The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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Many Normans
suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were
found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was
denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for
them, but generally in vain; for the whole nation was in a
conspiracy to screen them. It was at length thought necessary to
lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a person of French
extraction should be found slain; and this regulation was
followed up by another regulation, providing that every person
who was found slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless
he was proved to be a Saxon.
During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there
is, to speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of
England rose, indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and
dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They
received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their
policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far
more popular on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings of
France. Asia, as well as Europe, was dazzled by the power and
glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling
admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the
victorious march to Ascalon; and Arabian mothers long awed their
infants to silence with the name of the lionhearted Plantagenet.
At one time it seemed that the line of Hugh Capet was about to
end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that
a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the
Pyrenees. So strong an association is established in most minds
between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the
nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has
expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and
splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of
that power and splendour as a calamity to our country. This is,
in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time
to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the
Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic
regret and shame. The Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth
generation were not Englishmen: most of them were born in France:
they spent the greater part of their lives in France: their
ordinary speech was French: almost every high office in their
gift was filled by a Frenchman: every acquisition which they made
on the Continent estranged them more and more from the population
of our island. One of the ablest among them indeed attempted to
win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English
princess. But, by many of his barons, this marriage was regarded
as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would
now be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known by the
honourable surname of Beauclerc; but, in his own time, his own
countrymen called him by a Saxon nickname, in contemptuous
allusion to his Saxon connection.
Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in
uniting all France under their government, it is probable that
England would never have had an independent existence. Her
princes, her lords, her prelates, would have been men differing
in race and language from the artisans and the tillers of the
earth. The revenues of her great proprietors would have been
spent in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine.
The noble language of Milton and Burke would have remained a
rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed
orthography, and would have been contemptuously abandoned to the
use of boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to
eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman.
England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which
her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her
interest was so directly opposed to the interests of her rulers
that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The
talents and even the virtues of her first six French Kings were a
curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her
salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of his father,
of Henry Beauclerc, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even
possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had
the King of France at the same time been as incapable as all the
other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet
must have risen to unrivalled ascendancy in Europe. But, just at
this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the death of
Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and
ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of
Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by
brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a
coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was
driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make
their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by
the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and
despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country,
and the English as their countrymen. The two races, so long
hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common
enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king.
Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the
natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of those who
had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who had
fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in
friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the
Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for
their common benefit.
Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of
the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and
sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English
ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has
scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical
barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with
each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations
which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no
country has the enmity of race been carried farther than in
England. In no country has that enmity been more completely
effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements
were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately
known to us. But it is certain that, when John became King, the
distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and
that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost
disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary
imprecation of a Norman gentleman was "May I become an
Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was "Do you
take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a
hundred years later was proud of the English name.
The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be
sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down
in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the
history of our country during the thirteenth century may not
unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of
our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our
freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the
great English people was formed, that the national character
began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since
retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders,
islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared
with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through
all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which
all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and
which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the
best under which any great society has ever yet existed during
many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype
of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in
the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was
that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly
became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then
it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude
barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible
on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which
still exist at both the great national seats of learning were
founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than
the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the
philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece
alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble
literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many
glories of England.
Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was
all but complete; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to
be mistaken, that a people inferior to none existing in the world
had been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great
Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons.
There was, indeed, scarcely anything in common between the
England to which John had been chased by Philip Augustus, and the
England from which the armies of Edward the Third went forth to
conquer France.
A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the
chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a
great empire on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the
inheritance occupied by the House of Valois was a claim in which
it might seem that his subjects were little interested. But the
passion for conquest spread fast from the prince to the people.
The war differed widely from the wars which the Plantagenets of
the twelfth century had waged against the descendants of Hugh
Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the
First, would have made England a province of France. The effect
of the successes of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to
make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with
which, in the twelfth century, the conquerors from the Continent
had regarded the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on
the people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to
Northumberland valued himself as one of a race
suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were
found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was
denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for
them, but generally in vain; for the whole nation was in a
conspiracy to screen them. It was at length thought necessary to
lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a person of French
extraction should be found slain; and this regulation was
followed up by another regulation, providing that every person
who was found slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless
he was proved to be a Saxon.
During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there
is, to speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of
England rose, indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and
dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They
received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their
policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far
more popular on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings of
France. Asia, as well as Europe, was dazzled by the power and
glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling
admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the
victorious march to Ascalon; and Arabian mothers long awed their
infants to silence with the name of the lionhearted Plantagenet.
At one time it seemed that the line of Hugh Capet was about to
end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that
a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the
Pyrenees. So strong an association is established in most minds
between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the
nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has
expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and
splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of
that power and splendour as a calamity to our country. This is,
in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time
to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the
Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic
regret and shame. The Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth
generation were not Englishmen: most of them were born in France:
they spent the greater part of their lives in France: their
ordinary speech was French: almost every high office in their
gift was filled by a Frenchman: every acquisition which they made
on the Continent estranged them more and more from the population
of our island. One of the ablest among them indeed attempted to
win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English
princess. But, by many of his barons, this marriage was regarded
as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would
now be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known by the
honourable surname of Beauclerc; but, in his own time, his own
countrymen called him by a Saxon nickname, in contemptuous
allusion to his Saxon connection.
Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in
uniting all France under their government, it is probable that
England would never have had an independent existence. Her
princes, her lords, her prelates, would have been men differing
in race and language from the artisans and the tillers of the
earth. The revenues of her great proprietors would have been
spent in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine.
The noble language of Milton and Burke would have remained a
rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed
orthography, and would have been contemptuously abandoned to the
use of boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to
eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman.
England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which
her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her
interest was so directly opposed to the interests of her rulers
that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The
talents and even the virtues of her first six French Kings were a
curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her
salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of his father,
of Henry Beauclerc, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even
possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had
the King of France at the same time been as incapable as all the
other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet
must have risen to unrivalled ascendancy in Europe. But, just at
this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the death of
Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and
ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of
Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by
brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a
coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was
driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make
their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by
the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and
despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country,
and the English as their countrymen. The two races, so long
hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common
enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king.
Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the
natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of those who
had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who had
fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in
friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the
Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for
their common benefit.
Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of
the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and
sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English
ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has
scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical
barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with
each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations
which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no
country has the enmity of race been carried farther than in
England. In no country has that enmity been more completely
effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements
were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately
known to us. But it is certain that, when John became King, the
distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and
that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost
disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary
imprecation of a Norman gentleman was "May I become an
Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was "Do you
take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a
hundred years later was proud of the English name.
The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be
sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down
in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the
history of our country during the thirteenth century may not
unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of
our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our
freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the
great English people was formed, that the national character
began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since
retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders,
islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared
with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through
all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which
all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and
which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the
best under which any great society has ever yet existed during
many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype
of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in
the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was
that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly
became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then
it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude
barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible
on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which
still exist at both the great national seats of learning were
founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than
the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the
philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece
alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble
literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many
glories of England.
Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was
all but complete; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to
be mistaken, that a people inferior to none existing in the world
had been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great
Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons.
There was, indeed, scarcely anything in common between the
England to which John had been chased by Philip Augustus, and the
England from which the armies of Edward the Third went forth to
conquer France.
A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the
chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a
great empire on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the
inheritance occupied by the House of Valois was a claim in which
it might seem that his subjects were little interested. But the
passion for conquest spread fast from the prince to the people.
The war differed widely from the wars which the Plantagenets of
the twelfth century had waged against the descendants of Hugh
Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the
First, would have made England a province of France. The effect
of the successes of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to
make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with
which, in the twelfth century, the conquerors from the Continent
had regarded the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on
the people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to
Northumberland valued himself as one of a race
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