PREFACE ΤΟ THE FIRST PART. THE object of the present work is to provide some help for students who, having gone through the ordinary school course, wish to devote themselves to the special study of some part of the history of England. Such persons chiefly require an indication of the books which it would be well for them to study, and that service is rendered to them by Mr. Mullinger, whose work forms the kernel of the volume, and to whom also I offer my hearty thanks for the care with which he looked over the proofs of my part of the book, and for the valuable assistance which he gave me in so doing. What I have attempted to do is to give help of a different kind. those who wish to make progress in historical study, careful and minute investigation is indispensable. It is only by degrees that the student learns how much his power of judging fairly the characters of history depends upon complete accuracy in the matter of dates and places. A word spoken or a thing done will convey a very different impression, as its relation to some other word For or action is known or unknown. By knowing this relation the inquirer learns not merely what took place, but how it took place. When he finds how everything follows naturally from that which precedes it, he begins to understand that connection between cause and effect the knowledge of which is the necessary preliminary to all sober criticism of actions and persons. Yet this is not all. The personalities of history are not merely figures flitting across a stage, of whom it is enough to learn the motives and the actions. They are themselves the result of causes which existed generations before they were born, and influence results for generations after they die. No one, therefore, can really study any particular period of history unless he knows a great deal about what preceded it and what came after it. He cannot seriously study a generation of men as if it could be isolated and examined like a piece of inorganic matter. He has to bear in mind that it is a portion of a living whole which is under his observation. The work of the constructive imagination comes in where the work of investigation ends. In the end this is a work which every man must do for himself. He will have to pick out from the manifold facts of history those which seem to him to be more important than the others, and it will never happen that any two men will be precisely agreed as to the relative importance of any set of facts. Yet it may not be altogether useless to those who are girding themselves to the task to have before them an attempt to trace the life of the English nation by one who has at all events given much of his time and thought in an attempt to realise to himself what that life has been. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY-THE ANCIENT WORLD. HISTORY is the record of change, of the new circumstances into which communities of men are brought, and of the new ideas called forth by those circumstances and by which circumstances are in turn moulded. Savage tribes have no history, because they know no change. They hunt and fish, or repel their enemies, on the same soil and under the same climate from generation to generation. The most momentous change which comes over such tribes is that brought about by the introduction of slavery. When any body of men felt itself strong enough to utilise the labours of its enemies, it had advanced one step in the direction of mercy, and being now able to spare itself the necessity of toiling for the bare necessaries of life, was able to devote some time to procuring material comforts which would ultimately become the solace of others as well as of themselves. CHAP. is History? §1. What § 2. Savage Tribes. $3. Intro duction of Slavery. great Mon Another step in the same direction was taken when $4. The a race, no longer content with the capture of individual Asiatic slaves, subjected a whole race to its domination, content- archies. ing itself with the exaction of tribute or of personal service in some way which did not involve the complete loss of personal freedom. In such a way arose the great B |