  Many of their salutary
customs--their unwritten laws--still make themselves felt in the
world.[1] They help bind the English nation together.  They do even
more than that, for their influence can be traced in the history of
newer nations, which, like the American republic, have descended from
the great mother-countries of Europe.

[1] For example, parts of the "Common Law" can be traced back, through
English "dooms" (decisions or laws), to prehistoric times.  See
E. A. Freeman in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (10th edition, VIII,
276).  The New England "Town Meeting" can be likewise traced back to
the German ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons.

[Figures: Carved bone, flint dagger, and bronze spearhead]


SECOND PERIOD[1]

"Father Neptune one day to Dame Freedom did say,
`If ever I lived upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain.'
Says Freedom, `Why that's my own island.'
O, 't is a snug little island,
A right little, tight little island!
Search the world round, none can be found
So happy as this little island."
                                        T. Dibdin

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND IN RELATION TO ITS HISTORY[2]

5. Geographical Names given by the Britons and the Romans

The steps of English history may be traced to a considerable extent by
geographical names.  Thus the names of most of the prominent natural
features, the hills, and especially the streams, originated with the
Britons.  They carry us back to the Bronze Age (S2) and perhaps
earlier.  Familiar examples of this are found in the name Malvern
Hills, and in the word Avon ("the water"), which occurs in
Stratford-on-Avon, and is repeated many times in England and Wales.

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

[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Classified
List of Books in the Appendix.  The pronunciation of names will be
found in the Index.
[2] As this Period necessarily contains references to certain events
which occurred in later history, it may be advantageously reviewed by
the pupil after he has reached an advanced stage in his course of
study.

6. Saxon and Danish Names.

On the other hand, the names of many of the great political divisions,
especially in the south and east of England, mark the Saxon
settlements, such as Essex (the East Saxons), Sussex (the South
Saxons), Middlesex (the Middle or Central Saxons).  In the same way
the settlement of the two divisions of the Angles on the coast is
indicated by the names Norfolk (the North folk) and Suffolk (the South
folk).  (See map facing p. 24.)

The conquests and settlements of the Danes are readily traced by the
Danish termination "by" (an abode or town), as in Derby, Rugby,
Grimsby.  They occur with scarcely an exception north of London.  They
date back to the time when King Alfred made the Treaty of Wedmore
(S56), A.D. 878, by which the Danes agreed to confine themselves to
the northern half of the country.  (See map facing p. 32.)

7. Norman Names.

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

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

8. Climate.

With regard to the climate of England,--its insular form, geographical
position, and its exposure to the warm currents of the Gulf Stream
give it a temperature generally free from great extremes of heat or
cold.  On this account, it is favorable to the full and healthy
development of both animal and vegetable life.

Nowhere is greater vigor or longevity found.  Charles II said that he
was convinced that there was not a country in the world so far as he
knew, where one could spend so much time out of doors comfortably as
in England.

9. Industrial Division of England.

From an industrial and historical point of view, the country falls
into two divisions.  Let a line be drawn from Hull, on the northeast
coast, to Leicester, in the Midlands, and thence to Exmouth, on the
southwest coast.  (See map on p. 10.)  On the upper or northwest side
of that line will lie the coal and iron which constitute the greater
part of the mineral wealth and form the basis of the manufacturing
industry of England; here too are all the largest towns except London.

On the lower or southeast side of the line there will be a
comparatively level surface of rich agricultural land, and most of the
fine old cathedral cities with their historic associations; in a
world, the England of the past as contrasted with modern and
democratic England, that part which has grown up since the
introduction of steam.

10. Eastern and Western Britain compared.

As the southern and eastern coasts of Britain were in most direct
communication with the Continent, and were first settled, they
continued until modern times to be the wealthiest, most civilized, and
progressive part of the island.  Much of the western portion is a
rough, wild country.  To it the East Britons retreated, keeping their
primitive customs and language, as in Wales and Cornwall.

In all the great movements of religious or political reform, up to the
middle of the seventeenth century, we find that the people of the
eastern half of the island were usually on the side of a larger
measure of liberty; while those of the western half were generally in
favor of increasing the power of the King and the Church.

11. Influence of the Island Form on the Roman Invasion

Geologists tell us that Great Britain was once connected with the
mainland of western Europe.  It was fortunate for Britain that this
connection was severed and that it became an island.  We see an
illustration of this advantage in the case of the Roman invasion.  It
was easy for the Romans to march great armies into Gaul and take
complete possession of that country, but it was with no little
difficulty that they sent fleets across the tempestuous waters of the
Channel.  This may have been one reason why they never succeeded in
permanently establishing their language and their laws in the island
of Britain.  It is true that they conquered and held it for several
centuries, but they never destroyed its individuality,--they never
Latinized it as they did France and Spain.

12. Influence of the Island Form on the Saxon Invasion.

In like manner, when the northern tribes of Europe overran the Roman
Empire, they found themselves, in some measure, shut out from Britain
by its wall of sea.  The Jutes, Saxons, and Angles could not enter it
in countless hordes, but only in small numbers and by occasional
attacks.  Because of this, the invaders could only drive back the
Britons by slow degrees, and they never entirely crushed them.

Again, the conquerers could not build up a strong, united kinigdom,
but they had to content themselves with establishing a number of petty
kingdoms which were constantly at war with each other.  Later, the
whole of England became subject to a sing sovereign.  But the chief
men of the separate kingdoms, which had now become simply shires or
counties, retained a certain degree of control over the government.
This prevented the royal power from becoming the unchecked will of an
arbitrary ruler.  Finally, it may be said that the isolation of
England had much to do with the development of the strong individual
character of its people.

13. Influence of the Island Form on the Danes and Normans.

In the course of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the Danes
invaded England, but the sea prevented their coming all at once and
with overwhelming force.  They got possession of the throne (S63) and
permanently established themselves in the northern half of the
country.  The English, however, held their own so well that the Danes
were eventually compelled to unite with them.  Even when the Normans
invaded England and conquered it (SS74, 107), they felt obliged to
make many concessions to both the English and the Danes.  The result
was that every invasion of the island ended in a compromise, so that
no one race ever got complete predominance.  In time all the elements
mingled and became one people.

14. Influence of the Channel in Later History.

Furthermore, the immense protective value of the Channel to England
may be traced down to our own day.  In the great crisis when Simon de
Montfort was fighting (1264) to secure parliamentary representation
for the people (S213), King Henry III sought help from France.  The
French monarcy got a fleet ready to send to England, but bad weather
held it back, and Henry was obliged to concede De Montfort's demands
for reform.[1]

[1] W. Stubb's "Select Charters," p. 401

Again, when the Spanish Armada swooped down upn England (1588) a
terrible tempest dispersed a part of the enemy's fleet.  Many of the
vessels were wrecked (S399) and only a few were left to creep back,
crippled and disheartened, to the ports of Spain.  When Queen
Elizabeth publicly thanked the leaders of her valiant navy for what
they had done to repel the Spanish forces, she also acknowledged how
much England owed to the protective power of wind and wave.

The same elements taught Napoleon a lesson which he never forgot.  He
had carefully planned an expedition against England (S557), but
violent and long-continued storms compelled him to abandon the
hazardous undertaking (1804).  The great French commander felt himself
invincible on land, but he was obliged to confess that "a few leagues
of salt water" had completely out-generaled him.

In fact, ever since England organized a regular navy (1512) the
encircling arms of the ocean have been her closest and surest friend.
They have exempted her from keeping up a large standing army and so
preserved her from the danger of military despotism at home.  They too
have made her the greatest sea power,[1] and, at the same time, the
greatest colonizing power[2] the world has yet seen.  They have also
made her the greatest commercial power on the globe.[3]

[1] The English navy far outranks that of any other nation in the
number of its warships.
[2] The English colonial possessions and "spheres of influence" cover
an area of more than 11,400,000 square miles.  (See map between
pp. 422, 423.)
[3] The total commerce of the United Kingdom in 1910 was nearly
912,000,000 pounds and that of the British Empire exceeded
1,990,680,000 pounds.

It is true that the use of steam for vessels of war has diminished the
natural protective service of the Channel, since a hostile fleet can
now move against England in almost any weather.  Still, the "silver
streak," as the English call that waterway, will always remain, in
some degree, a defense against sudden invasion, except, of course,
from a squadron of military airships.

15. England as a Commercial Center.

In closing this period, the position of England, with respect to
facilities for commerce, deserves particular attention.  In the first
place the country has many excellent harbors; next, it is situated in
the ocean which is the great highway between the two continents having
the highest civilization and the most constant intercourse.  Finally,
a glance at the maps on pages 185 and 420 will show that
geographically England is located at about the center of the land
masses of the globe.

It is evident that a large island so placed stands in the favorable
position for easy and rapid trade communications with every quarter of
the world.  For this reason England has been able to attain, and thus
far to maintain, the highest rank among maritime and commercial
powers.  It is true that since the opening of the Suez Canal (1869)
the trade with the Indies, China, and Japan has considerably changed.
Many cargoes of teas, silks, spices, and other Eastern products, which
formerly went to London, Liverpool, or Southampton, to be reshipped to
different countries of Europe, now pass by other routes direct to the
consumer.  Furthermore, it is a question what effect the completion of
the Panama Canal will have on English trade in parts of the Pacific.
But for the present England retains her supremacy as the great carrier
and distributor of the productions of the earth,--a fact which has had
a very decided influence on her history, and on her relations with
other nations, both in peace and war.

[Industrial Map of England (S9)]


THIRD PERIOD[1]

"Force and Right rule the world: Force, till Right is ready."
                                                Joubert

ROMAN BRITAIN, 55 B.C.; 43-410 A.D.

A CIVILIZATION WHICH DID NOT CIVILIZE

16. Europe shortly before Caesar's Invasion of Britain.

Before considering the Roman invasion of Britain let us take a glance
at the condition of Europe.  We have seen that the tribes (S2) of
Britain, like those of Gaul (France), were not mere savages.  On the
contrary, we know that they had taken more than one important step in
the path of progress; still the advance should not be overrated, for
north of the shores of the Mediterranean there was no real
civilization.

[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Classified
List of Books in the Appendix.  The pronunciation of names will be
found in the Index.  The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others
are in parentheses.

17. Caesar's Campaigns.

Such was the state of Europe when Julius Caesar, who was governor of
Gaul, but who aspired to be ruler of the world, set out on his first
campaign against the tribes north of the Alps (58 B.C.).

In undertaking the war he had three objects in view: First, he wished
to crush the power of those restless hordes that threatened the safety
of the Roman Republic.  Next, he sought military fame in the hope that
it would make him supreme ruler of that Republic.  Lastly, he wanted
money to maintain his army and to bribe the party leaders of Rome to
help him carry out his political plans.  To this end he compelled
every tribe which he conquered to pay him tribute in cash or slaves.

18. Caesar reaches Boulogne and crosses over to Britain, 55 B.C.

In three years Caesar had subjugated the enemy in a succession of
victories, and a great part of Europe lay helpless at his feet.  Late
in the summer of 55 B.C. he reached Boulogne on the coast of Gaul.
Standing there, he could see the gleaming chalk cliffs of Britain, so
vividly described in Shakespeare's "King Lear."[1]

[1] Shakespeare's "King Lear," Act IV, scene vi.

While encamped on the shore he "resolved," he says, "to pass over into
Britain, having had trustworthy information that in all his wars with
the Gauls the enemies of the Roman commonwealth had constantly
received help from thence."[2]

[2] Caesar's "Gallic War," Book IV.

Embarking with a force of between eight and ten thousand men[3] in
eighty small vessels, Caesar crossed the Channel and landed not far
from Dover, where he overcame the Britons (S2), who made a desperate
resistance.  After a stay of a few weeks, during which he did not
leave the coast, he returned to Gaul.

[3] Caesar probably sailed about the 25th of August, 55 B.C.  His
force consisted of two legions, the 7th and 10th.  A legion varied at
different times from 3000 foot and 200 horse soldiers to 6000 foot and
400 horse.

19. Caesar's Second Invasion of Britain.

The next year (54 B.C.), a little earlier in the season, Caesar made a
second invasion with a much larger force, and penetrated the country a
short distance north of the Thames.  Before the September gales set
in, he reembarked for the Continent, never to return.

The total results of his two expeditions were a number of natives
carried as hostages to Rome, a long train of captives destined to be
sold in the slave markets, and some promises of tribute which the
Britons never fulfilled.  Tacitus, the Roman historian, says Caesar
"did not conquer Britain; he only showed it to the Romans."

20. The Third Invasion of Britain by the Romans, 43 A.D.

For nearly a hundred years the Romans made no further attempt on
Britain, but in 43 A.D. the Emperor Claudius invaded the island.
After nine years' fighting, he overcame Caractacus, the leader of the
Britons, and carried him in chains to Rome.  The brave chief refused
to beg for life or liberty.  "Can it be possible," said he, as he was
led through the streets, "that men who live in such places as these
envy us our wretched hovels!" "It was the dignity of the man, even in
ruins," says the Roman historian, "which saved him."  The Emperor,
struck with his bearing and his speech, ordered him to be set free.

21. The Romans plant a Colony in Britain, Llyn-din.

Meanwhile the armies of the Empire had established a strong colony at
Colchester in the southeast of Britain.  (See map facing p. 14.)
There they built a temple and set up the statue of the Emperor
Claudius, which the soldiers worshiped, both as a protecting god and
as the representative of the Roman Empire.

The army had also conquered other places.  One of these was a little
native settlement on a bend in the Thames where the river broadened
slightly.  It consisted of a few miserable huts and a row of
intrenched cattle pens.  It was called in the British tongue Llyn-din
or the Fort-on-the-pool.  This name, which was pronounced with
difficulty by Roman lips, eventually became known wherever ships sail,
trade reaches, or history is read,--London.

22. Expedition against the Druids.

But in order to complete the conquest of the country, the Roman
generals resolved to crush the power of the Druids (S3), since these
priests exhorted the Britons to refuse to surrender.  The island of
Anglesey, off the northwest coast of Wales, was the stronghold to
which the Druids had retreated.  (See map facing p. 14.)  As the Roman
soldiers approached to attack them, they beheld the priests and women
standing on the shore, with uplifted hands, uttering "dreadful prayers
and imprecations."

For a moment the Roman troops hesitated; then they rushed upon the
Druids, cut them to pieces, and cast their bodies into their own
sacred fires.  From this blow Druidism as an organized faith never
recovered, though traces of its religious rites still survive in the
use of the mistletoe at Christman and in May-day festivals.

23. Revolt of Boadicea (61).

Still the power of the Latin legions was only partly established, for
while the Roman general was absent with his troops at Anglesey, a
formidable revolt had broken out in the east.  A British chief, in
order to secure half of his property to his family at his death, left
it to be equally divided between his daughters and the Emperor.  The
governor of the district, under the pretext that Boadicea, the widow
of the dead chief, had concealed part of the property, seized the
whole of it.

Boadicea protested.  To punish her presumption, the Romans stripped
and scourged her, and inflicted still more brutal and infamous
treatment on her daughters.  Maddened by these outrages, Boadicea
appealed to her countrymen for vengeance.  The enraged Britons fell
upon London, and other places held by the Romans, burned them to the
ground, and slaughtered many thousand inhabitants.  But in the end
Roman forced gained the victory, and Boadicea took her own life rather
than fall into the hands of her conqueror.

The "warrior queen" died, let us trust, as the poet has represented,
animated by the prophecy of the Druid priest that,--

        "Rome shall perish--write that word
           In the blood that she has spilt;--
         Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
           Deep in ruin, as in guilt."  [1]

[1] Cowper's "Boadicea."

24. Christianity introduced into Britain.

Perhaps it was not long after this that Christianity made its way to
Britain; if so, it crept in so silently that nothing certain can be
learned of its advent.  The first church, it is said, was built at
Glastonbury, in the southeast of the island.  (See map facing p. 38.)
It was a long, shedlike structure of wickerwork.  "Here," says an old
writer,[1] "the converts watched, fasted, preached, and prayed, having
high meditations under a low roof and large hearts within narrow
walls."

[1] Thomas Fuller's "Church History of Britain."

At first no notice was taken of the new religion.  It was the faith of
the poor and the obscure, and the Roman generals treated it with
contempt; but as it continued to spread, it caused alarm.

The Roman Emperor was not only the head of the state, but the head of
religion as well.  He represented the power of God on earth: to him
every knee must bow (S21).  But the Christians refused this homage.
They put Christ first; for that reason they were dagerous to the
state, and were looked--[SECTION MISSING]--rebels, or as men likely to
become so.

25. Persecution of British Christians; [SECTION MISSING]
                                               ________________
last of the third century the Roman Emperor   /                \
root out this pernicious belief.  The first  |                  |
He refused to sacrifice to the Roman         |                  |
                                             |                  |
But the ancient historian[2] says, with      |      SECTION     |
executioner who struck "the wicked stroke    |      MISSING     |
rejoice over the deed, for his eyes dropped  |                  |
together with the blessed martyr's head      |                  |
later the magnificent abbey of St. Albans    |                  |
commemorate him who had fallen there.         \________________/

[2] Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of Britain," completed about the
year 731.
[3] St. Albans: twenty miles northwest of London.  (See map facing
p. 16.)

26. Agricola builds a Line of Forts (7 [END OF LINE MISSING]

When Agricola, a wise and equitable Roman ruler, became governor of
Britain he explored the coast, and first discovered Britain to be an
island.  He gradually extended the limits of the government, and, in
order to prevent invasion from the north, he built a line of forts
(completed by Antoninus) across Scotland, from the mouth of the river
Forth to the Clyde.  (See map facing p. 14.)

From this date the power of Rome was finally fixed.  During the three
hundred years which followed, the surface of the country underwent a
change.  The Romans cut down forests, drained marshes, reclaimed waste
land, and bridged rivers.  Furthermore they made the soil so
productive that Britain became known in Rome as the most important
grain-producing and grain-exporting province in the Empire.

27. Roman Cities; London; York.

Where the Britons had once had a humble village enclosed by a ditch
and protected by a stockade, the Romans built the cities of Chester,
Lincoln, London, York, and other towns, protected by massive walls and
towers of stone.  These places have continued to be centers of
population ever since.

London early became the Roman commercial metropolis, while the city of
York in the north was made the military and civil capital of the
country.  (See map facing p. 14).  There the Sixth Legion was
stationed.  It was the most noted body of troops in the Roman army,
and was called the "Victorious Legion."  It remained there for upwards
of three centuries.  There, too, the governor resided and administered
justice.  For these reasons York got the name of "another Rome."

The city had numerous temples and public buildings, such as befitted
the Roman capital of Britain.  There an event occurred in the fourth
century which made an indelible mark on the history of mankind.
Constantine, the subsequent founder of Constantinople, was proclaimed
Emperor at York, and through his influence Christianity became the
established religion of the entire Roman Empire.[1]

[1] Constantine was the first Christian Emperor of Rome.  The
preceding emperors had generally persecuted the Christians.

28. Roman System of Government; Roads.

During the Roman possession of Britain the country was differently
governed at different periods, but eventually it was divided into five
provinces.  These were intersected by a magnificent system of paved
roads running in direct lines from city to city, and having London as
a common center.  (See map facing p. 14.)

Over these road bodies of troops could march rapidly to any required
point.  By them, and by similar roads, leading through France, Spain,
and Italy, officers of state, mounted on relays of fleet horses, could
pass from one end of the Empire to the other in a few days' time.
(See map below, and that facing p. 14.)

So skillfully and substantially were these highways constructed, that
modern engineers have been glad to adopt them as a basis for their
work.  The four chief Roman roads[1] continue to be the foundation,
not only of numerous turnpikes in different parts of England, but also
of several of the great railway lines, especially those from London to
Chester and from London to York.

[1] The four chief roads were: (1) Watling Street; (2) Icknield
Street; (3) Irmin Street; and (4) The Fosse Way.  (See map facing
p. 14.)

29. Roman Forts and Walls Defenses against Saxon Pirates.

Next in importance to the roads were the fortifications.  In addition
to those which Agricola had built (S26), either Hadrian or Severus
constructed a wall of solid masonry across the country from the shore
of the North Sea to the Irish Sea.  This wall, which was about
seventy-five miles south of Agricola's work, was strengthened by a
deep ditch and a rampart of earth.  (See map facing p. 14.)

It was furthur defended by square stone castles built at regular
intervals of one mile.  Between them were stone watchtowers, used as
sentry boxes; while at every fourth mile there was a stone fort,
covering several acres and occupied by a large body of troops.

But the northern tribes were not the only ones to be guarded against;
bands of pirates prowled along the east and south coasts, burning,
plundering, and kidnaping.  These marauders came from Denmark and the
adjacent countries (S37).

The Britons and Romans called them Saxons, a most significant name if
it refers to the stout sharp knives which made them a terror to every
land on which they set foot.  To repel them, the Romans built a strong
chain of forts along the coast, extending from the Wash on the North
Sea to the Isle of Wight on the south.  (See map facing p. 14.)

The greater part of these Roman walls, fortifications, and cities have
perished.  But those which remain justify the statement that "outside
of England no such monuments exist of the power and military genius of
Rome."

30. Wherein Roman Civilization fell Short.

But this splendid fabric of Roman power signally failed to win the
support of the majority of the Britons.  Civilization, like truth,
cannot be forced on minds unwilling or unable to receive it.  Least of
all can it be forced by the sword's point and the taskmaster's lash.

In order to render his victories on the Continent (S17) secure, Caesar
butchered thousands of prisoners of war, or cut off the right hands of
the entire population of large settlements to prevent them from rising
in revolt.

The policy pursued in Britain, though very different, was equally
heartless and equally fatal.  There were rulers who endeavored to act
justly, but such cases were rare.  One of the leaders of the North
Britons said, "The Romans give the lying name of Empire to robbery and
slaughter; they make a desert and call it peace."

31. The Mass of the Native Population Slaves; Roman Villas.

It is true that the chief cities of Britain were exempt from
oppression.  They elected their own magistrates and made their own
laws.  But they enjoyed this liberty because their inhabitants were
either Roman soldiers or their allies, or Romanized Britons.

Outside these cities the great mass of the native Britons were bound
to the soil and could not leave it, while a large proportion were
absolute slaves.  Their work was in the brickyards, the quarries, the
mines, or in the fields or forests.

The Roman masters of these people lived in stately villas adorned with
pavements of different-colored marbles and beautifully painted walls.
These country houses, often as large as palaces, were warmed in
winter, like our modern dwellings, with currents of heated air.  In
summer they opened on terraces ornamented with vases and statuary, and
on spacious gardens of fruits and flowers.[1]  On the other hand, the
laborers on these great estates lived in wretched cabins plastered
with mud and thatched with straw.

[1] More than a hundred of these villas or country houses, chiefly in
the south and southwest of England, have been exhumed.  Some of them
cover several acres.

32. Roman Taxation and Cruelty.

But if the condition of the British servile classes was hard, many who
were free were but little better off, for nearly all that they could
earn was swallowed up in taxes.  The standing army of Britain, which
the people of the country had to support, rarely numbered less than
forty thousand.  Great numbers of Britons were forced into the ranks,
but most of them appear to have been sent away to serve abroad.  Their
life was one of perpetual exile.  In order to meet the civil and
military expenses entailed upon him, every farmer had to pay a third
of all that his farm could produce, in taxes.  Furthermore, he had to
pay duty on every article that he sold, last of all, he was obliged to
pay a duty or poll tax on his own head.

On the Continent there was a saying that it was better for a property
owner to fall into the hands of savages than into those of the Roman
assessors.  When they went round, they counted not only every ox and
sheep, but every plant, and registered them as well as the owners.
"One heard nothing," says a writer of that time, speaking of the days
when revenue was collected, "but the sound of flogging and all kinds
of torture.  The son was compelled to inform against the father, men
were forced to give evidence against themselves, and were assessed
according to the confession they made to escape torment."[1]

[1] Lactantius, cited in Elton's "Origins of English History,"
p. 334.  It should be noted, however, that Professor C. Oman in his
"England before the Norman Conquest," pp. 175-176, takes a moer
favorable view of the condition of Britain under the Romans than that
which most authorities maintain.

So great was the misery of the land that sometimes parents destroyed
their children, rather than let them grow up to a life of suffering.
This vast system of organized oppression, like all tyranny, "was not
so much an institution as a destitution," undermining and
impoverishing the country.  It lasted until time brought its revenge,
and Rome, which had crushed so many nations of barbarians, was in her
turn threatened with a like fate, by bands of northern barbarians
stronger than herself.

33. The Romans compelled to abandon Britain, 410.

When Caesar returned from his victorious campaigns in Gaul in the
first century B.C., Cicero exultantly exclaimed, "Now let the Alps
sink! the gods raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians; they
are no longer needed."  For nearly five centuries that continued true;
then the tribes of northern Europe could no longer be held back.  When
the Roman emperors saw that the crisis had arrived, they recalled
their troops from Britain in 410  The rest of the Roman colonists soon
followed.

At this time we find this brief but expressive entry in the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (SS46, 99): "After this the Romans never ruled
in Britain."  A few years later this entry occurs: "418.  This year
the Romans collected all the treasures in Britain; some they hid in
the earth, so that no one since has been able to find them, and some
they carried with them into Gaul."

34. Remains of Roman Civilization.

In the course of the next three generations the political and social
elements of Roman civilization in Britain seem to have disappeared.  A
few words, such as "port" and "street," which may or may not have been
derived from the Latin, have come down to us.  But there was nothing
left, of which we can speak with absolute certainty, save the material
shell,--the walls, roads, forts, villas, arches, gateways, altars, and
tombs, whose ruins are still seen scattered throughout the land.

The soil, also, is full of relics of the same kind.  Twenty feet below
the surface of the London of to-day lie the remains of the London of
the Romans.  In digging in the "City,"[1] the laborer's shovel every
now and then brings to light pieces of carved stone with Latin
inscriptions, bits of rusted armor, broken swords, fragments of
statuary, and gold and silver ornaments.

[1] The "City": This is the name given to that part of central London,
about a mile square, which was formerly enclosed by Roman walls.  It
contains the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and other very
important business buildings.  Its limit on the west is the site of
Temple Bar; on the east, the Tower of London.

So, likewise, several towns, long buried in the earth, and the
foundations of upwards of a hundred country houses have been
discovered; but these seem to be about all.  If Rome left any traces
of her literature, law, and methods of government, they are

[TWO PAGES MISSING (21-22)]


FOURTH PERIOD[1]

"The happy ages of history are never the productive ones." -- Hegel

THE COMING OF THE SAXONS, OR ENGLISH
449(?) A.D.

THE BATTLES OF THE TRIBES--BRITAIN BECOMES ENGLAND

36. The Britons beg for Help; Coming of the Jutes, 449 (?).

The Britons were in perilous condition after the Romans had left the
island (S33).  They had lost their old spirit (SS2, 18).[2]  They were
no longer brave in war or faithful in peace.  The Picts and Scots[3]
attacked them on the northwest, and the Saxon pirates (S29) assailed
them on the southeast.  These terrible foes cut down the Britons, says
an old writer, as "reapers cut down grain ready for the harvest."

[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Classified
List of Books in the Appendix.  The pronunciation of names will be
found in the Index.  The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others
are in parentheses.
[2] Gildas, in Bohn's "Six Old English Chronicles"; but compare
Professor C. Oman's "England before the Norman Conquest," pp. 175-176.
[3] The Picts and Scots were ancient savage tribes of Scotland.

At length the chief men wrote to the Roman consul, begging him to help
them.  They entitled their piteous and pusillanimous appeal, "The
Groans of the Britons."  They said, "The savages drive us to the sea,
the sea casts us back upon the savages; between them we are either
slaughtered or drowned."  But the consul was busy fighting enemies at
home, and he left the groaning Britons to shift for themselves.

Finally, the courage of despair forced them to act.  They seemed to
have resolved to fight fire with fire.  Acting on this resolution,
they accordingly invited a band of sea rovers to come and help them
against the Picts and Scots.  The chiefs of these Jutes[1] or Saxon
pirates did not wait for a second invitation.  Seizing their
"rough-handled spears and bronze swords," they set sail for the
shining chalk cliffs of Britain, 449(?).  They put an end to the
ravages of the Picts and Scots.  Then instead of going back to their
own country, they took possession of the best lands of Kent and
refused to give them up.  (See map opposite.)

[1] The Jutes, Saxons, and Angles appear to have belonged to the same
Teutonic or German race.  They inhabited the seacoast and vicinity,
from the mouth of the Elbe, northward along the coast of Denmark or
Jutland.  These tribes which conquered England, and settled there,
remained for a long time hostile to each other, but eventually, they
united and came to be known as Anglo-Saxons or English.  (See map
opposite.)

37. The Saxons and Angles conquer Britain.

The success of the first band of sea robbers in Britain (S36)
stimulated other bands to invade the island (477-541).  They
slaughtered multitudes of Britons and made slaves of many more.  The
conquerors named the parts of the country which they settled, from
themselves.  Each independent settlement was hostile to every other.
Thus Sussex was the home of the South Saxons, Wessex of the West
Saxons, Essex of the East Saxons.  (See map opposite.)  Finally, a
band of Angles came from a little corner, south of the peninsula of
Denmark, which still bears the name of Angeln.  They took possession
of all of eastern Britain not already appropriated.  Eventually, they
came to control the greater part of the land, and from them, all the
other tribes, when fused together, got the name of Angles or English
(S50).  (See map opposite.)

38. Resistance made by the Britons; King Arthur.

Meanwhile the Britons had plucked up courage and made the best fight
they could.  They were naturally a brave people (SS2, 18).  The fact
that it took the Saxons more than a hundred years to get a firm grip
on the island shows that fact.  The legend of King Arthur's exploits
also illustrates the valor of the race to which he belonged.
According to tradtion this British Prince, who had become a convert to
Christianity (S25), met and checked the invaders in their isolent
march of triumph.  The battle, it is said, was fought at Mount Badon
or Badbury in Dorsetshire.  There, with his irresistable sword,
"Excalibur," and his stanch British spearmen, Arthur compelled his
foes to acknowledge that he was not a myth but a man[1] able "to break
the heathen and uphold the Christ."

[1] See "Arthur" in the "Dictionary of National British Biography";
and Professor Rowley in Low and Pulling's "Dictionary of English
History," p. 434.  See also Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the
Britons" and Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."

39. The Saxons or English force the Britons to retreat.

But though King Arthur may have checked the pagan Saxon invaders, he
could not drive them out of the country.  They had come to stay.  On
the other hand, many Britons were forced to take refuge among the
hills of Wales.  There they continued to abide.  That ancient stock
never lost its love of liberty.  More than eleven centuries later
their spirit helped to shape the destinies of the New World.  Thomas
Jefferson andseveral of the other signers of the Declaration of
American Independence were either of Welsh birth or of direct Welsh
descent.

40. Gregory and the English Slaves.

The next period, of nearly eighty years, is a dreary record of
constant battles and bloodshed.  Out of this very barbarism a
regenerating influence finally arose.

In their greed for grain, some of the English tribes did not hesitate
to sell their own children into bondage.  A number of these slaves,
exposed in the market place in Rome, attracted the attention of a monk
named Gregory.

Struck with the beauty of their clear, ruddy complexions and fair
hair, he inquired from what country they came.  "They are Angles"
(S37), was the dealer's answer.  "No, not Angles, but angels,"
answered the monk; and he resolved that, when he could, he would send
missionaries to convert a race of so much promise.[2]

[2] Bede's "Ecclesiastical History."

41. Coming of Saint Augustine, 597.

When Gregory (S40) became Pope he fulfilled his resolution, and sent
Augustine with a band of forty monks to Britain.  In 597 they landed
on the very spot where the first Saxon war band had set foot on
English soil nearly one hundred and fifty years before.  Like Caesar
and his legions, Augustine and his monks brought with them the power
of Rome.  But this time that power did not come armed with the sword
to force men to submit or die, but inspired with a persuasive voice to
cheer them with new hope.

41. Augustine converts the King of Kent and his People (597).

The English at that time were wholly pagan, and had, in all
probability, destroyed every vesetige of the faith for which the
British martyrs gave their lives (S25).  But the King of Kent had
married a French princess who was a devout Christian.  Through the
Queen's influence, the King was induced to receive Augustine.  He was
afraid, however, of some magical practice, so he insisted that their
meeting should take place in the open air and on the island of
Thanet.  (See map facing p. 32.)

The historian Bede tells us that the monks, holding a tall silver
cross and a picture of Christ in their hands, advanced and saluted the
King.  Augustine delivered his message, was well received, and invited
to Canterbury, the capital of Kent.  There the King became a convert
to his preaching, and before the year had passed ten thousand of his
subjects had received baptism; for to gain the King was to gain his
tribe as well.

43. Augustine builds the First Monastery.

At Canterbury Augustine became the first archbishop over the first
cathedral.  There, too, he established the first monastery in which to
train missionaries to carry on the work which he had begun (S45).
Part of the original monastery of St. Augustine is now used as a
Church of England missionary college, and it continues to bear the
name of the man who brought Christianity to that part of Britain.  The
example of the ruler of Kent was not without its effect on others.

44. Conversion of the North.

The north of England, however, owed its conversion chiefly to the
Irish monks of an earlier age.  They had planted monasteries in
Ireland and Scotland from which colonies went forth, one of which
settled in Durham.  Cuthbert, a Saxon monk of that monastery in the
seventh century, traveled as a missionary throughout Northumbria, and
was afterward recognized as the saint of the North.  Through his
influence that kingdom was induced to accept Christianity.  Other
missionaries went to other districts to carry the "good tidings of
great joy."

In one case an aged chief arose in an assembly of warriors and said:
"O king, as a bird flies through this hall in the winter night, coming
out of the darkness and vanishing into it again, even such is our
life.  If these strangers can tell us aught of what is beyond, let us
give heed to them."

But, as Bede informs us in his history of the English CHurch (S99),
some of the converts were too cautious to commit themselves entirely
to the new religion.  One king, who had set up a large altar devoted
to the worship of Christ, set up a smaller one at the other end of the
hall to the old heathen deities, in order that he might make sure of
the favor of both.

45. Christianity organized; Labors of the Monks.

Gradually, however, the pagan faith was dropped.  Christianity was
largely organized by bands of monks and nuns, who had renounced the
world in order to lead lives of self-sacrifice and service.  They
bound themselves by the three vows of obedience, poverty, and
chastity, and the monastic law forbade them to marry.  Monasteries
existed or were now established in a number of places in England.[1]

[1] For instance, at Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, off the coast of
Northumberland (see Scott's "Marmion," Canto II, 9-10), at Wearmouth
and Jarrow in Durham, at Whitby on the coast of Yorkshire, and at
Peterborough in Northamptonshire.  (See map facing p. 38.)

The monasteries were educational as well as industrial centers.  The
monks spent part of each day in manual toil, for they held that "to
labor is to pray."  They cleared the land, drained he bogs, plowed,
sowed, and reaped.  Another part of the day they spent in religious
exercises, and a third in writing, translating, and teaching.

Each monastery had a school attached to it, and each had, besides, its
library of manuscript books and its room for the entertainment of
travelers and pilgrims.  In these libraries important charters granted
by the King and important laws relating to the kingdom were preserved.

46. Literary Work of the Monks.

It was at the monastery of Jarrow[2] that Bede wrote in rude Latin the
Church history of England.  It was at that in Whitby that the poet
Caedmon composed his poem on the Creation, in which, a thousand years
before Milton, he dealt with Milton's theme in Milton's spirit.

[2] Jarrow, Whitby, etc.; see note 1, above.

It was at the great monasteries of Peterborough and Canterbury that
the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" was probably begun (S99).  It was the
first history of England written in English, and the one from which we
derive very important knowledge of the period extending from the
beginning of the Christian era down to a time nearly a hundred years
after the Norman conquest of the island.  Furthermore we find that the
history of the country was written by the monks in the form of
independent narratives, some of which are of very great value as
sources of information.[1]

[1] See six extracts from the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," in
E. K. Kendall's "Source-Book of English History," chaps. ii and iii;
also William of Malmesbury's "Conquered and Conquerors" (1066) and
Matthew Paris's "England in 1257," in the same book, pp. 41 and 78.
See also Bogn's "Six Old English Chronicles."

47. Influence of Christianity on Society.

But the power of Christianity for good was not confied to the
monasteries; the priests took their part in it.  Unlike the monks,
they were not bound by monastic rules, though they were forbidden to
marry.  They lived in the world and worked for the world, and had an
immense social influence.  The Church, as a rule, in all forms of its
activity took the side of the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed.
Slavery was then the normal condition of a large class, but when the
Church held slaves it protected them from ill usage.  It secured
Sunday for them as a day of rest, and it often labored effectually for
their emancipation.

48. Political Influence of Christianity, 664.

More than this, Christianity had a powerful political influence.  A
great synod or council was held at Whitby, on the coast of Yorkshire,
664, to decide when Easter should be observed.  Delegates to that
meeting were sent from different parts of the country.  After a
protracted discussion all the churches finally agreed to accept the
Roman custom.  This important decision encouraged a spirit of true
religious unity.  The bishops, monks, and priests who gathered at
Whitby represented Saxon tribes which were often bitterly hostile to
each other (S37), but their action on the Easter question united them
in a certain way.  It made them feel that they had a common interest,
that they were members of the same Church, and that, in that Church,
they were laboring for the same object.  The fact that they bowed to
one supreme spiritual authority had a political significance.  It
suggested that the time might be coming when all the conflicting
tribes or petty kingdoms in Britain would acknowledge the authority of
one King, and form one English nation.

49. Egbert becomes King of Wessex, and Overlord of the Whole Country,
829.

Somewhat more than a hundred and sixty years later a great step was
taken toward the accomplishment of the political union of the
different sections of Britain.  By the death of the King of Wessex
(S37), Egbert, a descendant of Cerdic, the first chief and King of
that country, succeeded to the crown.  He had spent some time in
France at the court of Charlemagne and had seen that great ruler make
himself master of most of western Europe.  Egbert was not content to
remain simply King of Wessex.  He resolved to make himself master of
the whole country.  He began a series of wars by which he, at length,
compelled all the other Saxon Kings to acknowledge him as their
Overlord.  That title marks the beginning, in 829, of a new period in
the history of the island.

50. How Britain got the Name of England.

In making himself supreme ruler over the entire English population of
Britain, Egbert laid the foundations of what was finally to become the
"Kingdom of England."  Several causes contributed to this change of
name.  We can trace the process step by step.  First, the people of
Kent and the great council held at Whitby (SS42, 48) laid the
cornerstone of the National Church; next, the people of Wessex
furnished the National Overlord (S49); finally, the preponderance of
the people called Angles (S37) furnished the National Name of
Angle-Land or England.

It is a fact worthy of notice, in this connection, that from Egbert as
a royal source every subsequent English sovereign (except the four
Danish Kings, Harold II, and William the Conqueror) has directly or
indirectly descended down to the present time.  (See Table of Royal
Descent in the Appendix, p. xlii.)

51. Alfred the Great.

Of these sovereigns the most conspicuous during the period of which we
are writing was Alfred.  He was a grandson of Egbert (S49).  He was
rightly called Alfred the Great, since he was the embodiment of
whatever was best and bravest in the English character.  The keynote
of his life may be found in the words which he spoke at the close of
it, "So long as I have lived, I have striven to live worthily."

52. Danish Invasion.

When Alfred came to the throne (871) the Danes, or Northmen, as they
were often called, were sweeping down upon the country.  A few months
before he became King, he had aided his brother in a desperate
struggle with them.  In the beginning, the object of the Danes was to
plunder, later, to possess, and finally, to rule over the country.
They had already overrun a large portion of England and had invaded
Wessex or the country of the West Saxons.  (See map facing p. 30.)
Wherever their raven flag appeared, destruction and slaughter
followed.

53. The Danes or Northmen destroy the Monasteries.

These terrible pirates despised Christianity.  They scorned it as the
weak religion of a weak people.  They hated the English monasteries
most of all and made them the especial objects of their attacks (SS43,
45, 46).  Many of these institutions had accumulated wealth, and some
had gradually sunk into habits of laziness, luxury, and other evil
courses of life.  The Danes, who were full of the vigorous virtues of
heathenism, liked nothing better than to scourge those effeminate
vices of the cloisters.

From the thorough way in which they robbed, burned, and murdered,
there can be no doubt that they enjoyed their work of destruction.  In
their helplessness and terror, the panic-stricken monks added to their
usual prayers, this fervent petition: "From the fury of the Northmen,
good Lord deliver us!"  The power raised up to answer that
supplication was Alfred the Great.

54. Alfred's Victories over the Danes: the White Horse.

After repeated defeats Alfred finally drove back these savage hordes,
who thought it a shame to earn by sweat what they could win by blood.

In these attacks Alfred led one half the army and his brother Ethelred
led the other.  They met the Danes at Ashdown Ridge in Berkshire.
(See map facing p. 32.)  While Ethelred stopped to pray for success,
Alfred, under the banner of the "White Horse,"--the common standard of
the English at that time,--began the attack and won the day.

Tradition declares that after the victory he ordered his army to
commemorate their triumph by carving that colossal figure of a horse
on the side of a neighboring chalk hill, which still remains so
conspicuous an object in the landscape.  It was shortly after this
that Alfred became "King of the West Saxons"; but the war, far from
being ended, had in fact but just begun.

55. The Danes compel Alfred to retreat.

The Danes, reenforced by other invaders, overcame Alfred's forces and
compelled him to retreat.  He fled to the wilds of Somersetshite, and
was glad to take up his abode for a time, so the story runs, in a
peasant's hut.  Subsequently he succeeded in rallying part of his
people, and built a stronghold on a piece of rising ground, in the
midst of an almost impassable morass.  There he remained during the
winter.

56. Alfred's Great Victory; Treaty of Wedmore, 878.

In the spring Alfred marched forth and again attacked the Danes.  They
were intrenched in a camp at Edington, Wiltshire.  He surrounded them,
and starved them into complete submission.  They had to confess that
Alfred's muscular Christians were more than a match for the most
stalwart heathen.  The Danish leader swore to maintain a peace, called
the Peace or Treaty of Wedmore.  (See maps facing p. 32 and p. 38.)
More than this, the discomfited warrior sealed the oath with his
baptism,--an admission that Alfred had not only beaten him but
converted him as well.

By the Treaty of Wedmore, 878, the Danes bound themselves to remain
north and east of a line drawn from London to Chester, following the
old Roman road called Watling Street.   All south of this line,
including a district around London, was recognized as the dominions of
Alfred, whose chief city, or capital, was Winchester.  (See map facing
p. 32.)

By this treaty the Danes got much the larger part of England (called
the Danelaw), but they acknowledged Alfred as their Overlord.  He thus
became, in name at least, what his predecessor, Egbert (S49), had
claimed to be,--supreme ruler of the whole country, though the highest
title he ever assumed was "King of the Saxons or English."

57. Alfred's Laws; his Translations.

Alfred proved himself to be more than mere ruler, for he was also a
lawgiver and teacher as well.  Through his efforts a written code was
compiled, prefaced by the Ten Commandments and ending with the Golden
Rule.  Referring to this introduction, Alfred said, "He who keeps this
shall not need any other law book."

Next, that learning might not utterly perish in the ashes of the
abbeys and monasteries which the Danes had destroyed (S53), the King,
though feeble and suffering, set himself to translate from the Lating
the "Universal History of Orosius," and also Bede's valuable "Church
History of England."

58. Alfred's Navy.

Alfred, however, still had to fight against fresh invasion by the
Danes, who continued to make descents upon the coast, and even sailed
up the Thames to take London.  The English King constructed a superior
class of fast-sailing war vessels from designs made by himself.  With
this fleet, which may be regarded as the beginning of the English
navy, he fought the enemy on their own element.  He thus effectually
checked a series of invasions which, if they had continued, might have
reduced the country to barbarism.

59. Estimate of Alfred's Reign.

Considered as a whole, Alfred's reign (871-901) is hte most noteworthy
of any in the annals of the early English sovereigns.  It was marked
throughout by intelligence and progress.

His life speaks for itself.  The best commentary on it is the fact
that, in 1849, the people of Wantage, his native place, celebrated the
thousandth anniversary of his birth,--another proof that "what is
excellent, as God lives, is permanent."[1]

[1] R. W. Emerson's "Poems."

60. St. Dunstan's Three Great Reforms (960-988).

Long after Alfred's death, St. Dunstan, then Archbishop of Canterbury
and head of the English Church, set out to push forward the work begun
by the great King.  He labored to accomplish three things.  First, he
sought to establish a higher system of education; secondly, he desired
to elevate the general standard of monastic life; finally, he tried to
inaugurate a period of national peace and economic progress.

He began his work when he had control of the abbey of Glastonbury, in
the southwest of England.  He succeeded in making the school connected
with that abbey the most famous one in the whole kingdom (S45).  He
not only taught himself, but, by his enthusiasm, he inspired others to
teach.  He was determined that from Glastonbury a spirit should go
forth which should make the Church of England the real educator of the
English people.  Next, he devoted himself to helping the inmates of
the monasteries in their efforts to reach a truer and stronger
manhood.  That, of course, was the original purpose for which those
institutions had been founded (S45), but, in time, many of them had
more or less degenerated.  Every athlete and every earnest student
knows how hard it is to keep up the course of training he has resolved
upon.  The strain sometimes becomes too great for him.  Well, the monk
in his cell had found out how difficult it was for him to be always
faithful to his religious vows.  St. Dunstan roused these men to begin
their work anew.  He re-created monasticism in England, making it
stricter in discipline and purer in purpose.

Last of all, the Archbishop endeavored to secure greater freedom from
strife.  He saw that the continued wars of the English were killing
off their young men--the real hope of the country--and were wasting
the best powers of the nation.  His influence with the reigning
monarch was very great, and he was successful, for a time, in
reconciling the Danes and the English (SS53, 56).  It was said that he
established "peace in the kingdom such as had not been known within
the memory of man."  At the same time the Archbishop, who was himself
a skillful mechanic and worker in metals,[1] endeavored to encourage
inventive industry and the exportation of products to the Continent.
He did everything in his power to extend foreign trade, and it was
largely through his efforts that "London rose to the commercial
greatness it has held ever since."[2]  Because of these things, one of
the best known English historians,[3] speaking of that period,
declares that Dunstan "stands forth as the leading man in both Church
and State."

[1] The common people regarded his accomplishments in this direction
with superstitious awe.  Many stories of his skill were circulated,
and it was even whispered that in a personal contest with the Evil
One, it was the foul fiend and not the monk who got the worst of it,
and fled from the saint's workshop, howling with dismay.
[2] R. Green's "English People."
[3] E. A. Freeman's "Norman Conquest," I, 65.

61. New Invasions; Danegeld (992).

With the close of Dunstan's career, a period of decline set in.  The
Northmen began to make fresh inroads (S53).  The resistance to them
became feeble and faint-hearted.  At last a royal tax, called
Danegeld, or Dane money (992), was levied on all landed property in
England in order to buy off the invaders.  For a brief period this
cowardly concession answered its purpose.  But a time came when the
Danes refused to be bribed to keep away.

62. The Northmen invade France.

The Danish invasion of England was really a part of a great European
movement.  The same Northmen who had obtained so large a part of the
island (S56) had, in the tenth century, established themselves in
France.

There they were known as Normans, a softened form of the word
"Northmen," and the district where they settled came to be called from
them Normandy.  They founded a line of dukes, or princes, who were
destined, in the course of the next century, to give a new aspect to
the events of English history.

63. Sweyn conquers England; Canute[1] (1017-1035).

Early in the eleventh century Sweyn, the Dane, conquered England
(1013), and "all the people," says the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (S99),
"held him for full king."  He was succeeded by his son Canute (1017).
He could hardly be called a foreigner, since he spoke a language and
set up a government differing but little from that of the English.

[1] "Cnut," a shortened form of Canute.

After his first harsh measures were over he sought the friendship of
both Church and people.  He gave the country peace.  Tradition reports
that he rebuked the flattery of courtiers by showing them that the
inrolling tide is no respecter of persons; he endeavored to rule
justly, and his liking for the monks found expression in his song:

        "Merrily sang the monks of Ely
         As Cnut the King was passing by."

64. Canute's Plan; the Four Earldoms.

Canute's plan was to establish a great northern empire embracing
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England.  To facilitate the government of
so large a realm, he divided England into four districts,--Wessex,
Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria--which, with their dependencies,
embraced the entire country.  (See map facing p. 38.)

Each of these districts was ruled by an earl[1] invested with almost
royal power.  For a time the arrangement worked well, but eventually
discord sprang up and imperiled the unity of the kingdom.  After
Canute's death two of his sons divided England between themselves;
both were bad rulers.

[1] Earl ("chief" or "leader"): a title of honor and of office.  The
four earldoms established by Canute remained nearly unchanged until
the Norman Conquest, 1066.

65. Restoration of the Saxon or English Kings; Edward the Confessor
(1042-1066).

On the occasion of the Danish conqueror Sweyn (S63), Ethelred II, the
English King, sent his French wife Emma back to Normandy for safety.
She took her son, Prince Edward, then a lad of nine, with her.  He
remained at the French court nearly thirty years, and among other
friends to whom he became greatly attached was his second cousin,
William, Duke of Normandy.

The oppressive acts of Canute's sons (S64) excited insurrection
(1042), and both Danes and English joined in the determination to
restore the English line.  They invited Prince Edward to accept the
crown.  He returned to England, obtained the throne, and pledged
himself to restore the rights of which the people had been deprived.
By birth King Edward was already half Norman; by education and tastes
he was wholly so.

It is very doubtful whether he could speak a word of English, and it
is certain that from the beginning he surrounded himself with French
favorites, and filled the Church with French priests.  Edward's piety
and blameless life gained for him the title of "the Confessor," or, as
we should say to-day, "the Christian."

He married the daughter of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the most powerful
noble in England.  Godwin really ruled the country in the King's name
until his death (1053), when his son Harold (S67) succeeded him as
earl.

66. Edward the Confessor builds Westminster Abbey.

During a large part of his reign the King was engaged in building an
abbey or monastery at the west end of London, and hence called the
Westminster.[2]  He had just completed and consecrated this great work
when he died, and was buried there.  We may still see a part of the
original building in the crypt or basement of the abbey, while the
King's tomb above is the center of a circle of royal graves.

[2] Minster: a name given originally to a monastery; next, to a church
connected with a monastery; but now applied to several large English
cathedrals.

Multitudes made pilgrimages to King Edward's tomb, for the Pope had
enrolled him among the saints.  Even now a little band of devoted
Catholics gather around his shrine every year.  They go there to show
their veneration for the virtues and the piety of a ruler who would
have adorned a monastery, but had not breadth and vigor to fill a
throne.

67. Harold becomes King (1066).

On his deathbed, King Edward, who had no children, recommended Harold,
Earl of Wessex, as his successor (S65).  But the Normans in France
declared Edward had promised that his cousin William, Duke of Normandy
(S65), should reign after him.  The Witan, or National Council of
England (S81), chose Harold.  That settled the question, for the
Council alone had the right to decide who should rule over the English
people.  Harold was soon afterward crowned (January 16, 1066).

68. Duke William prepares to invade England (1066).

William, Duke of Normandy, was getting ready for a hunting expedition
when the news was brought to him of Harold's accession (S67).  The old
chronicler says that the Duke "stopped short in his preparations; he
spoke to no man, and no man dared speak to him."  Finally he resolved
to appeal to the sword and take the English crown by force.

During the spring and summer of that year, he occupied himself in
fitting out a fleet to invade England, and his smiths and armorers
were busy making lances, swords, and coats of mail.  The Pope favored
the expedition and presented a banner blessed by himself, to be
carried in the attack; "mothers, too, sent their sons for the
salvation of their souls."

69. The Expedition Sails (1066).

William sailed on his great expedition in the autumn with a fleet of
several hundred vesseles and a large number of transports.  The Duke's
ship, with the consecrated banner at the masthead, led the fleet.

His army consisted of archers and cavalry.  Its strength has been
variously estimated at from 14,000 men up to 60,000.  They were partly
his own subjects, and partly hired soldiers, or those who joined for
the sake of plunder.  William also carried a large force of smiths and
carpenters, with timber ready cut and fitted to set up a wooden
castle.

70. William lands at Pevensey.

The next day the fleet anchored at Pevensey, on the south coast of
England, under the walls of an old Roman fortress which had stood, a
vacant ruin, since the Saxons stormed it nearly six hundred years
before.  (See map facing p. 38.)  Tradition says that as William
stepped on shore he stumbled and fell flat with his face downward.
"God preserve us!" cried one of his men; "this is a bad sign."  But
the Duke, grasping the pebbles of the beach with both his outstretched
hands, exclaimed, "Thus do I seize the land!"

71. King Harold in the North.

There was, in fact, no power to prevent him from establishing his
camp, for King Harold (S67) was in the north quelling an invasion
headed by the King of the Norwegians and his brother Tostig, who hoped
to secure the throne for himself.  Harold had just sat down to a
victory feast, after the battle of Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire, when
news was brought to him of the landing of William.

It was this fatal want of unity in England which made the Norman
Conquest possible.  If Harold's own brother, Tostig, had not turned
traitorously against him, or if the north country had stood squarely
by the south, Duke William might have found his fall on the beach an
omen full of disaster.

72. What Duke William did after Landing.

As there was no one to oppose him, William made a fort in a corner of
the old Roman wall at Pevensey (S70), and then marched to Hastings, a
few miles farther east, where he set up a wooden castle on that hill
where the ruins of a later stone castle may still be seen.  Having
done this, he pillaged the country in every direction.

73. Harold marches to meet William.

King Harold, having gathered what forced he could, marched to meet
William at a place midway between Pevensey and Hastings, about five
miles back from the coast.  Harold had the advantage of a stockaded
fort he had built; William, that of a body of cavalry and archers, for
the English fought on foot with javelins and battle-axes mainly.  The
Saxons spent the night in feasting and song, the Normans in prayer and
confession; both were eager to fight.

74. The Great Battle of Hastings, 1066.

On the morning of the 14th of October the fight began.  It lasted
until dark, with heavy loss on both sides.  At length William's
strategy carried the day, and Harold and his brave followers found to
their cost that then, as now, it is "the thinking bayonet" which
conquers.  The English King was slain and every man of his chosen
troops with him.  A monk who wrote the history of the period of the
Conquest, says that "the vices of the Saxons had made them effeminate
and womanish, wherefore it came to pass that, running against Duke
William, they lost themselves and their country with one, and that an
easy and light, battle."  Doubtless the English had fallen off in many
ways from what hey had been generations earlier; but the record at
Hastings shows that they had lost neither strength, courage, nor
endurance, and a harder battle ws never fought on British soil.

75. Battle Abbey; Harold's Grave; the Beyeu^x Tapestry.

A few years later, the Norman Conqueror built the Abbey of Battle on
the spot to commemorate the victory by which he gained his crown.  He
directed that the monks of the abbey should chant perpetual prayers
over the Norman soldiers who had fallen there.  Here, also, tradition
represents him as having buried Harold's body, just after the fight,
under a heap of stones by the seashore.  Some months later, it is said
that the friends of the English King removed the remains to Waltham,
near London, and buried them in the church which he had built and
endowed there.  Be that as it may, his grave, wherever it is, is the
grave of the old England.  Henceforth a new people (though not a new
race, for the Normans originally came from the same Germanic stock as
the English did) (S62) will appear in the history of the island.

Several contemporary accounts of the battle exist by both French and
English writers, but one of the best histories of it is that which was
wrought in colors by a woman's hand.  It represents the scenes of the
famous contest on a strip of canvas known as the Bayeux Tapestry
(S155), a name derived from the French town where it is still
preserved.

76. Close of the Period; what the Saxon Conquest of Britain had
accomplished.

The death of King Harold ends the Saxon or English period of history.
Before entering upon the reign of William the Conqueror let us
consider what that period had accomplished.  We have seen that the
Jutes, Saxons, and Angles (SS36, 37) invaded Britain at a critical
period.  Its original inhabitants had become cowed and enervated by
the despotism and the worn-out civilization forced on them by the
Romans (SS30-32).

The newcomers brought that healthy spirit of barbarism, that
irrepressible love of personal liberty, which the country sorely
needed.  The conquerors were rough, ignorant, cruel; but they were
vigorous, fearless, and determined.

These qualities were worth a thousand times more to Britain than the
gilded corruption of Rome.  But in the course of time the Saxons or
English themselves lost spirit (S36).  Their besetting sin was a
stolidity which degenerated into animalism and sluggish content.

77. Fresh Elements contributed by the Danes or Northmen.

Then came the Danes or Northmen (SS52, 63).  They brought with them a
new spirit of still more savage independence which found expression in
their song, "I trust my sword, I trust my steed, but most I trust
myself at need."

They conquered a large part of the island, and in conquering
regenerated it.  So strong was their love of independence, that even
the lowest classes of farm laborers were quite generally free.

More small independent landholders were found amongh the Danish
population than anywhere else; and it is said that the number now
existing in the region which they settled in the northeast of England
is still much larger than in the south.  (See map facing p. 32.)
Finally, the Danes and the English, both of whome sprang from the
North Germanic tribes (S36), mingled and becames in all respects one
people.

78. Summary: What the Anglo-Saxons accomplished.

Thus Jutes, Saxons, Angles, and Danes, whom together we may call the
Anglo-Saxons,[1] laid the corner stone of the English nation.  However
much that nation has changed since, it remains, nevertheless, in its
solid and fundamental qualities, what those peoples made it.

[1] Anglo-Saxons: Some authorities insist that this phrase means the
Saxons of England in distinction from those of the Continent.  It is
used here, however, in the sense given by Professor Freeman, as a term
describing the people formed in England by the union of the Germanic
tribes which had settled in the island.

They gave first the language, simple strong, direct, and plain--the
familiar, everyday speech of the fireside and the street, the
well-known words of both the newspaper and the Bible.

Next they established the government in its main outlines as it still
exists; that is, a king, a legislative body representing the people,
and a judicial system embodying the germ, at least, of trial by jury
(S89).

Last, and best, they furnished conservative patience, persistent
effort, indomitable tenacity of purpose, and cool, determined
courage.  These qualities have won glorious victories on both sides of
the Atlantic, not only in the conflicts of war, but in the contests of
peace, and who can doubt that they are destined to win still greater
ones in the future?


GENERAL REFERENCE SUMMARY OF THE SAXON, OR EARLY ENGLISH, PERIOD
(449-1066)

This section contains a summary of much of the preceding period, with
considerable additional matter.  It is believed that teachers and
pupils may find it useful for reference on certain topics
(e.g. feudalism, etc.) which could not be conveniently treated in
detail in the history proper.

I. Government.  II. Religion.  III. Military Affairs.  IV. Literature,
Learning, and Art.  V. General Industry and Commerce.  VI. Mode of
Life, Manners, and Customs

I. Government

79. Beginning of the English Monarchy.

During the greater part of the first four centuries after the Saxon
conquest Britain was divided into a number of tribal settlements, or
petty kingdoms, held by Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, constantly at war
with each other.  In the ninth century, the West Saxons, or
inhabitants of Wessex, succeeded, under the leadership of Egbert, in
practically conquering and uniting the country.  Egbert now assumed
the title of Overlord or Supreme Ruler of the English people.  In time
Britain came to be known, from the name of its largest tribe, the
Angles, as Angle-Land, or England.  Meanwhile the Danes had obtained
possession of a large part of the country on the northeast, but they
eventually united with the English and became one people.

80. The King and the Witan.

The government of England was vested in an elective sovereign,
assisted by the National Council of the Witan, or Wise Men.  It is an
open question where every freeman had the right to attend this
national council,[1], but, in practice, the right became confined to a
small number of the nobles and clergy.

[1] Professor Stubbs and Freeman take opposite views on this point.

81. What the Witan could do.

1. The Witan elected the King (its choice being confined, as a rule,
to the royal family).  2. In case of misgovernment, it deposed him.
3. It made or confirmed grants of public lands.  4. It acted as a
supreme court of justice both in civil and criminal cases.  (See the
Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, p. ii, S3.)

82. What the King and Witan could do.

1. They enacted the laws, both civil and ecclesiastical.  (In most
cases this meant nothing more than stating what the custom was, the
common law being merely the common custom.)  2. They levied taxes.
3. They declared war and made peace.  4. They appointed the chief
officers and bishops of the realm.

83. Land Tenure before the Conquest.

Before they invaded Britain the Saxons and kindred tribes appear to
have held their lands in common.  Each head of a family had a
permanent homestead, but that was all.[1]  "No one," says Caesar, "has
a fixed quantity of land or boundaries to his property.  The
magistrates and chiefs assign every year to the families and
communities who live together, as much land and in such spots as they
think suitable.  The following year they require them to take up
another allotment.

[1] Tacitus ("Germania") says that each house "was surrounded by a
space of its own."

"The chief glory of the tribes is to have their territory surrounded
with as wide a belt as possible of waste land.  They deem it not only
a special mark of valor that every neighboring tribe should be driven
to a distance, and that no stranger should dare to reside in their
vicinity, but at the same time they regard it as a precautionary
measure against sudden attacks."[2]

[2] Caesar, "Gallic War," Book VI.

84. Folkland.

Each tribe, in forming its settlement, seized more land than it
actually needed.  This excess was known as Folkland (the People's
land,[3] and might be used by all alike for pasturing cattle or
cutting wood.  With the consent of the Witan, the King might grant
portions of this Folkland as a reward for services done to himself or
to the community.  Such grants were usually conditional and could only
be made for a time.  Eventually they returned to the community.

Other grants, however, might be made in the same way, which conferred
full ownership.  Such grants were called Bocland (Book land), because
conveyed by writing, or registered in a charter or book.  In time the
King obtained the power of making these grants without having to
consult the Witan, and at last the whole of the Folkland came to be
regarded as the absolute property of the Crown.

85. Duties of Freemen.

Every freeman was obliged to do three things: 1. He must assist in the
maintenance of roads and bridges.  2. He must aid in the repair of
forts.  3. He must serve in case of war.  Whoever neglected or refused
to perform this last and most important of all duties was dclard to be
a "nithing," or infamous coward.[4]

[4] Also written Niding.  The English, as a rule, were more afraid of
this name than of death itself.

86. The Feudal System (see, too, the Constitutional Summary in the
Appendix, p. iii, S5).

The essential principle of the feudal system was the holding of land
on condition of military or other service.  It appears to have
gradually grown up in England from grants made by the King.  In
addition to the Eorls (earls)[1] or nobles by birth, there gradually
grew up a class known as Thanes (companions or servants of the King),
who in time outranked those who were noble by birth.  He would
frequently have occasion to give rewards to the nobles and chief men
for faithful service and for deeds of valor.  As nearly all his wealth
consisted in land, he would naturally give that.  To this gift,
however, he would attach a condition.  On making such a grant the King
required the receiver to agree to furnish a certain number of fully
equipped soldiers to fight for him.  These grants were originally made
for life only, and on death of the recipient they returned to the
Crown.

[1] The Saxons, or Early English, were divided into three classes:
Eorls (they must nut be confounded with the Danish jarls or earls),
who were noble by birth; Ceorls (churls), or simple freemen; and
slaves.  The slaves were either the absolute property of the master,
or were bound to the soil and sold with it.  This latter class, under
the Norman name of villeins, became numerous after the Norman Conquest
in the eleventh century.  The chieftains of the first Saxon settlers
were called either Ealdormen (aldermen) or Heretogas, the first being
civil or magisterial, the latter military officers.  The Thanes were a
later class, who, from serving the King or some powerful leader,
became noble by military service.

Next, the nobles and other great landholders, following the example of
the King, granted portions of their estates to tenants on similar
conditions, and these again might grant portions to those below them
in return for satisfactory military or other service.

In time it came to be an established principle, that every freeman
below the rank of a noble must be attached to some superior whom he
was bound to serve, and who, on the other hand, was his legal
protector and responsible for his good behavior.  The man who refused
to acknowledge his duty to serve a lord or superior was looked upon as
an outlaw, and might be seized like a robber.  In that respect,
therefore, he would be worse off than the slave, who had a master to
whom he was accountable and who was accountable for him.

Eventually it became common for the small landholders, especially
during the Danish invasions, to seek the protection of some
neighboring lord who had a large band of followers at his command.  In
such cases the freeman gave up his land and received it again on
certain conditions.  The usual form was for him to kneel and, placing
his hands within those of the lord, to swear an oath of homage, saing,
"I BECOME YOUR MAN for the lands which I hold to you, and I will be
faithful to you against all men, saving only the service which I owe
to my lord the King."  On his side the lord solemnly promised to
defend his tenant or vassal in the possession of his property, for
which he was to perform some service to the lord.

In these two ways, first, by grant of lands from the King or a
superior, and, secondly, by the act of homage (known as commendation)
on the part of the recipient when he had given up lands on condition
of protection and had received them back again, the feudal system (a
name derived from feodum, meaning land or property) grew up in
England.  Its growth, however, was irregular and incomplete; and it
should be distinctly understood that it was not until after the Norman
Conquest in the eleventh century that it became fully establised.  It
should also be distinctly understood that William the Conqueror made a
most important change in this system by requiring the tenants of all
the great landholders, as well as their masters, to swear direct
obedience to him (S121).

87. Advantages of Feudalism.

This system had at that time many advantages.  1. The old method of
holding land in common was a wasteful one, since the way in which the
possessor of a field might cultivate it would perhaps spoil it for the
one who received it at the next allotment.  2. In an age of constant
warfare, feudalism protected all classes better than if they had stood
apart, and it often enabled the King to raise a powerful and
well-armed force in the easiest and quickest manner.  3. It cultivated
two important virtues,--fidelity on the part of the vassal, protection
on that of the lord.  It had something of the spirit of the Golden
Rule in it.  Its corner stone was the faithfulness of man to man.
Society had outgrown the outward forms of feudalism, which like every
system had its drawbacks, but it would seem as though it could never
wholly outgrow the feudal principle.

88. Political Divisions; the Sheriff.

Politically the kingdom was divided into townships, hundreds
(districts furnishing a hundred warriors, or supporting a hundred
families), and shires or counties, the shire having been originally,
in some cases, the section settled by an independent tribe, as Sussex,
Essex, etc.

In each shire the King had an officer, called a shire reeve or
sherrif,[1] who represented him, collected the taxes due the Crown,
and saw to the execution of the laws.  In like manner, the town and
the hundred had a headman of its own choosing to see to matters of
general interest.

[1] Reeve: a man in authority, or having charge of something

89. The Courts.

As the nation had its assembly of wise men acting as a high court, so
each shire, hundred, and town had its court, which all freemen might
attend.  There, without any special judge, jury, or lawyers, cases of
all kinds were tried and settled by the voice of the entire body, who
were both judge and jury in themselves.

90. Methods of Procedure; Compurgation.

In these courts there were two methods of procedure; first, the
accused might clear himself of the charge brought against him by
compurgations[1]; that is, by swearing that he was not guilty and
getting a number of reputable neighbors to swear that they believed
his oath.

If their oaths were not satisfactory, witnesses might be brought to
swear to some particular fact.  In ever case the value of the oath was
graduated according to the rank of the person, that of a man of high
rank being worth as much as that of twelve common men.

91. The Ordeal.

Secondly, if the accused could not clear himself in this way, he was
obliged to submit to the ordeal.[2]  This usually consisted in
carrying a piece of hot iron a certain distance, or in plunging the
arm up to the elbow in boiling water.

[2] Ordeal: a severe test or judgment

The person who underwent the ordeal appealed to God to prove his
innocence by protecting him from harm.  Rude as both these methods
were, they were better than the old tribal method, which permitted
every man or every man's family to be the avenger of his wrongs.

92. The Common Law.

The laws by which these cases were tried were almost always ancient
customs, few of which had been reduced to writing.  They formed that
body of Common Law[3] which is the foundation of the modern system of
justice both in England and America.

[3] So called, in distinction from the statute laws made by
Parliament.

93. Penalties.

The penalties inflicted by these courts consisted chiefly of fines.
Each man's life had a certain "wergild" or money value.  The fine for
the murder of a man of very high rank was 2400 shillings; that of a
simple freeman was only one twelfth as much.

A slave could neither testify in court nor be punished by the court;
for the man in that day who held no land had no rights.  If a slave
was convicted of crime, his master paid the fine, and then flogged him
until he had got his money's worth out of him.  Treason was punished
with death, and common scolds were ducked in a pond until they were
glad to hold their tongues.  These methods of administering justice
were crude, but they had the great merit of being effective.  They
aimed to do two very necessary things: first, to protect the community
against dangerous criminals; secondly, to teach those criminals that
"the way of the transgressor is hard."

II. Religion

94. The Ancient Saxon Faith.

Before their conversion to Christianity, the Saxons worshiped Woden
and Thor, names preserved in Wednesday (Woden's day) and Thursday
(Thor's day).  The first appears to have been considered to be the
creator and ruler of heaven and earth; the second was his son, the god
of thunder, slayer of evil spirits, and friend of man.

The essential element of their religion was the deification of
strength, courage, and fortitude.  It was a faith well suited to a
warlike people.  It taught that there was a heaven for the brave and a
hell for cowards.

95. What Christianity did.

Christianity, on the contrary, laid emphasis on the virtues of
self-sacrifice and sympathy.  It took the side of the weak and the
helpless.  The Church itself held slaves, yet it labored for
emancipation.  It built monasteries and encouraged industry and
education.  The church edifice was a kind of open Bible.

Very few who entered the sacred building then could have spelled out a
single word of either the Old or New Testament, even if they had then
been translated from Latin into English; but all, from the poorest
peasant or the meanest slave up to the greatest noble, could read the
meaning of the Scripture histories painted in brilliant colors on wall
and window.

The church, furthermore, was a peculiarly sacred place.  It was
powerful to shield those who were in danger.  If a criminal, or a
person fleeing from vengeance, took refuge in it, he could not be
seized until forty days had expired, during which time he had the
privilege of leaving the kingdom and going into exile.

This "right of sanctuary" was often a needful protection in an age of
violence.  In time, however, the system became an intolerable abuse,
since it enabled robbers and desperadoes of all kinds to defy the
law.  The right was modified at different times, but was not wholly
abolished until 1624, in the reign of James I.

III. Military Affairs

96. The Army.

The army consisted of a national militia, or "fyrd," and a feudal
militia.  From the earliest times all freemen were obliged to fight in
the defense of the country.  Under the feudal system, every large
landholder had to furnish the King a stipulated number of men, fully
equipped with armor and weapons.  As this method was found more
effective than the first, it gradually superseded it.

The Saxons always fought on foot.  They wore helmets and rude,
flexible armor, formed of iron rings, or of stout leather covered with
small plates of iron and other substances.  They carried oval-shaped
shields.  Their chief weapons were the spear, javelin, battle-ax, and
sword.  The wars of this period were those of the different tribes
seeking to get the advantage over each other, or of the English with
the Danes.

97. The Navy.

Until Alfred's reign the English had no navy.  From that period they
maintained a fleet of small warships to protect the coast from
invasion.  Most of these vessels appear to have been furnished by
certain ports on the south coast.

IV. Literature, Learning, and Art

98. Runes.

The language of the Saxons was of Low-German origin.  Many of the
words resemble the German of the present day.  When written, the
characters were called runes, mysteries or secrets.  The chief use of
these runes was to mark a sword hilt, or some article of value, or to
form a charm against evil and witchcraft.

It is supposed that one of the earliest runic inscriptions is the
following, which dates from about 400 A.D.  It is cut on a drinking
horn,[1] and (reproduced in English characters) stands thus:

        EK HLEWAGASTIR - HOLTINGAR - HORNA - TAWIDO

        I, Hlewagastir, son of Holta, made the horn

[1] The golden horn of Gallehas, found on the Danish-German frontier.

With the introduction of Christianity the Latin alphabet, from which
our modern English alphabet is derived, took the place of the runic
characters, which bore some resemblance to Greek, and English
literature began with the coming of the monks.

99. The First Books.

One of the first English books of great value was the "Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle," a history covering a period beginning 1 A.D. and ending in
1154.  The work was probably written by the monks in Canterbury,
Peterborough, and other monasteries.  It may be considered as an
annual register of iportant events.  Thorpe says of it, "No other
nation can produce any history written in its own vernacular, at all
approaching the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" either in antiquity,
truthfulness, or extent, the historical books of the Bible alone
excepted."

Though written in prose, it countains various fragments of poetry, of
which the following (rendered into modern English), on the death of
Edward the Confessor (1066), may be quoted as an example:

"Then suddenly came                     On Harold's self,
 Death the bitter                       A noble Earl!
 And that dear prince seized.           Who in all times
 Angels bore                            Faithfully hearkened
 His steadfast soul                     Unto his lord
 Into heaven's light.                   In word and deed,
 But the wise King                      Nor ever failed
 Bestowed his realm                     In aught the King
 On one grown great,                    Had needed of him!"

Other early books were Caedmon's poem of the Creation, also in
English, and Bede's "Church History" of Britain, written in Latin, a
work giving a full and most interesting account of the coming of
Augustine and his first preaching in Kent.  All of these books were
written by the monks in different monasteries.

100. Art.

The English were skillful workers in metal, especially in gold and
silver, and also in the illumination of manuscripts.[1]  Alfred's
Jewel, a fine specimen of the blue-enameled gold of the ninth century,
is preseved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.  It bears the
inscription: "Alfred me heht gewurcan," Alfred caused me to be worked
[or made].

[1] These illuminations get their name from the gold, silver, and
bright colors used in the pictures, borders, and decorated letters
with which the monks ornamented these books.  For beautiful specimens
of he work, see Silvestre's "Pale'ographie."

The women of that period excelled in weaving fine linen and woolen
cloth and in embroidering tapestry.

101. Architecture.

In architecture no advance took place until very late.  The small
ancient church at Bradford-on-Avon in the south of England belongs to
the Saxon period.  The Saxon stonework exhibited in a few buildings
like the church tower of Earl's Barton, Northamptonshire, is an
attempt to imitate timber with stone, and has been called "stone
carpentry."[2]  Edward the Confessor's work in Westminster Abbey was
not Saxon, but Norman, he having obtained his plans, and probably his
builders, from Normandy.

[2] See Parker's "Introduction to Gothic Architecture" for
illustrations of this work.

V. General Industry and Commerce

102. Farms; Slave Trade.

The farming of this period, except on the Church lands, was of the
rudest description.  Grain was ground by the women and slaves in stone
hand mills.  Late, the mills were driven by wind or water power.  The
pricipal commerce was in wool, lead, tin, and slaves.  A writer of
that time says he used to see long trains of young men and women tied
together, offered for sale, "for men were not ashamed," he adds, "to
sell their nearest relatives, and even their own children."

VI. Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

103. The Town.

The first Saxon settlements were quite generally on the line of the
old Roman roads.  They were surrounded by a rampart of earth set with
a thick hedge or with rows of sharp stakes.  Outside this was a deep
ditch.  These places were called towns,[1] from "tun," meaning a fence
or hedge.  The chief fortified towns were called "burghs" or
boroughs.  Later on, this class of towns generally had a corporate
form of government, and eventually they sent representatives to
Parliament (S213).

[1] One or more houses might constitute a town.  A single farmhouse is
still so called in Scotland.

104. The Hall.

The buildings in these towns were of wood.  Those of the lords or
chief men were called "halls," from the fact that they consisted
mainly of a hall, or large room, used as a sitting, eating, and often
as a sleeping room,--a bundle of straw or some skins thrown on the
floor serving for beds.  There were no chimneys, but a hole in the
roof let out the smoke.  If the owner was rich, the walls would be
decorated with bright-colored tapestry, and with suits of armor and
shields hanging from pegs.

105. Life in the Hall.

Here in the evening the master supped on a raised platform at one end
of the "hall," while his followers ate at a lower table.

The Saxons were hard drinkers as well as hard fighters.  After the
meal, while horns of ale and mead were circulating, the minstrels,
taking their harps, would sing songs of battle and ballads of wild
adventure.

Outside the "hall" were the "bowers," or chambers for the master and
his family, and, perhaps, an upper chamber for a guest, called later
by the Normans a sollar, or sunny room.

If a stranger approached a town, he was obliged to blow a horn;
otherwise he might be slain as an outlaw.

Here in the midst of rude plenty the Saxons, or Early English, lived a
life of sturdy independence.  They were rough, strong, outspoken, and
fearless.  Theirs was not the nimble brain, for that was to come with
another people (the Normans), though a people originally of the same
race.  The mission of the Saxons was to lay the foundation; or, in
other words, to furnish the muscle, grit, and endurance, without which
the nimble brain is of little permanent value.

106. Guilds.

The inhabitants of the towns and cities had various associations
called guilds (from gild, a payment or contribution).  The object of
these was mutual assistance.  The most important were the Frith guilds
or Peace guilds and the Merchant guilds.  The former constituted a
voluntary police force to preserve order and bring thieves to
punishment.

Each member contributed a small sum to form a common fund which was
useed to make good any losses incurred by robbery or fire.  The
association held itself responsible for the good behavior of its
members, and kept a sharp eye on strangers and stragglers, who had to
give an account of themselves or leave the country.

The Merchant guilds were organized, apparantly at a late period, to
protect and extend trade.  After the Norman Conquest they came to be
very wealthy and influential.  In addition to the above, there were
social and religious guilds, which made provision for feasts, for
maintenance of religious services, and for the relief of the poor and
the sick.


FIFTH PERIOD[1]

"In other countries the struggle has been to gain liberty; in England,
to preserve it." -- Alison

THE NORMAN CONQUEST

THE KING AGAINST THE BARONS

Building the Norman Superstructure -- The Age of Feudalism

Norman Sovereigns

William I, 1066-1087
William II, 1087-1100
Henry I, 1100-1135
Stephen (House of Blois), 1135-1154

[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Classified
List of Books in the Appendix.  The pronunciation will be found in the
Index.  The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others are in
parentheses.

107. William marches on London; he grants a Charter to the City.

Soon after the great and decisive battle of Hastings (S74), WIlliam
the Conqueror advanced on London and set fire to the Southwark
suburbs.  The Londoners, terrified by the flames, and later cut off
from help from the north by the Conqueror's besieging army, opened
their gates and surrendered without striking a blow.  In return,
William, shortly after his coronation, granted the city a charter, by
which he guaranteed to the inhabitants the liberties which they had
enjoyed under Edward the Confessor (S65).

That document may still be seen among the records in the Guildhall, in
London.[2]  It is a narrow strip of parchment not the length of a
man's hand.  It contains a few lines in English, to which William's
royal seal was appended.  It has indeed been said on high authority
that the King also signed the charter with a cross; but no trace of it
appears on the parchment.  The truth seems to be that he who wielded
the sword with such terrible efficiency disdained handling the pen
(S154).

[2] See Constitutional Documents in the Appendix, p. xxxiii.

108. The Coronation; William returns to Normandy.

On the following Christmas Day (1066) William was anointed and crowned
in Westminster Abbey.  His accession to the throne marked the union of
England and Normandy (S191).  (See map facing p. 54).  He assumed the
title of "King of the English," which had been used by Edward the
Confessor and by Harold.  The title "King of England" did not fully
and finally come into use until John's accession, more than a hundred
and thirty years later.  William did not remain in London, but made
Winchester, in the south of England, his capital.  In the spring
(1067) he sailed for Normandy, where he had left his queen, Matilda,
to govern in his absence.

While on the Continent he intrusted England to the hands of two
regents, one his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the other his
friend William Fitz-Osbern; the former he had made Earl of Kent, the
latter Earl of Hereford.

During the next three years there were outbreaks and uprisings in the
lowlands of Cambridgeshire and the moors of Yorkshire, besides
incursions of both Danes and Scots.

109. William quells Rebellion in the North (1068).

The oppresive rule of the regents (S108) soon caused a rebellion, and
in December William returned to England to put it down.  He found the
task a hard one.  The King of Denmark made it all the harder by
sending over a powerful fleet to held the English.  William bribed the
Danish commanders and they "sailed away without striking a blow."
Then, little by little, he brought the land to obedience.  By forced
marches in midwinter, by roads cast up through bogs, and by sudden
night attacks William accomplished the end he sought.

But (1068) news came of a fresh revolt in the north, accompanied by
another invasion of foreign barbarians.  Then William, roused by
terrible anger, swore by the "splendor of God" that he would lay waste
the land.

He made good his oath.  For a hundred miles beyond the river Humber in
Yorkshire he ravaged the country, burning villages, destroying houses,
crops, and cattle, and reduced the wretched people to such destitution
that many sold themselves for slaves to escape starvation.  Having
finished his work in the north, he turned toward the ancient Roman
city of Chester, in the west, and captured it.  (See map facing
p. 38.)

110. Hereward (1091).

Every part of the land was now in William's power except an island in
the swamps of Ely, in the east of England.  There the Englishman
Hereward, with his resolute little band of fellow countrymen,
continued to defy the power of the Conqueror.  (See map facing p. 38.)
"Had there been three more men like him in the island," said one of
William's own soldiers, "the Normans would never have entered it."
But as there were not three more, the Conquest was at length
completed.

111. Necessity of William's Severity.

The work of death had been fearful.  But it was better that England
should suffer from these pitiless measures than that it should sink
into anarchy, or into subjection to hordes of Northmen (S53).  For
those fierce barbarians destroyed not because they desired to build
something better, but because they hated civilization and all its
works.

Whatever William's faults may have been, his great object was to build
up a government better than any England had yet seen.  Hence his
severity, hence his castles and forts, by which he made sure of
retaining his hold upon whatever he had gained.

112. William builds the Tower of London.

We have seen that William gave London a charter (S107); but
overlooking the place in which the charter was kept, he built the
Tower of London to hold the turbulent city in wholesome restraint.
That tower, as fortress, palace, and prison, stands as the dark
background of most events in English history.

It was the forerunner of a multitude of Norman castles.  They rose on
the banks of every river, and on the summit of every rocky height,
from the west hill of Hastings to the peak of Derbyshire, and from the
banks of the Thames to those of the Tweed.  Side by side with these
strongholds there also rose a great number of monasteries, churches,
and cathedrals.

113. William confiscates the Land; Classes of Society.

Hand in hand with the progress of conquest, the confiscation of land
went on.  William had seized the lands belonging to Harold (S67) and
those of the chief men associated with him, and had given them to his
own followers in England.  In this way, all the greatest estates and
the most important offices passed into the hands of the Normans.  The
King made these royal grants on the express condition that those who
received them should furnish him a certain number of armed men
whenever he should demand them.

Two great classes of society now existed in England.  First, the
leading Norman conquerors, who, as chief tenants or landholders under
the Crown, and as peers of the realm, had the title of barons.  They
numbered about fifteen hundred, and, as we have just seen, they were
all pledged to draw their swordss in behalf of the King.  Secondly,
the English who had been reduced to a subordinate state; most of these
now held their land as grants from the Norman barons on condition of
some kind of service.  A majority of these men were no longer entirely
free, while some were actual slaves.  The greater part of this servile
class were villeins or farm laborers (S150).  They were bound to the
soil, and could be sold with it, but not, like the slaves, separately
from it.  They could be compelled to perform any menial labor, but
usually held their plots of land and humble cottages on condition of
plowing a certain number of acres or doing a certain number of days'
work in each year.  In time the villeins generally obtained the
privilege of paying a fixed money rent, in place of labor, and their
condition gradually improved.

114. How William distributed his Gifts.

Yet it is noticeable that when William granted estates to his Norman
followers (S113), he was careful not to give any baron too much land
in any one county or shire.  His experience in Normandy had taught him
that it was better to divide than to concentrate the power of the
great nobles, who were often only too ready to plot to get the crown
for themselves.

Thus William developed and extended the feudal system of land
tenure,[1] already in existence in outline among the Saxons (S86),
until it covered every part of the realm.  He, however, kept this
system strictly subordinate to himself, and we shall see that before
the close of his reign he held a great meeting by which he got
absolute control over it (S121).

[1] See, too, the Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, p. v, S6.

115. The Three Counties Palatine.

The only exceptions which William made in these carefully restricted
grants were the three Counties Palatine,[1] which he created.  They
bordered on Wales in the west, Scotland in the north, and the English
Channel in the southeast.  To the earls of these counties of Chester,
Durham, and Kent, which were especially liable to attack from Wales,
Scotland, or France, William thought it expedient to give almost royal
power, which descended in their families, thus making the title
hereditary.  (See map facing p. 436.)

[1] Palatine (from palatium, palace): having rights equal with the
King in his palace.  The county of Chester is now Cheshire.  Durham
bordered on Northumberland, then opposed to William.  Shropshire was
practically a fourth County Palatine until Henry I.  Later, Lancaster
was added to the list.

116. How William stopped Assassination; the Law of Englishry; Gregory
VII.

The hard rule of the Norman nobles caused many secret assassinations.
To put a stop to these crimes, William enacted the Law of Englishry.
It compelled the people of the district where a murder was perpetrated
to pay a heavy fine for every Norman so slain; for it was assumed that
every man found murdered was a Norman, unless proof could be brought
to the contrary.

While these events were taking place in England, Hildebrand, the
archdeacon who had urged the Pope to favor William's expedition
against England (S68), ascended the papal throne, under the title of
Gregory VII.  He was the ablest, the most ambitious, and, in some
respects, he most farsighted man who had been elected supreme head of
the Catholic Church.

117. State of Europe; Gregory's Scheme of Reform.

Europe was at that time in a condition little better than anarchy.  A
perpetual quarrel was going on between the feudal barons.  The Church,
too, as we have seen (SS53, 60), had temporarily lost much of its
power for good.  Pope Gregory conceived a scheme of reform which he
intended should be both wide and deep.

Like Dunstan (S60), he determined to correct the abuses which had
crept into the monasteries.  He resolved to have a priesthood who
should devote themselves body and soul to the interests of the Church;
he resolved to bring all society into submission to that priesthood;
finally, he resolved to make the priesthood itself acknowledge him as
its sole master.  His purpose in this gigantic scheme was a noble one;
it was to establish the unity and peace of Europe.

118. The Pope and the Conqueror, 1076.

Pope Gregory looked to William for help in this matter.  The
Conqueror, who was a zealous Catholic, was ready to give that help,
but with limitations.  He pledged himself to aid in reforming the
English Church, which had enjoyed "an insular and barbaric
independence."  He undertook to remove inefficient men from its high
places.  The King also agreed to do something that had never been done
before in England, namely, to establish separate courts (S151) for the
trial of Church cases (SS164, 165).  Finally, he agreed to pay the
customary yearly tax to Rome, called "Peter's pence."

But Pope Gregory was not satisfied.  He demanded that the Conqueror
should do him homage for his crown, and should swear "to become his
man" (S86).  This William respectfully, but decidedly, refused to do,
saying that as no "King of the English before him had ever become the
Pope's man, so neither would he."  In taking this action the King
declared himself to be an obedient and affectionate son of the "Holy
Catholic Church."  But at the same time he laid down these three rules
to show that he would not tolerate any interference with his power as
an independent English sovereign:

1. That no Pope should be acknowledged in England, or letters from the
Pope received there, without his sanction.
2. That no national synod or meeting of churchmen (S48) should enact
any decrees binding the English Church, without his confirmation.
3. That no baron or officer of his should be expelled from the Church
without his permission.[1]

[1] Taswell-Langmead's "English Constitutional History," p. 59;
Professor W. Stubb's "Constitutional History of England," I, 286.

It is noticeable that Pope Gregory never seems to have censured
William for the position he took,--perhaps because one brave man
always understands and respects another.

Yet a little later than this (1077), when Henry IV, Emperor of
Germany, refused to comply with certain demand made by Gregory VII,
the German monarch had to submit.  More than this, he was compelled to
stand barefooted in the snow before the Pope's palace, waiting three
days for permission to enter and beg forgiveness.

119. William a Stern but Just Ruler; the Jews; the New Forest.

Considering his love of power and strength of will, the reign of
William was conspicuous for its justice.  He was harsh, but generally
fair.  He protected the Jewish traders who came over to England in his
reign, for he saw that their commercial enterprise and their financial
skill would be of immense value in developing the country.  Then too,
if the royal treasury should happen to run dry, he thought it might be
convenient to coax or compel the Jews to lend him a round sum.

On the other had, the King seized a tract of over sixty thousand acres
in Hampshire for a hunting ground, which he named the New Forest.[1]
It was said that William destroyed many churches and estates in order
to form this forest, but these accounts appear to have been greatly
exaggerated.  The real grievance was not so much the appropriation of
the land, which was sterile and of little value, but it was the
enactment of the savage Forest Laws.  These ordinances made he life of
a stag of more value than that of a man, and decreed that anyone found
hunting the royal deer should have both eyes torn out (S205).

[1] Forest: As here used, this does not mean a region covered with
woods, but simply a section of country, partially w