|
BIM 1893 . See also: Rule See also: Bill
.
But the measure of 1893 differed in many respects from that of 1886
.
In particular, the Irish were no longer to be excluded from the imperial parliament. at See also: Westminster
.
The bill which was thus brought forward was actually passed by the See also: Commons
.
It was, however, rejected by the Lords
.
The dissensions among the Irish themselves, and the hostility which See also: English constituents were displaying to the proposal, emboldened the Peers to arrive at this decision
.
Some doubt was felt as to the course which Gladstone would take in this crisis
.
Many persons thought that he should at once have appealed to the country, and have endeavoured to obtain a distinct See also: mandate from the constituencies to introduce a new Home Rule Bill
.
Other persons imagined that he should have followed the precedent which had been set by See also: Lord See also: Grey in 1831, and, after a See also: short See also: prorogation, have reintroduced his measure in a new session
.
As a See also: matter of fact, Gladstone adopted neither of these courses
.
The See also: government decided not to take up the gauntlet thrown down by the Peers, but to proceed with the rest of their See also: political See also: programme
.
With this See also: object an autumn session was held, and the Parish See also: Councils See also: Act, introduced by Mr See also: Fowler (afterwards Lord Wolverhampton), was passed, after important amendments, which had been introduced into it in the See also: House of Lords, had been reluctantly accepted by Gladstone
.
On the other See also: hand, an Employers' Liability Bill, introduced by Mr See also: Asquith, the home secretary, was ultimately dropped by Gladstone after passing all stages in the House of Commons, rather than that an amendment of the Peers, allowing "contracting out," should be accepted
.
Before, however, the session had quite run out (3rd See also: March
1894), Gladstone, who had now completed his eighty-
See also: fourth
See also: year, laid down a load which his increasing years made it See also: im-
possible for him to sustain (see the article GLADSTONE)
.
He was
succeeded by Lord Rosebery, whose abilities and attainments
had raised him to a high place in the Liberal counsels
.
Lord
Rosebery did not succeed in popularizing the Home Rule
proposal which Gladstone had failed to carry
.
He
Lord
Roseberydeclared, indeed, that success was not attainable till
.
See also: England was converted to its expediency
.
He hinted that success would not even then be assured until something was done to reform the constitution of the House of Lords
.
But if, on the one hand, he refused to introduce a new Home Rule Bill, he hesitated, on the other, to See also: court defeat by any attempt to reform the Lords
.
His government, in these circumstances, while it failed to conciliate its opponents, excited no See also: enthusiasm among its supporters
.
It was generally understod, moreover, that a large section of the Liberal party resented Lord Rosebery's See also: appointment to the first place in the See also: ministry, and thought that the See also: lead should have been conferred on See also: Sir W
.
See also: Harcourt
.
It was an open secret that these differences in the party were reflected in theSee also: cabinet, and that the relations between Lord Rosebery and Sir W
.
Harcourt were too strained to ensure either the harmonious working or the stability of the administration
.
In these circumstances the fall of the ministry was only a question of See also: time
.
It occurred—as often happens in parliament—on a minor issue which no one had foreseen
.
See also: Attention was See also: drawn in the House of Commons to the insufficient supply of See also: cordite provided by the war office, and the House—notwithstanding the assurance of the war See also: minister (Sir See also: Henry
See also: Campbell-Bannerman) that the supply was adequate—placed the government in a minority
.
Lord Rosebery resigned office, and Lord
See also: Salisbury for the third time became See also: prime minister. the duke of Devonshire
.
Mr Chamberlainand other Liberal Unionists joining the government
.
Parliament was dissolved, and a new parliament, in which the Unionists obtained an overwhelming majority, was returned
.
The government of 1892-1895, which was successively led by Gladstone and Lord Rosebery, will, on the whole, be remembered for its failures
.
Yet it passed two See also: measures which have exercised a wide influence
.
The Parish Councils Act introduced electoral institutions into the government of every parish, and in 1894 Sir W
.
Harcourt, as chancellor of the See also: exchequer, availed himself of the opportunity, which a large addition to the See also: navy invited, to reconstruct the See also: death duties
.
He swept away in doing so many of the advantages which the owner of real estate and theSee also: life See also: tenant of settled See also: property had previously enjoyed, and drove home a principle which See also: Goschen had tentatively introduced a few years before by increasing the See also: rate of the duty with the amount of the estate
.
See also: Rich men, out of their superfluities, were thence-forward to pay more than poor men out of their necessities
.
The Unionist government which came into power in 1895 lasted, with certain .changes of personnel, till 1905, with a break caused by the dissolution of 'goo
.
See also: History may hereafter conclude that the most significant circumstance of the earlier See also: period is to be found in the demonstration of See also: loyalty and affection to which the sixtieth anniversary of See also: Queen See also: Victoria's accession led in 1897
.
Ten years before, her See also: jubilee had been the occasion of enthusiastic rejoicings, and the queen's progress through See also: London to a service of thanksgiving at Westminster had impressed the See also: imagination of her subjects and proved the affection of her See also: people
.
But the rejoicings of '887 were
forgotten amid the more striking demonstrations ten /Thel~
ubtwoees
years later
.
It was seen then that the queen, by her . conduct and character, had gained a popularity which has had no parallel in history, and had won a place in the See also: hearts of her subjects which perhaps no other monarch had ever previously enjoyed
.
There was no doubt that, if the opinion of the English-speaking races throughout the See also: world could have been tested by a plebiscite, an overwhelming majority would have declared that the fittest See also: person for the rule of the See also: British See also: empire was the gracious and kindly lady who for sixty years, in sorrow and in joy, had so worthily discharged the duties of her high position
.
This remarkable demonstration was not confined to the British empire alone
.
In every portion of the globe the sixtieth anniversary of the queen's reign excited See also: interest; in every country the queen's name was mentioned with affection and respect; while the people of the See also: United States vied with the subjects of the British empire in praise of the queen's character and in expressions of regard for her person
.
Only a year or two before, an obscure dispute on the boundary of British See also: Venezuela had brought the United States and See also: Great Britain within sight of a See also: quarrel
.
The jubilee showed conclusively that, whatever politicians might say, the ties of See also: blood and kinship, which united the two peoples, were too close to be severed by either for some trifling cause; that the wisest heads in both nations were aware of the advantages which must arise from the closer union of the Anglo-Saxon races; and that the true interests of both countries See also: lay in their mutual friendship
.
A war in which the United States was subsequently engaged with See also: Spain cemented this feeling
.
The government and the people of the United States recognized the See also: advantage which they derived from the See also: goodwill of Great Britain in the See also: hour of their See also: necessity, and the two nations See also: drew together as no other two nations had perhaps ever been drawn together before
.
If the jubilee was a proof of the closer union of the many sections of the British empire, and of their warm See also: attachment to their See also: sovereign, it also gave expression to the " imperialism " which was becoming a dominant factor in British politics
.
Few people realized the mighty change which in this respect had been effected in thought and feeling
.
See also: Forty years before, the most prominent English statesmen had regarded with anxiety the huge responsibilities of a world-wide empire
.
In 1897 the whole tendency of thought and opinion was to enlarge the See also: burden of which the preceding generation had been weary
.
The extension of British influence, the See also: protection of British interests, were almost universally advocated; and the few statesmen who
1896–19001
repeated in the 'nineties the sentiments which would have been
generally accepted in the 'sixties, were regarded as " Little
Englanders." It is important to note the consequences which
these new ideas produced in See also: Africa
.
Both in the See also: north and
in the See also: south of this great and imperfectly explored continent,
memories still clung which were ungrateful to imperialism
.
In
the north, the See also: murder of See also: Gordon was still unavenged; and the
vast territory known as the Sudan had escaped from the control of
See also: Egypt
.
In the south, war with the See also: Transvaal had been concluded
by a British defeat; and the Dutch were elated, the English
irritated, at the recollection of Majuba
.
In 1896 Lord Salisbury's
government decided on extending the Anglo-See also: Egyptian rule over
the Sudan, and an expedition was sent from Egypt under the
command of Sir See also: Herbert (afterwards Lord) Kitchener to See also: Khartum
.
Few military expeditions have been more elaborately organized,
or have achieved a more brilliant success
.
The See also: conquest of the
country was achieved in three See also: separate See also: campaigns in successive
years
.
In See also: September 1898 the Sudanese forces were decisively
beaten, with great slaughter, in the immediate neighbourhood of
See also: Omdurman; and Khartum became thenceforward the
orndnr• capital of the new province, which was placed under
See also: man,
See also: Fashoda
.
Lord Kitchener's rule
.
Soon after this decisive
success, it was found that a French expedition under Major Marchand had reached the upper See also: Nile and had hoisted the French See also: flag at Fashoda
.
It was obvious that the French could not be allowed to remain at a spot which the See also: khedive of Egypt claimed as Egyptian territory; and after some negotiation, and some irritation, the French were withdrawn
.
In South Africa still more important events were in the meanwhile progressing
.
Ever since the independence of the South See also: African Republic had been virtually conceded by the See also: convention of 1884, unhappy differences had prevailed between the Dutch and British residents in the Transvaal
.
The See also: discovery of gold at Johannes-See also: burg and elsewhere in 1885–1886 had led to a large immigration of British and other colonists
.
See also: Johannesburg had grown into a great and prosperous city
.
The See also: foreign population of the Transvaal, which was chiefly English, became in a few years more numerous than the Boers themselves, and they complained that they were deprived of all political rights, that they were subjected to unfair See also: taxation, and that they were hampered in their industry and unjustly treated by the Dutch courts and Dutch officials
.
Failing to obtain' redress, at the end of 1895 certain persons among them made preparations for a revolution
.
Dr See also: Jameson, the See also: administrator of Rhodesia, accompanied by some British See also: officers, actually invaded the Transvaal
.
His force, utterly inadequate for the purpose, was stopped by the Boers, Jameson and he and his See also: fellow-officers were taken prisoners
.
See also: Raid
.
There was no doubt that this raid on the territory of a friendly See also: state was totally unjustifiable
.
Unfortunately, Dr Jameson's See also: original plans had been framed at the instance of See also: Cecil Rhodes, the prime minister at the Cape, and many persons thought that they ought to have been suspected by the colonial office in London
.
England at any rate would have had no valid ground of complaint if the leaders of a buccaneering force had been summarily dealt with by the Transvaal authorities
.
The president of the republic, Kruger, however, handed over his prisoners to the British authorities, and parliament instituted an inquiry by a select committee into the circumstances of the raid
.
The inquiry was terminated somewhat abruptly
.
The committee acquitted the colonial office of any knowledge of the See also: plot; but a See also: good many suspicions remained unanswered
.
The chief actors in the raid were tried under the Foreign Enlistment Act, found guilty, and subsequently released after short terms of imprisonment
.
Rhodes himself was not removed from the privy council, as his more extreme accusers demanded; but he had to abandon his career in Cape politics for a time, and confine his energies to the development of Rhodesia, which had been added to the empire through his instrumentality in 1888-1889
.
In consequence of these proceedings, the Transvaal authorities at once set to See also: work to accumulate armaments, and they succeeded in procuring vast quantities of artillery and military stores
.
The British government would undoubtedly have been entitled to581
insist that these armaments should cease
.
It was obvious that they could only be directed against Great Britain; and no nation is bound to allow another people to prepare great armaments to be employed against itself . The criminal folly of the raid prevented the British government from making this demand . It could not say that the Transvaal government had no cause for alarm when British officers had attempted an invasion of its territory, and had been treated rather as heroes than as criminals at home . Ignorant of the strength of Great Britain, and elated by the recollection of their previous successes, the Boers themselves believed that a new struggle might give them predominance in South Africa . The knowledge that a large portion of the population of Cape Colony was of Dutch extraction, and that public men at the Cape sympathized with them in their aspirations, increased their confidence . In the meantime, while the Boers were silently and steadily continuing their military preparations, the British settlers at Johannesburg — the Uitlanders, as they were called—continued to demand consideration for their grievances . In the spring of 1899, SirSee also: Alfred Milner, governor of the Cape, met President Kruger at
See also: Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange See also: Free State, and See also: Boer War, 1899. endeavoured to accomplish that result by negotiation
.
He thought, at the time, that if the Uitlanders were given the franchise and a See also: fair proportion of influence in the legislature, other. difficulties might be See also: left to See also: settle themselves
.
The negotiations thus commenced unfortunately failed
.
The discussion, which had originally turned on the franchise, was enlarged by the introduction of the question of See also: suzerainty or supremacy; and at last, in the beginning of'See also: October, when the rains of an African spring were causing the grass to grow on which the Boer armies were largely dependent for See also: forage, the Boers declared war and invaded See also: Natal
.
The British government had not been altogether happy in its conduct of the preceding negotiations
.
It was certainly unhappy in its preparations for the struggle
.
It made the great See also: mistake of underrating the strength of its enemy; it suffered its agents to commit the strategical blunder of locking up the few troops it had in an untenable position in the north of Natal
.
It was not surprising, in such circumstances, that the earlier months of the war should have been memorable for a series of exasperating reverses
.
These reverses, however, were redeemed by the valour of the British troops, the spirit of the British nation, and the enthusiasm which induced the great autonomous colonies of the empire to send men to support the cause of the See also: mother country
.
The gradual arrival of reinforcements, and the appointment of a soldier of genius—Lord Roberts—to the supreme command, changed the military situation; and, before the summer of 'goo was concluded, the places which had been besieged by the Boers—Kimberley, See also: Ladysmith and Mafeking—had been successively relieved; the capitals of the Orange Free State and of the Transvaal had been occupied; and the two republics, which had rashly declared war against the British empire, had been formally annexed
.
The defeat and dispersal of the Boer armies, and the apparent collapse of Boer resistance, induced a hope that the war was over; and the government seized the opportunity in 'goo to terminate the parliament, which had already of 1 The900close
.
endured for more than five years
.
The election was conducted with unusual bitterness; but the constituencies practically affirmed the policy of the government by maintaining, almost unimpaired, the large majority which the Unionists had secured in 1895
.
Unfortunately, the expectations which had been formed at the time of the dissolution were disappointed
.
The same circumstances which had emboldened the Boers to declare war in the autumn of 1899, induced them to renew a guerilla warfare in the autumn of 19oo—the approach of an African summer supplying the Boers with the grass on which they were dependent for feeding their See also: hardy horses
.
Guerilla bands suddenly appeared in different parts of the Orange See also: River Colony and of the Transvaal
.
They interrupted the communications of the British armies; they won isolated victories over British detachments; they even invaded Cape Colony
.
Thus the last year of the century closed in disappointment
and gloom
.
The serious losses which the war entailed, the heavy expenses which it involved, and the large force which it absorbed, filled thoughtful men with anxiety . No one felt more sincerely for the sufferings of her soldiers, and no one regretted more truly the useless prolongation of the struggle, than the venerable lady who occupied the The deathSee also: throne
.
She had herself lost a See also: grandson (See also: Prince
the
queen
.
Christian Victor) in South Africa; and sorrow and
queen
.
Africa;
anxiety perhaps told even on a constitution so unusually strong as hers
.
About the See also: middle of See also: January 190I it was known that she was seriously See also: ill; on the 22nd she died
.
The death of the queen thus occurred immediately after the close of the century over so long a period of which her reign had extended
.
The queen's own life is dealt with elsewhere (see VICTORIA, QUEEN), but the Victorian era is deeply marked in English history
.
During her reign the people of Great Britain doubled their number; but the accumulated See also: wealth 'of the country increased at least threefold, and its See also: trade sixfold
.
All classes shared the prevalent prosperity
.
Notwithstanding the increase of population, the See also: roll of paupers at the end of the reign, compared with the same roll at the beginning, stood as 2 stands to 3; the criminals as 1 to 2
.
The expansion abroad was still more remarkable
.
There were not 200,000 See also: white persons in
See also: Australasia when the queen came to the throne; there were nearly 5,000,000 when she died
.
The great Australian colonies were almost created in her reign; two of them—Victoria and Queensland—owe their name to her; they all received those autonomous institutions, under which their prosperity has been built up, during its continuance
.
Expansion and progress were not confined to Australasia
.
The opening months of the queen's reign were marked by See also: rebellion in See also: Canada
.
The close of it saw Canada one of the most loyal portions of the Empire
.
In Africa; the advance of the red See also: line which marks the See also: bounds of British dominion was even more rapid; while in See also: India the See also: Punjab, See also: Sind, Oudh and See also: Burma were some of the acquisitions added to the British empire while the queen was on the throne
.
When she died one square mile in four of the See also: land in the world was under the British flag, and at least one person out of every five persons alive was a subject of the queen
.
Material progress was largely facilitated by industry and invention
.
The first See also: railways had been made, the first steamship had been built, before the queen came to the throne
.
But, so far as railways are concerned, none of the great trunk lines had been constructed in 1837; the whole capital authorized to be spent on railway construction did not exceed £55,000,000; and, five years after the reign had begun, there were only 18,000,000 passengers
.
The paid-up capital of British railways in 1901 exceeded £1,foo,000,000; the passengers, not including season ticket-holders, also numbered 1,Ido,000,000; and the sum annually spent in working the lines considerably exceeded the whole capital authorized to be spent on their construction in 1837
.
The progress of the commercial marine was still more noteworthy
.
In 1837 the entire commercial navy comprised 2,800,000 tons, of which less than See also: ioo,000 tons were moved by steam
.
At the end of the reign the See also: tonnage of British See also: merchant vessels had reached 13,700,000 tons, of which more than 11,000,000 tons were moved by steam
.
At the beginning of the reign it was supposed to be impossible to build a steamer which could either See also: cross the See also: Atlantic, or face the monsoon in the Red See also: Sea
.
The development of steam navigation since then had made See also: Australia much more accessible than See also: America was in 1837, and had brought New See also: York, for all See also: practical purposes, nearer to London than See also: Aberdeen was at the commencement of the reign
.
See also: Electricity had even a greater effect on communication than steam on locomotion; and electricity, as a practical invention, had its origin in the reign
.
The first experimental telegraph line was only erected in the year in which Queen Victoria came to the throne
.
Submarine telegraphy, which had done so much to knit the empire together, was not perfected for many years afterwards; and long ocean cables were almost entirely constructed in the last See also: half of the reign
.
(S
.
W.)
On the death of Queen Victoria, the prince of See also: Wales succeeded to the throne, with the title of See also: Edward VII
.
(q.v.)
.
The See also: coronation fixed for See also: June in the following year was at the last moment stopped by the See also: king's illness with appendi- Reign of citis, but he recovered marvellously from the operation v p' and the ceremony took place in
See also: August
.
His excellent See also: health and activity in succeeding years struck every one with astonishment
.
The Boer War had at last been brought to an end in May 1902 (see TRANSVAAL), and the king had the satisfaction of seeing South Africa settle down and eventually receive self -government . The political history of .his reign, which ended with his death in May 1910, is dealt with in detail in separateSee also: biographical and other articles in this work (see especially those on Lord Salisbury, Mr A
.
J
.
See also: Balfour, Mr J
.
See also: Chamberlain, Lord Rosebery, Sir H
.
Campbell-Bannerman, Mr H
.
H
.
Asquith, Mr D
.
Lloyd
See also: George, and on the history of the various portions of the British Empire); and in this place only a See also: summary need be given
.
The king himself (see EDWARD VII.), who nobly earned the title of Edward the Peacemaker, played no small See also: part in the domestic and See also: international politics of these years; and contemporary publicists,who had become accustomed to Victorian traditions, gradually realized that, within the limits of the constitutional See also: monarchy, there was much more scope for the initiative of a masculine sovereign in public life than had been supposed by the generation which See also: grew up after the death of his See also: father in 1862
.
Edward VII. made the See also: Crown throughout all classes of society a popular power which it had not been in England for long ages
.
And while the growing rivalry between England and See also: Germany, in international relations, was continually threatening danger, his influence in cementing British friendship on all other sides was of the.most marked description
.
His sudden death was felt, not only throughout the empire but throughout the world, with even more poignant emotion than that of Queen Victoria herself, for his See also: personality had been much more in the forefront
.
The end of his reign coincided with a domestic constitutional crisis, to which party politics had been working up more and more acutely for several years
.
The Tariff Reform propaganda of Mr Chamberlain (q.v.) in 1903 convulsed The
ot
the Conservative party, and the long period of Unionist 1910. domination came to an end in See also: November 1905
.
Mr
Balfour (q.v.), who became prime minister in 1902 on Lord Salisbury's retirement, resigned, and was succeeded by Sir H
.
Campbell-Bannerman (q.v.), as See also: head of the Liberal party; and the general election of January 1906 resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Liberals and their See also: allies, the Labour party (now a powerful force in politics) and the Irish Nationalists
.
Just before Sir H
.
Campbell-Bannerman's death in See also: April 1908 he was succeeded as prime minister by Mr Asquith, a See also: leader of far higher See also: personal ability though with less hold on the affections of his party
.
The Liberals had long arrears to make up in their political programme, and their supremacy in the House of Commons was an encouragement to assert their views in legislation
.
In several directions, and notably in administration, they carried their policy into effect; but the House of Lords (see PARLIAMENT) was an obvious stumbling-See also: block to some of their more important Bills, and the Unionist control of that House speedily made itself felt, first in wrecking the See also: Education Bill of 1906, then in throwing out the Licensing Bill of 1908, and finally (see LLOYD GEORGE, D.) in forcing a dissolution by the rejection of the budget of 1909, with its novel proposals for the increased taxation of land and licensed houses
.
The Unionist party in the country had, meanwhile, been recovering from the Tariff Reform divisions of 1903, and was once more solid under Mr Balfour in favour of its new and imperial policy; but the See also: campaign against the House of Lords started by Mr Lloyd George and the Liberal leaders, who put in the forefront the necessity of obtaining statutory guarantees for the passing into See also: law of measures deliberately adopted by the elected Chamber, resulted in the return of Mr Asquith's government to office at the election of January 1910
.
The Unionists came back equal in numbers to the Liberals, but the latter could also count on the Labour party and the Irish Nationalists; and the See also: battle was fully arrayed for
a frontal attack on the See also: powers of the Second Chamber when the king's death in May upset all calculations
.
This unthoughtof complication seemed to act like the letting of blood in an apoplectic patient
.
The prince of Wales became king as George V . (q.v.), and a temporary truce was called; and the reign began with a serious attempt between the leaders of the two great parties, Acces- by private See also: conference, to see whether compromise was
See also: Sion not possible (see PARLIAMENT)
.
Apart from the
George eorga V
.
See also: parliamentary crisis, really hingeing on the difficulty of discovering a means by which the real will of the people should be carried out without actually making the House of Commons autocratically omnipotent, but also without allowing the House of Lords to obstruct a Liberal government merely as the See also: organ of the Tory party, the new king succeeded to a See also: noble heritage
.
The monarchy itself was popular, the country was prosperous and in good relations with' the world, except for the increasing See also: naval rivalry with Germany, and the consciousness of imperial solidarity had made extraordinary progress among all the dominions
.
However the domestic problems in the United See also: Kingdom might be solved, the future of the greatness of the English throne lay with its headship of an empire, loyal to the core, over which the See also: sun never sets
.
(H
.
CH.)
The attempt here made to combine a bibliography of English history with some account of the progress of English See also: historical writing is beset with some difficulty
.
The evidential value of what a writer says is quite distinct from the See also: literary See also: art with which he says it; the real See also: sources of history are not the See also: works of historians, but records and documents written with no See also: desire to further any literary purpose
.
Domesday See also: Book is unique as a source of See also: medieval history, but it does not count in the development of English historical writing
.
That is quite a secondary consideration; for there was much English history before any Englishman could write; and even after he could write, his compositions constitute a minor part of the evidence
.
Our earliest information about the land and its people is derived from See also: geological, ethnological and archaeological studies, from the remains in British barrows and caves, See also: Roman roads, walls and villas, coins, place-names and inscriptions
.
The writings of Caesar and Tacitus, and a few scattered notices in other Roman authors, supplement this evidence . But the scientific accuracy of Tacitus' Germania is not beyond dispute, and thatSee also: light fails centuries before the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Great Britain
.
The history of that conquest itself is mainly inferential; there is the flebilis narratio of See also: Gildas, vague and rhetorical, moral rather than historical in See also: motive, and written more than a century after the conquest had begun, and the narrative of the Welsh See also: Nennius, who wrote two and a half centuries after Gildas, and makes no critical distinction between the deeds of dragons and those of Anglo-See also: Saxons
.
The Anglo-Saxons themselves could not write until Christian missionaries had reintroduced the art at the end of the 6th century, and history was not by any means the first purpose to which they applied it
.
It was first used to compile written statements of customs and dooms which were their nearest approach to law, and these codes and charters are the earliest written materials for Anglo-Saxon history
.
The remarkable outburst of literary culture in Northumbria during the 7th and 8th centuries produced a real historian in See also: Bede; Bede, however, knows little or nothing of English history between 450 and 596, and he is valuable only for the 7th and early part of the 8th centuries
.
Almost contemporary is the Vita Wilfridi by See also: Eddius, but more valuable are the letters we possess of Boniface and See also: Alcuin
.
The famous Anglo-Saxon See also: Chronicle was probably started under the influence of Alfred the Great towards the end of the 9th century
.
Its chronology is often one, two or three years wrong even when it seems to be a contemporary authority, and the value of its evidence on the See also: con-quest and the first two centuries after it is very uncertain
.
But from Ecgbert's reign onwards it supplies a good See also: deal of apparentlytrustworthy information
.
For Alfred himself we have also Asser's biography and the See also: Annals of St Neots, a very imaginative compilation, while most of the stories which have made Alfred's name a See also: household word are fabulous
.
Even the Chronicle becomes meagre a few years after Alfred's death, and its value depends largely upon the See also: ballads which it incorporates; nor is it materially supplemented by the lives of St See also: Dunstan, for hagiologists have never treated historical accuracy as a matter of moment; and our knowledge of the last century of Anglo-Saxon history is derived mainly from Anglo-Norman writers who wrote after the Norman Conquest
.
Some collateral light on the Danish conquest of England is thrown by the Heimskringla and other materials collected inSee also: Vigfusson and See also: Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale, and for the reign of Canute and his sons there is the contemporary Encomium Emmae, which is a dishonest See also: panegyric on the widow of 'See also: Ethelred and Canute
.
For Edward the See also: Confessor there is an almost equally biased biography
.
For the Norman Conquest itself strictly contemporary evidence is extremely scanty, and historians have exhausted their own and their readers' See also: patience in disputing the precise significance of some phrases about the battle of Hastings used by See also: Wace, a Norman poet who wrote nearly a century after the battle
.
One version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle goes down to 1079 and another to 1154, but their notices of current events are brief' and meagre
.
The See also: Bayeux See also: tapestry affords, however, valuable contemporary evidence, and there are some facts related by See also: eye-witnesses in the works of See also: William of
See also: Poitiers and William of Jumieges
.
A generation of copious chroniclers was, moreover, springing up, and among them were Florence of See also: Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, Simeon of Durham and William of See also: Malmesbury
.
Their ambition was almost invariably to write the history of the world, and they generally begin with the Creation
.
They only become original and contemporary authorities towards the end of their appointed tasks, and the bulk of their work is borrowed from their predecessors
.
Frequently they embody materials which would otherwise have perished, but their transcription is. marred by an amount of conscious or unconscious falsification which seriously impairs their value
.
All the above-mentioned writers lived in the half-century immediately following the Norman Conquest, but their critical acumen and their literary art vary considerably
.
William of Malmesbury, See also: Eadmer and Ordericus Vitalis attain a higher historical See also: standard than had yet been reached in England by any one, with the possible exception of Bede
.
They are not See also: mere annalists; they practise an art and cultivate a See also: style; history has become to them a See also: form of literature
.
They have also their philosophy and interpretation of history . It is mainly a theological conception,See also: blind to economic influences, and attaching excessive importance to the effects of the individual See also: action of emperors and popes, See also: kings and cardinals
.
Even their characters are painted in different See also: colours accbrding to their action on quite irrelevant questions, as, for instance, their benefactions to the monastery, to which the historian happens to belong, or to See also: rival houses; and the character once determined by such considerations, history is made to point the moral of their fortunes, or their See also: fate
.
It is regarded as the record of moral judgments and the proof of orthodox See also: doctrine, and it is long before ecclesiastical historians expel the See also: sermon from their text
.
The line of monastic historians stretches out to the close of the middle ages
.
Most of the great monasteries had their official annalists, who produced such works as the Annals of See also: Tewkesbury, See also: Gloucester, See also: Burton, Waverley, See also: Dunstable, See also: Bermondsey, Oseney, Winchester (see Annales Monastici, 5 vols., ed
.
Luard, and other volumes in the Rolls series)
.
Some of them are mainly See also: local See also: chronicles; others are almost See also: national histories
.
In particular, St Albans See also: developed a remarkable school of historians extending over nearly three centuries to the death of See also: Whethamstede in 1465 (see Chronica Monasterii S
.
See also: Albani, Rolls series, 7 vols., ed
.
See also: Riley)
.
Only a few of the 235 volumes published under the direction of the master of the Rolls, and called the Rolls series, can he:e be mentioned
.
Other medieval writers have been edited for the earlier English Historical Society; some of them have been re-edited without being superseded in the Rolls series . For the reign of See also: Stephen we have the See also: anonymous Gesta Stephani in addition to the writers already mentioned, several of whom continue into Stephen's reign
.
For Henry II. we have William of See also: Newburgh, who reaches the highest point attained by historical composition in the 12th century; the so-called Benedict of See also: Peterborough's Gesta Henrici, which Stubbs tentatively and without sufficient authority ascribed to See also: Richard Fitznigel; Robert' of Torigni; and seven volumes of "Materials for the History of See also: Thomas
See also: Becket," which contain some of the best and worst samples of hagiological history
.
For Richard and See also: John the chronicles of
See also: Roger of Hoveden, See also: Ralph de See also: Diceto (See also: Diss), Gervase of See also: Canterbury, Ralph of Coggeshall, and a later continuation of Hoveden, known under the name of Walter of See also: Coventry, are the best narrative authorities
.
With the accession of Henry III., Roger of See also: Wendover, the first of the St Albans school whose writings are extant, becomes our chief authority
.
He was re-edited and continued after 1236 by See also: Matthew See also: Paris, the greatest of medieval historians
.
His work, which goes down to 1259, is picturesque, vivid, and marked by considerable breadth of view and independence of See also: judgment
.
The See also: story is carried on by a series of jejune compilations known as the See also: Flores historiarum (ed
.
Luard)
.
Better authorities for Edward I. are Rishanger, Trokelowe and Blaneforde, See also: Wykes, Walter of See also: Hemingburgh, See also: Nicholas Trevet, Oxnead and Bartholomew See also: Cotton, and others contained in Stubbs's Chronicles of Edward I. and Edward II
.
In the 14th century there is a significant deterioration in the monastic chroniclers, and their place is taken by the works of secular See also: clergy like See also: Adam See also: Murimuth, Geoffrey the See also: Baker, Robert of Avesbury, Henry Knighton and the anonymous author of the Eulogium historiarum
.
Monastic history is represented by Higden's voluminous Polychrouicon, which succeeds the Flores historiarum
.
A brief revival of the St Albans school towards the end of the century is seen in the Chronicon Angliae and the works of T . Walsingham, which continue into the reign of Henry V . For Richard II. we have also Malverne and theSee also: Monk of
See also: Evesham; for the early Lancastrians, See also: Capgrave, See also: Elmham, Otterbourne, Adam of See also: Usk; and for Henry VI., Amundesham, Whethamstede, William of Worcester and John See also: Hardyng, as well as a number of anonymous briefer chronicles, edited, though not in the Rolls series, by J
.
See also: Gairdner, C
.
L
.
See also: Kingsford, N
.
H
.
Nicolas and J
.
S
.
See also: Davies
.
These are the See also: principal English historical writers for the middle ages; but as the connexion between England and the continent grew closer, and international relations developed, an increasing amount of light is thrown on English history by foreign writers
.
Of these authorities one of the earliest is the Histoire See also: des dues de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre (ed
.
Michel); briefer are the Chronique de l'Anonyme de Bethune and the Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal . A large number of French and Flemish chronicles illustrate the history of the See also: Hundred Years' War, by far the most important being See also: Froissart (best edition by Luce, though Lettenhove's is bigger)
.
Next come Jehan le See also: Bel, Waurin's Recueil, Monstrelet, See also: Chastellain, Juvenal des Ursins, and more limited works such as Creton's Chronique de la traison et meet de Richard II
.
Chronicles, however, grow less important as sources of history as time goes on
.
Their value is always dependent upon the See also: absence of the more satisfactory materials known as records, and these records gradually become more copious and See also: complete
.
They develop with the government, of whose activity and policy they are the real test and evidence
.
Perhaps the most important thing in history is the See also: evolution of government, the development of consciousness and a will on the part of the state
.
This will is expressed in records; and, as the state progresses from See also: infancy through the stage of tutelage under the See also: church to its
See also: modern " omnicompetence," so its will is expressed in an ever widening and differentiating series of records
.
The first need of a government is See also: finance; the earliest organized machinery for exerting its will is the exchequer; and the earliest great record in English history is Domesday Book
.
It is followed by a series of exchequerrecords, called the See also: Pipe Rolls, which begin in the reign of Henry I., and dating from that of Henry LI. is the Dialogus de scaccario, which explains in none too lucid language the intricate working of the exchequer See also: system
.
It was Henry II. who gave the greatest impetus to the development of the machinery for expressing the will of the state
.
He began with finance and went on to See also: justice, recognizing that justitia magnum emolumentum, the administration of justice was a great source of revenue
.
So national courts of law are added to the national exchequer, and by the end of the lath century legal records become an even more important source of history thanSee also: financial documents
.
The judicial system is described by See also: Glanvill at the end of the 12th, and by See also: Bracton and See also: Fleta in the 13th century (for the exchequer see the Testa de Nevill and the Red Book of the Exchequer)
.
During that period the See also: Curia Regis threw off three offshoots—the courts of exchequer, king's bench and See also: common pleas; and records of their judicial proceedings survive in the Plea Rolls and Year Books, some of which have been edited for the Rolls series, the See also: Selden and other See also: societies
.
Numerous other classes of legal and administrative records gradually develop, the Patent and Close Rolls (first calendared by the Record Commission, and subsequently treated more adequately under the direction of the deputy keeper of the Records), Charters (which were first grants to individuals, then to collective See also: groups, monasteries or boroughs, then to classes, and finally expanded—as in Magna Carta—into grants to the whole nation), Escheats, Feet of Fines, Inquisitiones See also: post mortem, Inquisitiones ad quod damnum, Placita de Quo Warranto, and others for which the reader is referred to S
.
R
.
Scargill-See also: Bird's Guide to the Principal Classes of Documents preserved in the Record Office (3rd ed., 1908)
.
Every branch of administration comes to be represented in records almost as soon as it is developed
.
The evolution of the army which won See also: Crecy and Poitiers is accompanied by the accumulation of a mass of indentures and other military documents, the value of which has been illustrated in Dr See also: Morris's Welsh See also: Wars of Edward I. and George Wrottesley's Crecy and See also: Calais from the Public Records
.
The growth of naval organization is reflected in the Black Book of the See also: Admiralty; the growth of taxation in the See also: Liber custumarum and Subsidy Rolls; the rise of parliament in the Parliamentary Writs (ed
.
Palgrave), in the Rotuli parliamentorum, in the Official Return of Members of Parliament, and in the Statutes of the See also: Realm; that of Con-vocation in See also: David See also: Wilkins's Concilia
.
The See also: register of the privy council does not begin until later in the 14th century, and then is broken off between the middle of the 15th and 1J39
.
Local as well as central government begets records as it grows
.
From the Extenta manerii of the 12th century we get to the Manorial Rolls of the 13th, when also we have Hundred Rolls, records of See also: forest courts, of courts leet and of coroners' courts, and a variety of municipal documents, for which the reader is referred to Dr C
.
See also: Gross's Bibliography of British Municipal History and to Mrs J
.
R
.
See also: Green's more popular See also: Town Life in the Fifteenth Century
.
The municipal records of London, its hustings court and city companies, are too multifarious to describe; some, classes of these documents have been exemplified in the works of Dr R
.
R
.
See also: Sharpe
.
Ecclesiastical records are represented by the episcopal registers (for the most part still unpublished), monastic cartularies, and other documents rendered comparatively scarce by the spoliation of the monasteries, and scattered proceedings of ecclesiastical courts
.
(See also the article RECORD.)
Documents, other than records strictly so called, begin to grow with the habit of See also: correspondence and the necessity of communication
.
A few letters survive from the time of the Norman kings, but the earliest collection of English royal letters is the Letters of Henry III
.
(Rolls series)
.
Contemporary are the Letters of See also: Grosseteste, and a little later come the Letters of See also: Arch-See also: bishop See also: Peckham and Raine's Letters from See also: Northern Registers (all in the Rolls series)
.
Private correspondence appeared earlier in the voluminous epistles of See also: Peter of See also: Blois, archdeacon of See also: Bath (ed
.
See also: Giles)
.
This is a somewhat intermittent source of history until we come to the 15th century, when the well-known Poston
Letters (ed
.
Gairdner) begin a stream which never fails thereafter and soon becomes a torrent
.
The most important series of official correspondence is the Papal Letters, calendared from 1198 to 1404 in 4 vols
.
(ed
.
See also: Bliss, See also: Johnson and Twemlow)
.
Subsidiary sources are the Political Songs (ed
.
See also: Wright), See also: treatises like those of John of Salisbury, Gerald of Wales, and, later, Wycliffe's works, Netter's Fasciculi Zizaniorum, See also: Gascoigne's Loci' e libro veritatum, Pecock's Repressor, and the literary writings of See also: Chaucer, See also: Langland, See also: Gower, Richard Rolle and others
.
During the 15th century the transition, which marks the change from medieval to modern history, affects also the character of historical sources and historical writing
.
In the first place, history ceases to be the exclusive province of thg church; monastic chronicles shrink to a trickle and then dry up; the' last of their kind in England is the Greyfriars Chronicle (See also: Camden Society), which ends in 1554
.
Their place is taken by the city chronicle compiled by middle-class laymen, just as the See also: Renaissance was not a revival of clerical learning, but the expression of new intellectual demands on the part of the laity
.
Secondly, the definite disappearance of the medieval ideas of a cosmopolitan world and the emergence of national states begatSee also: diplomacy, and with it an ever-swelling mass of See also: diplomatic material
.
Diplomacy had hitherto been occasional and intermittent, and embassies rare; now we get See also: resident ambassadors carrying on a See also: regular correspondence (see DrPLOMACY)
.
The See also: mercantile interests of Venice made it the See also: pioneer in this direction, though its representatives abroad were at first commercial rather than diplomatic agents
.
The See also: Calendar of Venetian State Papers goes back to the 14th century, but does not become copious till the reign of Henry VII., when also the See also: Spanish Calendar begins
.
Resident French ambassadors in England only begin in the 16th century, and later still those from the emperor, the See also: German and See also: Italian states other than Venice
.
In the third place, the development of the new monarchy involved an enormous extension of the activity of the central government, and therefore a corresponding expansion in the records of its energy
.
The political records of this energy are the State Papers, a class of document which soon dwarfs all others, and renders chroniclers, historians and the like almost negligible quantities as sources of history; but in another way their value is enhanced, for these hundreds of thousands of documents provide a test of the accuracy of modern historians which is imperfect in the See also: case of medieval chroniclers and almost non-existent in that of See also: ancient writers
.
These state papers are either " foreign " or " domestic," that is to say, the correspondence of the English government with its agents abroad, or at home
.
There is also the correspondence of foreign ambassadors resident in England with their governments
.
This last class of documents exists in England mainly in the form of transcripts from the originals in foreign archives, which have been made for the purpose of the Venetian and Spanish Calendars of state papers
.
The Venetian Calendar had by 1909 been carried well into the 17th century; the Spanish (which includes transcripts from the See also: Habsburg archives at Vienna, Brussels and See also: Simancas) covered only the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII. and Queen See also: Elizabeth
.
No attempt had yet been made to calendar the French correspondence in a similar way, though the French Foreign Office published some fragmentary collections, such as the Correspondance de MM. de Castillon et de
See also: Marillac and that of Odet de See also: Selve
.
There are other collections too numerous to enumerate, such as Lettenhove's edition of See also: Philip II.'s correspondence
See also: relating to the Nether-lands, Diegerick and See also: Miller's, Teulet's and See also: Albert's collections, the French Documents inedits and the Spanish Documentos ineditos, all containing state papers relating to England's foreign policy in the 16th century
.
The Scottish and Irish state papers are calendared in separate series and without much system
.
Thus for Scottish affairs there are four series, the Border Papers, the See also: Hamilton Papers, Thorp's Calendar, and, more
See also: recent and complete, Bain's Calendar
.
For See also: Ireland, besides the regular Irish state papers, there are the Carew Papers, almost as important
.
Anarchy, indeed, pervades the whole method of publication
.
For the reign of Henry VII. we have,besides the Venetian and Spanish Calendars, only three volumes—Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII. and Campbell's Materials (2 vols., Rolls series)
.
Then with the reign of Henry VIII. begins the magnificent and monumental Letters and Papers of Henry VIII., the one modern series for which the Record Office deserves unstinted praise
.
This is not limited to state papers, domestic and foreign, nor to documents in the Record Office; it calendars private letters, grants, &c., extant in the British Museum and elsewhere
.
It extends to 21 volumes, each See also: volume consisting of two or more parts, and some parts (as in vol. iv.) containing over a thousand pages; it comprises at least fifty thousand documents
.
Its value, how-ever, varies; the earlier volumes are not so full as the later, the documents are not so well calendared, and some classes are excluded from earlier, which appear in the later, volumes
.
After 1547 a different See also: plan is adopted, though not consistently followed
.
Only state papers are calendared, and as a rule only those in the Record Office; and the domestic are separated from the foreign
.
The great fault is the neglect of the vast quantities of state papers in the British Museum . The Domestic Calendar (the first volume of which is very inadequate) extended in 1909 in a series of more than seventy volumes nearly to the end of the 17th century; the mass ofSee also: MSS. calendared therein may be gathered from the fact that for the reign of Elizabeth the Domestic state papers fill over three hundred MS. volumes
.
The Foreign Calendar had only got to 1582, but it occupied sixteen printed volumes against one of the Domestic Calendar
.
For the masses of MSS. uncalendared in the British Museum there is no guide except the imperfect indexes to the Cotton, Harleian, Lansdowne, Additional and other collections
.
Hardly less important than the calendars are the reports of the Historical See also: Manuscripts Commission and the appendices thereto, which extend to over a hundred volumes; twelve are occupied by Lord Salisbury's 16th-century MSS. at See also: Hatfield House
.
The dispersion of these state papers is due to the fact that they were in those days treated not as the property of the state, but as the private property of individual secretaries
.
State papers represent only one See also: side of the activity of the central government
.
The register of the privy council, extending with some lacunae from 1539 to 1604, has been printed in See also: thirty-two volumes
.
The Rotuli parliamentorum end with Henry VII., but in 1509 begin the See also: journals of the House of Lords, and in 1547 the journals of the House of Commons
.
These are supplemented by private diaries of members of parliament, several of which were used in D'Ewes's Journals
.
Legal history can now be followed in a continuous series of law reports, beginning with Keilway, Staunford and Dyer, and going on with See also: Coke and many others; documentary records of various courts are exemplified in the Select Cases from the See also: star chamber, the court of See also: requests and admiralty courts, published by the Selden Society; and there are voluminous records of the courts of augmentations, first-fruits, wards and liveries in the Record Office
.
For Ireland, besides the state papers, there are the Calendars of See also: Patents and of Fiants, and for Scotland the Exchequer Rolls and Registers of the Privy Council and of the Great See also: Seal, both extending to many volumes
.
Unofficial sources multiply with equal rapidity, but it is impossible to enumerate the collections of private letters, &c.; only a few of which have been published . The chronicles which in the 15th century are usually meagre productions like See also: Warkworth's (Camden Society), get See also: fuller, especially those emanating from London
.
See also: Fabyan is succeeded by See also: Hall, an indispensable authority for Henry VIII., and Hall by Grafton
.
Other useful books are Wriothesley's Chronicle and Machyn's
See also: Diary, and they have numerous successors; some of their works have been edited for the Camden Society, which now takes the place of the Rolls series
.
The most important are Holinshed, See also: Stow and Camden; and gradually, with See also: Speed and See also: Bacon, the chronicle develops into the history, and early in the 17th century we get such works as Lord Herbert's Reign of Henry VIII., Hayward's Edward VI., and, on the ecclesiastical side, Heylyn, Fuller, Burnet and Collier's histories of the church and
See also: Reformation
.
See also: Foxe, who died in 1587, included a vast and generally accurate collection of documents in his Acts and Monuments, popularized as the Book of Martyrs, though his own contributions have to be discounted as much as those of Sanders, Parsons and other Roman Catholic controversialists
.
Two other great collections are the See also: Parker Society's publications (56 vols.), which contain besides the works of the reformers a considerable number of their letters, and See also: Strype's works (26 vols.)
.
The naval epic of the period is See also: Hakluyt's Navigations, re-edited in 12 vols. in 1902, and continued in See also: Purchas's Pilgrims
.
In the 17th century the domestic and foreign state papers eclipse other sources almost more completely than in the 16th
.
The colonial state papers now become important and extensive, those relating to America and the West Indies being most numerous (18 vols. to 1700)
.
Parliamentary records naturally expand, and the journals of both Houses become more detailed
.
Parliamentary diarists like D'Ewes, Burton and Walter Yonge, only a fragment of whose shorthand notes in the British Museum has been published (Camden Society), elucidate the See also: bare official statements; and from 166o the series of parliamentary debates is fairly complete, though not so full or authoritative as it becomes with See also: Hansard in the 19th century
.
Social diarists of great value appear after the Restoration in See also: Pepys, See also: Evelyn, Reresby, See also: Narcissus See also: Luttrell and See also: Swift (Journal to Stella), and political writing grows more important as a source of history, whether it takes the form of Bacon's (ed
.
See also: Spedding) or See also: Milton's treatises, or of satires like See also: Dryden's and political See also: pamphlets like See also: Halifax's and then Swift's, See also: Defoe's and See also: Steele's
.
Clarerdon's Great Rebellion and Burnet's History of My Own Time are the first modern attempts at contemporary history, as distinct from chronicles and annals, in England, although it is difficult to
• exclude the work of Matthew Paris from the category
.
The innumerable tracts and newsletters are a valuable source for the See also: Civil Wars and See also: Commonwealth period (see J
.
B
.
See also: Williams, A History of English Journalism, 1909), while See also: Thurloe's, See also: Clarendon's and Nalson's collections of state papers deserve a mention apart from the Domestic Calendar
.
There is a still more monumental collection—the See also: Carte Papers—on Irish affairs in the Bodleian Library, where also the Tanner MSS. and other collections have only been very partially worked
.
The volumes of the Historical MSS
.
Commission are of great value for the later See also: Stuart period, notably the House of Lords MSS
.
For the 18th century the only calendars are the Home Office Papers and the See also: Treasury Books and Papers, the further specialization of government having made it necessary to differentiate domestic state papers into several classes
.
But it need hardly be said that the bulk of correspondence in the Record Office does not diminish
.
Outside its walls the most important single collection is perhaps the duke of See also: Newcastle's papers among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum; the Stuart papers at Windsor, Mr Fortescue's at Dropmore, Lord Charlemont's (Irish affairs), Lord See also: Dartmouth's (See also: American affairs) and Lord See also: Carlisle's, all calendared by the Historical MSS
.
Commission, are also valuable . See also: Chatham's correspondence with colonial See also: governors has been published (2 vols., 1906), as have the See also: Grenville Papers, See also: Bedford Correspondence, Malmesbury's Diaries, See also: Auckland's Journals and Correspondence, Grafton's Correspondence, Lord North's Correspondence with George III., and other correspondence in The See also: Memoirs of Rockingham, and the duke of See also: Buckingham's Court and Cabinets of George III
.
Mention should also be made of Gower's Despatches, the Cornwallis Correspondence, See also: Rose's Correspondence and Lord Colchester's Correspondence
.
Of See also: special interest is the series of naval records, despatches to and from naval commanders, proceedings of courts-See also: martial, and logs in the Record Office which have never been properly utilized
.
Among unofficial sources the most characteristic of the 18th century are letters, memoirs and periodical literature
.
Horace Walpole's Letters (Clarendon See also: Press, 16 vols.) are the best comment on the history of the period; his Memoirs are not so good, though they are See also: superior to Wraxall, who succeeds him
.
Periodical literature becomes regular in the reign of Queen See also: Anne, chiefly in the form of journals like the Spectator; but severaldaily See also: newspapers, including The Times, were founded during the century
.
The Craftsman provided a vehicle for Bolingbroke's attacks on Walpole, while the Gentleman's See also: Magazine and See also: Annual Register begin a more serious and prolonged career
.
Both contain occasional state papers, and not very trustworthy reports of parliamentary proceedings
.
The publication of debates was not authorized till the last quarter of the century; parliamentary papers begin earlier, but only slowly attain their See also: present portentous dimensions
.
Political writing is at its best from Halifax to See also: Cobbett, and its three greatest names are perhaps Swift, " Junius " and Burke, though Steele, Defoe, Bolingbroke and Dr Johnson are not far behind, while Canning's contributions to the See also: Anti-Jacobin and See also: Gillray's caricatures require mention
.
The sources for 19th-century history are somewhat similar to those for the 18th
.
Diaries continue in the See also: Creevey Papers, Greville's Diary, and lesser but not less voluminous writers like Sir M
.
E
.
See also: Grant-
See also: Duff
.
The most important series of letters is Queen Victoria's (ed
.
Lord Esher and A
.
C
.
See also: Benson, 1908), and the correspondence of most of her prime ministers and many of her other advisers has been partially published
.
Of political See also: biographies there is no end
.
The great bulk of material, however, consists of blue-books, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, and newspapers—which are better as indirect than See also: direct evidence
.
The real truth is not of course revealed at once, and many episodes in 19th-century history are still shrouded by official secrecy
.
In this respect English governments are more cautious or reactionary than many of those on the continent of See also: Europe, and See also: access to official documents is denied when it is granted elsewhere; even the lapse of a century is not considered. a sufficient salve for susceptibilities which might be wounded by the whole truth
.
Meanwhile the 19th century witnessed a great development in historical writing
.
In the middle ages the stimulus to write was mainly of a moral or ecclesiastical nature, though the patriotic impulse which had suggested the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was perhaps never entirely absent, and the ecclesiastical motive often degenerated into a desire to glorify, sometimes even by forgery, not merely the church as a whole, but the particular monastery to which the writer belonged . As nationalism developed, the patriotic motive supplanted the ecclesiastical, and stress is laid on the " famous " history of England . Insular self-glorification was, however, modified to some extent by the Renaissance, which developed an interest in other lands, and the Reformation, which gave to much historical writing aSee also: partisan theological See also: bias
.
This still colours most of the " histories " of the Reformation period, because the issues of that time are living issues, and the writers of these histories are committed beforehand by their profession and their position to a particular interpretation
.
In the 17th century political partisanship coloured historical writing, and that, too, remained a potent motive so long as historians were either Whigs or Tories
.
Histories were often elaborate party pamphlets, and this See also: race of historians is hardly yet See also: extinct
.
Macaulay is not greatly superior in impartiality to Hume; See also: Gibbon and See also: Robertson were less open to temptation because they avoided English subjects
.
See also: Hallam deliberately aimed at impartiality, but he could not escape his Whig atmosphere
.
Nevertheless, the effort to be impartial marks a new conception of history, which is well expressed in Lord See also: Acton's admonition to his contributors in the Cambridge Modern History
.
Historians are to serve no cause but that of truth; in so far even as they desire a line of investigation to lead to a particular result, they are not, maintains Professor See also: Bury, real historians
.
S
.
R
.
See also: Gardiner perhaps attained most nearly this severe ideal among English historians, and See also: Ranke among Germans
.
But, even when all conscious bias is eliminated, the unconscious bias remains, and Ranke's history of the Reformation is essentially a middle-class, even bourgeois, presentment
.
Stubbs's medievalist sympathies colour his history throughout, and still more strongly does See also: Froude's anti-clericalism
.
Freeman's bias was See also: peculiar; he is really a West Saxon of See also: Godwine's time reincarnated, and his See also: Somerset hatred of French, Scots and Mercian foreigners sets off his robust loyalty to the house of Wessex
.
Lecky and See also: Creighton are almost
as dispassionate as Gardiner, but are more definitely committed to particular points of views, while democratic fervour pervades the fascinating pages of J.R.Green, and an intellectual See also: secularism, which is almost religious in its intensity and idealism, inspired the See also: genius of See also: Maitland
.
The latest controversy about history is whether it is a science or an art
.
It is, of course, both, simply because there must be science in every art and art in every science
.
The antithesis is largely false; science See also: lays stress on analysis, art on synthesis
.
The historian must apply scientific methods to his materials and See also: artistic methods to his results; he must test his documents and then turn them into literature
.
The relative importance of the two methods is a matter of dispute
.
There are some who still maintain that history is merely an art, that the best history is the story that is best told, and that what is said is less important than the way in which it is said
.
This school generally ignores records
.
Others attach little importance to the form in which truth is presented; they are concerned mainly with the principles and methods of scientific See also: criticism, and specialize in palaeography, diplomatic and sources
.
The works of this school are little read, but in time its results penetrate the teaching in See also: schools and See also: universities, and then the pages of literary historians; it is represented in England by a fairly good organization, the Royal Historical Society (with which the Camden Society has been amalgamated), and by an excellent periodical, The English Historical Review (founded in 1884), while some sort of propaganda is attempted by the Historical Association (started in 1906)
.
Its See also: standards have also been upheld with varying success in great co-operative undertakings, such as the See also: Dictionary of National Biography, the Cambridge Modern History, and Messrs See also: Longmans' Political History of England
.
These 19th-century products require some sort of See also: classification for purposes of reference, and the See also: chronological is the most convenient
.
See also: Lingard's, J
.
R
.
Green's and Messrs Longmans' histories are the only notable attempts to tell the history of England as a whole, though Stubbs's Constitutional History (3 vols.) covers the middle ages and embodies a political survey as well (for corrections and modifications see See also: Petit-Dutaillis, Supplementary Studies, 1908), while Hallam's Constitutional History (3 vols.) extends from 1485 to 176o and See also: Erskine May's (3 vols.) from 176o to 1860
.
Sir See also: James
See also: Ramsay's six volumes also cover the greater part of medieval English history
.
There is no work on a larger See also: scale than See also: Lappenberg and Kemble, dealing with England before the Norman Conquest, though J
.
R
.
Green's Making of England and Conquest of England deal with certain portions in some detail, and Freeman gives a preliminary survey in his Norman Conquest (6 vols.)
.
For the succeeding period see Freeman's William Rufus, J
.
H . Round's Feudal England and Geoffrey de Mandeville, andSee also: Miss Norgate's England under the Angevins and John Lackland
.
From 1216 we have nothing but Ramsay, Stubbs, Longmans' Political History and monographs (some of them good), until we come to Wylie's Henry IV
.
(4 vols.) ; and again from 1413 the same is true (Gairdner's Lollardy and the Reformation being the most elaborate monograph) until we come to See also: Brewer's Reign of Henry VIII
.
(2 Vols.; to 1530 only), Froude's History (12 vols., 1529–1588) and R
.
W
.
See also: Dixon's Church History (6 vols., 1529–1570)
.
From 1603 to 1656 we have Gardiner's History (England, to vols
.
; Civil War, 4 vols
.
; Commonwealth and See also: Protectorate, 3 vols.), and to 1714 Ranke's History of England (6 vols.; see also Firth's See also: Cromwell and Cromwell's Army, and various See also: editions of texts and monographs)
.
For See also: Charles II. there is no good history; then come Macaulay, and Stanhope and
See also: Wyon's Queen Anne, and for the 18th century Stanhope and Lecky (England, 7 vols
.
; Ireland, 5 vols.)
.
From 1793 to 1815 is another See also: gap only partially filled
.
See also: Spencer Walpole deals with the period from 1815 to 188o, and Herbert See also: Paul with the years 1846-1895
.
A few books on special subjects deserve mention
.
For legal history see See also: Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law (2 vols. to Edward I.), Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond, and Anson's Law and See also: Custom of the Constitution; for economic history, Cunning-See also: ham's Growth of Industry and Commerce, and See also: Ashley's Economic History; for ecclesiastical history, Stephens and See also: Hunt's series (7 vols.); for foreign and colonial, Seeley's British Foreign Policy and Expansion of England. and J
.
A
.
See also: Doyle's books on the American colonies; for military history, Fortescue's History of the British Army, See also: Napier's and See also: Oman's works on the See also: Peninsular War, and Kinglake's Invasion of the See also: Crimea; and for naval history, Corbett's Drake and the Tudor Navy, Successors of Drake, English in the Mediterranean and Seven Years' War, and See also: Mahan's Influence of Sea-Power on History and Influence of Sea-Power upon the French Revolution and Empire
.
English History
.
. . to about 1485 (London, 1900), but there is nothing similar for modern history
.
G
.
C
.
See also: Lee's Source Book of English History is not very satisfactory
.
More information can be obtained from the
See also: bibliographies appended to the volumes in Longmans' Political History, or the chapters in the Cambridge Modern History, or to the biographical articles in the D.N.B. and Ency
.
Brit . A series of See also: bibliographical leaflets for the use of teachers is issued by the Historical Association
.
For MSS. sources see Scargill-Bird's Guide to the Record Office, and the class catalogues in the MSS
.
Department of the British Museum
.
Lists of the state papers and other documents printed and calendared under the direction of the master of the Rolls and deputy keeper of the Records are supplied at the end of many of their volumes
.
(A
.
F
.
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