Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "English History" Volume 9, Slice 5

According to another school the real key to the problem is simply the question of the succession to the crown. If the wedlock of Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou had been fruitfu...

William died at Rouen on the 7th of September 1087; on his death-bed he expressed his wish that Normandy should pass to his elder son, Robert, in spite of all his rebellions, bu...

It was not till 1405 that the worst of Henry's troubles came to an end. This year saw the last of the convulsions that threatened to overturn him,--a rising in the North headed...

Charles, as usual, bent before the storm. In Danby (see LEEDS, 1ST DUKE OF) he found a minister whose views answered precisely to the views of the existing House of Commons. Lik...

In the summer of 1638 Charles had long ceased to reign in the affections of his subjects. But their traditionary loyalty had not yet failed, and if he had not called on them for...

The moral faults of the church only reflected those of the nation. It was a hard and selfish generation which witnessed the Wars of the Roses and the dictatorship of Edward IV....

King Richard, though he had shown such courage and ready resources at Smithfield, was still only a lad of fourteen. For three years more he was under the control of tutors and g...

In the year of the treaty of Etaples the Yorkist conspiracies began once more to thicken, and Henry was fortunate to escape with profit from the French war before his domestic t...

Elizabeth had in fact safely piloted England through the struggle to assert its national independence in religion and politics and its claim to a share in the new inheritance wh...

The question of the succession was the main thing which occupied the mind of the king and the whole nation in Henry's later years. It had a real interest for every man in an age...

Friction had begun the moment that Edward returned to his kingdom from the crusade. Llewelyn would not deign to appear before him to render the customary homage due from Wales t...

The best proof that King Henry's orderly if autocratic regime was appreciated at its true value by his English subjects, is that when the second series of rebellions raised by h...

Now that he had only a single war upon his hands Edward's position was entirely changed. There was no more need to conciliate the magnates nor the parliament. His displeasure fe...

In 1347 Edward made a short truce with King Philip: even after his late victories he felt his strength much strained, his treasury being empty, and his army exhausted by the yea...

These two last years of Edward's reign were filled with an episode of domestic strife, which had considerable constitutional importance. The nation ascribed the series of disast...

The change which was needed was not any mere re-adjustment of the political machine. Those who cared for religion or morality had forgotten that man is an imaginative and emotio...

ARTICLE ENGLISH HISTORY: "Having so done they dispersed, not guessing that Lancaster had yielded so easily because he was set on undoing their work the moment that they were gon...

Langton departed at once to Rome, to endeavour to turn the heart of his former patron, a task in which he utterly failed. Many of the clergy who had hitherto supported the baron...

Incensed with Becket for his repudiation of his original submission, Henry proceeded to open a campaign of lawsuits against him, in order to force him to plead in secular courts...

The time came when he needed again the support of the nation. The death of Charles II., the heirless king of the huge Spanish monarchy, had long been expected. Since the peace o...

The danger, of course, was absurdly exaggerated; as indeed was proved by the very popularity of the repressive measures to which the government thought it necessary to resort, a...

The government which Lord Derby succeeded in forming was composed almost exclusively of the men who had rebelled against Sir Robert Peel in 1845. It was led in the House of Comm...

Such severity was most impolitic, and Lancaster was ere long hailed as a saint and a martyr. But for the moment the king seemed triumphant; he called a parliament which revoked...

The new spirit was most conspicuous in foreign affairs; in the protest of Great Britain against the action of the continental powers at Verona (see VERONA, CONGRESS OF), in the...

In the following years the embarrassments of the government were further increased. In 1872 Bruce, the home secretary, succeeded in passing a measure of licensing reform. But th...

Already the ministry on which such great hopes had been placed had broken up. Rockingham died in July 1782. The two sections of which the government was composed had different a...

His administration was singularly unsuccessful. In 1547 he won the great but barren victory of Pinkie Cleugh over the Scots, and attempted to push on the marriage and union by a...

But, as has been already said, the scholars and theologians had less influence in the beginning of the English Reformation than the mere lay politicians, whose anti-clerical ten...

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 1900. History may hereaft...

With the accession of AEthelred, the "Redeless," as he was afterwards called from his inability to discern good counsel from evil, and the consistent incapacity of his policy, a...

The death of Fox (September 13, 1806) deprived the ministry of its strongest member, and in the following March it fell on the old question of concessions to the Roman Catholics...

When William of Normandy was crowned at Westminster by Archbishop Aldred of York and acknowledged as king by the witan, it is certain that few Englishmen understood the full imp...

But his plot was already successful before he reached the scene of operations. The Yorkshire rebels beat the royalist army at the battle of Edgecott (July 6, 1469). A few days l...

Before abandoning the struggle, the Whigs decided on appealing from the House of Commons to the country. The general election which ensued largely increased the strength of the...

The Confederates, naturally anxious to harass the commerce of their enemies, endeavoured from the commencement of hostilities to purchase armed cruisers from builders of neutral...

Nevertheless when the first of the Tudors died, on the 21st of April 1509, there were few who regretted him. He was not a monarch to rouse enthusiasm, while much was expected fr...

It was certainly not a boon for England that her present sovereign was destined to remain within her borders for the greater part of his remaining years. To know John well was t...

The Bradlaugh question was not the only difficulty with which the new government was confronted. Ireland was again attracting the attention of politicians. The Fenian movement h...

The limited monarchy established by the Provisions of Oxford lasted only three years. Seeing the barons quarrelling among themselves, and Montfort accused of ambition and overwe...

The removal of Lord Palmerston led almost directly to the fall of the Whig government. Before relating, however, the exact occurrences which produced its defeat, it is necessary...

The cause which led to the second fall of Lord Palmerston was in one sense unexpected. Some Italian refugees living in London, of whom Orsini was the chief, formed a design to a...

Our earliest information about the land and its people is derived from geological, ethnological and archaeological studies, from the remains in British barrows and caves, Roman...

While on domestic matters, other than those affecting finance, the Liberal ministry was pursuing a Conservative policy, its members were actively engaged on, and the attention o...

From this depth of despair the party which, with all its faults, represented the national sentiment of France was rescued by the astonishing exploits of Joan of Arc. Charles and...

He left young sons, but the men of Wessex crowned Alfred king, because they needed a grown man to lead them in their desperate campaigning. Yet his reign opened inauspiciously:...

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 chronicl...