A Short History of England, Ireland and Scotland   By: Mary Platt Parmele (1843-1911)

A SHORT HISTORY OF

ENGLAND, IRELAND

AND SCOTLAND

BY

MARY PLATT PARMELE

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1907

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY

WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON

COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1900, 1906, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

PREFACE

Will the readers of this little work please bear in mind the difficulties which must attend the painting of a very large picture, with multitudinous characters and details, upon a very small canvas! This book is mainly an attempt to trace to their sources some of the currents which enter into the life of Great Britain to day, and to indicate the starting points of some among the various threads legislative, judicial, social, etc. which are gathered into the imposing strand of English civilization in this closing nineteenth century.

The reader will please observe that there seem to have been two things most closely interwoven with the life of England RELIGION and MONEY have been the great evolutionary factors in her development.

It has been, first, the resistance of the people to the extortions of money by the ruling class, and second, the violating of their religious instincts, which has made nearly all that is vital in English history.

The lines upon which the government has developed to its present constitutional form are chiefly lines of resistance to oppressive enactments in these two matters. The dynastic and military history of England, although picturesque and interesting, is really only a narrative of the external causes which have impeded the nation's growth toward its ideal of "the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number."

The historic development of Ireland and Scotland, and the events which have brought these two countries into organic union with England are, of necessity, very briefly related.

M. P. P.

CONTENTS

HISTORY OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Ancient Britain Cæsar's Invasion Britain a Roman Province Boadicea Lyndin or London Roman Legions Withdrawn Angles and Saxons Cerdic Teutonic Invasion English Kingdoms Consolidated . . . . . . . . . . . 9

CHAPTER II.

Augustine Edwin Cædmon Bæda Alfred Canute Edward the Confessor Harold William the Conqueror . . . . . . . . . 25

CHAPTER III.

"Gilds" and Boroughs William II. Crusades Henry I. Henry II. Becket's Death Richard I. John Magna Charta . . . . . 40

CHAPTER IV.

Henry III. Roger Bacon First True Parliament Edward I. Conquest of Wales of Scotland Edward II. Edward III. Battle of Crécy Richard II. Wickliffe . . . . . . . . 51

CHAPTER V.

House of Lancaster Henry IV. Henry V. Agincourt Battle of Orleans Wars of the Roses House of York Edward IV. Richard III. Henry VII. Printing Introduced. . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

CHAPTER VI.

Henry VIII. Wolsey Reformation Edward VI. Mary . . . . . . . 73

CHAPTER VII.

Elizabeth East India Company Chartered Colonization of Virginia Flodden Field Birth of Mary Stuart Mary Stuart's Death Spanish Armada Francis Bacon . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

CHAPTER VIII.

James I. First New England Colony Gunpowder Plot Translation of Bible Charles I. Archbishop Laud John Hampden Petition of Right Massachusetts Chartered Earl Strafford Star Chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

CHAPTER IX.

Long Parliament Death of Strafford and Laud Oliver Cromwell Death of Charles I. Long Parliament Dispersed Charles II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

CHAPTER X.