Part 46

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 Warkworth's (Camden Society), get fuller, especially those emanating from London. Fabyan is succeeded by Hall, an indispensable authority for Henry VIII., and Hall by Grafton. Other useful books are Wriothesley's _Chronicle_ and Machyn's _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, Stow and Camden; and gradually, with Speed and 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 Reformation. 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 Parker Society's publications (56 vols.), which contain besides the works of the reformers a considerable number of their letters, and Strype's works (26 vols.). The naval epic of the period is Hakluyt's _Navigations_, re-edited in 12 vols. in 1902, and continued in 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 bare official statements; and from 1660 the series of parliamentary debates is fairly complete, though not so full or authoritative as it becomes with Hansard in the 19th century. Social diarists of great value appear after the Restoration in Pepys, Evelyn, Reresby, Narcissus Luttrell and Swift (_Journal to Stella_), and political writing grows more important as a source of history, whether it takes the form of Bacon's (ed. Spedding) or Milton's treatises, or of satires like Dryden's and political pamphlets like Halifax's and then Swift's, Defoe's and Steele's. Clarendon'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 Civil Wars and Commonwealth period (see J. B. Williams, _A History of English Journalism_, 1909), while Thurloe's, 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 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 Stuart period, notably the House of Lords MSS.

For the 18th century the only calendars are the Home Office Papers and the 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 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 Dartmouth's (American affairs) and Lord Carlisle's, all calendared by the Historical MSS. Commission, are also valuable. Chatham's correspondence with colonial governors has been published (2 vols., 1906), as have the _Grenville Papers_, _Bedford Correspondence_, Malmesbury's _Diaries_, Auckland's _Journals and Correspondence_, Grafton's _Correspondence_, Lord North's _Correspondence with George III._, and other correspondence in _The Memoirs of Rockingham_, and the duke of Buckingham's _Court and Cabinets of George III._ Mention should also be made of Gower's _Despatches_, the _Cornwallis Correspondence_, Rose's _Correspondence_ and Lord Colchester's _Correspondence_. Of special interest is the series of naval records, despatches to and from naval commanders, proceedings of courts-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 Press, 16 vols.) are the best comment on the history of the period; his _Memoirs_ are not so good, though they are superior to Wraxall, who succeeds him. Periodical literature becomes regular in the reign of Queen Anne, chiefly in the form of journals like the _Spectator_; but several daily newspapers, including _The Times_, were founded during the century. _The Craftsman_ provided a vehicle for Bolingbroke's attacks on Walpole, while the _Gentleman's Magazine and 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 present portentous dimensions. Political writing is at its best from Halifax to 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 _Anti-Jacobin_ and Gillray's caricatures require mention.

The sources for 19th-century history are somewhat similar to those for the 18th. Diaries continue in the _Creevey Papers_, Greville's Diary, and lesser but not less voluminous writers like Sir M. E. Grant-Duff. The most important series of letters is Queen Victoria's (ed. Lord Esher and A. C. Benson, 1908), and the correspondence of most of her prime ministers and many of her other advisers has been partially published. Of political 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 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 Europe, and 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 a partisan theological 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 race of historians is hardly yet extinct. Macaulay is not greatly superior in impartiality to Hume; Gibbon and Robertson were less open to temptation because they avoided English subjects. 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 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 Bury, real historians. S. R. Gardiner perhaps attained most nearly this severe ideal among English historians, and 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 Froude's anti-clericalism. Freeman's bias was peculiar; he is really a West Saxon of Godwine's time reincarnated, and his Somerset hatred of French, Scots and Mercian foreigners sets off his robust loyalty to the house of Wessex. Lecky and 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 secularism, which is almost religious in its intensity and idealism, inspired the genius of 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 lays stress on analysis, art on synthesis. The historian must apply scientific methods to his materials and 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 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 schools and 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 standards have also been upheld with varying success in great co-operative undertakings, such as the _Dictionary of National Biography_, the _Cambridge Modern History_, and Messrs Longmans' _Political History of England_.

These 19th-century products require some sort of classification for purposes of reference, and the chronological is the most convenient. 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 Petit-Dutaillis, _Supplementary Studies_, 1908), while Hallam's _Constitutional History_ (3 vols.) extends from 1485 to 1760 and Erskine May's (3 vols.) from 1760 to 1860. Sir James Ramsay's six volumes also cover the greater part of medieval English history. There is no work on a larger scale than 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_, and 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 Brewer's _Reign of Henry VIII_. (2 vols.; to 1530 only), Froude's _History_ (12 vols., 1529-1588) and R. W. Dixon's _Church History_ (6 vols., 1529-1570). From 1603 to 1656 we have Gardiner's _History_ (England, 10 vols.; Civil War, 4 vols.; Commonwealth and Protectorate, 3 vols.), and to 1714 Ranke's _History of England_ (6 vols.; see also Firth's _Cromwell_ and _Cromwell's Army_, and various editions of texts and monographs). For Charles II. there is no good history; then come Macaulay, and Stanhope and Wyon's _Queen Anne_, and for the 18th century Stanhope and Lecky (England, 7 vols.; Ireland, 5 vols.). From 1793 to 1815 is another gap only partially filled. Spencer Walpole deals with the period from 1815 to 1880, and Herbert Paul with the years 1846-1895.

A few books on special subjects deserve mention. For legal history see Pollock and Maitland's _History of English Law_ (2 vols. to Edward I.), Maitland's _Domesday Book and Beyond_, and Anson's _Law and Custom of the Constitution_; for economic history, Cunningham's _Growth of Industry and Commerce_, and Ashley's _Economic History_; for ecclesiastical history, Stephens and Hunt's series (7 vols.); for foreign and colonial, Seeley's _British Foreign Policy_ and _Expansion of England_, and J. A. Doyle's books on the American colonies; for military history, Fortescue's _History of the British Army_, Napier's and Oman's works on the _Peninsular War_, and Kinglake's _Invasion of the Crimea_; and for naval history, Corbett's _Drake and the Tudor Navy, Successors of Drake, English in the Mediterranean_ and _Seven Years' War_, and Mahan's _Influence of Sea-Power on _History_ and _Influence_ of Sea-Power upon the French Revolution and Empire_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES.--The sources for the middle ages have been enumerated in C. Gross's _Sources and Literature of English History ... to about 1485_ (London, 1900), but there is nothing similar for modern history. G. C. Lee's _Source Book of English History_ is not very satisfactory. More information can be obtained from the 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 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. P.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As the name Edith (Eadgyth) sounded uncouth to Norman ears, she assumed the continental name Maheut or Mahelt (Eng. Mahald, later Mold and Maud), in Latin Matildis or Matilda. Sir J.H. Ramsay, _Foundations of England_, ii. 235. (Ed.)

[2] The Nottingham of 1387, who had been promoted to the higher title.

[3] Mr Andrew Lang takes a different view of the character of Albany and his attitude in this matter. See _Hist. of Scotland_, i. 289, and the article SCOTLAND: _History_.--ED.

[4] The peculiar absurdity of Henry's claim to be king of France was that if, on the original English claim as set forth by Edward III., heirship through females counted, then the earl of March was entitled to the French throne. A vote of the English parliament superseding March's claim in favour of that of Henry IV. could obviously have no legal effect in France.

[5] The events of the reign of Charles I. are treated in greater detail in the articles CHARLES I., King of Great Britain and Ireland; STRAFFORD; HAMPDEN; PYM; GREAT REBELLION; CROMWELL, &c.

[6] The position of the Corresponding Society was greatly strengthened by the establishment of the Friends of the People by Erskine and Grey.

[7] A vivid account of the mutiny and its causes is given in Captain Marryat's _King's Own_.

[8] Edward Henry Stanley, 15th earl of Derby, son of the 14th earl and former prime minister.