XI. Defense of Liberty by the Barons (1199-1272) XII. First Steps in Parliamentary Government (1272-1307) XIII. Misgovernment under the Later Plantagenets (1307-1399) XIX. Political Crisis under Elizabeth (1558-1603) STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT 413 427 442 455 ESSENTIALS IN ENGLISH HISTORY CHAPTER I. COURSE AND CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH HISTORY (A) THE CHIEF MOVEMENTS IN ENGLISH HISTORY 1. Survey of the field of BEFORE a student undertakes to study the history of any country in detail, he will do well to take a brief survey of the great movements by which its progress has been marked. He will thus perceive clearly the road he is to traverse, and will be less likely to lose his bearings and become confused among the innumerable minor events which have contributed to or have accompanied these primary movements. Such a survey of English history shows that the British Isles have formed the theater for the development of four successive invading peoples, each of which brought with it from the neighboring "Continent" of Europe a different type of civilization, and each of which has left upon the life of the islands some distinctive impress. study (1) Some centuries before the Christian era, the Celts (or Kelts) brought to the island of Great Britain their primitive form of civilization. About the beginning of that era 2. Earliest these Celts were conquered, though not extinguished, political development by invaders from the Continent, the imperial Romans. The newcomers, during four centuries of control over Britain, failed to impart to its people any of the political vigor which Rome had in her prime; and when disorders in Italy finally forced them to abandon the island, early in the fifth century A.D., they left it but little advanced in political or social development. (2) The territory thus relinquished was soon seized upon by a group of Teutonic peoples from the north of Europe, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. These races, although still semibarbarous, soon showed a remarkable instinct for creating social and political institutions. They promptly changed their government from the tribal to the monarchical form in order to meet their new conditions; they changed their roving habits and developed a strong love of the soil where they hrad taken root; and, above all, they showed an intense conservatism, a quality which gave permanence to every successive improvement which they wove into the fabric of their civilization. 3. Growth (3) These early comers were disciplined into a rude semblance of nationality and order by six centuries of strife with their Celtic predecessors, with one another, and with their of national- fierce rivals the Danes, a body of their kinspeople whose ity in the Middle Ages migration to Britain was deferred too late to give them an equal chance in the struggle. (4) The Anglo-Saxons and Danes in their turn suffered invasion and conquest at the hands of a limited body of Normans (1066). This hardy people, although of the same stock as the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, were by nature more enterprising; and, because of their more fortunate location upon the western coast of the Continent, had made greater progress in political and social life, and in all the arts and industries by which civilization is advanced. During the following two hundred and fifty years, these four elements, Celt, Saxon, Dane, and Norman, gradually became welded into unity, and worked out an efficient political system. Such a development was aided by their isolation from the Continent; but the monarchs of England failed to realize the strength of their insular position, and tried again and again, though vainly, to unite the territories of France and England into a single state. modern The beginning of the Modern Era, marked by the discoveries of Columbus and others, found the unified English people ready to enter into a contest of European nations for the 4. Growth domination of the greater world then revealed. They of power in won rich territories and fame abroad, at the same time that they perfected their political system at home. Meanwhile England united to herself three lesser units, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and laid the foundations of a vast colonial empire. Finally, by defeating Napoleon's ambitious schemes, Great Britain won a leading place among the half dozen Great Powers which thenceforth were to control the old world, and with the nineteenth century entered upon a career of industrial and commercial expansion paralleled only by that of her emanci pated offspring, the United States of America.1 times 5. Eng land's industrial de From the time of the Roman occupation onward, the inhabitants of southern and eastern England won their living by tilling the rich soil of the valleys and plains. A little later, sheep grazing on moorlands and hillsides enriched them with wool, their chief article of export in the early velopment commercial period. The growth of commerce fostered a spirit of enterprise which soon made England mistress of the seas, and a vast fishing industry added to her sources of wealth; while seaport towns such as Bristol, Chester, Plymouth, Yarmouth, and Portsmouth (map, p. 385)-grew up at the mouth of every navigable stream. Then, when modern invention made it possible to harness the forces of nature for the service of man, the center of population and of industrial activity shifted to the mountainous northwest, whose water power, fuel, mineral deposits, and lumber were then first available. 1 The changes here outlined suggest a word of warning in regard to the use of names. 66 As a geographical expression, "Great Britain," or Britain," means the largest of the British Isles; politically, "Great Britain" means the United Kingdom which has existed since 1707 and now occupies all the isles. "England may mean (1) the region south of Scotland and east of Wales; (2) the parent kingdom of the British Empire; (3) when used for brevity, the empire itself. |