PREFACE. IN N this work the reader will not find everything he would expect to find in a publication bearing the title of a History of England. But it is intended that these pages shall include so much of the past as will suffice to give full presentation and prominence to the great changes in the history of this country, showing whence they have come, what they have been; and whither they have tended. My narrative, accordingly, while not described as a History of England, is designed to serve the purpose for which all such histories have been professedly written. English history embraces much in common with the history of Europe, together with much that has been characteristic of itself; and it is reasonable that Englishmen should be more interested in what has been special to their country, than in details which might have had their place in the history of any one among a large family of states. The question to which this work is designed to present an answer is-What is it that has made England to be England? My object is to conduct the reader to satisfactory conclusions in relation to this question, by a road much more direct and simple than is compatible with the laws to which the historian usually conforms himself when writing the general history of a nation. Our busy age needs some assistance of this nature. But while the spirit of our times is sufficiently disposed to appreciate directness and compression in authorship, it is, I am aware, by no means disposed to accept superficiality in the place of thoroughness. I do not affect to be unacquainted with what modern writers have published on English history; but it is only due to myself to state, that on no point of importance in relation to my object, have I allowed myself to be dependent on such authorities. In many instances, when I have contented myself with citing a modern author, it has not been until after an examination of the sources adduced in support of his statements. It has been my earnest wish that this work should be the result throughout of a fair measure of independent research and of independent thought. Revolution' The sense in which I use the term scarcely needs explanation. The word is meant to comprehend the great phases of change in our history, due place being assigned to the great cause in regard to each of them. Down to the close of the fourteenth century, change among us comes mainly from the conflicts of race. Under the Tudors, the great principle of revolution is religion; under the Stuarts, that principle gives place considerably to the principles of government. The first question to be settled was the question of race; the next concerned the national faith; and the next, the future of the English Con stitution. Many causes contributed to the strength of these leading causes of action, but through their respective periods these are felt to be leading causes, and the effects which flow from them are all more or less impressed by them. In the progress of Great Britain since 1688, no single cause has acquired the prominence of the causes above mentioned. In taking up such a theme as the Revolutions in English History, it is probable that no two writers would be agreed as to the best method of dealing with it-or as to the principle that should determine the selection of material, and where to stop. On these points, and on many beside, I have to throw myself on the candour of the reader. The course I have taken has been chosen after the best thought I could bestow on the subject. In the further prosecution of my object, I hope to avail myself freely of the rich material in the State Paper Office, still in manuscript, and which, thanks to the present Master of the Rolls, is becoming more accessible every day for the purposes of history. HEATH LODGE, Uxbridge, 1859. |