Chapter 7

*Elector-Palatine: a prince ruling over the I territory called the Palatinate in Victoria western Germany, on the Rhine. I +Elector of Hanover: a prince ruling over the Edward VII province of Hanover, a part of the German I Empire, lying on the North Sea. The elector George V received his title from the fact that he was one of a certain number of princes who had the right of electing the German Emperor.

533. Character of the New King.

The new sovereign was a selfish, coarse old man, who in private life would, as Lady Montagu said, have passed for an honest blockhead. He neither knew anything about England, nor did he desire to know anything of it. He could not speak a word of the language of the country he was called to govern, and he made no attempt to learn it; even the coronation service had to be explained to him as best it might, in such broken Latin as the ministers could muster.

Laboring under these disadvantages he wisely declined to take any active part in the affairs of the nation. He trusted everything to his Whig friends (S532) and let them, with Sir Robert Walpole at their head, manage the country in their own way.

Forunately, the great body of the English people were abundantly able to take care of themselves. A noted French writer said of them that they resembled a barrel of their own beer, froth at the top, dregs at the bottom, but thoroughly sound and wholesome in the middle. It was this middle class, with their solid practical good sense, that kept the nation right.

They were by no means enthusiastic worshipers of the German King who had come to reign over them, but they saw that he had three good qualities: he was no hypocrite, he did not waste the people's money, and he was a man of unquestioned courage. But they also saw more than this, for they realized that though George I might be as heavy, dull, and wooden as the figurehead of an old-fashioned ship, yet, like that figurehead, he stood for something greater and better than himself,-- for he represented Protestantism, with civil and religious liberty,-- and so the people gave him their allegiance.

534. Rise of Cabinet Government; the First Prime Minister.

The present method of Cabinet Government dates in great part from this reign. From the earliest period of English history the sovereign was accustomed to have a permanent council composed of some of the chief men of the realm, whom he consulted on all matters of importance (SS144, 145). Charles II, either because he found this body inconveniently large for the rapid transaction of business, or because he believed it inexpedient to discuss his plans with so many, selected a small confidential committee from it (S476). This committee met to consult with the King in his cabinet, or private room, and so came to be called "the Cabinet Council," or briefly, "the Cabinet," a name which it has ever since retained.

During Charles II's reign and that of his immediate successors the King continued to choose this special council from those whom he believed to be friendly to his measures, often without much regard to party lines, and he was aways present at their meetings. With the accession of George I, however, a great change took place. His want of acquaintance with prominent men made it difficult for him to select a Cabinet himself, and his ignorance of English rendered his presence at its meetings wholly useless. For these reasons the new King adopted the expedient of appointing a chief adviser, or Prime Minister, who personally chose his own Cabinet from men of the political party to which he belonged.

Sir Robert Walpole, who held this office of chief adviser for more than twenty years (1721-1742), is commonly considered to have been the first actual Prime Minister, and the founder of that system of Cabinet Government which prevails in England to-day. He was a master hand at managing his fellow ministers in the Cabinet, and when one of them, named Townshend, aspired to share the leadership, Walpole said to him, "The firm must be Walpole and Townshend, not Townshend and Walpole." But later (1741) a minority in the Lords protested "that a sole or even First Minister is an officer unknown to the law of Britain, inconsistent withthe Constitution of this country, and destructive of liberty in any government whatsoever." Then Walpole thought it expedient to disclaim the title; but many years later the younger Pitt declared (1803) that there ought to be "an avowed minister possessing the chief weight in the Council" or Cabinet, and that view eventually prevailed.[1] The Cabinet, or "Government," as it is usually called,[2] generally consists of twelve or fifteen persons chosen by the Prime Minister, or Premier,[3] from the leading members of both houses of Parliament, but whose political views agree in the main with the majority of the House of Commons.[4]

But this system, as it now stands, was gradually developed. It had advanced to such a point under the dictatorial rule of Sir Robert Walpole that George II, chafing under the restriction of his power, said bitterly, "In England the ministers are King." George III, however, succeeded, for a time, in making himself practically supreme, but Cabinet Government soon came to the front again, and, under William IV, the Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, ceased to look to the sovereign for guidance and support, and became responsible to the House of Commons (provided that body reflects the public opinion of the nation).

[1] Feilden's "Constitutional History of England," Taswell-Langmead's "English Constitutional History," and A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," 2 vols. [2] "The Cabinet, the body to which, in common use, we have latterly come to give the name of Government." Encyclopaedia Britannica (10th edition, VIII, 297). [3] "Premier": from the French premier, first or chief. [4] The existence of the Cabinet depends on custom, not law. Its three essential characteristics are generally considered to be: (1) Practical unanimity of party; (2) Practical unity of action under the leadership of the Prime Minister; (3) Collective responsibility to the party in the House of Commons which represents the political majority of the nation. Its members are never OFFICIALLY made known to the public, nor its proceedings recorded. Its meetings, which take place at irregular intervals, according to pressure of business, are entirely secret, and the sovereign is never present. As the Cabinet agrees in its composition with the majority of the House of Commons, it follows that if the Commons are Conservative, the Cabinet will be so likewise; and if Liberal, the reverse. Theoretically, the sovereign chooses the Cabinet; but practically the selection is now always made by the Prime Minister. If at any time the Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, finds that his political policy no longer agrees with that of the House of Commons, he and the other members of the Cabinet resign, and the sovereign chooses a new Prime Minister from the opposite party, who forms a new Cabinet in harmony with himself and the Commons. If, however, the Prime Minister has good reason for believing that a different House of Commons would support him, the sovereign may, by his advice, dissolve Parliament. A new election then takes place, and according to the political character of the members returned, the Cabinet remains in or goes out of power. The Cabinet, or Government, now invariably includes the following officers:

1. The First Lord of the Treasury (usually the Prime Minister). 2. The Lord Chancellor. 3. The Lord President of the Council. 4. The Lord Privy Seal. 5. The Chancellor of the Exchequer. 6. The Secretary of State for Home Affairs. 7. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 8. The Secretary of State for the Colonies. 9. The Secretary of State for India. 10. The Secretary of State for War. 11. The First Lord of the Admiralty.

In addition, a certain number of other officers are frequently included, making the whole number about twelve or fifteen.

535. The "Pretender"; "The Fifteen" (1715); the Septennial Act (1716).

The fact that George I exclusively favored the Whigs exasperated the opposite, or Tory, party. The Jacobites or extreme members of that party (S495), in Scotland, with the secret aid of many in England, now rose, in the hope of placing on the throne James Edward Stuart, the son of James II. He was called the "Chevalier"[1] by his friends, but the "Pretender" by his enemies (SS490, 491, 512). The insurrection was led by John, Earl of Mar, who, from his frequent change of politics, had got the nickname of "Bobbing John." Mar encountered the royal forces at Sheriffmuir, in Perthsire, Scotland (1715), where an indecisive battle was fought, which the old ballad thus describes:

"There's some say that we won, and some say that they won, And some say that none won at a', man; But one thing is sure, that at Sheriffmuir A battle there was, which I saw, man."

[1] The Chevalier de St. George: After the birth of the "Chevalier's" son Charles in 1720, the father was known by the nickname of the "Old Pretender," and the son as the "Young Pretender." So far as birth could entitle them to the crown, they held the legal right of succession; but the Revolution of 1688 and the Act of Settlement barred them out (S497).

On the same day of the fight at Sheriffmuir, the English Jacobites (S495), with a body of Scotch allies, marched into Preston, Lancashire, and there surrendered, almost without striking a blow.

The leaders of the movement, except the Earl of Mar, who, with one or two others, escaped to the Continent, were beheaded or hanged, and about a thousand of the rank and file were sold as slaves to the West India and Virginia plantations (S487). The "Pretender" himself landed in Scotland a few weeks after the defeat of his friends; but finding no encouragement, he hurried back to the Continent again. Thus ended the rebellion known from the year of its outbreak (1715) as "The Fifteen."

One result of this was the passage of the septennial Act (1716), extending the duration of Parliament from three years, which was the longest time that body could sit (SS439, 517), to seven years (since reduced to five years).[2] The object of this change was to do away with the excitement and tendency to rebellion at that time, resulting from frequent elections, in which party feeling ran to dangerous extremes.

[2] The Triennial Act (SS439, 517) provided that at the end of three years Parliament must be dissolved and a new election held. This was to prevent the sovereign from keeping that body in power indefinitely, contrary, perhaps, to the political feeling of the country, which might prefer a different set of representatives. Under the Septennial Act the time was extended four years, making seven in all, but the sovereign may, of course, dissolve Parliament at any time. In 1911 the Parliament Act (S631) limited the duration of Parliament to five years.

536. The South Sea Bubble, 1720.

A few years later a gigantic enterprise was undertaken by the South Sea Company, a body of merchants originally organized as a company trading in the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A Scotchman named Law had started a similar project in France, known as the "Mississippi Company," which proposed to pay off the national debt of France from the profits of its commerce with the West Indies and the country bordering on the Mississippi River.

Following his example, the South Sea Company now undertook to pay off the English National Debt (S503), mainly, it is said, from the profits of the slave trade between Africa and Brazil.[1] Sir Robert Walpole (S534) had no faith in the scheme, and attacked it vigorously; but other influential members of the Government gave it their encouragement. The directors came out with prospectuses promising dividends of fifty per cent on all money invested. Everybody rushed to buy stock, and the shares rapidly advaced from 100 pounds to 1000 pounds a share.

[1] Loftie's "History of London"; and see S512.

A speculative craze followed, the like of which has never since been known. Bubble companies sprang into existence with objects almost as absurd as those of the philosophers whom Swift ridiculed in "Gulliver's Travel's," where one man was trying to make gunpowder out of ice, and another to extract sunbeams from cucumbers.

A mere list of these companies would fill several pages. One was to give instruction in astrology, by which every man might be able to foretell his own destiny by examining the stars; a second was to manufacture butter out of beech trees; a third was for a wheel for driving machinery, which once started would go on forever, thereby furnishing a cheap perpetual motion.

A fourth projector, going beyond all the rest in audacity, had the impudence to offer stock for sale in an enterprise "which shall be revealed hereafter." He found the public so gullible and so greedy that he sold 2000 pounds worth of the new stock in the course of a single morning. He then prudently disappeard with the cash, and the unfortunate investors found that where he went with their money was not among the things to "be revealed hereafter."

The narrow passage leading to the London stock exchange was crowded all day long with struggling fortune hunters, both men and women. Suddenly, when the excitement was at its height, the bubble burst, as Law's scheme in France had a little earlier.

Great numbers of people were hopelessly ruined, and the cry for vengeance was as loud as the bids for stock had once been. One prominent government official who had helped to blow the bubble was sent to the Tower. Another committed suicide rather than face a parliamentary committee of investigation, one of whose members had suggested that it would be an excellent plan to sew the South Sea directors up in sacks and throw them into the Thames.

537. How a Terrible Disease was conquered, 1721, 1796.

But among the new things which the people were to try in that century was one which led to most beneficient results. For many generations the great scourge of Europe was the smallpox. Often the disease was as violent as the plague (S474), and carried off nearly as many victims. Medical art, seemed powerless to deal with it, and even in years of ordinary health in England about one person out of ten died of this loathsome pestilence. In the early part of George I's reign, Lady Mary Montagu, then traveling to Turkey, wrote that the Turks were in the habit of inoculating their children for the disease, which rendered it much milder and less fatal, and that she was about to try the experiment on her own son.

Later, Lady Montagu returned to England, and through her influence and example the practice was introduced there, 1721. It was tried first on five criminals in Newgate who had been sentenced to the gallows, but were promised their freedom if they would consent to the operation. As it proved a complete success, the Princess of Wales, with the King's consent, caused it to be tried on her daughter, with equally good results.

The medical profession, however, generally refused to sanction the practice, and the clergy in many cases preached against it as an "invention of Satan, intended to counteract the purposes of an all-wise Providence." But through the perseverance and good sense of Lady Montagu, with a few others, the new practice gradually gained ground. Subsequently Dr. Jenner began to make experiments of a different kind, which led, late in the century (1796-1798), to the discovery of vaccination, by which millions of lives have been saved; this, and the discovery of the use of ether in our own time (S615), may justly be called two of the greatest triumphs of the art of medicine.

538. How Sir Robert Walpole governed.

We have seen that Sir Robert Walpole (S534) became the first Prime Minister in 1721, and that he continued in office as head of the Cabinet, or Government, until near the middle of the next reign. He was an able financier, and succeeded in reducing the National Debt (S503). He believed in keeping the country out of war, and also, as we have seen, out of "bubble speculation" (S536). Finally, he was determined at all cost to maintain the Whig party in power, and the Protestant Hanoverian sovereigns on the throne (SS515, 532).

In order to accomplish these objects, he openly bribed members of Parliament to support his party; he bought votes and carried elections by gifts of titles, honors, and bank notes. He thus proved to his own satisfaction the truth of his theory that most men "have their price," and that an appeal to the pocketbook is both quicker and surer than an appeal to the principle. But before the end of his ministry he had to confess that he had found in the House of Commons a "boy patriot," as he sneeringly called him, named William Pitt (afterward Earl of Chatham), whom neither his money could buy nor his ridicule move (SS549, 550).

Bad as Walpole's policy was in its corrupting influence on the nation, it as an admission that the time had come when the King could no longer venture to rule by force, as in hte days of the Stuarts. It meant that the Crown no longer possessed the arbitrary power it once wielded. Walpole was a fox, not a lion; and "foxes," as Emerson tells us, "are so cunning because they are not strong."

539. Summary.

Though George I did little for England except keep the "Pretender" (S535) from the throne by occupying it himself, yet that was no small advantage, since it gave the country peace. The establishment of Cabinet Government under Sir Robert Walpole as the first Prime Minister, the suppression of the Jacobite insurrection, the disastrous collapse of the South Sea Bubble, and the introduction of vaccination are the principle events.

George II--1727-1760

540. Accession and Character.

The second King George, who was also of German birth, was much like his father, though he had the advantage of being able to speak English readily, but with a strong German accent. His tastes were far from being refined and he bluntly declared, "I don't like Boetry, and I don't like Bainting." His wife, Queen Caroline, was an able woman. She possessed the happy art of ruling her husband without his suspecting it, while she, on the other hand, was ruled by Sir Robert Walpole, whom the King hated, but whom he had to keep as Prime Minister (SS534, 538). George II was a good soldier, and decidedly preferred war to peace; but Walpole saw clearly that the peace policy was best for the nation, and he and the Queen managed to persuaded the King not to draw the sword.

541. The War of Jenkins's Ear (1739).

At the end of twelve years, however, trouble arose with Spain. According to the London newspapers of that day, a certain Captain Jenkins, while cruising, or, more probably, smuggling, in the West Indies, had been seized by the Spaniards and barbarously maltreated. They, if we accept his tory, accused him of attempting to land English goods contrary to law, and searched his ship. Finding nothing against him, they vented their rage and disappointment by hanging him to the yardarm of his vessel until he was nearly dead.

They then tore off one of his ears, and bade him take it to the King of England with their compliments. Jenkins, it is said, carefully wrapped up his ear and put it in his pocket. When he reached England, he went straight to the House of Commons, drew out the mutilated ear, showed it to the House, and demanded justice.

The Spanish restrictions on English trade with the Indies and South America[1] had long been a source of ill feeling. The sight of Jenkins's ear brought matters to a climax; even Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, could not resist the clamor for vengeance, and contrary to his own judgment he had to vote for war (S538).

[1] By the Treaty of Utrecht one English ship was allowed to carry slaves once a year to the colonies of Spanish America (S512, note 1).

Though Jenkins was the occasion, the real object of the war was to compel Spain to permit the English to get a larger share in the lucrative commerce, especially the slave trade, with the New World. It was another proof that America was now rapidly becoming an important factor in he politics of Great Britain (SS421, 422).

The announcement of hostilities with Spain was received in London with delight, and bells pealed from every steeple. "Yes," said Walpole," they may ring the bells now, but before long they will be wringing their hands." This prediction was verified by the heavy losses the English suffered in an expedition against the Spanish settlement of Carthagena, South America. But later the British commander, Commodore Anson, inflicted great damage on the Spanish colonies, and returned to England with vessels laden with large amounts of captured silver.

542. War of the Austrian Succession, 1741; Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.

On the death of Charles VI, of the House of Austria, Emperor of Germany, his daughter Maria Theresa succeeded to the Austrian dominions. France now united with Spain, Prussia, and other European powers to overturn this arrangement, partly out of jealousy of the Austrian power, and partly from desire to get control of portions of the Austrian possessions. England and Holland, however, both desired to maintain Austria as a check against their old enemy France, and declared war, 1741.

During this war George II went over to the Continent to lead the English forces in person. He was not a man of commanding appearance, but he was every inch a soldier, and nothing exhilarated him like the smell of gunpowder. At the battle of Dettingen, in Bavaria, he got down from his horse, and drawing his sword, cried: "Come, boys, now behave like men, and the French will soon run."

With that, followed by his troops, he rused upon the enemy with such impetuosity that they turned and fled. This was the last battle in which an English king took part in person. It was followed by that of Fontenoy, in the Netherlands (Belgium), in which the French gained the victory. After nearly eight years fighting the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, secured a peace advantageous for England.

543. Invasion by the "Young Pretender"; "The Forty-Five."[1]

[1] "The Forty-Five": so called from the Scotch rising of 1745.

While the War of the Austrian Succession was in progress, the French encouraged James II's grandson, Princle Charles Edward, the "Young Pretender" (S535), to make an attempt on the English crown. He landed (1745) on the northern coast of Scotland with only seven followers, but with the aid of the Scotch Jacobites (SS495, 535) of the Highlands he gained a battle over the English at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. Emboldened by his success, he now marched into Derbyshire, England, on his way to London. He hoped that as he advanced the country would rise in his favor; but finding no support, he retreated to Scotland.

The next year he and his adherents were defeated, with great slaughter by "Butcher" Cumberland, as the Scotch called him, at Culloden, near Iverness (1746). (See map facing p. 120.) The "Young Pretender" fled from the battlefield to the Hebrides. After wandering in those islands for many months he escaped to France through the devotion and courage of the Scottish heroine, Flora Macdonald. When he left the country his Highland sympathizers lost all hope. There were no more ringing Jacobite songs, sung over bowls of steaming punch, of "Wha'll be king but Charlie?" "Over the Water to Charlie," and "Wae's me for Prince Charlie"; and when (1788) Prince Charles Edward died in Rome, the unfortunate House of Stuart, which began with James I (1603), disappeared from English history.[2]

[2] Devoted loyalty to a hopeless cause was never more truly or pathetically expressed than in some of these Jacobite songs, notably in those of Scotland, in honor of Prince Charles Edward, the "Young Pretender," of which the following lines from "Over the Water to Charlie" are an example: "Over the water, and over the sea, And over the water to Charlie; Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, And live or die with Charlie." Scott, "Redgauntlet"

544. War in the East; the Black Hole of Calcutta; Clive's Victories; English Empire of India, 1751-1757.

The English acquired Madras, their first trading post in India, in the reign of Charles I (1639). Later, they obtained possession of Bombay, Calcutta, and other points, but they had not got control of the country, which was still governed by native princes. The French also had established an important trading post at Pondicherry, south of Madras, and were now secretly planning through alliance with the native rulers to get possession of the entire country. They had met with some success in their efforts, and the times seemed to favor their gaining still greater influence unless some decided measures should be taken to prevent them.

At this juncture Robert Clive, a young man who had been employed as clerk in the service of the English East India Company, but who had obtained a humble position in the army, obtained permission to try his hand at driving back the enemy. It was a work for which he was fitted. He met with success from the first, and he followed it up by the splendid victory of Arcot, 1751, which practically gave the English control of southern India. Shortly after that, Clive returned to England.

During his absence the native prince of Bengal undertook an expedition against Calcutta, a wealthy British trading post. He captured the fort which protected it (1756), and seizing the principal English residents, one hundred and forty-six in number, drove them at the point of the sword into a prison called the "Black Hole," a dungeon less than twenty feet square, and having but two small windows.

In such a climate, in the fierce heat of midsummer, that dungeon would have been too close for a single European captive; to crowd it with more than sevenscore persons for a night meant death by all the agonies of heat, thirst, and suffocation. In vain they endeavored to bribe the guard to transfer part of them to another room, in vain they begged for mercy, in vain they tried to burst the door. Their jailers only mocked them and would do nothing.

When daylight came the floor was heaped with corpses. Out of the hundred and forty-six prisoners only twenty-three were alive and they were so changed "that their own mothers would not have known them."[1]

[1] Macaulay's "Essay on Clive."

When Clive returned he was met with a cry for vengeance. He gathered his troops, recovered Calcutta, and ended by fighting that great battle of Plassey, 1757, which was the means of permanently establishing the English empire in India on a firm foundation. (See map opposite.)

545. The Seven Years' War in Europe and America, 1756-1763.

Before the contest had closed by which England won her Asiatic dominions, a new war had broken out. In the fifth year, 1756, of the New Style[2] of reckoning time, the aggressive designs of Frederick the Great of Prussia caused such alarm that a grand alliance was formed by France, Russia, Austria, and Poland to check his further advance. Great Britain, however, gave her support to Frederick, in hope of humbling her old enemy France, who, in addition to her attempts to oust the English from India, was also making preparations on a grand scale to get possession of America.

[2] The New Style was introduced into Great Britain in 1752. Owing to a slight error in the calendar, the year had, in the course of centuries, been gradually losing, so that in 1752 it was eleven days short of what the true computation would make it. Pope Gregory corrected the error in 1582, and his calendar was adopted in nearly every country of Europe except Great Britain and Russia, both of which regarded the change as a "popish measure." But in 1751, notwithstanding the popular outcry, September 3, 1752, was made September 14, by an act of Parliament, and by the same act the beginning of the legal year was altered from March 25 to January 1. The popular clamor against the reform is illustrated in Hogarth's picture of an Election Feast, in which the People's party carry a banner, with the inscription, "Give us back our eleven days."

Every victory, therefore, which the British forces could gain in Europe would, by crippling the French, make the ultimate victory of the English in America so much the more certain; for this reason we may look upon the alliance with Frederick as an indirect means employed by England to protect her colonies on the other side of the Atlantic. These colonies now extended along the entire coast, from the Kennebec Riber, in Maine, to the borders of Florida.

The French, on the other hand, had planted colonies at Quebec and Montreal, on the St. Lawrence; at Detroit, on the Great Lakes; at New Orleans and other points on the Mississippi. They had also begun to build a line of forts along the Ohio River, which, when completed, would connect their northern and southern colonies, and thus secure to them the whole country west of the Alleghenies. They expected to conquer the East as well, to erase Virginia, New England, and all other English colonial titles from the map, and in their place to put the name New France.

During the first part of the war, the English were unsuccessful. In an attempt to take Fort Duquesne, General Braddock met with a crushing defeat (1756) from the combined French and Indian forces, which would indeed have proved his utter destruction had not a young Virginian named George Washington saved a remnant of Braddock's troops by his calmness and courage. Not long afterwards, a second expedition was sent out against the French fort, in which Washington led the advance. The garrison fled at his approach, the English colors were run up, and the place was named Pittsburg, in honor of William Pitt, later, Lord Chatham, Secretary of State, but virtually Prime Minister (S534) of England.

About the same time, the English took the forts on the Bay of Fundy, and drove out several thousand French settlers from Acadia, or Nova Scotia. Other successes followed, by which they obtained possession of important points. Finally, Canada was won from the French by Wolfe's victory over Montcalm, at Quebec, 1759.[1] where both gallant soldiers verified the truth of the words, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"[2] which the English general had quoted to some brother officers the vening before the attack. This ended the war.

[1] See "Leading Facts of American History," in this series, S142. [2] "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour; The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Gray, "Elegy" (1750) "I would rather be the author of that poem," said Wolfe, "than to have the glory of beating the French to-morrow." Wolfe and Montcalm were both mortally wounded and died within a few hours of each other.

Spain now ceded Florida to Great Britain, so that, when peace was made in 1763, the English flag waved over the whole eastern half of the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Thus, within a comparatively few years, England had gained an empire in the east (India) (S544) and another in the west (America).

Six years later (1769) Captain Cook explored and mapped the coast of New Zealand, and next the eastern coast of the island continent of Australia. Before the middle of the following century both these countries were added to the possessions of Great Britain. Then, as Daniel Webster said, her "morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours," literally circled "the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."

546. Moral Condition of England; Intemperance; Rise of the Methodists, 1738.

But grand as were the military successes of the British arms, the reign of George II was morally torpid. With the exception of a few public men like Pitt, the majority of the Whig party (S479) seemed animated by no higher motive than self-interest. It was an age whose want of faith, coarseness, and brutality were well protrayed by Hogarth's pencil and Fielding's pen.

For a long time intemperance had been steadily on the increase; strong drink had taken the place of beer, and every attempt to restrict the traffic was met at the elections by the popular cry, "No gin, no king." The London taverns were thronged day and night, and in the windows of those frequented by the lowest class placards were exhibited with the tempting announcement, "Drunk for a penny; dead drunk for twopence; clean straw for nothing." On the straw lay men and women in beastly helplessness.

Among the upper classes matters were hardly better. It was a common thing for great statesmen to drink at public dinners until one by one they slid out of their seats and disappeared under the table; and Sir Robert Walpole, the late Prime Minister of England (S534, 538), said that when he was a young man his father would say to him as he poured out the wine, "Come, Robert, you shall drink twice while I drink once, for I will not permit the son in his sober senses to be witness of the intoxication of his father."[1]

[1] Coxe's "Memoirs of Walpole" and Lecky's "England."

Such was the condition of England when a great religious revival began, 1738. Its leader was John Wesley. A number of years earlier, while a tutor at Oxford, he and his brother Charles, with a few others, were accustomed to meet at certain hours for devotional exercises. The regularity of their meetings, and of their habits generally, got for them the name of "Methodists," which, like "Quaker" and many another nickname of the kind, was destined to become a title of respect and honor.

At first Wesley had no intention of separating from the Church of England, but labored only to quicken it to new life; eventually, however, he found it best to begin a more extended and independent movement. The revival swept over England with its regenerating influence, and was carried by Whitefield, Wesley's lifelong friend, across the sea to America. It was especially powerful among those who had hitherto scoffed at both Church and Bible. Rough and hardened men were touched and melted to tears of repentance by the fervor of this Oxford graduate, whom neither threats nor ridicule could turn aside from his one great purpose of saving souls.

Unlike the Church, Wesley did not ask the multitude to come to him; he went to them. In this respect his work recalls that of the "Begging Friars" of the thirteenth century (S208), and of Wycliffe's "Poor Priests" in the fourteenth (S254). For more than thirty years he rode on horseback from one end of England to the other, making known the glad tidings of Christian hope. He preached in the fields, under trees which are still known by the expressive name of "Gospel Oaks"; he spoke in the abandoned mining pits of Cornwall, at the corners of the streets in cities, on the docks, in the slums; in fact, wherever he could find listening ears and responsive hearts.

The power of Wesley's appeal was like that of the great Puritan movement of the seventeenth century (SS378, 417). Nothing more effective had been heard since the days when Augustine and his band of monks set forth on their mission among the barbarous Saxons (S42). The results answered fully to the zeal that awakened them. Better than the growing prosperity of extending commerce, better than all the conquests made by the British flag in the east or west, was the new religious spirit which stirred the people of both England and America. It provoked the National Church to emulation in good works; it planted schools, checked intemperance, and brought into vigorous activity whatever was best and bravest in a race that when true to itself is excelled by none.

547. Summary.

The history of the reign may be summed up in the great Religious Movement begun by John Wesley, which has just been described, and in the Asiatic, Continental, and American wars with France, which ended in the extension of the power of Great Britain in both hemispheres,-- in India in the Old World and in North America in the New.

George III--1760-1820

548. Accession and Character; the King's Struggle with the Whigs.

By the death of George II his grandson,[1] George III, now came to the throne. The new King was a man of excellent character, who prided himself on having been born an Englishman. He had the best interests of his country at heart, but he lacked many of the qualities necessary to be a great ruler. He was thoroughly conscientious, but he was narrow and stubborn to the last degree and he was at times insane.

[1] Frederick, Prince of Wales, George II's son, died before his father, leaving his son George heir to the throne. See Genealogical Table, p. 323.

His mother, who had seen how ministers and parties ruled in England (S534), resolved that her son should have the control. Her constant injunction to the young Prince was, "Be King, George, be King!" so that when he came to power George was determined to be King if self-will could make him one.[2]

[2] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p.xxv, S28.

But beneath this spirit of self-will there was a moral principle. In being King, George III intended to carry out a reform such as neither George I nor George II could have accomplished, supposing that either one had possessed the desire to undertake it.

The great Whig (SS479, 507) families of rank and wealth had now held uninterrupted possession of the government for nearly half a century. Their influence was so supreme that the sovereign had practically become a mere cipher, dependent for his authority on the political support which he received. The King was resolved that this state of things should continue no longer. He was determined to reassert the royal authority, secure a government which should reflect his principles, and have a ministry to whom he could dictate, instead of one that dictated to him.

For a long time he struggled in vain, but at last succeeded, and found in Lord North a Prime Minister (S534) who bowed to the royal will, and endeavored to carry out George III's favorite policy of "governing for, but never by, the people." That policy finally called forth Mr. Dunning's famous resolution in the House of Commons (1780). It boldly declared the King's influence "had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished." But his Majesty's measures had other consequences, which were more far-reaching and disastrous than any one in the House of Commons then imagined.

549. Taxation of the American Colonies.

The wars of the two preceding reigns had largely increased the National Debt (S503), and the Government resolved to compel the American colonies to share in a more direct degree than they had yet done the constantly increasing burden of taxation. England then, like all other European countries, regarded her colonies in a totally different way from that in which she considers the colonies she now holds.

It was an open question at that time whether colonial legislative rights existed save as a matter of concession or favor on the part of the Home Government. It is true that the Government had found it expedient to grant or recognize such rights, but it had seldom defined them clearly, and in many important respects no one knew just what the settlers of Virginia or Massachusetts might or might not lawfully do.[1]

[1] Story's "Constitution of the United States."

The mother country, however, was perfectly clear on three points:

1. That the American colonies were convenient receptacles for the surplus population, good or bad, of the British Islands. 2. That they were valuable as sources of revenue and profit, politically and commercially. 3. That, finally, they furnished excellent opportunities for the King's friends to get office and make fortunes.

Such had long been the feeling about India, and such too was the feeling, modified by difference of circumstances, about America.

Politically the English colonists in America enjoyed a large measure of liberty. So far as local legislation was concerned, they were in most cases preactically self-governing and independent. So, too, their personal rights were carefully safeguarded. On the other hand, the commercial policy of England toward her colonies, though severely restrictive, was far less so than that of Spain or France toward theirs. The Navigation Laws (S459) compelled the Americans to confine their trade to England alone, or to such foreign ports as she directed. If they sent a hogshead of tobacco or a barrel of salt fish to another country by any but an English or a colonial built bessel, they were legally liable to forfeith their goods. On the other hand, they enjoyed the complete monopoly of the English tobacco market, and in certain cases they received bounties on some of their products. Furthermore, the Navigation Laws had not been rigidly enforced for a long time, and the New England colonists generally treated them as a dead letter.

When George III came to the throne he resolved to revive the enforcement of the Navigation Laws, to build up the British West Indies, and to restrict the colonial trade with the Spanish and French West Indies. This was done, not for the purpose of crippling American commerce, but either to increase English revenue or to inflict injury on foreign rivals or enemies.

Furthermore, British manufacturers had at an earlier period induced the English Government to restrict certain American home manufactures. In accordance with that policy, Parliament had enacted statutes which virtually forbade the colonists making their own woolen cloth, or their own beaver hats, except on a very limited scale. They had a few ironworks, but they were forbidden to erect another furnace, or another mill for manufacturing iron rods or plates, and such industries were declared to be a nuisance.

William Pitt, who later became Lord Chatham (S538), was one of the warmest friends that America had; but he openly advocated this narrow policy, saying that if British interests demanded it he would not permit the colonists to make so much as a "horseshoe nail." Adam Smith, an eminent English political economist of that day, vehemently condemned the British Government's colonial mercantile system as suicidal; but his condemnation came too late to have any effect. The fact was that the world was not ready then--if indeed it is yet--to receive the gospel of "Live and let live."

550. The Stamp Act, 1765.

In accordance with these theories about the colonies, and to meet the pressing needs of the Home Government, the English ministry proceeded to levy a tax on the colonies (1764) in return for the protection they granted them against the French and the Indians. The colonists, however, had paid their full proportion of the expense of the French and Indian wars out of their own pockets, and they now felt abundantly able to protect themselves.

But notwithstanding this plea, a form of direct tax on the American colonies, called the stamp tax, was brought forward in 1765. The proposed law required that a multitude of legal documents, such as deeds, wills, notes, receipts, and the like, should be written upon paper bearing stamps, purchased from the agents of the Home Government. The colonists, generally, protested against the passage of the law, and Benjamin Franklin, with other agents, was sent to England to sustain their protests by argument and remonstrance. But in spite of their efforts the law was passed, and the stamps were sent over to America. The people, however, refused to use them, and serious riots ensued.

In England strong sympathy with the colonists was expressed by William Pitt (Lord Chatham), Burke, Fox, and generally by what was well called "the brains of Parliament." Pitt in particular was extremely indignant. He urged the immediate repeal of the act, saying, "I rejoice that America has resisted."

Pitt further declared that any taxation of the colonies without their representation in Parliament was tyranny, and that opposition to such taxation was a duty. He vehemently insisted that the spirit shown by the Americans was the same that had withstood the despotism of the Stuarts in England (S436), and established the principle once for all that the King cannot take his subject's money without that subject's consent (S436). So, too, Fox ardently defended the American colonists, and boldly maintained that the stand they had taken helped "to preserve the liberties of mankind."[1]

[1] See Bancroft's "United States," III, 107-108; "Columbia University Studies," III, No. 2, "The Commercial Policy of England toward the American Colonies"; Lecky's "American Revolution"; and C. K. Adams's "British Orations."

Against such opposition the law could not stand. The act was accordingly repealed (1766), amid great rejoicing in London; the church bells rang out in triumph, and the shipping in the Thames was illuminated. But the good effect on America was lost by the passage of another act which maintained the unconditional right of Parliament to legislate for the colonies, and to tax them, if it saw fit, without their consent.

551. The Tea Tax and the "Boston Tea Party," 1773, with its Results.

Another plan was now devised for getting money from the colonies. Parliament enacted a law (1767) compelling the Americans to pay taxes on a number of imports, such as glass, paper, and tea. In opposition to this law, the colonists formed leagues refusing to use these taxed articles, while at the same time they encouraged smugglers to land them secretly, and the regular trade suffered accordingly.

Parliament, finding that this was bad both for the government and for commerce, now abolished all of these duties except that on tea (1770). That duty was retained for a double purpose: first, and chiefly, to maintain the principle of the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies; and, next, to aid the East India Company, which was pleading piteeously for help.

In consequence mainly of the refusal of the American colonies to buy tea, the London warehouses of the East India Company were full to overflowing with surplus stock, and the company itself was in a half-bankrupt condition. The custom had been for the company to bring the tea to England, pay a tax on it, and then sell it to be reshipped to America. To aid the company in its embarrassment, the Government now agreed to remit this first duty altogether, and to impose a tax of only threepence (six cents) a pound on the consumers in America.

In itself the threepenny tax was a trifle, as the ship-money tax of twenty shillnigs was to John Hampden (S436); but underlying it was a principle which seemed to the Americans, as it had seemed to Hampden, no trifle; for such principles revolutions had been fought in the past; for such they would be fought in the future.

The colonists resolved not to have the tea at any price. A number of ships laden with the taxed herb arrived at the port of Boston. The tea was seized by a band of men disguised as Indians, and thrown into the harbor, 1773. The news of that action made the King and his ministry furious. Parliament sympathized with the Government, and in retaliation passed four laws of such severity that the colonists nicknamed them the "Intolerable Acts."

The first law was the "Boston Port Act," which closed the harbor to all trade; the second was the "Regulating Act," which virtually annulled the charter of Massachusetts, took the government away from the people, and gave it to the King; the third was the "Administration of Justice Act," which ordered that Americans who committed murder in resistance to oppression should be sent to England for trial; the fourth was the "Quebec Act," which declared the country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi a part of Canada.[1] The object of this last act was to conciliate the French Canadians, and secure their help against the colonists in case of rebellion.

[1] Embracing territory now divided into the five states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, with eastern Minnesota.

Even after Parliament had enacted these four drastic measures a compromise might have been effected, and peace maintained, if the counsels of the best men had been followed; but George III would listen to no policy short of coercion. He meant well, but his brain was not well balanced, he was subject to attacks of mental derangement, and his one idea of BEING KING at all hazards had become a kind of monomania (S548). Pitt condemned such oppression as morally wrong, Burke denounced it as inexpedient, and Fox, another prominent member of Parliament, wrote, "It is intolerable to think that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief."

For the time, at least, the King was as unreasonable as any of the Stuarts. The obstinacy of Charles I cost him his head, that of James II his kingdom, that of George III resulted in a war which saddled the English taxpayer with an additional debt of 120,000,000 pounds, and forever detached from Great Britain the fairest and richest dominions that she ever possessed.

552. The American Revolution; Independence declared, 1776.

In 1775 war began, and the stand made by the patriots at Lexington and the fighting which followed at Concord and Bunker Hill showed that the Americans were in earnest. The cry of the colonists had been, "No taxation without representation"; now they had got beyond that, and demanded, "No legislation without representation." But events moved so fast that even this did not long suffice, and on July 4, 1776, the colonies, in Congress assembled, solemnly declared themselves free and independent.

As far back as the French war there was at least one man who foresaw this declaration. After the English had taken Quebec (S545), an eminent French statesman said of the American colonies with respect to Great Britain, "They stand no longer in need of her protection; she will call on them to contribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped to bring on her; and they will answer by striking off all dependence."[2]

[2] This was Vergennes; see Bancroft's "History of the United States."

This prophecy was now fulfilled. After the Americans had defeated Burgoyne in 1777 the English ministry became alarmed; they declared themselves ready to make terms; they offered to grant everything but independence;[3] but they had opened their eyes to the facts too late, and nothing short of independence would now satisfy the colonists. Attempts were made to open negotiations with General Washington, but the commander in chief declined to receive a letter from the English Government addressed to him, not in his official capacity, but as "George Washington, Esq.," and so the matter came to nothing.

[3] This was after France had recognized the independence of the United States, 1778.

553. The Battle of Yorktown; the King acknowledges American Independence, 1782.

The war against the rebellious states was never really popular in England. From the outset great numbers refused to enlist to fight the Americans, and spoke of the contest as the "King's War" to show that the bulk of the English people did not encourage it. The struggle went on with varying success through seven heavy years, until, with the aid of the French, the Americans defeated Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.[1] By that battle France got her revenge for the loss of Quebec in 1759 (S545), and America finally won the cause for which she had spent so much life and treasure.

[1] It is pleasant to know that a hundred years later, in the autumn of 1881, a number of English gentlemen were present at the centennial celebration of the taking of Yorktown, to express their hearty good will toward the nation which their ancestors had tried in vain to keep a part of Great Britain.

George III could hold out no longer; on a foggy December morning in 1782, he entered the House of Lords, and with a faltering voice read a paper in which he acknowledged the independence of the United States of America. He closed his reading with the prayer that neither Great Britain nor America might suffer from the separation; and he expressed the hope that religion, language, interest, and affection might prove an effectual bond of union between the two countries.

Eventually the separation proved "a mutual advantage, since it removed to a great extent the arbitrary restrictions on trade, gave a new impetus to commerce, and immensely increased the wealth of both nations."[2]

[2] Goldwin Smith's lectures on "The Foundation of the American Colonies." In general see "Lecky's American Revolution," and the "Leading Facts of American History" or the "Student's American History," in this series.

554. The Lord George Gordon Riots (1780).

While the American war was in progress, England had not been entirely quiet at home. A prominent Whig leader in Parliament had moved the repeal of some of the most severe laws against the Roman Catholics.[3] The greater part of these measures had been enacted under William III, "when England was in mortal terror" of the restoration of James II (S491). The Solicitor-General said, in seconding the motion for repeal, that these lwas were "a disgrace to humanity." Parliament agreed with him in this matter. Because these unjust acts were stricken from the Statute Book, Lord George Gordon, a half-crazed fanatic,[1] who was in Parliament, led an attack upon the government (1780).

[3] The worst of these laws was that which punished a priest who should celebrate mass, with imprisonment for life. See Taswell-Langmead's "English Constitutional History," p.627, and compare J.F. Bright's "History of England," III, 1087. [1] Gordon seems to have been of unsound mind. He used to attack both political parties with such fury that it was jocosely said there were "three parties in Parliament--the ministry, the opposition, and Lord George Gordon."

For six days London was at the mercy of a furious mob of 50,000 people, who set fire to Catholic chapels, pillaged many dwellings, and committed every species of outrage. Newgate prison was broken into, the prisoners were released, and the prison was burned. No one was safe from attack who did not wear a blue cockade to show that he was a Protestant, and no man's house was secure unless he chalked "No Popery" on the door in conspicuous letters. In fact, one individual, in order to make doubly sure, wrote over the entrance to his residence: "No Religion Whatever." Before the riot was subdued a large amount of property had been destroyed and many lives sacrificed.

555. Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788).

Six years after the American Revolution came to an end Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India, was impeached for corrupt and cruel government in that distant province. He was tried before the House of Lords, gathered in Westminster Hall. On the side of Hastings was the powerful East India Company, ruling over a territory many times larger than the whole of Great Britain. Against him were arrayed the three ablest and most eloquent men in England,--Burke, Fox, and Sheridan.

"Raising his voice until the oak ceiling resounded, Burke exclaimed at the close of his fourth great speech, `I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all!'"

The trial was continued at intervals for over seven years. It resulted in the acquittal of the accused (1795); but it was proved that the chief business of those who went out to India was to wring fortunes from the natives, and then go back to England to live like "nabobs," and spend their ill-gotten money in a life of luxury. This fact, and the stupendous corruption that was shown to exist, eventually broke down the gigantic monopoly, and British India was thrown open to the trade of all nations.[1]

[1] See Macaulay's "Essay on Warren Hastings"; also Burke's "Speeches."

556. Liberty of the Press; Law and Prison Reforms; Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Since the discontinuance of the censorship of the press (S498), though newspapers were nominally free to discuss public affairs, yet the Government had no intention of permitting any severe criticism. On the other hand, there were men who were determined to speak their minds through the press on political as on all other matters. In the early part of the reign, John Wilkes, an able but scurrilous writer, attacked the policy of the Crown in violent terms (1763). Some years later (1769), a writer, who signed himself "Junius," began a series of letters in a daily paper, in which he handled the King and the "King's friends" still more roughly. An attempt was made by the Government to punish Wilkes and the publisher of the "Junius" letters, but it signally failed in both cases. Public feeling was plainly in favor of the freest political expression,[2] which was eventually conceded.

[2] Later, during the excitement caused by the French Revolution, there was a reaction from this feeling, but it was only temporary.

Up to this time parliamentary debates had rarely been reported. In fact, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, members of Parliament would have run the risk of imprisonment if their criticisms of royalty had been made public; but now, in 1771, the papers began to contain the speeches and votes of both Houses on important questions. Every effort was made to suppress these reports, but again the press gained the day. Henceforth the nation could learn how far its representatives really represented the will of the people, and so could hold them strictly accountable,--a matter of vital importance in every free government.[3]

[3] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xxvi, S30.

Another field of reform was also found. The times were brutal. The pillory still stood in the center of London;[4] and if the unfortunate offender who was put in it escaped with a shower of mud and other unsavory missiles, instead of clubs and brickbats, he was lucky indeed. Gentlemen of fashion arranged pleasure parties to visit the penitentiaries for women to see the wretched inmates whipped. The whole code of criminal law was savagely vindictive. Capital punishment was inflicted for about two hundred offenses, many of which would now be thought to be sufficiently punished by one or two months' imprisonment in the house of correction.

[4] The pillory (S531) was not abolished until the accession of Queen Victoria.

Not only men, but women and children even, were hanged for pilfering goods or food worth a few shillings.[1] The jails were crowded with poor wretches whom want had driven to theft, and who were "worked off" on the gallows every Monday morning in batches of a dozen or twenty, in sight of the jeering, drunken crowds who gathered to witness their death agonies.

[1] Five shillings, or $1.25, was the hanging limit; anything stolen above that sum in money or goods might send the thief to the gallows.

Through the efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly, Jeremy Bentham, and others, a reform was effected in this bloody code. Next, the labors of the philanthropic John Howard, and later of Elizabeth Fry, purified the jails of abuses which had made them not only dens of suffering and disease, but schools of crime as well.

The laws respecting the pubishment for debt were also changed for the better, and thousands of miserable beings who were without means to satisfy their creditors were set free, instead of being kept in useless lifelong imprisonment. At the same time Clarkson, Wilberforce, Fox, and Pitt were endeavoring to abolish that relic of barbarism, the African slave trade. After twenty years of persistent effort both in Parliament and out, they at last accomplished that great and beneficent work in 1807.

557. War with France (1793-1805); Battle of the Nile; Trafalgar, 1805.

Near the close of the century (1789) the French Revolution broke out. It was a violent and successful attempt to destroy those feudal institutions which France had outgrown, and which had, as we have seen, disappeared gradually in England after the rebellion of Wat Tyler (SS250, 252). At first the revolutionists received the hearty sympathy of many of the Whig party (S479), but after the execution of Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette,[1] England became alarmed not only at the horrible scenes of the Reign of Terror but at the establishment of the French democratic republic which seemed to justify them, and joined an alliance of the principal European powers for the purpose of restoring monarchy in France.

[1] See "Death of Marie Antoinette," in Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution."

Napoleon had now become the real head of the French nation, and seemed bent on making himself master of all Europe. He undertook an expedition against Egypt and the East, which was intended as a stepping-stone toward the ultimate conquest of the English empire in India, but his plans were frustrated by Nelson, who completely defeated the French fleet at the battle of the Nile (1798).

With the assistance of Spain, Napoleon next prepared to invade England, and was so confident of success that he caused a gold medal to be struck, bearing the inscription, "Descent upon England." "Struck at London, 1804." But the English warships drove the French and Spanish fleets into the harbor of Cadiz, and Napoleon had to postpone his great expedition for another year.[2] In the autumn of 1805, the French and Spanish fleets sallied forth determined to win. But Lord Nelson, that frail little man who had lost his right arm and the sight of his right eye fighting his country's battles, lay waiting for them off Cape Trafalgar,[3] near by.

[2] In 1801 Robert Fulton, of Pennsylvania, proposed to Napoleonthat he should build warships propelled by steam. The proposal was submitted to a committee of French scientists, who reported that it was absurd. Had Napoleon acted on Fulton's suggestion, his descent on England might have been successful. [3] Cape Trafalgar, on the southern coast of Spain.

Two days later he descried the enemy at daybreak. Both sides felt that the decisive struggle was at hand. With the exception of a long, heavy swell the sea was calm, with a light breeze, but sufficient to bring the two fleets gradually within range.

"As they drifted on their path There was silence deep as death; And the boldest held his breath For a time."[4]

[4] Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic," but applicable as well to Trafalgar.

Just before the action Nelson ran up this signal to the masthead of his ship, where all might see it: "England explects Every Man to do his Duty." The answer to it was three ringing cheers from the entire fleet, and the fight began. When it ended, Napoleon's boasted navy was no more. Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London, with its tall column bearing aloft a statue of Nelson, commemorates the decisive victory, which was dearly bought with the life of the great admiral.

The battle of Traflagar snuffed out Napoleon's projected invasion of England. He had lost his ships, and their commander, in his despair, committed suicide. The French Emperor could no longer hope to bridge "the ditch," as he derisively called the boisterous Channel, whose waves rose like a wall between him and the island which he hated (S14). A few years later, Napoleon, who had taken possession of Spain and placed his brother on the throne, was driven from that country by Sir Arthur Wellesly, destined to be better known as the Duke of Wellington, and the crown was restored to the Spanish nation.

558. Second War with the United States, 1812-1815.

The United States waged its first war with Great Britain to gain an independent national existence; in 1812 it declared a second war to secure its rights upon the sea. During the long and desperate struggle between England and France, each nation had prohibited neutral powers from commercial intercourse with the other, or with any country friendly to the other.

Furthermore, the English Government had laid down the principle that a person born on British soil could not become a citizen of another nation, but that "once an Englishman always an Englishman" was the only true doctrine. In accordance with that theory, it claimed the right to search American ships and take from them and force into their own service any seaman supposed to be of British birth. In this way Great Britian had seized more than six thousand men, and notwithstanding their protest that they were American citizens, either by birth or by naturalization, had compelled them to enter the English navy.

Other points in dispute between the two countries were in a fair way of being settled amicably, but there appeared to be no method of coming to terms in regard to the question of search and impressment, which was the most important of all, since though the demand of the United States was, in the popular phrase of the day, for "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," it was the last which was especially emphasized.

In 1812 war against Great Britain was declared, and an attack made on Canada which resulted in the American forces being driven back. During the war British troops landed in Maryland, burned the Capitol and other public buildings in Washington, and destroyed the Congressional Library.

On the other hand, the American navy had unexpected and extraordinary successes on the ocean and the lakes. Out of fifteen sea combats with approximately equal forces, the Americans gained twelve. The contest closed with the signal defeat of the English at New Orleans, when General Andrew Jackson (1815) completely routed the forces led by Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington. The right of search was thenceforth dropped, although it was not formally abandoned by Great Britain until more than forty years later (1856).

559. Battle of Waterloo, 1815.

In the summer of 1815, the English war against Napoleon (S557), which had been carried on almost constantly since his accession to power, culminated in the decisive battle of Waterloo.[1] Napoleon had crossed the Belgian frontier in order that he might come up with the British before they could form a junction with their Prussian allies. All the previous night rain had fallen in torrents, and when the soldiers rose from their cheerless and broken sleep in the trampled and muddy fields of rye, a drizzling rain was still falling.

[1] Waterloo, near Brussels, Belgium.

Napoleon planned the battle for the purpose of destroying first the English and then the Prussian forces, but Wellington held his own against the furious attacks of the French. It was evident, however, that even the "Iron Duke," as he was called, could not continue to withstand the terrible assaults many hours longer.

As time passed on, and he saw his solid squares melting away under the murderous French fire, as line after line of his soldiers coming forward silently stepped into the places of their fallen comrades, while the expected Prussian reenforcements still delayed their appearance, the English commander exclaimed, "O that night or Blucher would come!" At last Blucher with his Prussians did come, and as Grouchy, the leader of a division on which Napoleon was counting, did not, Waterloo was finally won by the combined strength of the allies. Not long afterwards Napoleon was sent to die a prisoner on the desolate rock of St. Helena.

When all was over, Wellington said to Blucher, as he stood by him on a little eminence looking down upon the field covered with the dead and dying, "A great victory is the saddest thing on earth, except a great defeat."

With that victory ended the second Hundred Years' War of England with France, which began with the War of the Spanish Succession (1704) under Marlborough (S508). At the outset the object of that war was, first, to humble the power of Louis XIV that threatened the independence of England; and, secondly, to protect those American colonies which later separated fromthe mother country and became, partly through French help, the republic of the United States.

560. Increase of the National Debt; Taxation.

Owing to these hundred years and more of war (S559) the National Debt of GReat Britain and Ireland (S503), which in 1688 was much less than a million of pounds, had now reached the enormous amount of over nine hundred millions (or $4,500,000,000), bearing yearly interest at the rate of more than $160,000,000.[1] So great had been the strain on the finances of the country, that the Bank of England (S503) suspended payment, and many heavy failures occurred. In addition to this, a succession of bad harvests sent up the price of wheat to such a point that at one time an ordinary-sized loaf of bread cost the farm laborer more than half a day's wages.

[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica, under "National Debt."

Taxes had gone on increasing until it seemed as though the people could no longer endure the burden. As Sydney Smith declared, with entire truth, there were duties on everything. They began, he said, in childhood, with "the boy's taxed top"; they followed to old age, until at last "the dying Englishman, pouring his taxed medicine into a taxed spoon, flung himself back on a taxed bed, and died in the arms of an apothecary who had paid a tax of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death."[1]

[1] Sydney Smith's Essays, "Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States."

561. The Irish Parliament; the Irish Rebellion (1798).

For a century after the battle of the Boyne (S500) Ireland can hardly be said to have had a history. The iron hand of English despotism had crushed the spirit out of the inhabitants, and they suffered in silence. During the first part of the eighteenth century the destitution of the people was so great that Dean Swift, in bitter mockery of the government's neglect, published what he called his "Modest Proposal." He suggested that the misery of the half-starved peasants might be relieved by allowing them to eat their own children or else sell them to the butchers.

But a new attempt was now made to improve the political condition of the wretched country. That distinguished statesman, Edmund Burke (S550), had already tried to secure a fair measure of commercial liberty for the island, but without success. Since the reign of Henry VII the so-called "free Parliament" of Ireland had been bound hand and foot by Poynings's Act (S329, note 1). The eminent Protestant Irish orator, Henry Grattan, now urged the repeal of that law with all his impassioned eloquence. He was seconded in his efforts by the powerful influence of Fox in the English House of Commons. Finally, the obnoxious act was repealed (1782), and a, so-called, independent Irish Parliament, to which Grattan was elected, met in Dublin.

But although more than three quarters of the Irish people were Catholics, no person of that faith was permitted to sit in the new Parliament or to vote for the election of a member. This was not the only injustice, for many Protestants in Belfast and the north of Ireland had no right to be represented in it. Such a state of things could not fail to excite angry protest, and Grattan, with other Protestants in Parliament, labored for reform. The discontent finally led to the organization of an association called the "Society of United Irishmen." The leaders of that movement hoped to secure the cooperation of Catholics and Protestants, and to obtain fair and full representation for both in the Irish Parliament. A measure of political reform was secured (1793), but it did not go far enough to give the relief desired.

Eventually the Society of United Irishmen became a revolutionary organization which sought, by the help of the French, to make Ireland an independent republic. The sprigs of shamrock or shamrock-colored badges displayed by these men gave a new significance to "the wearing of the green."[1] By this time many Protestants had withdrawn from the organization, and many Catholics refused to ask help from the French revolutionary party, who were hostile to all churches and to all religion.

[1] See a quotation from the famous Irish song, "The Wearin' o' the Green," in the "Shan Van Vocht," in the "Heroic Ballads," published by Ginn and Company.

Then a devoted band of Catholics in the south of Ireland resolved to rise and, trusting to their own right arms, to strike for independence. A frightful rebellion broke out (1798), marked by all the intense hatred springing from rival races and rival creeds, and aggravated by the peasants' hatred of oppressive landlords. Both sides perpetuated horrible atrocities. The government employed a large force of Orangemen,[2] or extreme Protestants, to help suppress the insurrection. They did their work with remorseless cruelty.

[2] Orangemen: the Protestants of the north of Ireland, who had taken the side of William of Orange in the Revolution of 1688-1689 (S499). They wore an orange ribbon as their badge, to distinguish them from the Catholic party, who wore green badges.

562. Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 1800; Emmet.

Matters now came to a crisis. William Pitt, son of the late Earl of Chatham (S550), was Prime Minister. He believed that the best interests of both Ireland and England demanded their political union. He devoted all his energies to accomplishing the work. The result was that in the last year of the eighteenth century the English Government succeeded, by the most unscrupulous use of money, in gaining the desired end. Lord Cornwallis, acting as Pitt's agent, confessed with shame that he bought up a sufficient number of members of the Irish Parliament to secure a vote in favor of union with Great Britain. In 1800 the two countries were joined--in name at least--under the title of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland."[3]

[3] The first Parliament of the United Kingdom met in 1801.

Pitt used all his powerful influence to obtain for Ireland a full and fair representation in the united Parliament (1801). He urged that Catholics as well as Protestants should be eligible for election to that body. But the King positively refused to listen to his Prime Minister. He even declared that it would be a violation of his coronation oath for him to grant such a request. The consequence was that not a single Catholic was admitted to the Imperial Parliament until nearly thirty years later (S573).

Two years after the first Imperial Parliament met in London the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet, made a desperate effort to free his country (1803). To his mind the union of England with Ireland was simply "the union of the shark with its prey." He staked his life on the cause of independence; he lost, and paid the forfeit on the scaffold.

But notwithstanding Emmet's hatred of the union, it resulted advantageously to Ireland in at least two respects. First, more permanent peace was secured to that distracted and long-suffering country. Secondly, the Irish people made decided gains commercially. The duties on their farm products were removed, at least in large degree, and the English ports hitherto closed against them were thrown open. The duties on their manufactured goods seem to have been taken off at that time only in part.[1] Later, absolute freedom of trade was secured.

[1] See May's "Constitutional History of England," Lecky's "England in the Eighteenth Century"; but compare O'Connor Morris's work on "Ireland, from 1798 to 1898," p.58.

563. "The Industrial Revolution" of the Eighteenth Century; Material Progress; Canals; the Steam Engine, 1785.

The reign of George III was in several directions one of marked progress, especially in England. Just after the King's accession the Duke of Bridgewater constructed a canal from his coal mine in Worsley to Manchester, a distance of seven miles. Later, he extended it to Liverpool; eventually it was widened and deepened and became the "Manchester and Liverpool Ship Canal." The Duke of Bridgewater's work was practically the commencement of a system which has since developed to such a degree that the canals of England now extend nearly 5000 miles, and exceed in length its navigable rivers. The two form such a complete network of water communication that it is said no place in the realm is more than fifteen miles distant from this means of transportation, which connects all the large towns with each other and with the chief ports.

In the last half of the eighteenth century James Watt obtained the first patent (1769) for his improved steam engine (S521), but did not succeed in making it a business success until 1785. The story is told[1] that he took a working model of it to show to the King. His Majesty patronizingly asked him, "Well, my man, what have you to sell?" The inventor promptly answered, "What kings covet, may it please your Majesty,--POWER!" The story is perhaps too good to be true, but the fact of the "power" could not be denied,--power, too, not simply mechanical, but, in its results, moral and political as well.

[1] This story is told also of Boulton, Watt's partner. See Smile's "Lives of Boulton and Watt," p.1. Newcomen had invented a rude steam engine in 1705, which in 1712 came into use to some extent for pumping water out of coal mines. But his engine was too clumsy and too wasteful of fuel to be used by manufacturers. Boulton and Watt built the first steam-engine works in England at Soho, a suburb of Birmingham, in 1775; but it was not until 1785 that they began to do sufficient business to make it evident that they were on their way to success.

Such was the increase of machinery driven by steam, and such were the improvements made by Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton in machinery for spinning and weaving cotton, that much distress arose among the hand spinners and hand weavers. The price of bread was growing higher and higher, while in many districts skilled operatives working at home could not earn by their utmost efforts eight shillings a week. They saw their hand labor supplanted by great cotton mills filled with machinery driven by "monsters of iron and fire," which never grew weary, which subsisted on water and coal, and never asked for wages.

Led by a man named Ludd (1811), the starving workmen attacked a number of these mills, broke the machinery to pieces, and sometimes burned the buildings. The riots were at length suppressed, and a number of the leaders executed; but a great change for the better was at hand, and improved machinery driven by steam was soon to remedy the evils it had seemingly created. It led to an enormous demand for cotton. This helped to stimulate cotton growing in the United States of America as well as to encourage the manufacture of cotton in Great Britain.

Up to this period the north of England had remained the poorest part of the country. The population was sparse, ignorant, and unprosperous. It was in the south that improvements originated. In the reign of Henry VIII, the North fought against the dissolution of the monasteries (SS352, 357); in Elizabeth's reign it resisted Protestantism; in that of George I it sided with the so-called "Pretender" (S535).

But steam transformed an immense area. Factories were built, population increased, cities sprang up, and wealth grew apace. Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Leicester, Sheffield, and Liverpool made the North a new country. (See Industrial Map of England, p.10.) Lancashire is the busiest cotton-manufacturing district in Great Britain, and the saying runs that "what Lancashire thinks to-day, England will think to-morrow." So much for James Watt's POWER and its results.

564. Discover of Oxygen (1774); Introduction of Gas (1815).

Notwithstanding the progress that had been made in many departments of knowledge, the science of chemistry remained almost stationary until (1774) Dr. Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, the most abundant, as well as the most important, element in nature.

That discover "laid the foundation of modern chemical science." It enlarged our knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere, of the solid crust of the earth, and of water. Furthermore, it revealed the interesting fact that oxygen not only enters into the structure of all forms of animal and vegetable life, but that no kind of life can exist without it. Finally, Priestley's great discovery proved to be of direct practical utility, since the successful pursuit of innumerable trades and manufactures, with the profitable separation of metals from their ores, stands in close connection with the facts which his experiments with oxygen made known.

As intellectual light spread, so also did material light. In London, up to near the close of the reign of George III, only a few feeble oil lamps were in use. Many miles of streets were dark and dangerous, and highway robberies were frequent. At length (1815) a company was formed to light the city with gas. After much opposition from those who were in the whale-oil interest the enterprise succeeded. The new light, as Miss Martineau said, did more to prevent crime than all the Government had accomplished since the days of Alfred. It changed, too, the whole aspect of the English capital, though it was only the forerunner of the electric light, which has since changed it even more.

The sight of the great city now, when viewed at night from Highgate archway on the north, or looking down the Thames from Westminster Bridge, is something never to be forgotten. It gives one a realizing sense of the immensity of "this province covered with houses," which cannot be got so well in any other way. It bring to mind, too, those lines expressive of the contrasts of wealth and poverty, success and failure, inevitable in such a place:

"O gleaming lamps of London, that gem the city's crown, What fortunes lie within you, O lights of London town! . . . . . . . . . . . O cruel lamps of London, if tears your light could drown, Your victims' eyes would weep them, O lights of London town."[1]

[1] From the play, "The Lights of London."

The same year in which gas was introduced, Sir Humphry Davy invented the miner's safety lamp. Without seeking a patent, he generously gave his invention to the world, finding his reward in the knowledge that it would be the means of saving thousands of lives wherever men are called to work underground.

565. Steam Navigation, 1807, 1819, 1840.

Since Watt had demonstrated the value of steam for driving machinery (S563), a number of inventors had been experimenting with the new power, in the hope that they might apply it to propelling vessels. In 1807 Robert Fulton, an American, built the first successful steamboat, and made the voyage from New York to Albany in it. Shortly afterwards his vessel began to make regular trips on the Hudson. A number of years later a similar boat began to carry passengers on the Clyde, in Scotland. Finally, in 1819, the bold undertaking was made of crossing the Atlantic by steam. An American steamship, the Savannah, of about three hundred tons, set the example by a voyage from the United States to Liverpool. Dr. Lardner, an English scientist, had proved to his own satisfaction that ocean steam navigation was impracticable. The book containing the doctor's demonstration was brought to America by the Savannah on her return.

Twenty-one years afterward, in 1840, the Cunard Company established the first regular line of ocean steamers. They sailed between England and the United States. Since then fleets of steamers ranging from two thousand to more than forty thousand tons each have been built. They now make passages from continent to continent with the regularity of clockwork, and in fewer days than the ordinary sailing vessels formerly required weeks. The fact that during a period of more than seventy years one of these lines has never lost a passenger is conclusive proof that Providence is on the side of steam, when steam has men that know how to handle it.

566. Literature; Art; Education; Travel; Dress.

The reign of George III is marked by a long list of names eminent in letters and art. First in point of time among these stands Dr. Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the first English dictionary worthy of the name, and that on which those of our own day are based to a considerable extent. He was also the author of the story of "Rasselas,"--that notable satire on discontent and the search after happiness. Next stands Johnson's friend, Oliver Goldsmith, famous for his genius, his wit, and his improvidence,--which was always getting him into trouble,--but still more famous for his poems, and his novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield."

Edward Gibbon, David Hume, author of the well-known "History of England," and Adam Smith come next in time. In 1776 Gibbon published his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," which after more than a hundred years stands the ablest history of the subject in our language. In the same year Adam Smith issued "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," which had a great effect on legislation respecting commerce, trade, and finance. During this period, also, Sir William Blackstone became prominent as a writer on law, and Edmund Burke, the distinguished orator and statesman, wrote his "Reflections on the French Revolution."

The poets, Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, with Sheridan, the orator and dramatist, and Sterne, the humorist, belong to this reign; so, too, does the witty satirist, Sydney Smith, and Sir Walter Scott, whose works, like those of Shakespeare, have "made the dead past live again." Then again, Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen have left admirable pictures of the age in their stories of Irish and English life. Coleridge and Wordsworth began to attract attention toward the last of this period, and to be much read by those who loved the poetry of thought and the poetry of nature; while, early in the next reign, Charles Lamb published his delightful "Essays of Elia."

In art we have the first English painters and engravers. Hogarth, who died a few years after the beginning of the reign, was celebrated for the coarse but perfect representations of low life and street scenes; and his series of Election pictures with his "Beer Lane" and "Gin Alley" are valuable for the insight into the history of the times.

The chief portrait painters were Reynolds, Lawrence, and Gainsborough, the last of whom afterwards became noted for his landscapes. They were followed by Wilkie, whose pictures of "The Rent Day," "The Reading of the Will," and many others, tell a story of interest to every one who looks at them.

Last came Turner, who in some respects surpassed all former artists in his power of reproducing scenes in nature. At the same time, Bewick, whose cuts used to be the delight of every child that read "Aesop's Fables," gave a new impulse to wood engraving, while Flaxman rose to be the leading English sculptor, and Wedgwood introduced useful and beautiful articles of pottery.

In common-school education little advance had been made for many generations. In the country the great mass of the people were nearly as ignorant as they were in the darkest part of the Middle Ages. Hardly a peasant over forty years of age could be found who could read a verse in the Bible, and not one in ten could write his name.

There were no cheap books or newspapers, and no proper system of public instruction. The poor seldom left the counties in which they were born. They knew nothing of what was going on in the world. Their education was wholly of the practical kind which comes from work and things, not from books and teachers; yet many of them with only these simple helps found out two secrets which the highest culture sometimes misses,--how to be useful and how to be happy.[1]

[1] See Wordsworth's poem "Resolution and Independence."

The ordinary means of travel were still very imperfect. Stage-coaches had been in use for more than a hundred and fifty years. They crawled along at the rate of about three miles an hour. Mail coaches began to run in 1784. They attained a speed of six miles an hour, and later of ten. This was considered entirely satisfactory.

The close of George III's reign marks the beginning of the present age. It was indicated in many ways, and among others by the declining use of sedan chairs, which had been the fashion for upwards of a century, and by the change in dress. Gentlemen were leaving off the picturesque costumes of the past,--the cocked hats, elaborate wigs, silk stockings, ruffles, velvet coats, and swords,--and gradually putting on the plain democratic garb, sober in cut and color, by which we know them to-day.

567. Last Days of George III.

George III died (1820) at the age of eighty-two. During ten years he had been blind, deaf, and crazy, having lost his reason not very long after the jubilee, which celebrated the fiftieth year of his reign (1809). Once, in a lucid interval, he was found by the Queen singing a hymn and playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord.

He then knelt and prayed aloud for her, for his family, and for the nation; and in closing, for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy calamity, or grant him resignation to bear it. Then he burst into tears, and his reason again fled.[1] In consequence of the incapacity of the King, his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was appointed regent (1811), and on the King's death came to the throne as George IV.

[1] See Thackeray's "Four Georges."

568. Summary.

The long reign of George III covered sixty very eventful years. During that time England lost her possessions in America, but gained India and prepared the way for getting possession of New Zealand and Australia. During that period, also, Ireland was united to Great Britain. The wars with France, which lasted more than twenty years, ended in the great naval victory of Trafalgar and the still greater victory on the battlefield of Waterloo. In consequence of these wars, with that of the American Revolution, the National Debt of Great Britain rose to a height which rendered the burden of taxation well-nigh insupportable.

The second war with the United States in 1812 made America independent on the sea, and eventually compelled England to give up her assumed right to search American vessels. The two greatest reforms of the period were the abolition of the slave trade and the mitigation of the laws against debt and crime; the chief material improvement was the extension of canals and the application of steam to manufacturing and to navigation. The "Industrial Revolution" transformed the North of England.

GEORGE IV--1820-1830

569. Accession and Character of George IV.

George IV, eldest son of the late King, came to the throne in his fifty-eighth year; but, owing to his father's insanity, he had virtually been King for nearly ten years (S567). His habits of life had made him a selfish, dissolute spendthrift, who, like Charles II, cared only for pleasure. Though while Prince of Wales he had received for many years an income upwards of 100,000 pounds, which was largely increased at a later period, yet he was always hopelessly in debt.

Parliament (1795) appropriated over 600,000 pounds to relieve him from his most pressing creditors, but his wild extravagance soon involved him in difficulties again, so that had it not been for help given by the long-suffering taxpayers, His Royal Highness must have become as bankrupt in purse as he was in character.

After his accession matters became worse rather than better. At his coronation, which cost the nation over 200,000 pounds, he appeared in hired jewels, which he forgot to return, and which Parliament had to pay for. Not only did he waste the nation's money more recklessly than ever, but he used whatever political influence he had to opposesuch measures of reform as the times demanded.

570. Discontent; the "Manchester Massacre" (1819).

When (1811) George, then Prince of Wales, became regent (S567), he desired to form a Whig ministry, not because he cared for Whig principles (S479), but solely because he would thereby be acting in opposition to his father's wishes. Finding his purpose impracticable, he accepted Tory rule (S479), and a Cabinet (S534) was formed with Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister. It had for its main object the continued exclusion of Catholics from representation in Parliament (S478).

Lord Liverpool was a dull, well-meaning man, who utterly failed to comprehend the real tendency of the age. He was the son of a commoner who had been raised to the peerage. He had always had a reputation for honest obstinacy, and for little else. After he became Premier, a prominent French lady, who was visiting England, asked him one day, "What has become of that VERY stupid man, Mr. Jenkinson?" "Madame," answered the unfortunate Prime Minister, "he is now Lord Liverpool."[1]

[1] Earl's "English Premiers," Vol. II.

From such a Cabinet or Government, which continued in power for fifteen years, nothing but trouble could be expected. The misery of the country was great. Food was selling at famine prices. Thousands were on the verge of starvation, and tens of thousands did not get enough to eat. Trade was seriously depressed, and multitudes were unable to obtain work. Under these circumstances, the suffering masses undertook to hold public meetings to discuss the cause and cure of these evils; but as violent speeches against the Government were often made at the meetings, the authorities dispersed them on the ground that they were seditious and tended to riot and rebellion.

Many large towns at this period had no voice in legislation. At Birmingham, which was one of this class, the citizens had met and chosen, though without legal authority, a representative to Parliament. Machester, another important manufacturing town, now determined to do the same thing. The people were warned not to assemble, but they persisted in doing so, on the ground that peaceful discussion, with the election of a representative, was no violation of law. The meeting was held in St. Peter's Fields, and, through the blundering of a magistrate, it ended in an attack by a body of troops, by which many people were wounded an a number killed (1819).

571. The Six Acts (1819); the Conspiracy.

The bitter feeling caused by the "Manchester Massacre," or "Peterloo," as it was called, was still further aggravated by the passage of the Six Acts (1819). The object of these severe coercive measures was to make it impossible for men to take any public action demanding political reform. They restricted freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right of the people to assemble for the purpose of open discussion of the course taken by the Government. These harsh laws coupled with other repressive measures taken by the Tories (S479), who were still in power, led to the "Cato Street Conspiracy." Shortly after the accession of George IV a few desperate men banded together, and meeting in a stable in Cato Street, London, formed a plot to murder Lord Liverpool and his entire cabinet at dinner at which all the ministers were to be present.

The plot was discovered, and the conspirators were speedily disposed of by the gallows or transportation, but nothing was done to relieve the suffering which had provoked the intended crime. No new conspiracy was attempted, but in the course of the next ten years a silent revolution took place, which, as we shall see later, obtained for the people that fuller representation in Parliament which they had hitherto vainly attempted to get (S582).

572. Queen Caroline.

While he was Prince of Wales, George IV had, contrary to law, privately married Mrs. Fitzherbert (1785),[1] a Roman Catholic lady of excellent character, and possessed of great beauty. Ten years later, partly through royal compulsion and partly to get money to pay off some of his numerous debts, the Prince married his cousin, the Princess Caroline of Brunswick. The union proved a source of unhappiness to both. The Princess lacked both discretion and delicacy, and her husband, who disliked her from the first, was reckless and brutal toward her.

[1] By the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, no descendant of George II could make a legal marriage without the consent of the reigning sovereign, unless twenty-five years of age, and unless the marriage was not objected to by Parliament.

He separated from her in a year's time, and as soon as she could, she withdrew to the Continent. When he became King he excluded Queen Caroline's name from the Prayer Book, and next applied to Parliament for a divorce on the ground of the Queen's unfaithfulness to her marriage vows.

Henry Brougham, afterwards Lord Brougham, acted as the Queen's counsel. No sufficient evidence was brought against her, and the ministry declined to take further action. It was decided, however, that she could not claim the honor of coronation, to which, as Queen Consort, she had a right sanctioned by custom but not secured by law. When the King was crowned (1821), no place was provided for her. By the advice of her counsel, she presented herself at the entrance of Westminster Abbey as the coronation ceremony was about to begin; but, by order of her husband, admission was refused, and she retired to die, heartbroken, a few days after.

573. Three Great Reforms.

Seven years later (1828) the Duke of Wellington, a Tory (S479) in politics, became Prime Minister. His sympathies in all matters of legislation were with the King, but he made a virtue of necessity, and for the time acted with those who demanded reform. The Corporation Act (S472), which was originally passed in the reign of Charles II, and had for its object the exclusion of Dissenters (S472) from all town or corporate offices, was now repealed; henceforth a man might become a mayor, alderman, or town officer, without belonging to the Church of England. At the same time the Test Act (S477), which had also been passed in Charles II's reign to keep both Catholics and Dissenters out of government offices, whether civil or military, was repealed. As a matter of fact "the teeth of both acts had long been drawn" by by an annual Indemnity Act (1727).[1]

[1] This act virtually suspended the operation of the Corporation Act (S472) and the Test Act against dissenters so that they could obtain civil offices from which these two acts had excluded them.

In 1829 a still greater reform was carried. For a long period the Catholic Association had been laboring to obtain the abolition of the laws which had been on the statute books for over a century and a half, by which Catholics were excluded from the right to sit in Parliament. These laws, it will be remembered, were enacted at the time of the alleged Popish Plot, and in consequence of the perjured evidence given by Titus Oates (S478).[2] The King, and the Tory party marshaled by the Duke of Wellington, strenuously resisted the repeal of these statutes; but finally the Duke became convinced that further opposition was useless. He therefore suddenly changed about and solely, as he declared, to avert civil war, took the lead in securing the success of a measure which he heartily hated.

[2] See Sidney Smith's "Peter Plymley's Letters."

But at the same time that Catholics were admitted to both Houses of Parliament, an act was passed raising the property qualification of a very large class of small Irish landholders from 2 pounds to 10 pounds. This measure deprived many thousands of their right to vote. The law was enacted on the pretext that the small Irish landholders would be influenced by their landlord or their priest.

Under the new order of things, Daniel O'Connell, an Irish gentleman of an old and honorable family, and a man of distinguished ability, came forward as leader of the Catholics. After much difficulty he succeeded in taking his seat in the House of Commons (1829). He henceforth devoted himself, though without avail, to the repeal of the act uniting Ireland with England (S562), and to the restoration of an independent Irish Parliament.

574. The New Police (1829).

Although London had now a population of a million and a half, it still had no effective police. The guardians of the peace at that date were infirm old men, who spent their time dozing in sentry boxes, and had neither the strength nor energy to be of service in any emergency. The young fellows of fashion considered these venerable constables as legitimate game. They often amused themselves by upsetting the sentry boxes with their occupants, leaving the latter helpless in the street, kicking and struggling like turtles turned on their backs, and as powerless to get on their feet again.

During the last year of the reign Sir Robert Peel got a bill passed (1829) which oganized a new and thoroughly efficient police force, properly equipped and uniformed. Great was the outcry against this innovation, and the "men in blue" were hooted at, not only by London "roughs," but by respectable citizens, as "Bobbies" or "Peelers," in derisive allusion to their founder. But the "Bobbies," who carry no visible club, were not to be jeered out of existence. They did their duty like men, and have continued to do it in a way which long since gained for them the good will of all who care for the preservation of law and order.

575. Death of the King (1830).

George IV died soon after the passage of the new Police Bill (1830). Of him it may well be said, though in a very different sense from that in which the expression was originally used, that "nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it." During his ten years' reign he had squandered enormous sums of money in gambling and dissipation, and had done his utmost to block the wheels of political progress.

How far this son of an insane father (S567) was responsible, it may not be for us to judge. Walter Scott, who had a kind word for almost every one, and especially for any one of the Tory party (S479), did not fail to say something in praise of the generous good nature of his friend George IV. The sad thing is that his voice seems to have been the only one. In a whole nation the rest were silent; or, if they spoke, it was neither to commend nor to defend, but to condemn.

576. Summary.

The legislative reforms of George IV's reign are its chief features. The repeal of the Test and Corporation acts and the grant to Catholics of the right to reenter Parliament were tardy measures of justice. Neither the King nor his ministers deserve any credit for them, but, none the less, they accomplished great and permanent good.

WILLIAM IV--1830-1837

577. Accession and Character of William IV.

As George IV left no heir, his brother William, a man of sixty-five, now came to the throne. He had passed most of his life on shipboard, having been placed in the navy when a mere lad. He was somewhat rough in his manner, and cared nothing for the ceremony and etiquette that were so dear to both George III and George IV. His faults, however, were on the surface. He was frank, hearty, and a friend to the people, to whom he was familiarly known as the "Sailor King."

578. Need of Reform in Parliamentary Representation.

From the beginning of this reign it was evident that the great question which must soon come up for settlement was that of parliamentary representation. Large numbers of the people of England had now no voice in the government. This unfortunate state of things was chiefly the result of the great changes which had taken place in the growth of the population of the Midlands (or the central portion of England) and the North (S563).

Since the introduction of steam (S563) the rapid increase of manufactures and commerce had built up Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, and other large towns in the iron, coal, pottery and manufacturing districts. (See Industrial Map of England, p.10.) These important towns could not send a member to Parliament; while, on the other hand, many places in the south of England which did send members had long ceased to be of any importance. Furthermore, the representation was of the most haphazard description. In one section no one could vote except substantial property holders, in another none but town officers, while in a third every man who had a tenement big enough to boil a pot in, and hence called a "Pot-walloper," possessed the right.

To this singular state of things the nation had long been indifferent. During the Middle Ages the inhavitants often had no desire either to go to Parliament themselves or to send others. The expense of the journey was great, the compensation was small, and unless some important matter of special interest to the people was at stake, they preferred to stay at home. On this account it was often almost as difficult for the sheriff to get a distant county member up to the House of Commons in London as it would have been to carry him there a prisoner to be tried for his life.

Now, however, everything was changed; the rise of political parties (S479), the constant and heavy taxation, the jealousy of the increase of royal authority, the influence and honor of the position of a Parliamentary representative, all conspired to make men eager to obtain their full share in the management of the government.

This new interest had begun as far back as the civil wars of the seventeenth century, and when Cromwell came to power he effected many much-needed reforms. But after the restoration of the Stuarts (S467), the Protector's wise measures were repealed or neglected. Then the old order, or rather disorder, again asserted itself, and in many cases matters became worse than ever.

579. "Rotten Boroughs."

For instance, the borough or city of Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, which had once been an important place, had, at an early period, gradually declined through the growth of New Sarum, or Salisbury, near by. (See map, p.436.) In the sixteenth century the parent city had so completely decayed that not a single habitation was left on the desolate hilltop where the caste and cathedral once stood. At the foot of the hill was an old tree. The owner of that tree and of the field where it grew sent (1830) two members to Parliament,--that action represented what had been regularly going on for something like three hundred years!

In Bath, on the other hand, none of the citizens, out of a large population, might vote except the mayor, alderman, and common council. These places now got the significant name of "rotten boroughs" from the fact that whether large or small there was no longer any sound political life existing in them. Many towns were so completely in the hands of the squire or some other local "political boss" that, on one occasion when a successful candidate for Parliament thanked the voters for what they had done, a man replied that he need not take the trouble to thank them; for, said he, "if the squire had zent his great dog we should have chosen him all one as if it were you, zur."[1]

[1] See Hindon, in Murray's "Wiltshire."

580. The Great Reform Bill.

For fifty years after the coming in of the Georges the country had been ruled by a powerful Whig (SS479, 548) monopoly. Under George III that monopoly was broken (S548), and the Tories (S479) got possession of the government. But whichever party ruled, Parliament, owing to the "rotten-borough" system, no longer represented the nation, but simply stood for the will of certain wealthy landholders and town corporations. A loud and determined demand was now made for reform. In this movement no one was more active or influential among the common people than William Cobbett. He was a vigorous and fearless writer, who for years published a small newspaper called the Political Register, which was especially devoted to securing a just and uniform system of representation.

On the accession of William IV the pressure for reform became so great that Parliament was forced to act. Lord John Russell brought in a bill (1831) providing for the abolition of the "rotten boroughs" and for a fair system of elections. But those who owned or controlled those boroughs had no intention of giving them up. Their opponents, however, were equally determined, and they knew that they had the support of the nation.

In a speech which the Reverend Sydney Smith made at Taunton, he compared the futile resistance of the House of Lords to the proposed reform, to Mrs. Partington's attempt to drive back the rising tide of the Atlantic with her mop. The ocean rose, and Mrs. Partington, seizing her mop, rose against it; yet, notwithstanding the good lady's efforts, the Atlantic got the best of it; so the speaker prophesied that in this case the people, like the Atlantic, would in the end carry the day.[1]

[1] Sydney Smith's "Essays and Speeches."

When the bill came up, the greater part of the Lords and the bishops, who, so far as they were concerned personally, had all the rights and privileges they wanted, opposed it; so too did the Tories (S479), in the House of Commons. They thought that the proposed law threatened the stability of the government. The Duke of Wellington (S573) was particularly hostile to it, and wrote, "I don't generally take a gloomy view of things, but I confess that, knowing all that I do, I cannot see what is to save the Church, or property, or colonies, or union with Ireland, or, eventually, monarchy, if the Reform Bill passes."[2]

[2] Wellington's "Dispatches and Letters," II, 451.

581. The Lords reject the Bill; Serious Riots (1831).

The King dissolved Parliament (S534, note 2); a new one was elected, and the Reform Bill was passed by the House of Commons; but the upper House rejected it. Then a period of wild excitement ensued. The people in many of the towns collected in the public squares, tolled the church bells, built bonfires in which they burned the bishops in effigy, with other leading opponents of the bill, and cried out for the abolition of the House of Lords.

In London the rabble smashed the windows of Apsley House, the residence of the Duke of Wellington. At Nottingham the mob fired and destroyed the castle of the Duke of Newcastle because he was opposed to reform. In Derby a serious riot broke out. In Bristol matters were still worse. A mob got possession of the city, and burned the Bishop's Palace and a number of public buildings. The mayor was obliged to call for troops to restore order. Many persons were killed, and four of the ringleaders of the insurrection were hanged. All over the country shouts were heard, "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!"

582. Passage of the Great Reform Bill, 1832; Results.

In the spring of 1832 the battle began again more fiecely than ever. Again the House of commons voted the bill, and once again the House of Lords defeated it.

Earl Grey, the Whig Prime Minister (S479), had set his heart on carrying the measure. In this crisis he appealed to the King for help. If the Tory Lords would not pass the bill, the King had the power to create a sufficient number of new Whig Lords who would. William refused to exercise this power. Thereupon Earl Grey, with his Cabinet (S534), resigned, but in a week the King had to recall them. Then William, much against his will, gave the following document to his Prime Minister:

"The King grants permission to Earl Grey, and to his Chancellor, Lord Brougham, to create such a number of Peers as will be sufficient to insure the passing of the Reform Bill--first calling up Peers' eldest sons. "William R., Windsor, May 17, 1832"[1]

[1] "First calling up Peers' eldest sons": that is, in creating new Lords, the eldest sons of Peers were to have the preference. William R. (Rex, King): this is the customary royal signature. Earl Grey was the leader of that branch of the Whig party known as the "Aristocratic Whigs," yet to him and his associate Cabinet minsiters the people were indebted for the great extension of the suffrage in 1832.

But there was no occasion to make use of this permission. As soon as the Lords found that the Cabinet (S534), with Earl Grey at the head, had actually compelled the King to bow to the demands of the people, they withdrew their opposition. The "Great Charter of 1832" was carried, received the royal signature, and became law.

The passage of this memorable act brought about these beneficent changes:

(1) It abolished nearly sixty "rotten boroughs" (S579). (2) It gave every householder who paid a rent of ten pounds in any town a vote, and largely extended the list of county voters as well. (3) It granted two representatives to Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and nineteen other large towns, and one representative each to twenty-one other places, all of which had hitherto been unrepresented, besides granting fifteen additional members to the counties. (4) It added, in all, half a million voters to the list, mostly men of the middle class, and it helped to purify the elections from the violence which had disgraced them.[1]

[1] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p.xxvi, S31.

Before the passing of the Reform Bill, and the legislation which supplemented it, the election of a member of Parliament was a kind of local reign of terror. The smaller towns were sometimes under the control of drunken ruffians for several weeks. During that time they paraded the streets in bands, assaulting voters of the opposite party with clubs, kidnaping prominent men and confining them until after the election, and perpetrating other outrages, which so frightened peacable citizens that often they did not dare attempt to vote at all.

Finally, the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 effected, in its own way, a change which was perhaps as momentous as that which the Revolution of 1688 had accomplished.[2] That, as we have seen (S497), made the King dependent for his crown on his election to office by Parliament. On the other hand, the Reform Bill practically took the last vestige of real political authority from the King and transferred it to the Cabinet (S534), who had now become responsible to the House of Commons, and hence to the direct will of the majority of the nation. But though the Sovereign had laid down his political scepter, never to resume it, he would yet, by virtue of his exalted position, continue to wield great power,--that of social and diplomatic influence, which is capable of accomplishing most important results both at home and abroad. To-day then, though the King still reigns, the People, and the People alone, govern.

[2] Compare the three previous Revolutions represented by (1) Magna Carta (S199); (2) De Montfort's House of Commons (S213); (3) the Civil War and its effects (SS441, 450, 451).

583. Abolition of Slavery, 1833; Factory Reform, 1833-1841.

With the new Parliament that came into power the names of Liberal and Conservative began to supplant those of Whig and Tory (S479), for it was felt that a new political era needed new party names. Again, the passage of the Reform Bill (S582) changed the policy of both these great political parties. It made Liberals and Conservatives bid against each other for the support of the large number of new voters (S582 (4)), and it acted as an entering wedge to prepare the way for the further extension of suffrage in 1867 and 1884 (S534), representing the Commons, had gained a most significant victory; and further reforms were accordingly carried against the strenuous opposition of the King.

Buxton, Wilberforce, Brougham, and other noted philanthropists secured the passage through Parliament of a bill, 1833, for which they, with the younger Pitt, had labored in vain for half a century. By this act all negro slaves in the British West India colonies, numbering about eight hundred thousand, were set free, and the sum of 20,000,000 pounds was appropriated to compensate the owners.

It was a grand deed grandly done. Could America have followed that noble example, she might thereby have saved a million of human lives and many thousand millions of dollars which were cast into the gulf of civil war, while the corrupting influence of five years of waste and discord would have been avoided.

But negro slaves were not the only slaves in those days. There were white slaves as well,--women and children born in England, but condemned by their necessities to work underground in the coal mines, or to exhaust their strength in the cotton mills. They were driven by brutal masters who cared as little for the welfare of those under them as the overseer of a West India plantation did for his gangs of black toilers in the sugar-cane fields. On investigation it was found that children only six and seven years of age were compelled to labor for twelve and thirteen hours continuously in the factories. In the coal mines their case was even worse. All day long these poor creatures sat in absolute darkness, opening and shutting doors for the passage of coal cars. If, overcome with fatigue, they fell asleep, they were cruelly beaten with a strap.[1]

[1] See Gibbin's "Industrial History of England," E.F. Cheyney's "Industrial History of England," and Mrs. E. B. Browning's poem, "The Cry of the Children."

Parliament at length turned its attention to these abuses, and passed acts, 1833, forbidding the employment of women and young children in such work; a later act put an end to the barbarous practice of forcing children to sweep chimneys.

584. The First Steam Railway, 1830; the Railway Craze; the Friction Match, 1834.

Ever since the application of steam to machinery, the inventors had been discussing plans for placing the steam engine on wheels and using it as a propelling power in place of horses. Macadam, a Scotch surveyor, had constructed a number of very superior roads made of gravel and broken stone in the south of England, which soon made the name of "macadamized turnpike" celebrated.

The question then arose, Might not a still further advance be made by employing steam to draw cars on these roads, or, better still, on iron rails? The first locomotives built were used in hauling coal at the mines in the North of England. Puffing Billy, the pioneer machine (1813), worked for many years near Newcastle. At length George Stephenson, an inventor and engineer, together with certain capitalists, succeeded in getting Parliament to pass an act for constructing a passenger railway between Liverpool and Manchester, a distance of about thirty miles.

When the line was completed by Stephenson, he had great difficulty in getting permission to use an engine instead of horse power on it. Finally, Stephenson's new locomotive, The Rocket,--which first introduced the tubular boiler, and employed the exhaust, or escaping, steam to increase the draft of the fire,--was tried with entire success.[1]

[1] Stephenson's Rocket and Watt's stationary steam engine (S563) are both preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London. The boiler of the Rocket was traversed by a number of tubes communicating with the smoke pipe. The steam, after it hada done its work in the cylinders of the engine, escaped with great force through the smoke pipe and so created a very powerful draft. Without these two important improvements the locomotive would probably never have made an average speed of more than six or seven miles an hour.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was formally opened in the autumn of 1830, and the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, was one of the few passengers who ventured on the trial trip. The growth of this new mode of transportation was so rapid that in five years from that time London and the principal seaports were connected with the great manufacturing towns, while local steam navigation had also nearly doubled its vessels and its tonnage.

Later on (1844-1847), Stephenson might easily have made himself "rich beyond the dreams of avarice,"--or at least of the avarice of that day. All he had to do was to lend the use of his name to new and doubtful railway projects; but he refused on the ground that he did not care "to make money without labor or honor." Meanwhile the whole country became involved in a speculative craze for building railways. Scores of millions of pounds were invested; for a time Hudson, the so-called "Railway King," ruled supreme, and Dukes and Duchesses, and members of Parliament generally, did homage to the man whose schemes promised to cover the whole island with a network of iron roads, every one of which was expected to be as profitable as a gold mine. These projects ended in a panic, second only to that of the South Sea Bubble (S536), and thousands found that steam could destroy fortunes even faster than it made them.

Toward the close of William's reign (1834-1835) a humble invention was perfected of which little was said at the time, but which contributed in no small degree to the comfort and convenience of every one. Up to this date two of the most important of all civilizing agents--fire and light--could be produced only with much difficulty and at considerable expense.

Various deviced had been contrived to obtain them, but the common method continued to be the primitive one of striking a bit of flint and steel sharply together until a falling spark ignited a piece of tinder or half-burned rag, which, when it caught, had, with no little expense of breath, to be blown into a flame. The progress of chemistry suggested the use of phosphorus, and after years of experiments the friction match was invented by an English apothecary, who thus gave to the world what is now the commonest, and perhaps at the same time the most useful, domestic article in existence.

585. Summary.

William IV's short reign of seven years was marked (1) by the great Reform Bill of 1832, which, to a great extent, took Parliament out of the hands of rich men and "rotten boroughs" and put it under the control of the people; (2) by the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and factory reform; (3) by the introduction of the friction match, and by the building of the first successful line of steam railway.

VICTORIA--1837-1901

586. The Queen's Descent; Stability of the Government.

As William IV left no child to inherit the crown, he was succeeded by his niece, the Princess Victoria, daughter of his brother Edward, Duke of Kent. (See Genealogical Table, p.323.) In her lineage the Queen represented nearly the whole past sovereignty of the land over which she reigned.[1] The blood of both Cerdic, the first Saxon king, and of William the Conqueror,[2] flowed in her veins,--a fact which strikingly illustrates the vitality of the hereditary and conservative principles in the history of the English Crown.

[1] The only exceptions are the four Danish sovereigns and Harold II. [2] See Genealogical Table of the Descent of English Sovereigns in the Appendix.

The fact stands out in stronger relief if we call to mind what England had passed through in that intervening period of time.

In 1066 the Normans crossed the Channel, invaded the island, conquered its inhabitants, and seized the throne. In the course of the next five centuries two kings were deposed, one died a captive in the Tower of London,[3] and the Catholic religion, as an established Church, was supplanted in England by the Protestant faith of Luther.

[3] Namely, Edward II (S233), Richard II (S257), and Henry VI (S305).

Somewhat less than a hundred years after that event, Civil War broke out in 1642; the King was dethroned and beheaded, and in 1648 a republic established. The monarchy was restored in 1660, only to be followed by the Revolution of 1688, which changed the order of royal succession, drove one line of sovereigns from the land, and called in another from Germany to take its place. Meanwhile the House of Commons had gained enormously in political power, and Cabinet Government had been fully and finally established (S534). In 1832 the Reform Bill was passed, by which the power of the people was largely extended in Parliament; the two great political parties had been reorganized; yet after all these events, at the end of more than ten centuries from the date when Egbert first became Overlord of all the English, in 829 (S49), we find England governed by a descendant of her earliest rulers!

587. The Power of the House of Commons and of the Cabinet fully and finally recognized.

Queen Victoria was but little over eighteen when called to the throne. At her accession a new order of things began. The Georges insisted on dismissing their Cabinet ministers, or chief political advisers, when they pleased, without condescending to give Parliament any reason for the change. We have seen too that William IV tried to do the same thing, but had to acknowledge that he was beaten (S582). William's unsuccessful attempt was never repeated. The last vestige of "personal government,"[1] that is, of the determination of the Crown to act contrary to the will of the majority of the nation, as expressed by the Cabinet, died with the late King.

[1] See the reign of Victoria in McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times."

With the coronation of Victoria the principle was established, once for all, that henceforth the Sovereign of the British Empire cannot remove the Prime Minister or his Cabinet (S582) without the consent of the House of Commons; nor, on the other hand, would the Sovereign now venture to retain a ministry which the Commons refused to support.[2] This limitation of the prerogatives of royalty emphasized the fact that the House of Commons had practically become the ruling power in England; and since that House is freely elected by the great body of the people, in order that it may declare and enforce their will, it follows that the government of the realm is essentially democratic. In fact, so far as reflecting public opinion is concerned, no republic in the world is more democratic.

[2] In order to guard herself against any political influence adverse to that of the Cabinet (S582), and hence of the majority of the House of Commons, the Queen was compelled to consent (1841) that the Mistress of the Robes, or head of her Majesty's household, should change at the demand of the incoming Prime Minister; and it was furthermore agreed that any ladies under her whose presence might be politically inconvenient to the Prime Minister, should retire "of their own accord." In other words, the incoming Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, has the right to remodel the Sovereign's household--or any other body of offices--in whatever degree he may think requisite, and the late Prince Albert could not even appoint his own private secretary, but much to his chagrin had to accept one appointed for him by the Prime Minister. See May's "Constitutional History of England" and Martin's "Life of the Prince Consort."

Custom, too, has decided that the Sovereign must sanction every bill which Parliament approves and resolves to make law. Queen Anne was the last occupant of the English throne who ventured to veto a bill, by refusing to assent to it. That was in 1707, or more than two hundred years ago, and there is little probability that any wearer of the crown will ever attempt to do what she did. In fact, an able and authoritative English writer has not hesitated to declare that if the two Houses of Parliament should agree to send the reigning Sovereign his own death warrant, he would be obliged to sign it, or abdicate.[1]

[1] See Bagehot's "The English Constitution."

An English sovereign's real position to-day is that of a person who has much indirect influence and but little direct power,--far less in fact than that of the President of the United States; for the latter can veto a bill, and can remove any or all of his cabinet officers at pleasure.

588. The House of Lords in the Past and To-day.

A change equally great was taking place with respect to the Peers, or Lords.[2] As that body has played a most important part in the government of England and still retains considerable influence, it may be well to consider its history and present condition.

[2] Peers (from the Latin pares, equals): The word first occurs in an act of Parliament, 1321,--"Pares et proceres regni Angliae spirituales et temporales." The name Peers, referring to the House of Lords, is here limited, as it has been ever since, to the higher clergy (now consisting of certain bishops) and to the hereditary nobility.

It will be remembered that the peerage originated with the Norman Conquest. William rewarded the barons, or chief men, who fought under him at Hastings[3] with grants of immense estates, which were given on two conditions: one of military service at the call of the Sovereign (S150); the other their attendance, when required, at the Great or Royal Council (S144), an advisory and legislative body which contained the germ of what later came to be called Parliament.

It will thus be seen that the Conqueror made the possession of landed property directly dependent on the discharge of public duties. So that if, on the one hand, the Conquest carried out the principle

"That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can,"[1]

on the other, it insisted on the higher principle that in return for such *taking* and *keeping* the victors should bind themselves by oath to help defend the kingdom, and to help govern it.

[1] Wordsworth's "Rob Roy's Grave."

In later reigns the King summoned other influential men to attend Parliament. To distinguish them from the original barons by land tenure, they were called "barons by writ" (S263). Subsequently it became customary for the Sovereign to create barons by letters patent, as is the method at present (S263).

Edward I, 1295, is generally considered to have been the "Creator of the House of Lords" in the form in which it has since stood.[2] From his time the right to sit in the House of Lords was limited to those whom the King summoned, namely, the hereditary Peers (save in the case of a very limited number of life Peers), and to the upper clergy.

[2] W. Stubb's "English Constitutional History," II, 184, 203; also Feilden's "Short Constitutional History of England," pp. 121-122.

The original baronage continued predominant until the Wars of the Roses (S316) destroyed so many of the ancient nobility that, as Lord Beaconsfield says, "A Norman baron was almost as rare a being in England then as a wolf is now." With the coming in of the Tudors a new nobility was created (S352). Even this has become in great measure extinct. Perhaps not more than a fourth of those who now sit in the House of Lords can trace their titles further back than the Georges, who created great numbers of Peers in return for political services either rendered or expected.

Politically speaking, the nobility of England, unlike the old nobility of France, is strictly confined and strictly descends to but one member of the family,--the eldest son receiving the preference. None of the children of the most powerful Duke or Lord has, during his father's life, any civil or legal rights or privileges above that of the poorest and most obscure native-born day laborer in Great Britain.[1]

[1] Even the younger children of the Sovereign are no exception to this rule. The only one born with a title is the eldest, who is Duke of Cornwall by birth, and is created Prince of Wales. The others are simply commoners. See E.A. Freeman's "Growth of the English Constitution."

The whole number of Peers is about six hundred.[2] They own a very large part of the land of England[3] and possess all the social and political influence naturally belonging to such a body. Yet notwithstanding the exclusive and aristocratic spirit of this long- established class, it has always been ready to receive recruits from the ranks of the people. For just as any boy in America feels himself a possible senator or President, so any one born or naturalized in England, like Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill, Nelson, Wellesley, Brougham, Tennyson, Macaulay, Lord Lyndhurst,[4] and many others, may win his way to a title, and also to a seat in the House of Lords, since brains and character go to the front in England just as surely as they do everywhere else.

[2] The full assembly of the House of Lords would consist of five hundred and sixty-two temporal Peers and twenty-six spiritual Peers (archbishops and bishops). [3] So strictly is property entailed that there are proprietors of large estates who cannot so much as cut down a tree without permission of the heir. See Badeau's "English Aristocracy." [4] J.S. Copley (Lord Lyndhurst), son of the famous artist, was born in Boston in 1772. He became Lord Chancellor. All of the eminent men named above rose from the ranks of the people and were made Peers of the realm, either for life or as a hereditary right; and in a number of cases, as the elder Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Wellesley (Duke of Wellington), Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield), Copley (Lord Lyndhurst), they received seats in the House of Lords.

In their legislative action the Lords are, with very rare exceptions, extremely conservative. It is a "galling fact"[5] that they have seldom granted their assent to any liberal measure except from pressure of the most unmistakable kind. They opposed the Habeas Corpus Act under Charles II, Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the Great Reform Bill of 1832, the Education Bill of 1834, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, the admission of the Jews to Parliament in 1858, and they very reluctantly consented to the necessity of granting later extensions of the elective franchise.

[5] See A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 414, 422.

But, on the other hand, it was their influence which compelled John to sign Magna Carta in 1215; it was one of their number--Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester--who called the House of Commons into being in 1265; and it was the Lords as leaders who inaugurated the Revolution of 1688, and established constitutional sovereignty under William and Mary in the place of the despotic self-will of James II. Again, it was Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, and Mr. Disraeli, later known as Lord Beaconsfield, who, as leaders of the Tory, or Conservative, Party, felt obliged to carry the Reform Bill of 1867, by which the right to vote was greatly extended among the people (S600).

Seven hundred years ago the House of Lords was the only legislative and executive body in the country; now, nearly all the most important business of Parliament is done in the House of Commons (consisting of some six hundred and seventy members), and the Lords cannot vote a penny of money for any purpose whatever unless Commons first passes a bill to that effect (S281). Thus taxation, which is generally regarded as the most important of all measures, has passedf from the Lords to the direct representatives of the people.

At one time certain impatient Radicals in the House of Commons denounced the Peers as "titled obstructionists." In fact, late in the nineteenth century (1894) a resolution to put an end to their obstructive power was carried in the Commons (when half the members were absent) by a majority of two. But the vote was not taken seriously, and the Lords were not called upon to go out of business. The upper House has continued, on occasion, to exercise its constitutional righ of vetoing bills sent up to it by the House of Commons, though since 1860 it has rejected but one "Money Bill" (1909), and that only temporarily (SS629, 631).[1] Since then the Liberal Party has demanded more strenuously than ever that the veto power of the Lords should be either greatly limited or abolished altogether (SS629, 632).

[1] As far back as 1671, the House of Commons resolved "that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the Lords." In 1678 they emphatically repeated this resolution. In 1860 when the Lords rejected a "Money Bill" (for the repeal of paper duties) the Commons vigorously protested, declaring that they regarded the exercise of that power by the upper House with "particular jealousy." From that time the Commons were careful to include all the financial measures of the year in one bill, which the Lords "were forced to accept or reject as a whole." See H.S. Feilden's "Short Constitutional History of England," pp. 114-115, and A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," I, 400-401.

The House of Lords always includes a number of members eminent for their judicial ability, some of whom have been created Peers for that reason. This section acts as the National Court of Appeal and sits to decide the highest questions of constitutional law. In this respect it corresponds to the Supreme Court of the United States.

589. The Queen's Marriage (1840).

In her twenty-first year, Queen Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a duchy of Central Germany. The Prince was about her own age, of fine personal appearance, and had just graduated from one of the German universities. He was particularly interested in art and education, and throughout his life used his influence to raise the standard of both.

590. Sir Rowland Hill's Postal Reforms, 1839.

The preceding year Sir Rowland Hill introduced a uniform system of cheap postage. The rate had been as high as a shilling for a single letter.[1] Such a charge was practically prohibitive, and, as a rule, no one wrote in those days if he could possibly avoid it. Sir Rowland reduced it to a penny (paid by stamp) to any part of the United Kingdom.[2] Since then the government has taken over all the telegraph lines, and cheap telegrams and the cheap transportation of parcels by mail (a kind of government express known as "parcels post") have followed. They are all improvements of immense practical benefit.

[1] An illustration of the effects of such high charges for postage is related by Coleridge. He says that he met a poor woman at Keswick just as she was returning a letter from her son to the postman, saying she could not afford to pay for it. Coleridge gave the postman the shilling, and the woman told the poet that the letter was really nothing more than a blank sheet which her son had agreed to send her every three months to let her know he was well; as she always declined to take this dummy letter, it of course cost her nothing. See G.B. Hill's "Life of Sir Rowland Hill," I, 239, note. [2] The London papers made no end of fun of the first envelopes and the first postage stamps (1840). See the facsimile of the ridiculous "Mulready Envelope" in Hill's "Life of Sir Rowland Hill," I, 393.

591. Rise of the Chartists (1838-1848).

The feeling attending the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (S582) had passed away; but now a popular agitation began which produced even greater excitement. Although the act of 1832 had equalized parliamentary representation and had enlarged the elective franchise to a very considerable degree, yet the great body of workingmen were still shut out from the right to vote. A Radical Party called the "Chartists" now arose, which undertook to secure further measures of reform.

They embodied their measures in a document called the "People's Charter," which demanded:

1. Universal male suffrage. 2. That the voting at elections should be by ballot. 3. Annual Parliaments. 4. The payment of memebers of Parliament. 5. The abolition of the property qualification for parliamentary candidates.[1] 6. The division of the whole country into equal electoral districts.

[1] Property qualification: In 1711 an act was passed requiring candidates for election to the House of Commons to have an income of not less than 300 pounds derived from landed property. The object of this law was to secure members who would be comparatively free from the temptation of receiving bribes from the Crown, and also to keep the landed proprietors in power to the exclusion of rich merchants. This law was repealed in 1858.

The Chartists held public meetings, organized clubs, and published newpapers to disseminate their principles, but for many years made very little progress. The French revolution which dethroned King Louis Philippe (1848) imparted fresh impetus to the Chartist movement. The leader of that movement was Feargus O'Connor. He formed the plan of sending a monster petition to Parliament, containing, it was claimed, nearly five million signatures, praying for the passage of the People's Charter.

A procession of a million or more signers was to act as an escort to the document, which made a wagonload in itself. The Government became alarmed at the threatened demonstration, forbade it, on the ground that it was an attempt to coerce legislation, and organized a body of 250,000 special policemen to preserve order.

The Duke of Wellington took command of a large body of troops held in reserve to defend the city; and the Bank of England, the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum, and other public buildings were made ready to withstand a siege.

It was now the Chartists' turn to be frightened. When they assembled (1848) on Kennington Common in south London, they numbered less than thirty thousand, and the procession of a million which was to march across Westminster Bridge, to the Houses of Parliament, dwindled to half a dozen. When the huge petition was unrolled it was found to contain only about a third of the boasted number of names. Further examination showed that many of the signatures were spurious, having been put down in jest, or copied from gravestones and old London directories. With that discovery the whole movement collapsed, and the House of Commons rang with "inextinguishable laughter" over the national scare.

Still the demands of the Chartists had a solid foundation of good sense, which the blustering bravado of the leaders of the movement could not wholly destroy. Most, if not all, of the reforms asked for were needed. Since then, the steady, quiet influence of reason and of time has compelled Parliament to grant the greater part of them.[1]

[1] Sir Thomas Erskine May, in his "Constitutional History of England," says: "Not a measure has been forced upon Parliament which the calm judgment of a later time has not since approved; not an agitation has failed which posterity has not condemned."

The printed or written ballot has been substituted for the old method of electing candidates by a show of hands or by shouting yes or no,-- a method by which it was easy to make blunders, and equally easy to commit frauds. Every voter must now have his name and address registered in a printed list. Every voter, too, casts a secret ballot and so safeguards his political independence (S609). The property qualification has been abolished (S591, note 1), so that the day laborer may now run for Parliament. He is sure, too, of being well paid, for Parliament voted (1911) to give 400 pounds a year to every member of the House of Commons. The right of "manhood suffrage" has been greatly extended, and before the twentieth century has advanced much farther every man in England will probably have a voice in the elections.

592. The Corn Laws (1841).

At the accession of the Queen protective duties or taxes existed in Great Britain on all imported breadstuffs and on many manufactured articles. Sir Robert Peel, the Conservative Prime Minister (1841), favored a reduction in the last class of duties, but believed it necessary to maintain the former in order to keep up the price of grain and thus encourage the English farmers. The result of this policy was great distress among the poorly paid, half-fed workingmen, who could not afford to buy dear bread. A number of philanthropists led by Richard Cobden and John Bright organized an Anti-Corn Law League[1] to obtain the repeal of the grain duties.

[1] Corn is the name given in England to wheat or other grain used for food. Indian corn or maize cannot be grown in that climate, and is seldom eaten there.

At the same time, Ebenezer Elliott, the "Corn-Law Rhymer," gave voice to the sufferings of the poor in rude but vigorous verse, which appealed to the excited feelings of thousands in such words as these:

"England! what for mine and me, What hath bread tax done for thee? . . . . . . . . Cursed thy harvest, cursed thy land, Hunger-stung thy skill'd right hand."

When, however, session after session of Parliament passed and nothing was done for the relief of the perishing multitudes, many began to despair, and great numbers joined in singing Elliott's new national anthem:

"When wilt Thou save the people? O God of mercy! when? Not kings or lords, but nations! Not thrones and crowns, but men! Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they! Let them not pass, like weeds, away! Their heritage a sunless day! God save the people!"

Still the Government was not covinced; the Corn Laws were enforced, the price of bread showed no signs of falling, and the situation grew daily more desperate and more threatening.

593. The Irish Famine, 1845-1846.

At last the Irish famine opened the Prime Minister's eyes (S592). When in Elizabeth's reign Sir Walter Raleigh brought over the cheap but precarious potato from America and planted it in Ireland, his motive was one of pure good will. He could not foresee that it would in time become in that country an almost universal food, that through its very abundance the population would rapidly increase, and that then, by the sudden failure of the crop, terrible destitution would ensue. Such was the case in the summer of 1845. It is said by eyewitnesses that in a single night the entire potato crop was smitten with disease, and the healthy plants were transformed into a mass of putrefying vegetation. Thus at one fell stroke the food of nearly a whole nation was cut off.[1]

[1] O'Connor's "The Parnell Movement."

In the years that followed, the famine became appalling. The starving peasants left their miserable huts and streamed into the towns for relief, only to die of hunger in the streets.

Parliament responded nobly to the piteous calls for help, and voted in all no less than 10,000,000 pounds to relieve the distress.[2] Subscriptions were also taken up in London and the chief towns, by which large sums were obtained, and America contributed shiploads of provisions and a good deal of money; but the misery was so great that even these measures failed to accomplish what was hoped. When the famine was over, it was found that Ireland had lost about two million (or one fourth) of her population.[3] This was the combined effect of starvation, of the various diseases that followed in its path, and of emigration.[4]

[2] Molesworth's "History of England from 1830." [3] The actual number of deaths from starvation, or fever caused by insufficient food, was estimated at from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand. See the Encyclopaedia Britannica under "Ireland." [4] McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times," Vol. I.

594. Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846-1849; Free Trade established, 1869.

In the face of such appalling facts, and of the bad harvests and distress in England, Sir Robert Peel (S592) could hold out no longer, and by a gradual process, extending from 1846 to 1849, the obnoxious Corn Laws were repealed, with the exception of a trifling duty, which was finally removed in 1869.

The beginning once made, free trade in nearly everything, except wine, spirits, and tobacco, followed. They were, and still are, subject to a heavy duty, perhaps because the government believes, as Napoleon did, that the vices have broad backs and can comfortably carry the heaviest taxes. A few years later (1849) the old Navigation Laws (S459) were totally repealed. This completed the English free-trade measures. But, by a singular contrast, while nearly all goods and products now enter England free, yet Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa--in a word, all the great self-governing English colonies--continue to impose duties on imports from the mother country (S625).

595. The World's Fair (1851); Repeal of the Window and the Newspaper Tax; the Atlantic Cable, 1866.

The great industrial exhibition known as the "World's Fair" was opened in Hyde Park, London (1851). The original plan of it was conceived by Prince Albert. It proved to be not only a complete success in itself, but it led to many similar fairs on the part of different nations. For the first time in history the products and inventions of all the countries of the globe were brought together under one roof, in a gigantic structure of glass and iron called the "Crystal Palace," which is still in use for exhibition purposes at Sydenham, a suburb of London.

The same year (1851) the barbarous tax on light and air, known as the "Window Tax,"[1] was repealed and the House Tax (which is still in force) was substituted for it. From that date the Englishman, whether in London or out, might enjoy his sunshine, when he could get it, without having to pay for every beam,--a luxury which only the rich could afford.

[1] This tax, which took the place of the ancient Hearth Tax (1663-1689), was first imposed in 1695.

A little later (1855) a stamp tax on newspapers, which had been devised in Queen Anne's time in the avowed hope of crushing them out, was repealed. The result was that henceforth cheap papers could be published, and the workingman, as he sat by his fireside, could inform himself of what the world was doing and thinking,--two things of which he had before known almost nothing, and cared, perhaps, even less.

To get this news of the world's life more speedily, England had established the first line of Atlantic steamers (S565); next, the first Atlantic cable, connecting England with America, was laid (1858). It soon gave out, but was permanently relaid not long afterwards, in 1866. Since then a large part of the globe has been joined in like manner,[1] and the great cities of every civilized land are practically one in their knowledge of all important events. So many improvements have also been made in the use of electricity, not only for the transmission of intelligence, but as an illuminator, and more recently still as a motive power, that it now seems probable that "the age of steam" will be superseded by the higher "age of electricity."

[1] There are now over 250,000 miles of submarine electric cables in operation in the world.

596. The Opium War (1839); the War in the Crimea (1854).

For nearly twenty years after Victoria's accession no wars occurred in her reign worthy of mention, with the exception of that with China (1839). At that time the Chinese Emperor, either from a desire to put a stop to the consumption of opium in his dominions, or because he wished to encourage the home production of the drug, prohibited its importation. As the English in India were largely engaged in the production of opium for the Chinese market,--the people of that country smoking it instead of tobacco,--the British government insisted that the Emperor should not interfere with so lucrative a trade. War ensued.

The Chinese, being unable to contend against English gunboats, were soon forced to withdraw their prohibition of the foreign opium traffic. The English government, with the planters of India, reaped a golden reward of many millions for their deliberate violation of the rights of a heathen and half-civilized people. The war opened five important ports to the British trade, and subsequent wars opened a number more on the rivers in the interior. This action, with the later aggressions of other European powers, roused an intensely bitter feeling among large numbers of the Chinese. Their hatred of foreigners finally led to a desperate but unsuccessful attempt (1900) to drive all Europeans and Americans, including missionaries, out of the country.

Eventually, the pressure of the great powers of Europe and the diplomatic influence of the United States induced China to grant the "Open Door" to the demands of foreign trade. Later, England and China made an agreement (1911) which bids fair to stop the exportation of opium to that country.

Next, Turkey declared war against Russia (1853). The latter Power had insisted on protecting all Christians in the Turkish dominions against the oppression of the Sultan. England and France considered the Czar's championship of the Christians as a mere pretext for occupying Turkish territory. To prevent this aggression they formed an alliance with the Sultan, which resulted in the Russo-Turkish war, and ended in the taking of Sebastopol by the allied forces. Russia was obliged to retract her demands, and peace was declared (1856).

597. The Great Rebellion in India, 1857.

The following year, 1857, was memorable for the outbreak of rebellion in India. The real cause of the revolt was probably a long-smothered feeling of resentment on the part of the Sepoy, or native, troops against English rule,--a feeling that dates back to the extortion and misgovernment of Warren Hastings (S555). The immediate cause of the uprising was the introduction of an improved rifle using a greased cartridge, which had to be bitten off before being rammed down.

To the Hindu the fat of cattle or swine is an abomination, and his religion forbids his tasting it. An attempt on the part of the British Government to enforce the use of the new cartridge brought on a general mutiny among three hundred thousand Sepoys. During the revolt the native troops perpetrated the most horrible atrocitise on the English women and children who fell into their hands. When the insurrection was finally quelled under Havelock and Campbell, the English soldiers retaliated by binding numbers of prisoners to the mouths of cannon and blowing them to shreds. At the close of the rebellion, the government of India was wholly transferred to the Crown, and later the Queen received the title of "Empress of India" (1876).

598. Death of Prince Albert; the American Civil War, 1861.

Not long after the Sepoy rebellion was quelled, Prince Albert (S589) died suddenly (1861). In him the nation lost an earnest promoter of social, educational, and industrial reforms, and the United States a true and judicious friend, who, at a most critical period in the Civil War, used his influence to maintain peace between the two countries.

After his death the Queen held no court for many years, and so complete was her seclusion that Sir Charles Dilke, a well-known Radical, suggested in Parliament (1868) that her Majesty be invited to abdicate or choose a regent. The suggestion was indignantly rejected; but it revealed the feeling, which quite generally existed, that "the real Queen died with her husband," and that only her shadow remained.

In the spring of the year 1861, in which Prince Albert died, the American Civil War broke out between the Northern and Southern States. Lord Palmerston, the Liberal Prime Minister, preferred to be considered the minister of the nation rather than the head of a political party. At the beginning of the war he was in favor of the North. As the conflict threatened to be bitter the Queen issued a proclamation declaring her "determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties." The rights of belligerents--in other words, all the rights of war according to the law of nations--were granted to the South equally with the North; and her Majesty's subjects were warned against aiding either side in the conflict.

The progress of the war caused terrible distress in Lancashire, owing to the cutting off of supplies of cotton for the mills through the blockade of the ports of the Confederate States. The starving weavers, however, gave their moral support to the North, and continued steadfast to the cause of the Union even in the sorest period of their suffering. The great majority of the manufacturers and business classes generally, and the nobility, with a few exceptions, sympathized with the efforts of the South to establish an independent Confederacy. Most of the distinguished political and social leaders, in Parliament and out, with nearly all the influential journals, were on the same side, and were openly hostile to the Union.[1]

[1] Lord John Russell (Foreign Secretary), Lord Brougham, Sir John Bowring, Carlyle, Ruskin, and the London Times and Punch espouses the cause of the South more or less openly; while others, like Mr. Gladstone, declared their full belief in the ultimate success of the Confederacy. On the other hand, Prince Albert, the Duke of Argyll, John Bright, John Stuart Mill, Professor Newman, Lord Palmerston, at least for a time, and the London Daily News defended the cause of the North. After the death of President Lincoln, Punch manfully acknowledged (see issue of May 6, 1865) that it had been altogether wrong in its estimation of him and his measures; and Mr. Gladstone, in an essay on "Kin beyond Sea" in his "Gleanings of Past Years," paid a noble tribute to the course pursued by America since the close of the war.

Late in Autumn (1861) Captain Wilkes, of the United States Navy, boarded the British mail steamer Trent, and seized two Confederate commissioners (Mason and Slidell) who were on their way to England. When intelligence of the act was conveyed to President Lincoln, he expressed his unqualified disapproval of it, saying: "This is the very thing the British captains used to do. They claimed the right of searching American ships, and taking men out of them. That was the cause of the War of 1812. Now, we cannot abandon our own principles; we shall have to give up these men, and apologize for what we have done."

The British Government made a formal demand that the commissioners should be given up. Through the influence of Prince Albert, and with the approval of the Queen, this demand was couched in most conciliatory language. Slidell and Mason were handed over to Great Britain, and an apology was made by Secretary Seward.

During the progress of the Civil War a number of fast-sailing vessels were fitted out in England, and employed in running the blockade of the Southern ports, to supply them with arms, ammunition, and manufactured goods of various kinds. Later, several gunboats were built in British shipyards by agents of the Confederate government, for the purpose of attacking the commerce of the United States. The most famous of these vessels was the Alabama, built expressly for the Confederate service by the Lairds, of Birkenhead, armed with British cannon, and manned chiefly by British sailors.

Charles Francis Adams, the American Minister at London, notified Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, of her true character. But Palmerston permitted the Alabama to leave port (1862), satisfied with the pretext that she was going on a trial trip.[1] She set sail on her career of destruction, and soon drove nearly every American merchant vessel from the seas. Two years later (1864) she was defeated and sunk by the United States gunboat Kearsarge. After the war the Government of the United States demanded damages from Great Britain for losses caused by the Alabama and other English-built privateers.

[1] The Queen's advocate gave his opinion that the Alabama should be detained, but it reached the Foreign Secretary (Lord Russell) just after she had put out to sea.

A treaty was agreed to by the two nations; and by its provisions an international court was held at Geneva, Switzerland (1872), to deal with the demands made by the United States on Great Britain. The court awarded $15,500,000 in gold as compensation to the United States, which was duly paid. One very important result of this decision was that it established a precedent for settling by arbitration on equitable and amicable terms whatever questions might arise in future between the two nations.[1]

[1] This treaty imposed duties on neutral governments of a far more stringent sort than Great Britain had hitherto been willing to concede. It resulted, furthermore, in the passage of an act of Parliament, punishing with severe penalties such illegal shipbuilding as that of the Alabama. See Sheldon Amos's "Fifty Years of the English Constitution, 1830-1880."

599. Municipal Reform (1835); Woman Suffrage; the Jews.

Excellent as was the Reform Bill of 1832 (S582), it did not go far enough. There was also great need of municipal reform, since in many cities the taxpayers had no voice in the management of local affairs, and the city officers sometimes spent the income of large charitable funds in feasting and merrimaking while the poor got little or nothing.

A law was passed (1835) giving taxpayers in cities (except London) control of municipal elections. By a subsequent amendment, the ballot in such cases was extended to women,[2] and for the first time perhaps in modern history partial woman suffrage was formally granted by supreme legislative act. A number of years later the political restrictions imposed on the Jews were removed.

[2] Woman suffrage in municipal elections was granted to single women and widows (householders) in 1869. In 1870 an act was passed enabling them to vote at schoolboard elections, and also to become members of such boards. By act of 1894 women were made eligible to sit and vote in district and parish councils (or local-government elections).

There was a considerable number of Jews in London and in other large cities who were men of wealth and influence. They were entitled to vote and hold municipal office, but they were debarred from election to Parliament by a law which required them to make oath "on the faith of a Christian." The law was now so modified (1859) that a very prominent Jew, Baron Rothschild, took his seat in Parliament. Finally the Oaths Act (1888) abolished all religious tests in Parliament.

600. Second and Third Reform Acts, 1867, 1884; County and Parish Councils (1884, 1894).

In 1867 the pressure of public opinion moved Mr. Disraeli (later Lord Beaconsfield), a member of Lord Derby's Conservative Cabinet (S479), to bring in a second Reform Bill (S582), which became law. This bill provided "household suffrage." It gave the right to vote to all male householders in the English parliamentary boroughs (that is, towns having the right to elect one or more members to Parliament), who paid a tax for the support of the poor, and to all lodgers paying a rental of 10 pounds yearly; it also increased the number of voters among small property holders in counties.[1]

[1] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p.xxvi, S31. Lord Derby held the office, but Mr. Disraeli was really Prime Minister.

There still remained, however, a large class in the country districts for whom nothing had been done. The men employed by the farmers to till the soil were wretchedly poor and deplorably ignorant. Joseph Arch, a Warwickshire farm laborer, who had been educated by hunger and toil, succeeded in establishing a national union among men of his class (1872). In 1884 Mr. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister, secured the ballot for agricultural laborers by the passage of the third Reform Act, which gave all residents of counties throughout the United Kingdom the right to vote on the same liberal conditions as the residents of the towns.

It is estimated that this last law added about two and a half millions of voters; this gave one voter to every six persons of the total population, whereas, before the passing of the first Reform Bill in 1832, thre was not over one in fifty. When the new or so-called "People's Parliament" convened (1886), Joseph Arch and several other candidates took their seats in the House of Commons as representatives of classes of the population who, up to that date, had no voice in the legislation of the country.

The next step may bring universal "manhood suffrage." The County Council and Parish Council acts (1888, 1894) greatly extended the power of the people in all matters of local government, so that now every village in England controls its own affairs.

601. Compulsory Church Rates abolished; Disestablishment in Ireland (1869).

While these great reforms were taking place with respect to elections, others of great importance were also being effected. From its origin in 1549 the established Protestant Church of England (S362) had compelled persons of all religious beliefs to pay rates or taxes for the maintenance of the Established Cuhrch in the parish where they resided. Methodists, Baptists, and other Dissenters (SS472, 496, 507) objected to this law as unjust, since, in addition to the expense of supporting their own form of worship, they were obliged to contribute toward maintaining one with which they had no sympathy. So great had the opposition become to paying these "church rates," that in over fifteen hundred parishes in England (1859) the authorities could not collect them. After long debate Mr. Gladstone carried through a bill (1868) which abolished this mode of taxation and made the payment of these rates purely voluntary.[1]

[1] Church rates were levied on all occupiers of land or houses within the parish. The Church of England is now supported by a tax on landowners, by its endowments, and by voluntary gifts.

A similar act of justice was soon after granted to Ireland (1869).[2] At the time of the union of the two countries in 1800 (S562), the maintenance of the Protestant Episcopal Church continued to remain obligatory upon the Irish people, although only a small part of them were of that faith. Mr. Gladstone, now Liberal Prime Minister, succeeded in getting Parliament to enact a law which disestablished this branch of the National Church and left all religious denominations in Ireland to the voluntary support of those who belonged to them. Henceforth the English Protestants residing in that country could no longer claim the privilege of worshiping God at the expense of his Roman Catholic neighbor.

[2] The Disestablishment Bill was passed in 1869 and took effect in 1871.

602. The Elementary Education Act, 1870.

In 1870 Mr. Forester, a member of Mr. Gladstone's Liberal Cabinet (SS534, 601), succeeded in passing a measure of the highest importance, entitled The Elementary Education Act. This act did not undertake to establish a new system of instruction, but to aid and improve that which was then in use. In the course of time, however, it effected such changes for the better in the common schools that it practically re-created most of them.

It will be remembered that before the Reformation the Catholic monasteries took the leading part in educating the children of the country (SS45, 60). The destruction of the monasteries by Henry VIII (S352) put a stop to their work; but after Henry's death, his son, Edward VI, established many Protestant schools (SS364, 365), while tohers were founded by men who had grown suddenly rich through getting possession of monastic lands. These new schools did good work, and are still doing it; but they seldom reached the children of the poor. Later on, many wealthy persons founded Charity Schools to help the class who could not afford to pay anything for their tuition. The pupils who lived in these institutions (of which a number still exist) were generally obliged to wear a dress which, by its peculiarity of cut and color, always reminded them that they were "objects of public or private benevolence." Furthermore, while the boys in these institutions were often encouraged to go on and enter Grammar Schools, the girls were informed that a very little learning would be all that they would ever need in the humble station in life to which Providence had seen fit to call them.

Meanwhile, the Church of England, and other religious denominations, both Catholic and Protestant, established many common schools (1781- 1811) for the benefit of the poor. The cost of carrying them on was usually met by private contributions. All of these schools gave some form of denominational religious instruction. As the population increased many more schools were required. At length Parliament began (1833) to grant money to help the different religious societies in maintaining their systems of instruction. When able, the parents of the children were also called on to pay a small sum weekly. In 1870 the Liberal Government took hold of the education question with great vigor. It provided that in all cases where the existing Church of England or other denominational schools were not able to accomodate the children of a given district, School Boards should be established to open new schools, which, if necessary, should be maintained entirely at the public expense. In these "Board Schools," as they were called, no denominational religious instruction whatever could be given.

This very important act "placed a school within the reach of every child," but, except in very poor districts, these schools were not made free schools; in fact, free schools, in the American sense, cannot be said to exist in Great Britain. Later on (1880) compulsory attendance was required, and subsequent acts of Parliament (1902, 1904) transferred the management of these schools from the School Boards to the Town and County Councils.[1] Again, these new measures make it practicable for a boy or girl, who has done well in the primary course, to secure assistance which will open opportunities for obtaining a higher education. Thus, as a recent writer declares, "There is now a path leading from the workman's home even to the University."[2]

[1] But many men and women who belong to the Dissenting Denominations complain that the Educational Acts of 1870-1904 compel them to pay taxes for the support of a great number of public elementary schools which are under the control of the English Church, and furthermore, that teachers who are members of Dissenting societies, such as the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, etc., can seldom, if ever, get appointments in the class of schools mentioned. Quite a number of these Dissenters who call themselves "Passive Resisters" have refused to pay the school tax and have had their property seized or have been sent to jail year after year. [2] A.L. Lowell's "The Government of England," II, 323.

Meanwhile (1871) the universities and colleges, with most of the offices and professorships connected with them, were thrown open to all persons without regard to religious belief; whereas, formerly, no one could graduate from Oxford or Cambridge without subscribing to the doctrines of the Church of England.

603. The First Irish Land Act, 1870.

In 1870, the same year that the Government undertook to provide for the education of the masses (S602), Mr. Gladstone, who was still Prime Minister and head of the Liberal Party (S601), brought in a bill for the relief of small Irish farmers, those who had to support themselves and their families from the little they could get from a few hired acres. Since the union (S562) much of the general policy of England toward Ireland had been described as "a quick alternation of kicks and kindness." Mr. Gladstone did not hesitate to say that he believed the misery of the island sprang mainly from its misgovernment. He thought that the small farmer needed immediate help and that it was the duty of the Liberal Party to grant it.

The circumstances under which the land was held in Ireland were peculiar. A very large part of it was owned by Englishmen whose ancestors obtained it through the wholesale confiscations of James I, Cromwell, and later rulers (SS423, 453). Very few of these English landlords cared to reside in the country or to do anything for its improvement. Their agents or overseers generally forced the farm tenants to pay the largest amount of rent that could be wrung from them, and they could dispossess a tenant of his land whenever they saw fit, without giving a reason for the act. If, by his labor, the tenant made the land more fertile, he seldom reaped any additional profit from his industry, for the rent was usually increased, and swallowed up all that he raised. Such a system of extortion was destructive to those who tilled the soil, and if it brought in more money for the landlord, it produced nothing but misery and discontent for his tenant.

Mr. Gladstone's new law endeavored to remedy these evils by the following provisions:

1. In case a landlord ejected a rent-paying tenant, he was to pay him damages, and allow him a fair sum for whatever improvement he had made. 2. It secured a ready means of arbitration between landlord and tenant, and if a tenant failed to pay an exorbitant rate he could not be hastily or unjustly driven from his farm. 3. It made it possible for the tenant to borrow a certain sum from the government for the purpose of purchasing the land in case the owner was willing to sell.

604. Distress in Ireland; the Land League (1879).

The friends of the new Irish land law hoped it would be found satisfactory; but the potato crop again failed in Ireland (1876-1879), and the country seemed threatened with another great famine (S593). Thousands who could not get the means to pay even a moderate rent were now forced to leave their cabins and seek shelter in the bogs, with the prospect of dying there of starvation.

The wrected condition of the people led an number of influential Irishmen to for a Land League (1879). This organization sought to abolish the entire landlord system in Ireland and to secure legislation which should eventually give the Irish peasantry possession of the soil they cultivated.

In time the League grew to have a membership of several hundred thousand persons, extending over the greater part of Ireland. Finding it difficult to get parliamentary help for their grievances, the League resolved to try a different kind of tactics. Its members refused to work for, buy from, sell to, or have any intercourse with landlords, or their agents, who extorted exhorbitant rent, ejected tenants unable to pay, or took possession of land from which tenants had been unjustly driven. This process of social excommunication was first tried on an English agent, or overseer, named Boycott, and soon became famous under the name of "boycotting."

As the struggle went on, many of the suffering poor became desperate. Farm buildings belonging to landlords and their agents were burned, many of their cattle were horribly mutilated, and a number of the agents shot. At the same time the cry rose of "No Rent, Death to the Landlords!" Hundreds of Irish tenants now refused to pay anything for the use of the land they cultivated, and attacked those who did.

Eventually the lawlessness of the country compelled the Government to take severe measures. It suppressed the Land League (1881), which was believed to be responsible for the refusal to pay rent, and for the accompanying outrages; but it could not extinguish the feeling which gave rise to that organization, and the angry discontent soon burst forth more violently than ever.

605. The Second Irish Land Act (1881); Fenian and Communist Outrages.

Mr. Gladstone (S603) now succeeded in carrying through a second Irish Land Law (1881) (S603), which he hoped might be more effective in relieving the Irish peasants than the first had been. This measure was familiarly known as the "Three F's,"--meaning Fair rent, Fixity of tenure, and Free sale. By the provisions of this act the tenant could appeal to a board of land commissioners appointed to fix the rate of his rent in case the demands made by the landlord seemed to him excessive.

Next, he could continue to hold his farm, provided he paid the rate determined on, for a period of fifteen years, during which time the rent could not be raised nor the tenant evicted except for violation of agreement or persistent neglect or waste of the land. Finally, he could sell his tenancy whenever he saw fit to the highest bidder. This law was later amended and extended in the interest of the peasant farmer (1887).

The year following the passage of this second Land Act, Lord Frederick Cavendish, chief secretary of Ireland, and Mr. Burke, a prominent government official, were murdered in Phoenix Park, Dublin (1882). Later, members of the Fenian society, and of other secret organizations sympathizing with the small Irish farmers, perpetrated dynamite outrages in London and other parts of England for the purpose of intimidating the Government. These acts were denounced by the leaders of the Irish National Party. They declared that "the cause of Ireland was not to be served by the knife of the assassin or by the infernal machine."

Notwithstanding the vindictive feeling caused by these rash deeds, despite also the passage of the Coercion Bill (1887), the majority of the more intelligent and thoughtful of the Irish people had faith in the progress of events. They believed that the time would come when their country would obtain the enjoyment of all the political rights which England so fully possesses. It will be seen (S620) that about ten years later they did gain a very important extension of the right of local self-government.[1]

[1] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p.xxvii, S33.

606. The Darwinian Theory of Evolution, 1859; the Persistence of Force.

In the progress of science the Victorian period surpassed all previous records in England except that made by Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation (S481). That great thinker demonstrated in 1684 that all forms of matter, great or small, near or distant, are governed by one universal force of attraction. In like manner the researches and investigations of the nineteenth century led to the conviction that all forms of life upon the earth obey a universal law of development. By this law the higher are evolved from the lower through a succession of gradual but progressive changes.

This conception originated long before the beginning of the Victorian era, but it lacked the support of carefully examined facts, and most sensible men regarded it as nothing more than a plausible conjecture. The thinker who did more than any other to supply the facts, and to put the theory, so far as it relates to natural history, on a solid and lasting foundation, was the distinguished English naturalist, Charles Darwin.[1]

[1] Alfred Russel Wallace, also noted as a naturalist, worked out the thoery of evolution by "natural selection" about the same time, though not so fully, with respect to details, as Darwin; as each of these investigators arrived at his conclusions independently of the other, the theory was thus doubly confirmed.

On his return (1837) from a voyage of scientific discovery round the world, Darwin began to examine and classify the facts which he had collected, and continued to collect, relating to certain forms of animal life. After twenty-two years of uninterrupted labor he published a work in 1859, entitled "The Origin of Species," in which he aimed to show that life generally owes its course of development ot the struggle for existence and to "the survival of the fittest."

Darwin's work may truthfully be said to have wrought a revolution in the study of nature as great as that accomplished by Newton in the seventeenth century. Though it excited heated and prolonged discussion, the Darwinian theory gradually made its way, and is now generall received, though sometimes in a modified form, by practically every eminent man of science throughout the world.

After Mr. Darwin began his researches, but before he completed them, Sir William Grove, an eminent electrician, commenced a series of experiments which resulted in his publishing his remarkable book[2] on the connection of the physical forces of nature. He showed that heat, light, and electricity are mutually convertible; that they must be regarded as modes of motion; and, finally, that all force is persistent and indestructible, thus proving, as Professor Tyndall says, that "to nature, nothing can be added; from nature, nothing can be taken away." Together, the work of Darwin and Grove, with kindred discoveries, resulted in the theory of evolution, or development. Later on, Herbert Spencer and other students of evolution endeavored to make it the basis of a system of philosophy embracing the whole field of nature and life.

[2] "The Correlation of the Physical Forces" (1846).

The Victorian period was also noted for many other great names in science, philosophy, literature, and art. The number was so great that it would manifestly be impracticable to devote any adequate space to them here.[1]

[1] It will be sufficient to mention the novelists, Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte, and "George Eliot"; the historians, Stubbs, Hallam, Arnold, Grote, Macaulay, Alison, Buckle, Froude, Freeman, and Gardiner; the essayists, Carlyle, Landor, and De Quincey; the poets, Browning and Tennyson; the philosophical writers, Hamilton, Mill, and Spencer; with Lyell, Faraday, Carpenter, Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, Wallace, and Lord Kelvin in science; John Ruskin, the eminent art critic; and, in addition, the chief artists of the period, Millais, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Watts, and Hunt.

607. The Queen's Two Jubilees; Review of Sixty Years of English History (1837-1897).

Queen Victoria celebrated the fiftieth year of her reign (1887); ten years later (1897) the nation spontaneously rose to do honor to her "Diamond Jubilee." The splendid military pageant which marked that event in London was far more than a brilliant show, for it demonstrated the enthusiastic loyalty of the English people and of the English colonies.

The real meaning of the occasion is best sought in a review of the record of those threescore years. They were, in large degree, a period of progress; perhaps, in fact, no similar period in European history has been so "crowded with benefit to humanity."

When Victoria came to the throne in her nineteenth year (1837) she found the kingdom seething with discontent, and the province of Canada approaching rebellion. In business circles reckless speculation and the bursting of "Bubble Companies" had been followed by "tight money" and "hard times." Among the poor matters were far worse. Wages were low, work was scarce, bread was dear. In the cities half-fed multitudes lived in cellars; in the country the same class occupied wretched cottages hardly better than cellars.[2]

[2] See Cobbett's "Rural Rides, 1821-1832."

The "New Poor Law" (S403),[3] which went into effect in 1834, or shortly before the Queen's accession, eventually accomplished much good; but for a time it forced many laborers into the workhouse. The result aggravated the suffering and discontent, and the predominant feeling of the day may be seen reflected in the pages of Dickens, Carlyle, and Kingsley.[1]

[3] The "New Poor Law": Between 1691 and 1834 the administration of relief for the poor was in the hands of justices of the peace, who gave aid indiscriminately to those who begged for it. In 1795 wages for ordinary laborers were so low that the justices resolved to grant an allowance to every poor family in accordance with its numbers. The result of this mistaken kindness was speedily seen; employers cut down wages to the starvation point, knowing that the magistrates would give help out of the poor fund. The consequence was that the tax rate for relief of the poor rose to a degree that became unbearable. The "New Law" of 1834 effected a sweeping reform: (1) it forbade outdoor relief to the able-bodied poor, and thus, in the end, compelled the employer to give better wages (but outdoor relief is now frequently granted); (2) it restricted aid to that given in workhouses, where the recipient, if in good health, was obliged to labor in return for what he received; (3) it greatly reduced the expense of supporting the poor by uniting parishes in workhouse "unions"; (4) it modified the old rigid Law of Settlement, thereby making it possible for those seeking employment to take their labor to the best market. [1] See Dickens's "Oliver Twist" (1838), Carlyle's "Chartism" (1839), and Kingsley's "Yeast" and "Alton Locke" (1849).

Notwithstanding the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (S582), political power was still held chiefly by men of property who distrusted the masses of the people. They feared that the widespread distress would culminate in riots, if not in open insurrection.

The Chartist movement (S591) which speedily began (1838) seemed to justify their apprehension. But the dreaded revolt never came; the evils of the times were gradually alleviated and, in some cases, cured. Confidence slowly took the place of distrust and fear. When, in June (1897), the Queen's "Diamond Jubilee" procession moved from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's, and thence through some of the poorest quarters of London, none of the dense mass that filled the streets cheered more lustily than those who must always earn their daily bread by their daily toil.

The explanation of that change was to be found in the progress of good government, the extension of popular rights, and the advance of material improvements. Let us consider these changes in their natural order.

608. Further Extension of the Right to Vote, 1832-1894.[2]

We have already described the far-reaching effects of the Reform Bill (S582) of 1832, which, on the one hand, put an end to many "rotten boroughs," and on the other, granted representation in Parliament to a number of large towns hitherto without a voice in that body. Three years later (1835) came the Municipal Reform Act. It placed the government of towns, with the exception of London,[1] in the hands of the taxpayers who lived in them.

[2] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p.xxvi, S31. [1] The ancient city of London, or London proper, is a district covering about a square mile, and was once enclosed in walls; it is still governed by a lord mayor, court of aldermen, and a common council elected mainly by members of the "city" companies, representing the medieval trade guilds (S274). The metropolis outside the "city" is governed by the London County Council and a number of associate bodies, among which are the councils of twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs.

This radical measure put a stop to the arbitrary and corrupt management which had existed when the town officers elected themselves and held their positions for life (S599). Futhermore, it prevented parliamentary candidates from buying up the entire municipal vote,--a thing which frequently happened so long as the towns were under the absolute control of a few individuals.

A generation passed before the next important step was taken. Then, as we have seen, the enactment of the Second Reform Bill (1867) (S600) doubled the number of voters in England. The next year an act reduced the property qualification for the right to vote in Scotland and Ireland; thus the ballot was largely increased throughout the United Kingdom.

The Third Reform Act (1884) (S600) granted the right to vote for members of Parliament to more than two million persons, chiefly to the farm laborers and other workingmen. Since that date, whether the Liberals or the Conservatives[2] have been in power, "the country," as Professor Gardiner says, "has been under democratic influence."

[2] The Whigs (S479) included two elements, one aristocratic and the other radical. After the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 they took the name of Liberals; and the Tories (S479), who found their old name unpopular, adopted that of Conservatives.

But though these acts wrought an immense change by transferring political power from the hands of the few to the greater part of the nation, further progress in this direction was destined to come soon. Originally the government of the shires, or counties, was in the hands of the people; they gradually lost it, and the wealthy landed proprietors obtained control. The Local Government, or County Councils, Act (1888) restored the power in great measure to those who had parted with it, by putting the management of county affairs under the direction of the County Councils elected by the householders of the counties or shires. These Councils look after the highways, the sanitary condition of the towns, the education of children, and the care of the poor.

Six years later (1894) the principle of self-government was carried almost to the farthest point by the passage of the Parish Councils Bill.[1] This measure did for country villages and other small places what the Local Government Act did for the counties. It gave back to the inhabitants of the parishes certain rights which they had once possessed, but which had gradually come under the control of the squire, the parson[2], and a few privileged families.

[1] Parish: This name was given originally to a district assigned to a bishop or priest; at present it generally refers simply to the area which was formerly contained in such a district. [2] The squire was the chief landholder in a village or parish; the parson, the minister of the parish church.

Now every man and woman who has resided in the parish for a twelvemonth has the right not only to vote for the members of the Parish Council but to run as candidate for election to that body. The village parliament discusses all questions which are of public interest to the parish. It is in some respects more democratic even than a New England town meeting, since it gives women a voice, a vote, and opportunity to hold office. Its work supplements that of the County Councils and of Parliament.

609. Overthrow of the "Spoils System"; the Army; the "Secret Ballot," 1870-1872.

Meanwhile reforms not less important had been effected in the management of the civil service. The ancient power of the Crown to give fat pensions to its favorites had been pared down to very modest proportions, but another great abuse still flourished like an evil weed in rich soil.

For generations, public offices had been regarded as public plunder, and the watchword of the politicians was, "Every man for himself, and the National Treasury for us all." Under this system of pillage the successful party in an election came down like a flock of vultures after a battle. They secured all the "spoils," form petty clerkships worth 100 pounds a year up to places worth thousands.

About the middle of the last century (1855) an effort was made to break up this corrupt and corrupting system, but the real work was not accomplished until 1870. In that year England threw open the majority of the positions in the civil service to competitive examination. Henceforth the poorest day laborer, whether man or woman, might, if competent, ask for any one of many places which formerly some influential man or political "boss" reserved as gifts for those who obeyed his commands.

The next year (1871) the purchase of commissions in the army was abolished.[1] This established the merit system in the ranks, and now military honors and military offices are open to all who can earn them.

[1] Up to 1871 an officer retiring from the army could sell his commission to any officer next below him in rank who had the money to buy the position; whereas under the present system the vacancy would necessarily fall to senior officers in the line of promotion. In the year following this salutary change the entire British army was reorganized.

The Registration Act of 1843 required every voter to have his name and residence recorded on a public list. This did away with election frauds to a large extent. It was supplemented in 1872 by the introduction of the "secret ballot" (S591). This put an end to the intimidation of voters and to the free fights and riots which had so frequently made the polls a political pandemonium. The Bribery Act of 1883 was another important measure which did much toward stopping the wholesale purchase of votes by wealthy candidates or by powerful corporations.

610. Reforms in Law Procedures.

During Queen Victoria's reign great changes for the better were effected in simplifying the laws and the administration of justice. When she came to the throne the Parliamentary Statutes at Large filled fifty-five huge folio volumes, and the Common Law, as contained in judicial decisions from the time of Edward II (1307), filled about twelve hundred more. The work of examining, digesting, and consolidating this enormous mass of legislative and legal lore was taken in hand (1863) and has been slowly progressing ever since.

The Judicature Acts (1873, 1877) united the chief courts in a single High Court of Justice. This reform did away with much confusion and expense. But the most striking changes for the better were those made in the Court of Chancery (S147) and the criminal courts.

In 1825 the property belonging to suitors in the former court amounted to nearly forty millions of pounds.[1] The simplest case might require a dozen years for its settlement, while difficult ones consumed a lifetime, or more, and were handed down from father to son,--a legacy of baffled hopes, of increasing expense, of mental suffering worse than that of hereditary disease.

[1] See Walpole's "History of England," Vol. III.

Much has been done to remedy these evils, which Dickens set forth with such power in his novel of "Bleak House." At one time the prospect of reform seemed so utterly hopeless that it was customary for a prize fighter, when he had got his opponent's neck twisted under his arm, and held him absolutely helpless, to declare that he had his head "in chancery"!

611. Reforms in Criminal Courts and in the Treatment of the Insane.

In criminal courts an equal reform was effected, and men accused of burglary and murder are now allowed to have counsel to defend them, and the right of appeal is secured; whereas, up to the era of Victoria, they were obliged to plead their own cases as best they might against skilled public prosecutors, who used every resource known to the law to convict them.

Great changes for the better have also taken place in the treatment of the insane. Until near the close of the eighteenth century this unfortunate class was quite generally regarded as possessed by demons, and dealt with accordingly. William Tuke, a member of the Society of Friends, inaugurated a better system (1792); but the old method continued for many years longer. In fact, we have the highest authority for saying that down to a pretty late period in the nineteenth century the inmates of many asylums were worse off than the most desperate criminals.

They were shut up in dark, and often filthy, cells, where "they were chained to the wall, flogged, starved, and not infrequently killed."[2] Since then, mechanical restraints have, as a rule, been abolished, and the patients are generally treated with the care and kindness which their condition demands.

[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica (10th and 11th editions) under "Insanity."

612. Progress in the Education of the Masses.

We have seen that since 1837 the advance in popular education equaled that made in the extension of suffrage and in civil service reform. When Victoria began her reign a very large proportion of the children of the poor were growing up in a stat bordering on barbarism. Many of them knew little more of books or schools than the young Hottentots in Africa.

The marriage register shows that as late as 1840 forty per cent of the Queen's adult subjects could not write their names in the book; by the close of her reign (1901) the number who had to "make their mark" in that interesting volume was only about one in ten. This proves, as Lord Brougham said, that "the schoolmaster" has been "abroad" in the land.

The national system of education began, as we have already seen, in 1870 (S602). Later, the Assisted Education Act (1891) made provision for those who had not means to pay even a few pence a week for instruction. That law practically put the key of knowledge within reach of every child in England.

613. Religious Toleration in the Universities; Payment of Church Rates abolished.

The universities felt the new impulse. The abolition of religious tests for degrees at Oxford and Cambridge (1871) threw open the doors of those venerable seats of learning to students of every faith. Since then colleges for women have been established at Oxford and in the vicinity of Cambridge, and the "university-extension" examinations, with "college settlements" in London and other large cities, have long been doing excellent work.

The religious toleration granted in the universities was in accord with the general movement of the age. It wil be remembered that the Catholics were readmitted to sit in Parliament (S573) late in the reign of George IV (1829), and that under Victoria the Jews were admitted (1858) to the same right (S599). Finally Mr. Bradlaugh got his Oaths Bill passed (1888), and so opened PArliament to persons not only of all religious beliefs but of none.

In the meantime the compulsory payment of rates for the support of the Church of England had been abolished (1868) (S601); and the next year (1869) was made memorable by the just and generous act by which Mr. Gladstone disestablished the Irish branch of the English Church (S601).

614. Transportation and Communication.

When the Queen ascended the throne (1837), the locomotive (S584) was threatening to supersede the stagecoach; but the progerss of steam as a motor power on land had not been rapid, and England then had less than 200 miles of railway open;[1] but before the end of her reign there were nearly 22,000 miles in operation, and there are now 24,000. At first, the passenger accommodations were limited. Those who could indulge in such luxuries sometimes preferred to travel in their own private carriages placed on platform cars for transportation. For those who took first-class tickets there were excellent and roomy compartments at very high prices. The second class fared tolerably well on uncushioned seats, but the unfortunate third class were crowded like cattle into open trucks, without seats, and with no roofs to keep the rain out. But time remedied this. Long before the Queen celebrated her first Jubilee (S607) the workingman could fly through the country at the rate of from thirty to fifty miles an hour, for a penny a mile, and could have all the comforts that a reasonable being should ask for.

[1] A part of what is now the London and Northwestern Railway.

Cheap postage (S590) came in (1840) with the extension of railways, and in a few years the amount of mail carried increased enormously. Every letter, for the first time, carried on it a stamp bearing a portrait of the young Queen, and in this way the English people came to know her better than they had ever known any preceding sovereign. The London papers now reached the country by train.

The Telegraph began to come into use in January, 1845, between the railway station at Paddington, a western district of London, and Slough, near Windsor. The government eventually purchased all the lines, and reduced the charge on a despatch of twelve words to sixpence to any part of the United Kingdom. The Telephone followed (1876), and then Wireless Telegraphy (1899).

615. Light in Dark Places; Photography; the New Surgery (1834-1895).

The invention of the friction match, 1834 (S584), the abolition of the tax on windows (1851) (S595), with the introduction of American petroleum, speedily dispelled the almost subterraneous gloom of the laborer's cottage. Meanwhile photography, which began to be used in 1839, revealed the astonishing fact that the sun is always ready not only to make a picture but to take one, and that nothing is so humble as to be beneath his notice.

News came across the Atlantic from Boston, 1846, that Dr. Morton had rendered surgery painless by the use of ether. Before a year passed the English hospitals were employing it. Sir James Y. Simpson of Edinburgh introduced chloroform (1847). These two agents have abolished the terror of the surgeon's knife, and have lengthened life by making it possible to perform a class of operations which formerly very few patients had been able to bear.

A score of years later Sir Joseph Lister called attention to the important results obtained by antiseptic methods in surgery; next came (1895) the introduction from Germany of the marvelous X ray, by whose help the operator can photograph and locate a bullet or other foreign substance which he is endeavoring to extract. Together, these discoveries have saved multitudes of lives.

616. Progress of the Laboring Classes; Free Trade, 1846.

At the date of the Queen's accession a number of laws existed restricting the free action of workingmen. Only three years before Victoria's coronation six poor agricultural laborers in Dorsetshire were transported (1834) to penal servitude at Botany Bay, Australia, for seven years, for peacefully combining to secure an increase of their wages, which at that time were only six shilling a week. In fact, the so-called "Conspiracy Laws," which made Labor Unions liable to prosecution as unlawful, if not actually criminal organizations, were not wholly repealed until after the opening of the twentieth century.

Meanwhile Parliament passed the Trade Union Acts, in 1871 and 1876, which recognized the right of workingmen to form associations to protect their interests by the use of all measures not forbidden by the Common Law.[1] In 1906 the persistent political pressure of organized labor induced a Liberal Cabinet (of which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was Prime Minister) and the invariably Conservative House of Lords to pass a still more important act. That measure exempted Trade Unions from liability to pay damages for a certain class of injuries which they might commit in carrying on a strike.[2] During the above period of more than thirty years the unions have gained very largely in numbers and in financial as well as political strength. On the other hand they now have to contend with the radical Socialists who are seeking to convert England into a republic in which the government would carry on all industries and would prohibit private individuals from conducting any business whatever.

[1] One result of the organization of Trades or Labor Unions has been the shortening of the hours of labor. In 1894 the Government established an eight-hour day for workingmen in dockyards and in ordnance factories. [2] The Trade Disputes Act of 1906. This forbids any suit for tort against a Trade Union. See A. L. Lowell's "The Government of England," II, 534; and S. Gompers in _The Outlook_ for February, 1911, p. 269.

The unions will accomplish more still if they succeed in teaching their members to study the condition of industry in England, to respect the action of those workers who do not join associations, and to see clearly that "if men have a right to combine," they must also "have an equal right to refuse to combine."

In 1837 the English Corn Laws (S592) virtually shut out the importation of grain from foreign countries. The population had outgroiwn its food supply, and bread was so dear that even the agricultural laborer cried out. "I be protected," said he, "but I be starving." The long and bitter fight against the Corn Laws resulted not only in their gradual abolition, 1846, but in the opening of English ports to the products and manufactures of the world. With the exception of tobacco, wines, spirits, and a few other articles, all imports enter the kingdom free.

But though Great Britain carries out the theory that it is better to make things cheap for the sake of those who buy them, than it is to make them dear for the sake of those who produce them, yet all of the great self-governing English colonies impose protective duties[1] even against British products (S625). One of the interesting questions suggested by the Queen's "Diamond Jubilee" (1897) (S607) was whether England's children in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada would take any steps toward forming a commercial fre-etrade union with the mother country. More than ten years later that point still remained under discussion (S625).

[1] Except in certain cases, where the colonies, e.g. Canada, grant preferential duties, or practical free trade, in certain articles exported to the British Isles.

617. The Small Agricultural Holdings Act; the Agricultural Outlook.

Through the influence of the greatly increased popular vote, which resulted from the Third Reform Act (S600), the farm laborers made themselves felt in the House of Commons. They secured the passage of the Small Agricultural Holdings Act (1892). This gave those who worked on the land the privilege of purchasing from one to fifty acres, or of taking it on lease if they preferred.[2] But, notwithstanding the relief granted by this measure, the agricultural problem is to-day one of the most serious England has to solve. Just as New England now depends in large measure on the West for its food supply, so the British Isles depend in great measure on America for breadstuffs. Thousands of acres of fertile soil have gone out of cultivation in the eastern half of the island, mainly because the farmers cannot compete with foreign wheat.

[2] The Small Agricultural Holdings Act enables the County Council (S600) to acquire, by voluntary arrangement, suitable land for the purpose of reletting or reselling it to agricultural laborers and men of small means. Under certain safeguards the Council may advance up to three fourths of the purchase money.

The Royal Agricultural Commission, in a report made a number of years ago (1897), could suggest no remedy, and believed matters must grow worse. A leading English journal,[3] in commenting on the report, said, "The sad and sober fact is that the English farmer's occupation is gone, or nearly gone, never to return."

[3] The Bristol _Times and Mirror_, August 5, 1897.

The continued agricultural depression ruined many tillers of the soil, and drove the rural population more and more into the already overcrowded towns. There they bid against the laboring men for work, and so reduced wages to the lowest point. If they failed to get work, they became an added burden on the poor rates, and taxes rose accordingly.

Should no remedy be found, and should land in England continue to go out of cultivation, it is difficult to see how the majority of proprietors can resist the temptation to break up and sell their estates. The tendency of an important act of Parliament (1894) is believed by many to work in the same direction.[1] It imposes an inheritance tax on the heirs to landed property, which they find it hard to meet, especially when their tenants have abandoned their farms rather than try to pay the rent.

[1] The Consolidated Death Duties Act.

To-day a few thousand wealthy families hold the title deeds to a large part of the soil on which more than forty millions live. Generally speaking, the rent they demand does not seem to be excessive.[2] It is an open question whether England would be the gainer if, as in France, the land should be cut up into small holdings, worked by men without capital, and hence without power to make improvements.

[2] This is the opinion of the Royal Commission; but Gibbins's "Industry in England" (1896), p. 441, takes the opposite view.

618. The Colonial Expansion of England.

Meanwhile, whether from an economic point of view England is gaining or losing at home, there can be no question as to her colonial expansion. A glance at the accompanying maps of the world (see double map opposite and map facing p. 420) in 1837 and in 1911 shows the marvelous territorial growth of the British Empire.

When Victoria was crowned it had an area of less than three million square miles; to-day it has over eleven million, or more than one fifth of the entire land surface of the globe. England added to her dominions, on the average, more than one hundred and forty-five thousand square miles of territory every year of Victoria's reign.

Canada's wonderful growth in population and wealth is but one example. Australia began its career (1837) as a penal colony with a few shiploads of convicts; now it is a prosperous, powerful, and loyal patr of the Empire (S545). Later than the middle of the nineteenth century, New Zealand was a mission field where cannibalism still existed (1857); now it is one of the leaders in English civilization.

Again, when Victoria came to the throne (1837) the greater part of Africa was simply a geographical expression; the coast had been explored, but scarcely anything was known of the country back of it. Through the efforts of Livingstone and those who followed him (1840- 1890), the interior was explored and the source of the Nile was discovered (1863). Stanley undertook the great work on the Congo River and the "dark continent" ceased to be dark. Trade was opened with the interior, and the discovery of diamond mines and gold mines in South Africa (1867, 1884) stimulated emigration. Railways have been pushed forward in many directions (S622), new markets are springing up, and Africa, once the puzzle of the world, seems destined to become one of the great fields which the Anglo-Saxon race is determined to control, if not to possess.

On the other hand, the British West Indies have of late years greatly declined from their former prosperity. The English demand for cheap sugar has encouraged the importation of beet-root sugar from Germany and France. This has reduced the market for cane sugar to so low a point that there has been but little, if any, profit in raising it in the West Indies;[1] but fruit is a success.

[1] See Brooks Adams's "America's Economic Supremacy."

619. England's Change of Feeling toward her Colonies.

One of the most striking features of the "Diamond Jubilee" celebration (S607) was the prominence given to the Colonial Prime Ministers. There was a time, indeed, when the men who governed England regarded Canada and Australia as "a source of weakness," and the Colonial Office in London knew so little of the latter country that it made ridiculous blunders in attempting to address official despatches to Melbourne, Australia.[2] Even as late as the middle of the last century Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to Lord Malmesbury in regard to the Newfoundland fisheries, "These wretched colonies will all be independent, too, in a few years, and are a millstone around our necks."

[2] See Traill's "Social England," VI, 684.

Twenty years afterwards Disraeli, later Lord Beaconsfield, declared that one of the great objects he and his party had in view was to uphold the British Empire and to do everything to maintain its unity. That feeling has steadily gained in power and was never stronger than it is to-day. Canada, Australia, and the other governing colonies (S625) have since responded by actions as well as words, and "Imperial Federation" has become something more than a high-sounding phrase (SS625, 626).

620. The Condition of Ireland; International Arbitration.

But to make such federation harmonious and complete, the support of Ireland must be obtained. That country is the only member of the United Kingdom whose representatives in Parliament refused, as a rule, to take part in the celebration of the Queen's reign. They felt that their island had never been placed on a true equality with its stronger and more prosperous neighbor. In fact, the Royal Commission, appointed to inquire into the relative taxation of England and Ireland, reported (1897) nearly unanimously that "for a great many years Ireland had paid annually more than 2,000,000 pounds beyond her just proportion of taxation."[1] It has been estimated that the total excess obtained during the Queen's reign amounted to nearly 100,000,000 pounds.

[1] McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times," V, 487.

Mr. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister (1893) made a vigorous effort to secure "Home Rule" for Ireland. His bill granting that country an independent Parliament passed the House of Commons by a very large majority, but was utterly defeated in the House of Lords. Five years later (1898) Lord Salisbury, the Conservative Prime Minister, passed a bill which, though it did not give Ireland "Home Rule," did give it local self-government on the same popular foundation on which it rests in England (S608) and Scotland. Mr. Bryce, the British Ambassador at Washington, recently said (1911) that he was convinced that the condition of the people of Ireland had greatly improved and was "still advancing," and that "before long nearly all the land wouyld belong to the cultivators" (S605).

The recognition of the principle of international arbitration by England in the Alabama case (S598), in the Bering Sea Seal Fisheries dispute (1893), in the Venezuela boundary controversy (1896), and in the Newfoundland Fisheries case (1910) proved that the English people saw that the victories of peace are worth as much to a nation as the victories of war. The Hague Peace Conference Treaty, ratified by Great Britain with the United States and the leading nations of Europe and the Far East (1899), provided for the establishment of a permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague between all of the great powers which signed it. All appeals to it, however, are entirely voluntary.

Ten years earlier, a proposition to establish such a court for the purpose of strengthening the cause of international peace would have been looked upon as "a splendid but delusive dream." To-day many of the ablest men on both sides of the Atlantic believe that the time is not far off when England and America will agree to settle by arbitration all questions which diplomacy cannot deal with, which may arise between them. Sir Edward Grey, Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Mr. Asquith's Liberal Cabinet, fears that the continued expenditure on larger and larger armaments "will end in international revolution." On the other hand, those who are constantly advocating the building of more and bigger battleships admit that the Peace Party presents strong arguments in support of its views, and that "the war against war" is making progress.

621. Death of Gladstone; the Cabot Tower; Centennial of the First Savings Bank, 1899.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gladstone, the great Liberal leader, died, full of years and honors, at his residence, Hawarden Castle, in North Wales (1898). The "Grand Old Man"--as his friends delighted to call him-- was buried in that Abbey at Westminster which holds so much of England's most precious dust. His grave is not far from the memorial to Lord Beaconsfield, the eminent Conservative leader, who was his lifelong rival and political opponent.

In the autumn (1898) the Cabot monument was opened at Bristol. It is a commanding tower, overlooking the ancient city and port from which John Cabot (S335) sailed in the spring of 1497. The monument commemorates that explorer's discovery of the mainland of the New World. An inscription on the face of the tower expresses "the earnest hope that Peace and Friendship may ever continue between the kindred peoples" of England and America.

In May of the next year, 1899, the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of savings banks in Great Britain was celebrated. Near the closing year of the eighteenth century, 1799, Reverend Joseph Smith, Vicar of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, invited the laborers of his parish to deposit their savings with him on interest. "Upon the first day of the week," said he, quoting St. Paul's injuction, "let every one of you lay by him in store."[1] He offered to receive sums as small as twopence. Before the end of the year he had sixty depositors. Eventually the government took up the scheme and established the present system of national postal savings banks.

[1] The quotation is from I Corinthians xvi, 2.

They have done and are doing incalculable good. At present there are over eleven million depositors in the United Kingdom. Most of them belong to the wage-earning class, and they hold more than 212,000,000 pounds. In this case certainly the grain of mustard seed, sown a few generations ago, has produced a mighty harvest.

622. England in Egypt; Progress in Africa.

While busy at home, the English had been busy outside of their island. Five years after the opening of the Suez Canal (1869), Lord Beaconsfield, then the Conservative Prime Minister, bought nearly half of the canal property from the Governor of Egypt. Since then England has kept her hand on the country of the Pharaohs and the pyramids, and kept it there greatly to the advantage of the laboring class.

About ten years later (1881), Arabi Pasha, an ambitious colonel in the native army, raised the cry, "Down with all foreigners--Egypt for the Egyptians!" Lord Wolseley defeated Arabi's forces, and the colonel was banished from the country.

Two years afterwards (1883) a still more formidable rebellion broke out in the Sudan,--a province held by Egypt. (See map facing p. 428.) The leader of the insurrection styled himself the Mahdi, or great Mohammedan Prophet. Then (1884) Gladstone sent General Gordon to withdraw the Egyptian troops from Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. The Mahdi's forces shut up the heroic soldier in that city, and before help could reach him, he and all his Egyptian troops were massacred. No braver or truer man ever died at the post of duty, for in him was fulfilled Wordsworth's eloquent tribute to the "Happy Warrior."[1]

[1] See Wordsworth's poems "The Happy Warrior."

Many years later, Lord Kitchener advanced against the new Mahdi, and at Omdurman his terrible machine guns scattered the fanatical Dervishes, or Mohammedan monks, like chaff before the whirlwind. The next autumn (1899) the British overtook the fugitive leader of the Dervishes and annihilated his army.

Since then British enterprise, British capital, and American inventive skill have transformed Egypt. The completion of the great dam across the Nile, at Assouan (1902), regulates the water supply for lower Egypt. The creation of this enormous reservoir promises to make the Nile valley one of the richest cotton-producing regions in the world.

The "Cape to Cairo" railway, which is more than half finished, is another British undertaking of immense importance. (See map opposite.) When ready for traffic, through its whole length of nearly six thousand miles, besides its branch lines, it will open all Eastern Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Mediterranean, to the spread of commerce and civilization.

623. The Boers; the Boer War, 1899; Death of Queen Victoria (1901).

The history of the British in South Africa has been even more tragic than their progress in Egypt (S622).

In the middle of the seventeenth century (1652) the Dutch took possession of Cape Colony. (See map opposite.) Many Boers, or Dutch farmers, and cattle raisers emigrated to that far distant land. There they were joined by Huguenots, or French Protestants, who had been driven out of France. All of them became slaveholders. Early in the nineteenth century (1814) England purchased the Cape from Holland. Twenty years later the English Parliament bought all the negroes held by the Boers and set them free.

Eight thousand Boers, disgusted with the loss of their slaves and with the small price they had received for them, left the Cape (1836) and pushed far northward into the wilderness. Crossing the Orange River, they founded the "Orange Free State." Another party of Boers, going still further north, crossed the Vaal River (a tributary of the Orange) and set up the Transvaal, or "South African Republic," on what was practically a slaveholding foundation. Later (1852), England, by a treaty known as the Sand River Convention, virtually recognized the independence of the settlers in the Transvaal, and two years afterwards made a still more explicit recognition of the independence of the Orange Free State.

The Zulus and other fierce native tribes bordering on the Transvaal hated the Boers and threatened to "eat them up." Later (1877), England thought it for her interest, and for that of the Boers as well, to annex the Transvaal. The English Governor did not grant the Boers the measure of political liberty which he had promised; this led to a revolt, and a small body of English soldiers was beaten at Majuba Hill (1881).

Mr. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister, did not think that the conquest of the Transvaal, supposing it to be justifiable, would pay for its cost, and he accordingly made a treaty with the people of that country (1881). Lord Beaconsfield thought this policy a serious mistake, and that it would lead to trouble later on. He said, "We have failed to whip the boy, and we shall have to fight the man." The Gladstone Treaty acknowledged the right of the Boers to govern themselves, but subject to English control. Three years later (1884) that treaty was modified. The Boers declared that the English then gave up all control over them, except with regard to the power to make treaties which might conflict with the interests of Great Britain. But this statement the English Government emphatically denied.[1]

[1] The preamble of the Convention or agreement made between England and the Boers in 1881 at Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, secured to the Boers "complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of her Majesty," Queen Victoria. In the Convention of 1884, made at London, the word "suzerainty" was dropped; but Mr. Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary of Great Britain, contended that it was implied or understood. This interpretation of the agreement President Kruger of the South African or Boer Republic absolutely rejected.

The discovery of diamond fields in Cape Colony (1867) and of the richest gold mines in the world (1884) in the Transvaal stimulated a great emigration of English to South Africa. In a few years the "Outlanders"--as the Boers called all foreigners--outnumbered the Boers themselves. The "Outlanders," who worked the gold mines and paid nearly all the taxes, complained that the laws made by the Boers were unjust and oppressive. They demanded the right to vote. The Boers, on the other hand, refused to give them that right, except under arduous restrictions, lest the foreigners should get the upper hand in the Transvaal Republic, and then manage it to suit themselves.

Things went on from bad to worse. At length (1895) a prominent Englishman of Cape Colony, Dr. Jameson, armed a small body of "Outlanders," who undertook to get by force what they could not get by persuasion. The Boers captured the Revolutionists and compelled some of the leaders to pay, in all, about a million dollars in fines. Dr. Jameson was sent to England and imprisoned for a short time. A committee appointed by Parliament investigated the invasion of the Transvaal and charged Cecil J. Rhodes, then Prime Minister of Cape Colony, with having helped on the raid. From this time the feeling of hatred between the Boers and the "Outlanders" grew more and more intense. Lord Salisbury, the Conservative Prime Minister, believed, with his party, that the time had come for decisive action on the part of the Government. The fires so long smoldered now burst into flame, and England resolved to fight to maintain her authority in the Transvaal.

War began in the autumn of 1899, and the Orange Free State united with the Transvaal against Great Britain. (See map facing p. 428.) The Boers took up arms for independence. The English forces under Lord Roberts began fighting, first in behalf of the "Outlanders," next to keep the British Empire together, and, finally, "to extend English law, liberty, and civilization."

Mr. Chamberlain, who was in Lord Salisbury's Cabinet (S534), agreed with his chief that the sword must settle the question, but he said that the contest in South Africa would be "a long war, a bitter war, and a costly war." Events proved the truth of part of his prediction. The contest was certainly "bitter," for it carried sorrow and death into many thousand homes. It was "costly," too, for the total expense to England amounted to nearly 200,000,000 pounds.

England finally overthrew and formally annexed (1901) the two Boer republics, aggregating over one hundred and sixty-seven thousand square miles. But to accomplish that work she was forced to send two hundred and fifty thousand men to South Africa,--the largest army she ever put into a field in the whole course of her history. The great majority of the English people believed that the war was inevitable. But there was an active minority who insisted that it was really undertaken in behalf of the South African mine owners. They did not hesitate to condemn the "Jingo" policy[1] of the Government as disastrous to the best interests of the country. In the midst of the discussion Queen Victoria died (January 22, 1901). The Prince of Wales succeeded to the crown under the title of King Edward VII.

[1] Lord Beaconsfield, the Conservative Prime Minister (1874-1880), made several petty wars in South Africa and in Afghanistan. A popular music-hall song glorified his work, declaring: "We don't want to fight, but by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money, too."

624. Summary.

Queen Victoria's reign of sixty-three years--the longest in English history--was remarkable in many ways.

The chief political events were:

1. The establishment of the practical supremacy of the House of Commons, shown by the fact that the Sovereign was now obliged to give up the power of removing the Prime Minister or members of his Cabinet without the consent of the House, or of retaining them contrary to its desire. 2. The broadening of the basis of suffrage and the extension of the principle of local self-government. 3. The abolition of the requirement of property qualification for Parliamentary candidates; the admission of Jews to Parliament; and the overthrow of the Spoils System. 4. The repeals of the Corn Laws; the adoption of the Free-Trade policy; and the Emancipation of Labor. 5. The Small Agricultural Holdings Act; the Irish Land Acts; the abolition of Church rates; and the disestablishment of the Irish branch of the Church of England. 6. The arbitration of the Alabama case. 7. The progress of transportation and of the rapid transmission of intelligence was marked by the extension of railways to all parts of hte British Isles and to many other parts of the Empire; the introduction of the telegraph and the telephone; the laying of the Atlantic cable; the introduction of penny postage; the rise of cheap newspapers, of photography, of wireless telegraphy, and of the use of electricity to drive street cars and machinery. 8. The progress of education was marked by the establishment of practically free elementary schools, free libraries, and the abolition of religious tests in the universities. 9. The progress of science and philosophy was shown by the introduction of painless and also of antiseptic surgery, the use of the German X ray, and the rise and spread of the Darwinian theory of Evolution. 10. Other events having far-reaching results were the terrible Irish famine, the Opium War, the Crimean War, the rebellion in India, the Trent affair, the war in the Sudan, and the great Boer War. 11. Finally, we see the important work accomplished in India, Egypt, and other parts of Africa; the acquisition of the control of the Suez Canal; and the great expansion of the power of the Empire in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

EDWARD VII--1901-1910

625. End of the Boer War (1902); Completion of Imperial Federation, 1910.

Not long after Edward VII came to the throne the Boers (S623) laid down their arms (1902) and recognized the King as their true and lawful Sovereign. The announcement set the "joy bells" ringing all over Great Britain.

Under Edward VII the Crown became the center of a greart movement for more complete Imperial Unity. We have seen that the process of forming a federation of Great Britain and her widely scattered colonies had made good progress under Victoria (SS618, 619). She had seen the creation of the Dominion of Canada (1867), the Dominion of New Zealand (1875), and the consolidation of the six Australian colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia (1901). Nine years later (1910) the four states which had been the scene of the Boer War (S623) were consolidated in like manner and received the name of the Union of South Africa.[1] Boer and Briton seem now to have made up their minds to live together as one family, and, as farmers and stock raisers, they will work out their destiny on the land. Speaking of the political significance of this event, a prominent official in South Africa said, "Without the influence of King Edward I, I do not think the union could have been effected."

[1] The Union of South Africa is formed of the states of the Cape of Good Hope, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State. Lord Gladstone, son of the late W.E. Gladstone, was appointed Governor of the new Commonwealth, and General Botha, who had commanded in the Boer army, was made Prime Minister.

The establishment of the Union of South Africa completed the framework of the Imperial Federation (SS618, 619). Admiral Mahan, of the American navy, classes the expansion of the British Empire with that of the expansion of the United States, and declares that it ranks as one of the foremost facts of "contemporaneous history." The Commonwealth of Australia and the Union of South Africa (with the Dominion of New Zealand) mark the southern limit of the Imperial Federation. The Dominion of Canada marks its northeren limit. (See map facing p. 422.)

All these British possessions enjoy a degree of self-government which falls but little short of entire independence. In fact, commercially they are independent, for, as we have seen (S616), while England maintains free trade, her colonies still keep up a strict protective tariff and impose duties even on British imports. Notwithstanding this difference, all the colonies are loyal subjects of the English Crown, and all stand ready to defend the English flag.

626. The League of Empire.

While this successful movement toward Imperial Federation was going on, the organization of the League of Empire had been formed (1901) to cooperate with it and strengthen it.

The League is nonpolitical and nonsectarian. It aims to unite the different parts of the Imperial Federation by intellectual and moral bonds. It appeals to the whole body of the people of the Empire, but it deals especially with the children in the schools. It endeavors to educate them in the duties of citizenship, and it calls on them to salute the national flag as the symbol of patriotism, of unity, and of loyalty. A little later, Empire Day was established (1904) as a public holiday to help forward the work of the League. King Edward gave it his hearty encouragement, and it is celebrated throughout the British Isles and the self-governing colonies of the Imperial Federation.

627. The King's Influence in Behalf of Peace.

While seeking to make all England and English dominions in one spirit, King Edward constantly used his influence to maintain peace both at home and abroad. He was a man whose natural kindliness of heart endowed him with the double power of making and of keeping friends. Furthermore, he was a born diplomatist. He saw at once the best method of handling the most difficult questions. Those who knew him intimately said that "he always did the right thing, at the right time, in the right way."

To a great extent he was a creator of international confidence. In his short reign he succeeded in overcoming the old race feeling which made England and France regard each other as enemies. Again, Russia and England had been on unfriendly terms for nearly two generations, but the King, by his strong personal influence, brought the two countries to understand each other better.

He saw that Europe needed peace. He saw that the outbreak of a general war would strike the laboring man a terrible blow, and would destroy the fruits of his toil. When he ascended the throne (1901) the contest with the Boers in South Africa was still going on. General Botha, one of the Boer leaders, publicly stated that the King did everything in his power to secure the establishment of an honorable and permanent peace between the combatants. More than that, even, he was in favor of granting a large measure of self-government to the very people who had only just laid down the arms with which they had been fighting him.

But the King's influence for good was not limited to the Old World. It extended across the Atlantic. Mr. Choate, who was formerly our ambassador to England, said that Edward VII endeavored to remove every cause of friction between Great Britain and America. While he lay on a sick bed he signed a treaty relating to the Panama Canal, which made "it possible for the United States to construct the waterway and to protect it forever."[1]

[1] This was the treaty repealing the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. See the address of Honorable Joseph H. Choate before the New York Chamber of Commerce, June 2, 1910.

628. The Politcal Battle in England; Labor gets into Parliament, 1906.

But the King's success in international politics did not secure peace in the field of home politics. Organized labor had long been bent on pushing its way into Parliament. In a few cases, like that of Joseph Arch (S600), it had elected a representative,[2] but these were scattered victories which made no great impression.

[2] Besides Joseph Arch, such men as John Burns and J. Keir Hardie.

The real upheaval came in the General Election of 1906. That contest wrought a silent revolution. Up to that date, with very few exceptions, the wealthy class was the only one which had been represented in the House of Commons. Furthermore, it cost a good deal of money for any candidate to get into the House, and as members drew no pay, it cost a good deal more money to remain there.

In 1906 the Liberal Party and the Labor Party gained a sweeping victory over the Conservative Party, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Prime Minister, came into power, 1906-1908. Out of the six hundred and seventy members who had been elected to the House of Commons, fifty-four came from the ranks of the workingmen,--those to whom life means an unending struggle to live.[3] The combined Labor voters sent these men to represent them in Parliament, and then raised a fund to meet the expense of keeping them there.[4]

[3] John Burns, who was one of the earliest workingmen to enter Parliament as a Labor leader, said of himself, "Came into the world with a struggle, struggling now, with prospects of continuing it." [4] But later, the Court of Appeal (S588) decided that the Labor Party could not legally compel any member of the Labor Union to contribute to this fund against his will. Now (1911) Parliament pays all members of the Commons (see S591).

These "Laborites," as they are popularly called, claim that their influence secured the passage of the Old Age Pensions Act (1908), for the relief of the aged and deserving poor; the Act for Feeding Destitute School Children; and the Act establishing Labor Exchanges (1909) throughout the country to help those who are looking for work.

The entrance of the working class and of the Socialists into Parliament marks the transference of power from the House of Commons directly to the mass of the people. Public opinion is now the real active force in legislation, and the lawmakers are eager to know what "the man in the street" and the "man with the hoe" are thinking.

This closeness of touch between Parliament and People has evident advantages, but it also has at least one serious drawback. In times of great public excitement it might lead to hasty legislation, unless the House of Lords should be able to interpose and procure the further consideration of questions of vital importance which it would be dangerous to attempt to settle offhand (S631).

629. The Budget; Woman Suffrage; the Content with the Lords.

Mr. Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister,[1] found that the Government must raise a very large amount of money to defray the heavy cost of the old-age pensions (S628) and the far heavier cost of eight new battleships. Mr. Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Secretary of the Treasury, brought in a Budget[2] which roused excited and long-continued debate. The Chancellor's measure called for a great increase of taxes on real estate in towns and cities where the land had risen in value, and on land containing coal, iron, or other valuable minerals.[3]

[1] Mr. Asquith succeeded Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Prime Minister (S628), who died in the spring of 1908. [2] The official estimate of the amount of money which the Government must raise by taxation to meet its expenses for the year, together with the scheme of taxation proposed, are called the Budget. [3] In all cases where the owner of the land had himself done nothing to produce the rise in value, the Chancellor called that rise the "unearned increment," and held that the owner should be taxed for it accordingly. Most great landowners and many small ones execrate the man who made a practical application of this unpalatable phrase.

The House of Commons passed the Budget (1909), but the House of Lords, which includes the wealthiest landowners in the British Isles, rejected it. They declared that it was not only unjust and oppressive, but that it was a long step toward the establishment of socialism, and that it threatened to lead to the confiscation of private property in land. A bitter conflict ensued between the two branches of Parliament.

This contest was rendered harder by the actions of a small number of turbulent women, who demanded complete suffrage but failed to get it (SS599, 608).[1] Adopting the methods of a football team, they endeavored to force themselves into the House of Commons; they interrupted public meetings, smashed winows, assaulted members of the Cabinet, and, in one case, tried to destroy the ballots at the polls,--in short, they broke the laws in order to convince the country of their fitness to take part in making them. Over six hundred of these offenders were put in prison, not because they asked for "Votes for Women," but because they deliberately, persistently, and recklessly misconducted themselves.

[1] The great majority of woman suffragists refused to adopt these violent methods.

630. A New Parliamentary Election; the Lords accept the Budget.

The rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords (S629) caused a new Parliamentary election (1910). The Liberal Party with the Labor Party again won the victory, but with a decidedly diminished majority. Mr. Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister, declared that the policy of the Liberal Government forbade any concessions whatever to the Lords. The Lords thought it unwise to carry the contest further, and when the new Parliament met they bowed to the inevitable and reluctantly voted to accept the Budget,--land taxes and all.[2]

[2] The Liberal Party in power threatened, in case the Lords continued to refuse to accept the Budget, that they would either request the King to create a sufficient number of Liberal Peers to carry it (S582), or that they would make the country go through another election.

631. New Warships; a New Domesday Book; Death of King Edward.

This acceptance of the Budget made the Government feel reasonably sure that it would get the 16,000,000 pounds required to pay for eight new battleships (S629). It also encouraged the War Department to spend a considerable sum in experimenting with military airships as a means of defense against invasion. Great Britain, like Germany, believes that such vessels have become a necessity; for since a foreigner flew across the Channel and landed at Dover (1909), England has felt that her navy on the sea must be supplemented by a navy above the sea. Two of these government airships are now frequently seen cricling at express speed around the great dome of St. Paul's.

The Government also began preparations for the compilation of a new Domesday Book (S120), which should revalue all the land in the British Isles, in order to establish a permanent vasis for increased taxation.[1] The House of Commons furthermore took up the debate on adopting measures for limiting the power of Lords to veto bills passed by the Commons. While they were so engaged King Edward died (May 6, 1910); his son was crowned in 1911, with the title of George V.

[1] The last general valuation of the land was made in 1692; it was then fixed at 9,000,000 pounds. The land tax, based on this valuation, has yielded about 2,000,000 pounds annually. The Government expects that the new valuation will yield much more.

In the summer of 1911 Mr. Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister, after prolonged and heated discussion, forced the House of Lords to accept the Veto Bill, which is now law. He did this by using the same threat which enable Earl Grey to carry the Reform Bill of 1832 (S582). The Veto Act makes it impossible for the House of Lords to defeat any Public Bill which the House of Commons has passed for three successive sessions, extending over a period of not less than two years. This momentous Act was passed at a critical time when the great Dockers Strike had practically closed the port of London, and had cut off the chief food supply of the city. A little later, the Prime Minister passed the Salary Bill, which pays the members of the House of Commons 400 pounds annually (S591). Next, the Government passed (1911) the Workmen's Compulsory Insurance Bill against sickness and unemployment. The worker and his employer contribute small sums weekly, the Government gives the rest. The law has an excellent motive.

632. General Summary of the Development of the English Nation.

Such is the condition of the English nation in the twentieth century and in the reign of King George V. Looking back to the time when Caesar landed in Britain, we see that since that period an island which then had a population of a few thousand "barbarians" (SS4, 18) has gradually become the center of a great and powerful empire (SS14, 15).

The true history of the country began, however, not with Caesar's landing, but with the Saxon invasion in 449, about five centuries later. Then the fierce blue-eyed German and Scandinavian races living on the shores of the Baltic and North Seas took possession of Britain. They, with the help of the primitive British, or Celtic, stock, laid the foundation of a new nation. Their speech in a modified form, their laws, and their customs became in large degree permanent.

Later, missionaries from Rome converted this mixed population to the Christian faith. They baptized Britain with the name England, which it has ever since retained (S50).

In the eleventh century the Normans, who sprang originally from the same stock as the Northmen and Saxons, conquered the island. They grafted onto the civilization which they found there certain elements of Continental civilization (S126). Eventually the Saxon yeoman and the Norman knight joined hands and fortunes, and became one people (S192).

This union was first unmistakable recognized in the provisions of Magna Carta (S199). When in 1215 the barons forced King John to grant that memorable document they found it expedient to protect the rights of every class of the population. Then nobles, clergy, farmers, townsmen, and laborers whether bond or free, stood, as it were, shoulder to shoulder.

The rise of free towns marked another long step forward (S183). That movement secured to their inhabitants many precious privileges of self-government. Then the Wat Tyler insurrection of a subsequent period (S251) led gradually to the emancipation of that numerous class which had long been in partial bondage (S252).

Meanwhile the real unity of the people clearly showed itself at the time when the Crown began to tax the poor as well as the rich. The moment the King laid hands on the tradesman's and the laborer's pockets they demanded to have their share in making the laws. Out of that demand, made in 1265, rose the House of Commons (SS213, 217). It was a body, as its name implies, composed of representatives chosen mainly from the people and by the people.

Next, after generations of arduous struggle, followed by the King's grant of the Petition of Right (S432) and then by the great Civil War (SS441, 450), it was finally settled that the House of Commons, and the House of Commons alone, had complete power over the nation's purse. From that time the King knew, once for all, that he could not take the people's money unless it was granted by the people's vote (S588).

After the flight of James II Parliament passed the Bill of Rights in 1689 and in 1701 the Act of Settlement (S497). These two revolutionary measures wrought a radical change in the government of England. They deliberately set aside the old order of hereditary royal succession and established a new order which made the King directly dependent on the people for his title and his power to rule (S497). About the same time, Parliament passed the Toleration Act, which granted a larger degree of religious liberty (S496), and in 1695 the House of Commons took action which secured the freedom of the press (S498).

Less than thirty years afterwards another radical change took place. Hitherto the King had appointed his own private Council, or Cabinet (S476), but when George I came to the htrone from Germany he could speak no English. One of the members of the Cabinet became Prime Minister in 1721, and the King left the management of the government to him and his assoaciates (S534).

Two generations later another great change occurred. Watt's invention of a really practical steam engine in 1785, together with the rapid growth of manufacturing towns in the Midlands and the North of England, brought on an "Industrial Revolution" (S563). A factory population grew up, which found itself without any representation in Parliament. The people of that section demanded that this serious inequality be righted. Their persistent efforts compelled the passage of the great Reform Bill of 1832. That measure (S582) broke up the political monopoly hitherto enjoyed in large degree by the landholders, and distributed much of the power among the middle classes.

The next important change took place at the accession of Victoria (1837). The principle was then finally established that the ruling power of the government does not center in the Crown but in the Cabinet (S534). Furthermore, it was settled that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are responsible solely to the House of Commons, which in its turn is responsible only to the expressed will of the majority of the nation (S587).

In the course of the next half century the Reform Bills of 1867 and 1884 extended the suffrage to the great majority of the population (S600). A little more than twenty years later, in 1906, the combined Liberal and Labor parties gained an overwhelming victory at the polls. This secured the workingmen fifty-four seats in Parliament (S628), whereas, up to that time, they had never had more than three or four. It then became evident that a new power had entered the House of Commons. From that date the nation has fully realized that although England is a monarchy in name, yet it is a republic in fact. The slow progress of time has at length given to the British people-- English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish--the great gift of practical liberty; but along with it, it has imposed that political responsibility which is always the price which must be paid for the maintenance of liberty.

633. Characteristics of English History; the Unity of the English-Speaking Race; Conclusion.

This rapid and imperfect sketch shows what has been accomplished by the people of Britain. Other European peoples may have developed earlier, and made, perhaps, more rapid advances in certain forms of civilization, but none have surpassed, nay, none have equaled, the English-speaking race in the practical characer and permanence of its progress.

Guizot says[1] that the true order of national development in free government is, first, to convert the natural liberties of man into clearly defined political rights; and, next, to guarantee the security of those rights by the establishment of forces capable of maintaining them.

[1] Guizot's "History of Representative Government," lect. vi.

Nowhere do we find better illustrations of this truth than in the history of England, and of the colonies which England has planted. For the fact cannot be too strongly emphasized that *in European history England stands as the leader in the development of constitutional Government* (SS199, 497). Trial by jury (S176), the legal right to resist oppression (S261), legislative representation (SS213, 217), religious freedom (S496), the freedom of the press (S498), and, finally, the principle that all political power is a trust held for the public good,[1]--these are the assured results of Anglo-Saxon growth, and the legitimate heritage of every nation of Anglo-Saxon descent.

[1] Macaulay's "Essay on Sir Robert Walpole."

It is no exaggeration to say that the best men and the best minds in England, without distinction of rank or class, are now laboring for the advancement of the people. They see, what has never been so clearly seen before, that the nation is a unit, that the welfare of each depends ultimately on the welfare of all, and that the higher a man stands and the greater his wealth and privileges, so much the more is he bound to extend a helping hand to those less favored than himself.

The Socialists, it is true, demand the abolition of private property in land and the nationalizing not only of the soil but of all mines, railways, waterworks, and docks in the kingdom. Thus far, however, they have shown no disposition to attain their objects by violent action. England, by nature conservative, is slow to break the bond of historic continuity which connects her present with her past.

"Do you think we shall ever have a second revolution?" the Duke of Wellington was once asked. "We may," answered the great general, "but if we do, it will come by act of Parliament." That reply probably expresses the general temper of the people, who believe that they can gain by the ballot more than they can by an appeal to force, knowing that theirs is

"A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where freedom broadens slowly down, From precedent to precedent."[2]

[2] Tennyson's "You Ask Me Why."

It is impossible for the great majority of Americans not to take a deep interest in this movement, for we can never forget that English history is in a very large degree our history, and that England is, as Hawthorne likes to call it, "our old home."

In fact, if we go back less than three centuries, the record of America becomes one with that of the mother country, which first discovered (SS335, 421) and first permanently settled this, and which gave us for leaders and educators Washington, Franklin, the Adamses, and John Harvard. In descent by far the greater part of us are of English blood or of blood akin to it.[1] We owe to England--that is, to the British Isles and to the different races which have met and mingled there--much of our language, literature, law, legislative forms of government, and the essential features of our civilization. In fact, without a knowledge of her history, we cannot rightly understand our own.

[1] In 1840 the population of the United States, in round numbers, was 17,000,000, of whom the greater part were probably of English descent. Since then there has been an enormous immigration, 40 per cent of which were from the British Isles; but it is perhaps safe to say that three quarters of our present population are those were were living here in 1840, with their descendents. Of the immigrants (up to 1890) coming from non-English-speaking races, the Germans and Scandinavians predominated, and it is to them, as we have seen, that the English, in large measure, owe their origin (SS37-39, 126). It should be noted here that the word "English" is used so as to include the people of the United Kingdom and their descendants on both sides of the Atlantic.

Standing on her soil, we possess practically the same personal rights that we do in America; we speak the same tongue, we meet with the same familiar names. We feel that whatever is glorious in her past is ours also; that Westminster Abbey belongs as much to us as to her, for our ancestors helped to build its walls and their dust is gathered in its tombs; that Shakespeare and Milton belong to us in like manner, for they wrote in the language we speak, for the instruction and delight of our fathers' fathers, who beat back the Spanish Armada and gave their lives for liberty on the fields of Marston Moor and Naseby.

Let it be granted that grave issues have arisen in the past to separate us; yet, after all, our interests and our sympathies, like our national histories, have more in common than they have apart. The progress of each country now reacts for good on the other.[2]

[2] In this connection the testimony of Captain Alfred T. Mahan, in his recent work, "The Problem of Asia," is worth quoting here. He says (p. 187), speaking of our late war with Spain: "The writer has been assured, by an authority in which he entirely trusts, that to a proposition made to Great Britain to enter into a combination to constrain the use of our [United States] power,--as Japan was five years ago constrained by the joint action of Russia, France, and Germany,--the reply [of Great Britain] was not only a positive refusal to enter into such a combination [against the United States], but an assurance of active resistance to it if attempted...Call such an attitude [on the part of England toward the United States] friendship, or policy, as you will--the name is immaterial; the fact is the essential thing and will endure, because it rests upon solid interest."

If we consider the total combined population of the United States and of the British Empire, we find that to-day upwards of 150,000,000 people speak the English tongue and are governed by the fundamental principles of that Common Law which has its root in English soil. This population holds possession of more than 15,000,000 square miles of the earth's surface,--an area much larger than that of the united continents of North America and Europe. By far the greater part of the wealth and power of the globe is theirs.

They have expanded by their territorial and colonial growth as no other people have. They have absorbed and assimilated the multitudes of emigrants from every quarter of the globe that have poured into their dominions.

The result is that the inhabitants of the British Isles, of Australia, of New Zealand, of a part of South Africa, of the United States, and of Canada practically form one great Anglo-Saxon race,[1] diverse in origin, separated by distance, but everywhere exhibiting the same spirit of intelligent enterprise and of steady, resistless growth. Thus considered, America and England are necessary one to the other. Their interests now and in the future are essentially the same. Bothe contries are virtually pledged to make every effort to maintain liberty and self-government, and also to maintain mutual peace by arbitration.

[1] Such apparent exceptions as the Dutch in South Africa, the French in Canada, and the Negroes in the United States do not essentially affect the truth of this statement, since in practice the people of these races uphold the great fundamental principles on which all Anglo-Saxon government rests.

In view of these facts let us say, with an eminent thinker[2] whose intellectual home was on both sides of the Atlantic: "Whatever there be between the two nations to forget and forgive, is forgotten and forgiven. If the two peoples, which are one, be true to their duty, who can doubt that the destinies of the world must be in large measure committed to their hands?"

[2] Dean Farrar, Address on General Grant, Westminster Abbey, 1885.

General Summary of English Constitutional History[1]

[1] This Summary is inserted for the benefit of those who desire a compact, connected view of the development of the English Constitution, such as may be conveniently used either for reference, for a general review of the subject, or for purposes of special study. --D.H.M.

For authorities, see Stubbs (449-1485); Hallam (1485-1760); May (1760- 1870); Amos (1870-1880); see also Hansard and Cobbett's "Parliamentary History," the works of Freeman, Taswell-Langmead (the best one-volume Constitutional History), Feilden's Manual, and A. L. Lowell's "The Government of England," 2 vols., in the Classified List of Books beginning on page xxxvi.

The references inserted in parentheses are to sections in the body of the history.

1. Origin and Primitive Government of the English People.

The main body of the English people did not originate in Britain, but in Northwestern Germany. The Jutes, Saxons, and Angles were independent, kindred tribes living on the banks of the Elbe and its vicinity.

They had no written laws, but obeyed time-honored customs which had all the force of laws. All matters of public importance were decided by each tribe at meetings held in the open air. There every freeman had an equal voice in the decision. There the people chose their rulers and military leaders; they discussed questions of peace and war; finally, acting as a high court of justice, they tried criminals and settled disputes about property.

In these rude methods we see the beginning of the English Constitution. Its growth has been the slow work of centuries, but the great principles underlying it have never changed. At every stage of their progress the English people and their descendants throughout the globe have claimed the right of self-government; and, if we except the period of the Norman Conquest, whenever that right has been persistently withheld or denied, the people have risen in arms and regained it.

2. Conquest of Britain; Origin and Power of the King.

After the Romans abandoned Britain the English invaded the island 449(?), and in the course of a hundred and fifty years conquered it and established a number of rival settlements. The native Britons were, in great part, killed off or driven to take refuge in Wales and Cornwall.

The conquerors brought to their new home the methods of government and modes of life to which they had been accustomed in Germany. A cluster of towns--that is, a small number of enclosed habitations (S103)-- formed a hundred (a district having either a hundred families or able to furnish a hundred warriors); a cluster of hundreds formed a shire or county. Each of these divisions had its public meeting, composed of all its freemen or their representatives, for the management of its own affairs. But a state of war--for the English tribes fought each other as well as fought the Britons--made a strong central government necessary. For this reason the leader of each tribe was made king. At first he was chosen, at large, by the entire tribe; later, unless there was some good reason for a different choice, the King's eldest son was selected as his successor. Thus the right to rule was practically fixed in the line of a certain family descent.

The ruler of each of these petty kingdoms acted as commander-in-chief in war, and as supreme judge in law.

3. The Witenagemot, or General Council.

In all other respects the King's authority was limited--except when he was strong enough to get his own way--by the Witenagemot, or General Council. This body consisted of the chief men of each kingdom acting in behalf of its people.[1] IT exercised the following powers: (1) It elected the King, and if the people confirmed the choice, he was crowned. (2) If the King proved unsatisfactory, the Council might depose him and choose a successor. (3) The King, with the consent of the Council, made the laws,--that is, he declared the customs of the tribe. (4) The King, with the Council, appointed the chief officers of the kingdom (after the introduction of Christianity this included the bishops); but the King alone appointed the sheriff, to represent him and collect the revenue in each shire. (5) The Council confirmed or denied grants of portions of the public lands made by the King to private persons. (6) The Council acted as the high court of justice, the King sitting as supreme judge. (7) The Council, with the King, discussed all questions of importance,--such as the levying of taxes, and the making of treaties; smaller matters were left to the towns, hundreds, and shires to settle for themselves. After the consolidation of the different English kingdoms into one, the Witenagemot expanded into the National Council. In it we see "the true beginning of the Parliament of England."

[1] The Witenagmot (i.e. the Meeting of the Witan, or Wise Men, S80), says Stubbs ("Select Charters"), represented the people, although it was not a collection of representatives.

4. How England became a United Kingdom; Influence of the Church and of the Danish Invasions.

For a number of centuries Britain consisted of a number of little rival kingdoms, almost constantly at war with each other. Meanwhile missionaries from Rome had introduced Christianity, 597. Through the influence of Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (668), the clergy of the different hostile kingdoms met in general Church councils.[2] This religious unity of action prepared the way for political unity. The Catholic Church--the only Christian Church (except the Greek Church) then existing--made men feel that their highest interests were one; it "created the nation" (S48).

[2] This movement began several years earlier (S48), but Theodore of Tarsus was its first great organizer.

This was the first cause of the union of the kingdoms. The second was the invasion of the Danes. These fierce marauders forced the people south of the Thames to join in common defense, under the leadership of Alfred, King of the West Saxons. By the Treaty of Wedmore, 878, the Danes were compelled to give up Southwestern England, but they retained the whole of the Northeast. About the middle of the tenth century, one of Alfred's grandsons conquered the Dnaes, and took the title of "King of England."[1] Later, the Danes, reenforced by fresh invasions of their countrymen, made themselves masters of the land; yet Canute, the most powerful of these Danish kings, ruled according to English methods. At length the great body of the people united in choosing Edward the Confessor king (1042-1066). He was English by birth, but Norman by education. Under him the unity of the English kingdom was, in name at least, fully restored.

[1] Some authorities consider Edgar (959) as the first "King of all England." In 829 Egbert, King of the West Saxons, forced all the other Saxon Kings of Britian to acknowledge him as their "Overlord" (S49).

5. Beginning of the Feudal System; its Results.

Meantime a great change had taken place in England with respect to holding land (SS86, 150). We shall see clearly to what that change was tending if we look at the condition of France. There a system of government and of land tenure existed known as the Feudal System. Under it the King was regarded as the owner of the entire realm. He granted, with his royal protection, the use of portions of the land to his chief men or nobles, with the privilege of building castles and of establishing courts of justice on these estates. Such grants were made on two conditions: (1) that the tenants should take part in the King's Council; (2) that they should do military service in the King's behalf, and furnish besides a certain number of fully armed horsemen in proportion to the amount of land they had received. So long as they fulfilled these conditionms--made under oath--they could retain their estates, and hand them down to their children; but if they failed to keep their oath, they forfeited the land to the King.

These great military barons or lords let out parts of their immense manors,[2] or estates, on similar conditions,--namely (1) that their vassals or tenants should pay rent to them by doing military or other service; and (2) that they should agree that all questions concerning their rights and duties should be tried in the lord's private court.[3] On the other hand, the lord of the manor pledged himself to protect his vassals.

[2] Manor (man'or): see plan of a manor (Old French manoir, "a mansion") on page 75, the estate of a feudal lord. Every manor had two courts. The most important of these was the "court baron." It was composed of all the free tenants of the manor, with the lord (or his representative) presiding. It dealt with civil cases only. The second court was the "court customary," which dealt with cases connected with villeinage. The manors held by the greater barons had a third court, the "court leet," which dealt with criminal cases, and could inflict the death penalty. In all cases the decisions of the manorial courts would be pretty sure to be in the lord's favor. In England, however, these courts never acquired the degree of power which they did on the Continent. [3] See note above, on the manor.

On every manor there were usually three classes of these tenants: (1) those who discharged their rent by doing military duty; (2) those who paid by a certain fixed amount of labor--or, if they preferred, in produce or in money; (3) the villeins, or common laborers, who were bound to remain on the estate and work for the lord, and whose condition, although they were not wholly destitute of legal rights, was practically not very much above that of slaves (S113).

But there was another way by which men might enter the Feudal System; for while it was growing up there were many small free landholders, who owned their farms and owed no man any service whatever. In those times of constant civil war such men would be almost in daily peril of losing, not only their property, but their lives. To escape this danger, they would hasten to "commend" themselves to some powerful neighboring lord. To do this, they pledged themselves to become "his men," surrendering their farms to him, and received them again as feudal vassals. That is, the lord bound himself to protect them against their enemies , and they bound themselves to do "suit and service"[1] like the other tenants of the manor; for "suit and service" on the one side, and "protection" on the other, made up the threefold foundation of the Feudal system.

[1] That is, they pledged themselves to do suit in the lord's private court, and to do service in his army.

Thus in time all classes of society became bound together. At the top stood the King, who was no man's tenant, but, in name at least, every man's master; at the bottom crouched the villein, who was no man's master, but was, in fact, the most servile and helpless of tenants.

Such was the condition of things in France. In England, however, this system of land tenure was not completely established until after the Norman Conquest, 1066; for in England the tie which bound men to the King and to each other was originally one of pure choice, and had nothing directly to do with land. Gradually, however, this changed; and by the time of Edward the Confessor land in England had come to be held on conditions so closely resembling those of France that one step more--and that a very short one--would have made England a kingdom exhibiting all the most dangerous features of French feudalism.

For, notwithstanding certain advantages,[2] feudalism had this great evil: that the chief nobles often became in time more powerful than the King. This danger now menaced England. For convenience Canute the Dane had divided the realm into four earldoms. The holders of these vast estates had grown so mighty that they scorned royal authority. Edward the Confessor did not dare resist them. The ambition of each earl was to get the supreme mastery. This threatened to bring on civil war, and to split the kingdom into fragments. Fortunately for the welfare of the nation, William, Duke of Normandy, by his invasion and conquest of England, 1066, put an effectual stop to the selfish schemes of these four rival nobles.

[2] On the Advantages of Feudalism, see S87.

6. William the Conqueror and his Work.

After William's victory at Hastings and march on London (SS74, 107), the National Council chose him sovereign,--they would not have dared to refuse,--and he was crowned by the Archbishop of York in Westminster Abbey. This coronation made him the legal successor of the line of English kings. In form, therefore, there was no break in the order of government; for though William had forced himself upon the throne, he had done so according to law and custom, and not directly by the sword.

Great changed followed the conquest, but they were not violent. The King abolished the four great earldoms (S64), and restored national unity. He gradually dispossessed the chief English landholders of their lands, and bestowed them, under strict feudal laws, on his Norman followers. He likewise gave all the highest positions in the Church to Norman bishops and abbots. The National Council now changed its character. It became simply a body of Norman barons, who were bound by feudal custom to meet with the King. But they did not restrain his authority; for William would brook no interference with his will from any one, not even from the Pope himself (S118).

But though the Conqueror had a tyrant's power, he rarely used it like a tyrant. We have seen[1] that the great excellence of the early English government lay in the fact that the towns, hundreds, and shires were self-governing in all local matters; the drawback to this system was its lack of unity and of a strong central power that could make itself respected and obeyed. William supplied this power,-- without which there could be no true national strength,--yet at the same time he was careful to encourage the local system of self- government. He gave London a liberal charter to protect its rights and liberties (S107). He began the organization of a royal court of justice; he checked the rapacious Norman barons in their efforts to get control of the people's courts.

[1] See SS2, 3 of this Summary.

Furthermore, side by side with the feudal cavalry army, he maintained the old English county militia of foot soldiers, in which every freeman was bound to serve. He used this militia, when necessary, to prevent the barons from getting the upper hand, and so destroying those liberties which were protected by the Crown as its own best safeguard against the plots of the nobles.

Next, William had a census, survey, and valuation made of all the estates in the kingdom outside London which were worth examination. The result of this great work was recorded in Domesday Book (S120). By means of that book--still preserved--the King knew what no English ruler had known before him; that was, the property-holding population and resources of the kingdom. Thus a solid foundation was laid on which to establish the feudal revenue and the military power of the Crown.

Finally, just before his death, the Conqueror completed the organization of his government. Hitherto the vassals of the great barons had been bound to them alone. They were sworn to fight for their masters, even if those masters rose in open rebellion against the sovereign. William changed all that. At a meeting held at Salisbury, 1086, he compelled every landholder in England, from the greatest to the smallest,--sixty thousand, it is said,--to swear to be "faithful to him against all others" (S121). By that oath he "broke the neck of the Feudal System" as a form of government, though he retained and developed the principle of feudal land tenure. Thus at one stroke he made the Crown the supreme power in England; had he not done so, the nation would soon have fallen prey to civil war.

7. William's Norman Successors.

William Rufus has a bad name in history, and he fully deserves it. But he had this merit: he held the Norman barons in check with a stiff hand, and so, in one way, gave the country comparative peace.

His successor, Henry I, granted, 1100, a Charter of Liberties (S135, note 1) to his people, by which he recognized the sacredness of the old English laws for the protection of life and property. Somewhat more than a century later this document became, as we shall see, the basis of the most celebrated charter known in English history. Henry attempted important reforms in the administration of the laws, and laid the foundation of that system which his grandson, Henry II, was to develop and establish. By these measures he gained the title of the "Lion of Justice," who "made peace for both man and beast." Furthermore, in an important controversy with the Pope respecting the appointment of bishops (S136), Henry obtained the right (1107) to require that both bishops and abbots, after taking possession of their Church estates, should be obliged like the baron to furnish troops for the defense of the kingdom.

But in the next reign--that of Stephen--the barons got the upper hand, and the King was powerless to control them. They built castles without royal license, and from these private fortresses they sallied forth to ravage, rob, and murder in all directions. Had that period of terror continued much longer, England would have been torn to pieces by a multitude of greedy tyrants.

8. Reforms of Henry II; Scutage; Assize of Clarendon; Juries; Constitutions of Clarendon.

With Henry II the true reign of law begins. To carry out the reforms begun by his grandfather, Henry I, the King fought both barons and clergy. Over the first he won a complete and final victory; over the second he gained a partial one.

Henry began his work by pulling down the unlicensed castles built by the "robber barons" in Stephen's reign. But, according to feudal usage, the King was dependent on these very barons for his cavalry,-- his chief armed force. He resolved to make himself independent of their reluctant aid. To do this he offered to release them from military service, provided they would pay a tax, called "scutage," or "shield money" (1159).[1] The barons gladly accepted the offer. With the money Henry was able to hire "mercenaries," or foreign troops, to fight for him abroad, and, if need be, in England as well. Thus he struck a great blow at the power of the barons, since they, through disuse of arms, grew weaker, while the King grew steadily stronger. To complete the work, Henry, many years later (1181), reorganized the old English national militia,[2] and made it thoroughly effective for the defense of the royal authority. For just a hundred years (1074- 1174) the barons had been trying to overthrow the government; under Henry II the long struggle came to an end, and the royal power triumphed.

[1] Scutage: see S161. The demand for scutage seems to show that the feudal tenure was now fully organized, and that the whole realm was by this time divided into knights' fees,--that is, into portions of land yielding 20 pounds annually,--each of which was obliged to furnish one fully armed, well-mounted knight to serve the King (if called on) for forty days annually. [2] National militia: see SS96, 140.

But in getting the military control of the kingdom Henry had won only half of the victory he was seeking; to complete his supremacy over the powerful nobles, the King must obtain control of the administration of justice.

In order to do this more effectually, Henry issued the Assize of Clarendon (1166). It was the first true national code of law ever put forth by an English king, since previous codes had been little more than summaries of old "customs." The realm had already been divided into six circuits, having three judges for each circuit. The Assize of Clarendon gave these judges power not only to enter and preside over every county court, but also over every court held by a baron on his manor. This put a pretty decisive check to the hitherto uncontrolled baronial system of justice--or injustice--with its private dungeons and its private gibbets. It brought everything under the eye of the King's judges, so that those who wished to appeal to them could now do so without the expense, trouble, and danger of a journey to the royal palace.

Again, it had been the practice among the Norman barons to settle disputes about land by the barbarous method of Trial by Battle (S148); Henry gave tenants the right to have the case decided by a body of twelve knights acquainted with the facts.

In criminal cases a great change was likewise effected. Henceforth twelve men from each hundred, with four from each township,--sixteen at least,--acting as a grand jury, were to present all suspected criminals to the circuit judges.[3] The judges sent them to the Ordeal (S91); if they failed to pass it, they were then punished by law as convicted felons; if they did pass it, they were banished from the kingdom as persons of evil repute. After the abolition of the Ordeal (1215), a petty jury of witnesses was allowed to testify in favor of the accused, and clear them if they could from the charges brought by the grand jury. If their testimony was not decisive, more witnesses were added until twelve were obtained who could unanimously decide one way or the other. In the course of time[1] this smaller body became judges of the evidence for or against the accused, and thus the modern system of Trial by Jury was established about 1350.

[3] See the Assize of Clarendon (1166) in Stubbs's "Select Charters." [1] The date usually given is 1350; but as late as the reign of George I juries were accustomed to bring in verdicts determined partly by their own personal knowledge of the facts. See Taswell-Langmead (revised edition), p.179.

These reforms had three important results: (1) they greatly dimished the power of the barons by taking the administration of justice, in large measure, out of their hands; (2) they established a more uniform system of law; (3) they brought large sums of money, in the way of court fees and fines, into the King's treasury, and so made him stronger than ever.

But meanwhile Henry was carrying on a still sharper battle in his attempt to bring the Church courts--which William I had separated from the ordinary courts--under control of the same system of justice. In these Church courts any person claiming to belong to the clergy had a right to be tried. Such courts had no power to inflict death, even for murder. In Stephen's reign many notorious criminals had managed to get themselves enrolled among the clergy, and had thus escaped the hanging they deserved. Henry was determined to have all men--in the circle of clergy or out of it--stand equal before the law. Instead of two kinds of justice, he would have but one; this would not only secure a still higher uniformity of law, but it would sweep into the King's treasury may fat fees and fines which the Church courts were then getting for themselves.

By the laws entitled the "Constitutions of Clarendon," 1164 (S165), the common courts were empowered to decide whether a man claiming to belong to the clergy should be tried by the Church courts or not. If they granted him the privilege of a Church-court trial, they kept a sharp watch on the progress of the case; if the accused was convicted, he must then be handed over to the judges of the ordinary courts, and they took especial pains to convince him of the Bible truth, that "the way of the transgressor is hard." For a time the Constitutions were rigidly enforced, but in the end Henry was forced to renounce them. Later, however, the principle he had endeavored to set up was fully established.[2]

[2] Edward I limited the jurisdiction of the Church courts to purely spiritual cases, such as heresy and the like; but the work which he, following the example of Henry II, had undertaken was not fully accomplished until the fifteenth century.

The greatest result springing from Henry's efforts was the training of the people in public affairs, and the definitive establishment of that system of Common Law which regards the people as the supreme source of both law and government, and which is directly and vitally connected with the principle of representation and of trial by jury.[3]

[3] See Green's "Henry II," in the English Statesmen Series.

9. Rise of Free Towns.

While these important changes were taking place, the towns were growing in population and wealth (S183). But as these towns occupied land belonging either directly to the King or to some baron, they were subject to the authority of one or the other, and so possessed no real freedom. In the reign of Richard I many towns purchased certain rights of self-government from the King.[1] This power of controlling their own affairs greatly increased their prosperity, and in time, as we shall see, secured them a voice in the management of the affairs of the nation.

[1] See S183.

10. John's Loss of Normandy; Magna Carta.

Up to John's reign many barons continued to hold large estates in Normandy, in addition to those they had acquired in England; hence their interests were divided between the two countries. Through war John lost his French possessions (S191). Henceforth the barons shut out from Normandy came to look upon England as their true home. From Henry II's reign the Normans and the English had been gradually mingling; from this time they became practically one people. John's tyranny and cruelty brought their union into sharp, decisive action. The result of his greed for money, and his defiance of all law, was a tremendous insurrection. Before this time the people had always taken the side of the King against the barons; now, with equal reason, they turned about and rose with the barons against the King.

Under the guidance of Archbishop Langton, barons, clergy, and people demanded reform. The Archbishop brought out the half-forgotten charter of Henry I (S135, note 1). This now furnished a model for Magna Carta, or the "Great Charter of the Liberties of England."[2]

[2] Magna Carta: see SS195-202; and see Constitutional Documents, p.xxix.

It contained nothing that was new in principle. It was simply a clearer, fuller, stronger statement of those "rights of Englishmen which were already old."

John, though wild with rage, did not dare refuse to affix his royal seal to the Great Charter of 1215. By doing so he solemnly guaranteed: (1) the rights of the Church; (2) those of the barons; (3) those of all freemen; (4) those of the villeins, or farm laborers. The value of this charter to the people at large is shown by the fact that nearly one third of its sixty-three articles were inserted in their behhalf. Of these articles the most important was that which declared that no man should be deprived of liberty or property, or injured in body or estate, save by the judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

In regard to taxation, the Charter provided that, except the customary feudal "aids,"[3] none should be levied unless by the consent of the National Council. Finally, the Charter expressly provided that twenty-five barons--one of whom was mayor of London--should be appointed to compel the King to carry out his agreement.

[3] For the three customary feudal aids, see S150.

11. Henry III and the Great Charter; the Forest Charter; Provisions of Oxford; Rise of the House of Commons; Important Land Laws.

Under Henry III the Great Charter was reissued. But the important articles which forbade the King to levy taxes except by consent of the National Council, together with some others restricting his power to increase his revenue, were dropped, and never again restored.[1]

[1] See Stubbs's "Select Charters" (Edward I), p.484; but compare note I, p.443.

On the other hand, Henry was obliged to issue a Forest Charter, based on certain articles of Magna Carta, which declared that no man should lose life or limb for hunting in the royal forests.

Though the Great Charter was now shorn of some of its safeguards to liberty, yet it was still so highly prized that its confirmation was purchased at a high price from successive sovereigns. Down to the second year of Henry VI's reign (1423) we find that it had been confirmed no less than thirty-seven times.

Notwithstanding his solemn oath (S210), the vain and worthless Henry III deliberately violated the provisions of the Charter, in order to raise money to waste in his foolish foreign wars or on his court circle of French favorites.

Finally (1258), a body of armed barons, led by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, forced the King to summon a Parliament at Oxford. There a scheme of reform, called the "Provisions of Oxford," was adopted (S209). By these Provisions, which Henry swore to observe, the government was practically taken out of the King's hands,--at least as far as he had power to do mischief,--and entrusted to certain councils or committees of state.

A few years later, Henry refused to abide by the Provisions of Oxford, and civil war broke out. De Montfort, Earl of Leicester, gained a decisive victory at Lewes, and captured the King. The Earl then summoned a National Council, made up of those who favored his policy of reform (S213). This was the famous Parliamnet of 1265. To it De Montfort summoned: (1) a small number of barons; (2) a large number of the higher clergy; (3) two knights, or country gentlemen, from each shire; (4) two burghers, or citizens, from every town.

The knights of the shire had been summoned to Parliamnet before;[2] but this was the first time that the towns had been invited to send representatives. By that act the Earl set the example of giving the people at large a fuller share in the government than they had yet had. To De Montfort, therefore, justly belongs the glory of being "the founder of the House of Commons." His work, however, was defective (S213); and owing, perhaps, to his death shortly afterwards at the battle of Evesham (1265), the regular and continuous representation of the towns did not begin until thirty years later.

[2] They were first summoned by John in 1213.

Meanwhile, 1279-1290, three land laws of great importance were enacted. The first limited the acquisition of landed property by the Church;[3] the second encouraged the transmission of land by will to the eldest son, thus keeping estates together instead of breaking them up among several heirs;[1] the third made purchasers of estates the direct feudal tenants of the King.[2] The object of these three laws was to prevent landholders from evading their feudal obligations; hency they decidedly strengthened the royal power.[3]

[3] Statute of Mortmain (1279): see S226; it was especially directed against the acquisition of land by monasteries. [1] Statute De Donis Conditionalibus or Entail (Westminster II) (1285): see S225. [2] During the same period the Statute of Winchester (1285) reorganized the national militia and the police system (S224).

12. Edward I's "Model Parliament"; Confirmation of the Charters.

In 1295 Edwrad I, one of the ablest men that ever sat on the English throne, adopted De Montfort's scheme of representation. The King was greatly pressed for money, and his object was to get the help of the towns, and thus secure a system of taxation which should include all classes. With the significant words, "That which toucheth all should be approved by all," he summoned to Winchester the first really complete or "Model Parliament" (S217),[4] consisting of King, Lords (temporal and spiritual), and Commons.[5] The form Parliament then received it has kept substantially ever since. We shall see how from this time the Commons gradually grew in influence,--though with periods of relapse,--until at length they have become the controlling power in legislation.

[4] De Montfort's Parliament was not wholly lawful and regular, because not voluntarily summoned by the King himself. Parliament must be summoned by the sovereign, opened by the sovereign (in person or by commission); all laws require the sovereign's signature to complete them; and, finally, Parliament can be suspended or dissolved by the sovereign only. [5] The lower clergy were summoned to send representatives to the Commons; but they came very irregularly, and in the fourteenth centrury ceased coming altogether. From that time they voted their supplies for the Crown in Convocation, until 1663, when Convocation ceased to meet. The higher clergy--bishops and abbots--met with the House of Lords.

Two years after the meeting of the "Model Parliament," in order to get money to carry on a war with France, Edward levied a tax on the barons, and seized a large quantity of wool belonging to the merchants. So determined was the resistance to these acts that civil war was threatened. In order to avert it, the King was obliged to summon a Parliament, 1297, and to sign a confirmation of all previous charters of liberties, including the Great Charter (S202). He furthermore bound himself in the most solemn manner not to tax his subjects or seize their goods without their consent. Henceforth Parliament alone was considered to hold control of the nation's purse; and although this principle was afterwards evaded, no king openly denied its binding force. Furthermore, in Edward's reign the House of Commons gained (1322), for the first time, a direct share in legislation. This step had results of supreme constitutional importance.

13. Division of Parliament into Two Houses; Growth of the Power of the Commons; Legislation by Statute; Impeachment; Power over the Purse.

In Edward III's reign a great change occurred in Parliament. The knights of the shire (about 1343) joined the representatives from the towns, and began to sit apart from the Lords as a distince House of Commons. This union gave that House a new charactyer, and invested it with a power in Parliament which the representation from the towns alone could not have exerted. But though thus strengthened, the Commons did not venture to claim an equal part with the Lords in framing laws. Their attitude was that of humble petitioners. When they had voted the supplies of money which the King asked for, the Commons might then meekly beg for legislation. Even when the King and the Lords assented to their petitions, the Commons often found to their disappointment that the laws which had been promised did not correspond to those for which they had asked. Henry V pledged his word (1414) that the petitions, when accepted, should be made into laws without any alteration. But, as a matter of fact, this was not effectually done until the close of the reign of Henry VI (about 1461). Then the Commons succeeded in obtaining the right to present proposed laws in the form of regular bills instead of petitions. These bills when enacted became statues or acts of Parliament, as we know them to-day. This change was a most important one, since it made it impossible for the King with the Lords to fraudulently defeat the expressed will of the Commons after they had once assented to the legislation which the Commons desired.

Meanwhile the Commons gained, for the first time (1376), the right of impeaching such ministers of the Crown as they had reason to believe were unfaithful to the interests of the people. This, of course, put an immense restraining power in their hands, since they could now make the ministers responsible, in great measure, for the King.[1]

[1] But after 1450 the Commons ceased to exercise the right of impeachment until 1621, when they impeached Lord Bacon and others.

Next (1406), the Commons insisted on having an account rendered of the money spent by the King; and at times they even limited[2] their appropriations of money to particular purposes. Finally, in 1407, the Commons took the most decided step of all. They boldly demanded and obtained *the exclusive right of making all grants of money* required by the Crown.[3]

[3] This right the Commons never surrendered.

In future the King, unless he violated the law, had to look to the Commons--that is, to the direct representation of the mass of the people--for his chief supplies. This made the will of the Commons more powerful than it had ever been.

14. Religious Legislation; Emancipation of the Villeins; Disfranchisement of County Electors.

The Parliament of Merton had already (1236) refused to introduce the canon or ecclesiatical law (S265). In the next century two very important statutes relating to the Church were enacted,--that of Provisors (1350)[4] and the Great Act of Praemunire, 1393,[1]--limiting the power of the Pope over the English Church. On the other hand, the rise of the Lollards had caused a statute to be passed (1401) against heretics, and under it the first martyr had been burned in England. During this period the villeins had risen in insurrection (1381) (SS250-252), and were gradually gaining their liberty. Thus a very large body of people who had been practically excluded from political rights now began to slowly acquire them.[2] But, on the other hand, a statute was enacted (1430) which prohibited all persons having an income of less than forty shillings a year--or what would be equal to forty pounds at the present value of money-- from voting for knights of the shire (S297). The consequence was that the poorer and humbler classes in the country were no longer directly represented in the House of Commons.

[4] Provisors: this was a law forbidding the Pope to provide any person (by anticipation) with a position in the English Church until the death of the incumbent. [1] Praemunire: see Constitutional Documents, p. xxxii. Neither the law of Provisors nor of Praemunire was strictly enforced until Henry VIII's reign. [2] Villeins appear, however, to have had the right of voting for knights of the shire until the statute of 1430 difranchised them.

15. Wars of the Roses; Decline of Parliament; Partial Revival of its Power under Elizabeth.

The Civil Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) gave a decided check to the further development of parliamentary power. Many noble families were ruined by the protracted struggle, and the new nobles created by the King were pledged to uphold the interests of the Crown. Furthemore, numerous towns absorbed in their own local affairs ceased to elect members to the Commons. Thus, with a House of Lords on the side of royal authority, and with a House of Commons diminished in numbers and in influence, the decline of the independent attitude of Parliament was inevitable.

The result of these changes was very marked. From the reign of Henry VI to that of Elizabeth, a period of nearly a hundred and forty years, "the voice of Parliament was rarely heard." The Tudors practically set up a new or "personal monarchy," in which their will rose above both Parliament and the constitution;[3] and Henry VII, instead of asking the Commons for money, extorted it by fines enforcedby his Court of Star Chamber, or compelled his wealthy subjects to grant it to him in "benevolences" (S330)--those "loving contributions," as the King called them, "lovingly advanced"!

[3] Theoretically Henry VII's power was restrained by certain checks (see S328, note 1), and even Henry VIII generally ruled according to the letter of the law, however much he may have violated its spirit. It is noticable, too, that it was under Henry VIII (1541) that Parliament first formally claimed freedom of speech as one of its "undoubted privieges."

During this period England laid claim to a new continent, and Henry VIII, repudiating the authority of the Pope, declared himself the "supreme head" (1535) of the English Catholic Church. In the next reign (Edward VI) the Catholic worship, which had existed in England for nearly a thousand years, was abolished (1540), and the Protestant faith became henceforth--except during Mary's short reign--the established religion of the kingdom. It was enforced by two Acts of Uniformity (1549, 1552). One effect of the overthrow of Catholicism was to change the character of the House of Lords, by reducing the number of spiritual lords from a majority to a minority, as they have ever since remained (S406, note 2).

At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign the Second Act of Supremacy (1559) shut out all Catholics from the House of Commons (S382), Protestantism was fully and finally established as the state religion,[1] embodied in the creed known as the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563); and by the Third Act of Uniformity (1559) very severe measures were taken against all--whether Catholics or Puritans--who refused to conform to the Episcopal mode of worship. The High Commission Court was organized (1583) to try and to to punish heretics--whether Catholics or Puritans. The great number of paupers caused by the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII and the gradual decay of relations of feudal service caused the passage of the first Poor Law (1601) (S403), and so brought the Government face to face with a problem which has never yet been satisfactorily settled; namely, what to do with habitual paupers and tramps.

[1] By the Third Act of Uniformity and the establishment of the High Commission Court (S382). The First and Second Acts of Uniformity were enacted under Edward VI (S362).

The closing part of Elizabeth's reign marks the revival of parliamentary power. The House of Commons now had many Puritan members, and they did not hesitate to assert their right to advise the Queen on all questions of national importance. Elizabeth sharply rebuked them for presuming to meddle with questions of religion, or for urging her either to take a husband or to name a successor to the throne; but even she did not venture to run directly counter to the will of the people. When the Commons demanded (1601) that she should put a stop to the pernicious practice of granting trading monopolies (S388) to her favorites, she was obliged to yield her assent.

16. James I; the Divine Right of Kings; Struggle with Parliament.

James began his reign by declaring that kings rule not by the will of the people, but by "divine right." "God makes the King," said he, "and the King makes the law" (S419). For this reason he demanded that his proclamations should have all the force of acts of Parliament. Furthermore, since he appointed the judges, he could generally get their decisions to support him; thus he made even the courts of justice serve as instruments of his will. In his arrogance he declared that neither Parliament nor the people had any right to discuss matters of state, whether foreign or domestic, since he was resolved to reserve such questions for the royal intellect to deal with. By his religious intolerance he maddened both Puritans and Catholics, and the Pilgrim Fathers fled from England to escape his tyranny.

But there was a limit set to his overbearing conceit. When he dictated to the Commons (1604) what persons should sit in that body, they indignantly refused to submit to any interference on his part, and their refusal was so emphatic that James never brought the matter up again.

The King, however, was so determined to shut out members whom he did not like that he attempted to gain his ends by having such persons seized on charges of debt and thrown into prison. The Commons, on the other hand, not only insisted that their ancient privilege of exemption from arrest in such cases should be respected, but they passed a special law (1604) to clinch the privilege.

Ten years later (1614) James, pressed for money, called a Parliament to get supplies. He had taken precautions to get a majority of members elected who would, he hoped, vote for him what he wanted. But to his dismay the Commons declined to grant him a penny unless he would promise to cease imposing illegal duties on merchandise. The King angrily refused and dissolved the so-called "Addled Parliament."[1]

[1] This Parliament was nicknamed the "Addled Parliament," because it did not enact a single law, though it most effectually "addled" the King's plans (S424).

Finally, in order to show James that it would not be trifled with, a later Parliament (1621) revived the right of impeachment, which had not been resorted to since 1450.[2] The Commons now charged Lord Chancellor Bacon, judge of the High Court of Chancery, and "keeper of the King's conscience," with accepting bribes. Bacon held the highest office in the gift of the Crown, and the real object of the impeachment was to strike the King through the person of his chief official and supporter. Bacon confessed his crime, saying, "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years, but it was the justest censure in Parliament that was these two hundred years."

[2] See S13 of this Summary

James tried his best to save his servile favorite, but it was useless, and Bacon was convicted, disgraced, and partially punished (S425).

The Commons of the same Parliament petitioned the King against the alleged growth of the Catholic religion in the knigdom, and especially against the proposed marriage of the Prince of Wales to a Spanish Catholic princess. James ordered the Commons to let mysteries of the state alone. They claimed liberty of speech. The King asserted that they had no liberties except such as the royal power saw fit to grant. Then the Commons drew up their famous Protest, in which they declared that their liberties were not derived from the King, but were "the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the people of England." In his rage James ordered the journal of the Commons to be brought to him, tore out the Protest with his own hand, and sent five of the members of the House to prison (S419). This rash act made the Commons more determined than ever not to yield to arbitrary power. James died three years later, leaving his unfortunate son Charles to settle the angry controversy he had raised. Macaulay remarks that James seems to have been sent to hasten the coming of the Civil War.

17. Charles I; Forced Loans; the Petition of Right.

Charles I came to the throne full of his father's lofty ideas of the Divine Right of Kings to govern as they pleased. In private life he was conscientious, but in his public policy he was a man "of dark and crooked ways."

He had married a French Catholic princess, and the Puritans, who were now very strong in the House of Commons, suspected that the King secretly sympathized with the Queen's religion. This was not the case; for Charles, after his peculiar fashion, was a sincere Protestant, though he favored the introduction into the English Church of some of the ceremonies peculiar to Catholic worship.

The Commons showed their distrust of the King by voting him the tax of tonnage and poundage (certain duties levied on wine and merchandise), for a single year only, instead of for life, as had been their custom. The Lords refused to assent to such a limited grant,[1] and Charles deliberately collected the tax without the authority of Parliament. Failing, however, to get a sufficient supply in that way, the King forced men of property to grant him "benevolences," and to loan him large sums of money with no hope of its return. Those who dared to refuse were thrown into prison on some pretended charge, or had squads of brutal soldiers quartered in their houses.

[1] See Taswell-Langmead (revised edition), p. 557, note.

When even these measures failed to supply his wants, Charles was forced to summon a Parliament, and ask for help. Instead of granting it, the Commons drew up the Petition of Right[2] of 1628, as an indignant remonstrance, and as a safeguard against further acts of tyranny. This Petition has been called the "Second Great Charter of the Liberties of England." It declared: (1) That no one should be compelled to pay any tax or to supply the King with money, except by order of act of Parliament. (2) That neither soldiers nor sailors should be quartered in private houses.[3] (3) That no one should be imprisoned or punished contrary to law. Charles was forced by his need of money to assent to this Petition, which thus became a most important part of the English constitution. But the King did not keep his word. When Parliament next met (1629), it refused to grant money unless Charles would renew his pledge not to violate the law. The King made some concessions, but finally resolved to adjourn Parliament. Several members of the Commons held the Speaker in the chair by force,--thus preventing the adjournment of the House,--until resolutions offered by Sir John Eliot were passed (S434). These resolutions were aimed directly at the King. They declared: (1) that he is a traitor who attempts any change in the established religion of the kingdom;[4] (2) who levies any tax not voted by Parliament; (3) or who voluntarily pays such a tax. Parliament then adjourned.

[2] Petition of Right: see S432, and Constitutional Documents, p.xxx. [3] The King was also deprived of the power to press citizens into the army and navy. [4] The Puritans had come to believe that the King wished to restore the Catholic religion as the Established Church of England, but in this idea they were mistaken.

18. "Thorough"; Ship Money; the "Short Parliament."

The King swore that "the vipers" who opposed him should have their reward. Eliot was thrown into prison and kept there till he died. Charles made up his mind that, with the help of Archbishop Laud in Church matters, and of Lord Strafford in affairs of state, he would rule without Parliaments. Strafford urged the King to adopt the policy of "Thorough"[1] (S435); in other words, to follow the bent of his own will without consulting the will of the nation. This, of course, practically meant the overthrow of parliamentary and constitutional government. Charles heartily approved of this plan for setting up what he called a "beneficent despotism" based on "Divine Right."

[1] "Thorough": Strafford wrote to Laud, "You may govern as you please....I am confident that the King is able to carry any just and honorable action thorough [i.e. through or against] all imaginable opposition." Both Strafford and Laud used the word "thorough," in this sense to designate their tyrannical policy.

The King now resorted to various unconstitutional means to obtain supplies. The last device he hit upon was that of raising ship money. To do this, he levied a tax on all the counties of England,-- inland as well as seaboard,--on the pretext that he purposed building a neavy for the defense of the kingdom. John Hampden refused to pay the tax, but Charles's servile judges decided against him, when the case was brought into court (S436).

Charles ruled without a Parliament for eleven years. He might, perhaps, have gone on in this way for as many more, had he not provoked the Scots to rebel by attempting to force a modified form of the English Prayer Book on the Church of that country (S438). The necessities of the war with the Scots compelled the King to call a Parliament. It declined to grant the King money to carry on the war unless he would give some satisfactory guarantee of governing according to the will of the people. Charles refused to do this, and after a three weeks' session he dissolved what was known as the "Short Parliament."

19. The "Long Parliament"; the Civil War.

But the war gave Charles no choice, and before the year was out he was obliged to call the famous "Long Parliament" of 1640.[2] That body met with the firm determination to restore the liberties of Englishmen or to perish in the attempt. (1) It impeached Strafford and Laud, and sent them to the scaffold as traitors.[3] (2) It swept away those instruments of royal oppression, the Court of Star Chamber and the High Commission Court (SS330, 382). (3) It expelled the bishops from the House of Lords. (4) It passed the Triennial Bill, compelling the King to summon a Parliament at least once in three years.[4] (5) It also passed a law declaring that the King could not suspend or dissolve Parliament without its consent. (6) Last of all, the Commons drew up the Grand Remonstrance (S439), enunciating at great length the grievances of the last sixteen years, and vehemently appealing to the people to support them in their attempts at reform. The Remonstrance was printed and distributed throughout England.[1]

[2] The "Long Parliament": it sat from 1640 to 1653, and was not finally dissolved until 1660. [3] Charles assured Strafford that Parliament should not touch "a hair of his head"; but to save himself the King signed the Bill of Attainder (see p.xxxii), which sent his ablest and most faithful servant to the block. Well might Strafford exclaim, "Put not your trust in princes." [4] The Triennial Act was repealed in 1664 and reenacted in 1694. In 1716 the Septennial Act increased the limit of three years to seven. This act is still in force. [1] The press soon became, for the first time, a most active agent of political agitation, both for and against the King (S443).

About a month later (1642) the King, at the head of an armed force, undertook to seize Hampden, Pym, and three other of the most active members of the Commons on a charge of treason (S449). The attempt failed. Soon afterwards the Commons passed the Militia Bill, and thus took the command of the national militia and of the chief fortresses of the realm, "to hold," as they said, "for King and Parliament." The act was unconstitutional; but, after the attempted seizure of the five members, the Commons felt certain that if they left the command of the militia in the King's hands, they would simply sign their own death warrant.

In resentment of this action, Charles now (1642) began the great Civil War. It resulted in the execution of the King, and in the temporary overthrow of the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the Established Episcopal Church (SS450, 451). In place of the monarchy, the party in power set up a short-lived Puritan Republic. This was followed by the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (which claimed to be republican in spirit) and by that of his son Richard (SS455, 463).

20. Charles II; Abolition of Feudal Tenure; Establishment of a Standing Army.

In 1660 the people, weary of the Protectorate form of government, welcomed the return of Charles II. His coming marks the restoration of the monarchy, of the House of Lords, and of the National Episcopal Church.

A great change was now effected in the source of the King's revenue. Hitherto it had sprung largely from feudal dues. These had long been difficult to collect, because the Feudal System had practically died out. The feudal land tenure with its dues was now abolished,--a reform, says Blackstone, greater even than that of Magna Carta,--and in their place a tax was levied for a fixed sum (S482). This tax should in justice have fallen on the landowners, who profited by the change; but they managed to evade it in great measure, and by getting it levied on beer and some other liquors, they forced the working classes to shoulder the chief part of the burden, which they carried until very recently.[2]

[2] See S34 of this Summary.

Parliament now restored the command of the militia to the Kign;[3] and, for the first time in English history, it also gave him the command of a standing army of five thousand men,--thus, in one way, making him more powerful than ever before (S467).

[3] See Militia Bill, S19 of this Summary.

On the other hand, Parliament revived the practice of limiting its appropriations of money to specific purposes.[4] It furthermore began to require an exact account of how the King spent the money,--a most embarrassing question for a man like Charles II to answer. Again, Parliament did not hesitate to impeach and remove the King's ministers whenever they forfeited the confidence of that body.[1]

[4] See S13 of this Summary. [1] See S13 of this Summary (Impeachment).

The religious legislation of this period marks the strong reaction from Puritanism which had set in. (1) The Corporation Act (1661) excluded all persons who did not renounce the Puritan Covenant and partake of the Sacrament according to the Church of England, from holding municipal or other corporate offices (S472). (2) The Fourth Act of Uniformity (1662)[2] required all clergymen to accept the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (S472). The result of this law was that no less than two thousand Puritan ministers were driven from their pulpits in a single day. (3) The Conventicle Act (S472) followed (1664). It forbade the preaching or hearing of Puritan doctrines, under severe penalties. (4) The Five-Mile Act (1665) (S472) [3] prohibited non-conforming clergymen from teaching, or from coming within five miles of any corporate town (except when traveling).

[2] The First and Second Acts of Uniformity date from Edward VI (1549, 1552), the Third from Elizabeth (1559) (SS362, 382, 472). [3] The Five-Mile Act (1665) excepted those clergymen who took the oath of nonresistance to the King, and who swore not to attempt to alter the constitution of Church or State. See Hallam's "Constitutional History of England."

21. Charles II's Cabinet; the Secret Treaty of Dover; the Test Act; the Habeas Corpus Act; Rise of Cabinet Government.

Charles II made a great and most important change with respect to the Privy Council. Instead of consulting the entire Council on matters of state, he established the custom of inviting only a few to meet with him in his cabinet, or private room. This limited body of confidential advisers was called the "Cabal," or secret council (S476).

Charles's great ambition was to increase his standing army, to rule independently of Parliament, and to get an abundance of money to spend on his extravagant pleasures and vices.

In order to accomplish these three ends he made a secret and shameful treaty with Louis XIV of France, 1670 (S476). Louis wished to crush the Dutch Protestant Republic of Halland, to get possession of Spain, and to secure, if possible, the ascendancy of Catholicism in England as well as throughout Europe. Charles, who was destitute of any religious principle,--or, in fact, of any sense of honor,--agreed to publicly declare himself a Catholic, to favor the propagation of that faith in England, and to make war on Holland in return for very liberal grants of money, and for the loan of six thousand French troops by Louis, to help him put down any opposition in England. Two members of the "Cabal" were acquainted with the terms of this secret Treaty of Dover. Charles made a second secret treaty with Louis XIV in 1678.

Charles did not dare to openly avow himself a convert--or pretended convert--to the Catholic religion; but he issued a Declaration of Indulgence, 1672, suspending the harsh statutes against the English Catholics (S477).

Parliament took the alarm and passed the Test Act, 1673, by which all Catholics were shut out from holding any government office or position (S477). This act broke up the "Cabal," by compelling a Catholic nobleman, who was one of its leading members, to resign. Lather, Parliament further showed its power by compelling the King to sign the Act of Habeas Corpus, 1679 (S482), which put an end to his arbitrarily throwing men into prison, and keeping them there, in order to stop their free discussion of his plots against the constitution.[1]

[1] See Habeas Corpus Act in Constitutional Documents, p.xxxii.

But though the "Cabal" had been broken up, the principle of a limited private council survived, and long after the Revolution of 1688 it was revived and the Cabinet, under the lead of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister,[2] in 1721, became responsible for th epolicy of the sovereign.[3] At present, if the Commons decidedly oppose that policy, the Prime minister,[2] in 1721, became responsible for the policy of the sovereign.[3] At present, if the Commons decidedly oppose that policy, the Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, either resigns, and a new Cabinet is chosen, or the Minister appeals to the people for support, and the sovereign dissolves Parliament and orders a new parliamentary election, by which the nation decides the question. This method renders the old, and never desirable, remedy of the impeachment of the ministers of the sovereign no longer necessary. The Prime Minister--who answers for the acts of the sovereign and for his policy--is more directly responsible to the people than is the President of the United States.

[2] See S27 of this Summary. [3] The real efficiency of the Cabinet system of government was not fully developed until after the Reform Act of 1832 had widely extended the right of suffrage, and thus made the government more directly responsible to the people (S582).

22. The Pretended "Popish Plot"; Rise of the Whigs and the Tories; Revocation of Town Charters.

The pretended "Popish Plot" (1678) (S478) to kill the King, in order to place his brother James--a Catholic convert--on the throne, caused the rise of a strong movement (1680) to exclude James from the right of succession. The Exclusion Bill failed; but the Disabling Act was passed, 1678, excluding Catholics from sitting in either House of Parliament; but an exception was made in favor of the Duke of York (S478). Henceforward two prominent political parties appear in Parliament,--one, that of the Whigs or Liberals, bent on extending the power of thepeople; the other, that of the Tories or Conservatives, resolved to maintain the power of the Crown.

Charles II, of course, did all in his power to encourage the latter party. In order to strengthen their numbers in the Commons, he found pretexts for revoking the charters of many Whig towns (S479). He then issued new charters to these towns, giving the power of election to the Tories.[4] While engaged in this congenial work the King died, and his brother James II came to the throne.

[4] The right of election in many towns was then confined to the town officers or to a few influential inhabitants. This continued to be the case until the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832.

23. James II; the Dispensing Power; Declaration of Indulgence; the Revolution of 1688.

James II was a zealous Catholic, and therefore naturally desired to secure freedom of worship in England for people of his own faith. In his zeal he went too far, and the Pope expressed his disgust at the King's foolish rashness. By the exercise of the Dispensing Power[1] he suspended the Test Act and the Act of Uniformity, in order that Catholics might be relieved from the penalties imposed by these laws, and also for the purpose of giving them civil and military offices, from which the Test Act excluded them (S477). James also established a new High Commission Court[2] (S488), and made the infamous Judge Jeffreys the head of this despotic tribunal. This court had the supervision of all churches and institutions of education. Its main object was to further the spread of Catholicism, and to silence those clergymen who preached against that faith. The King appointed a Catholic president of Magdalen College, Oxford, and expelled from the college all who opposed the appointment. Later, he issued two Declarations of Indulgence, 1687, 1688, in which he proclaimed universal religious toleration (S488). It was generally believed that under cover of these Declarations the King intended to favor the ascendancy of Catholicism. Seven bishops, who petitioned for the privilege of declining to read the Declarations from their pulpits, were imprisoned, but on their trial were acquitted by a jury in full sympathy with them (S489).

[2] New High Commission Court: see S19 of this Summary.

These acts by the King, together with the fact that he had greatly increased the standing army, and had stationed it just outside of London, caused great alarm throughout England (S488). The majority of the people of both political parties (S489) believed that James was plotting to "subverty and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of the kingdom."

[3] See the language of the Bill of Rights (Constitutional Documents), p. xxxi.

Still, so long as the King remained childless, the nation was encouraged by the hope that James's daughter Mary might succeed him. She was known to be a decided Protestant, and she had married William, Prince of Orange, the head of the Protestant Republic of Holland. But the birth of a son to James (1688) put an end to that hope. Immediately a number of leading Whigs and Tories (SS479, 490) united in sending an invitation to the Prince of Orange to come over to England with an army to protect Parliament against the King backed by his standing army.

24. William and Mary; Declaration of Right; Results of the Revolution.

William came; James fled to France. A Convention Parliament[4] drew up a Declaration of Right which declared that the King had vacated the throne, and the crown was therefore offered to William and Mary (S494). They accepted. Thus by the bloodless Revolution of 1688 the English nation transferred the sovereignty to those who had no direct legal claim to it so long as James and his son were living (S490). Hence by this act the people deliberately set aside hereditary succession, as a binding rule, and revived the primitive English custom of choosing a sovereign as they deemed best. In this sense the uprising of 1688 was most emphatically a revolution (S491, 492). It made, as Green has said, an English monarch as much the creature of an act of Parliament as the pettiest taxgatherer in his realm (S497). But it was a still greater revolution in another way, since it gave a deathblow to the direct "personal monarchy," which began with the Tudors two hundred years before. It is true that in George III's reign we shall see that power temporarily revived, but we shall never hear anything more of that Divine Right of Kings, for which one Stuary "lost his head, and another his crown." Henceforth the House of Commons will govern England, although, as we shall see, it will be nearly a hundred and fifty years before that House will be able to free itself entirely from the control of either a few powerful families on the one hand, or that of the Crown on the other.

[4] Convention Parliament: it was so called because it was not regularly summoned by the King,--he having fled the country.

25. Bill of Rights; the Commons by the Revenue and the Mutiny Act obtain Complete Control over the Purse and the Sword.

In order to make the constitutional rights of the people unmistakably clear, the Bill of Rights, 1689,--an expansion of the Declaration of Right--was drawn up (S497). The Bill of Rights[1] declare: (1) That there should be no suspension or change in the laws, and no taxation except by act of Parliament. (2) That there should be freedom of election to Parliament and freedom of speech in Parliament (both rights that the Stuarts had attempted to contrl). (3) That the sovereign should not keep a standing army, in time of peace, except by consent of Parliament. (4) That in future no Roman Catholic should sit on the English throne. This last clause was reaffirmed by the Act of Settlement, 1701 (S497).[2]

[1] Bill of Rights: see Constitutional Documents, p. xxxi. [2] See, too, Constitutional Documents, p. xxxii.

This most important bill, having received the signature of William and Mary, became law. It constitutes the third great written charter or safeguard of English liberty. Taken in connection with Magna Carta and the Petition of Right, it forms, according to Lord Chatham, *the Bible of English liberty* (S497).

But Parliament had not yet finished the work of reform it had taken in hand. The executive strength of every government depends on its control of two powers,--the purse and the sword. Parliament had, as we have seen, got a tight grasp on the first, for the Commons, and the Commons alone, could levy taxes; but within certain very wide limits the personal expenditure of the sovereign still practically remained unchecked. Parliament now, 1689, took the decisive step of voting by the Revenue Act (1) a specific sum for the maintenance of the Crown; and (2) of voting this supply, not for the life of the sovereign, as had been the custom, but for four years (S498). A little later this supply was fixed for a signle year only. This action gave to the Commons final and complete control of the purse (SS498, 588).

Next, Parliament passed the Mutiny Act (1689) (S496), which granted the King power to enforce martial law--in other words, to maintain a standing army--for one year at a time, and no longer, save by renewal of the law. This act gave Parliament complete control of the sword, and thus finished the great work; for without the annual meeting and the annual vote of that body, an English sovereign would at the end of a twelvemonth stand penniless and helpless.

26. Reforms in the Courts; the Toleration Act; the Press made Free.

The same year (1689) Parliament effected great and sorely needed reforms in the administration of justice (S492).

Next, Parliament passed the Toleration Act, 1689 (S496). This measure granted liberty of worship to all Protestant Dissenters except those who denied the doctrine of the Trinity.[1] The Toleration Act, however, did not abolish the Corporation Act or the Test Act[2] (SS472, 477), and it granted no religious freedom to Catholics.[3] Still, the Toleration Act was a step forward, and it prepared the way for that absolute liberty of worship and of religious belief which now exists in England.

[1] Freedom of worship was granted to Unitarians in 1812. [2] The Act of Indemnity of 1727, and passed from year to year, suspended the penalties of the Test and the Corporation Acts; they were both repealed in 1828. [3] Later, the fear that James II might be invited to return led to the enactment of very severe laws agaisnt the Catholics; and in the next reign (Anne's) the Act of Occasional Conformity and the Schism Act were directed against Protestant Dissenters.

In finance, the reign of William and Mary was marked by the practical beginning of the permanent National Debt in 1693 and by the establishment in 1694 of the Bank of England (S503).

Now, too, 1695, the English press, for the first time in its history, became, in large measure, free (SS498, 556), though hampered by a very severe law of libel and by stamp duties.[4] From this period the influence of newspapers continued to increase, until the final abolition of the stamp duty (1855) made it possible to issue penny and even halfpenny papers at a profit. These cheap newspapers sprang at once into an immense circulation among all classes, and thus they became the power for good or evil, according to their character, which they are to-day; so that it would be no exaggeration to say that back of the power of Parliament now stands the greater power of the press.

[4] Debates in Parliament could not be reported until 1771 (S556), and certain Acts (1793, 1799) checked the freedom of the press for a time. See May's "History of England."

27. The House of Commons no longer a Representative Body; the First Two Georges and their Ministers.

But now that the Revolution of 1688 had done its work, and transferred the power of the Crown to the House of Commons, a new difficulty arose. This was the fact that the Commons did not represent the people, but stood simply as the representative of a small number of rich Whig landowners.[1] In many towns the right to vote was confined to the town officers or to the well-to-do citizens. In other cases, towns which had dwindled in population to a very few inhavitants continued to have the right to send two members to Parliament, while, on the other hand, large and flourishing cities had grown up which had no power to send even a single member (S578). The result of this state of things was that the wealthy Whig families bought up the votes of electors, and so regularly controlled the elections (S538).

[1] The influence of the Whigs had secured the passage of the Act of Settlement which brought in the Georges; for this reason the Whigs had gained the chief political power.

Under the first two Georges, both of whom were foreigners, the ministers--especially Sir Robert Walpole, who was the first real Prime Minister of England, and who held his place for twenty years (1721- 1742)--naturally stood in the foreground.[2] They understood the ins and outs of English politics, while the two German sovereigns, the first of whom never learned to speak English, neither knew nor cared anything about them. When men wanted favors or offices, they went to the ministers for them (S538). This made men like Walpole so powerful that George II said bitterly, "In England the ministers are king" (S534).

[2] See S21 of this Summary.

28. George III's Revival of "Personal Monarchy"; the "King's Friends."

George III was born in England, and prided himself on being an Englishman. He came to the throne fully resolved, as Walpole said, "to make his power shine out," and to carry out his mother's constant injunction of, "George, be King!" (S548). To do this, he set himself to work to trample on the power of the ministers, to take the distribution of offices and honors out of their hands, and furthermore to break down the influence of the great Whig families in Parliament. He had no intention of reforming the House of Commons, or of securing the representation of the people in it; his purpose was to gain the control of the House, and use it for his own ends. In this he was thoroughly conscientious, according to his idea of right,--for he believed with all his heart in promoting the welfare of England,--but he thought that welfare depended on the will of the King much more than on that of the nation. His maxim was "everything for, but nothing by, the people." By liberal gifts of money,--he spent 25,000 pounds in a single day (1762) in bribes,[3]--by gifts of offices and of honors to those who favored him, and by taking away offices, honors, and pensions from those who opposed him, George III succeeded in his purpose. He raised up a body of men in Parliament, known by the significant name of the "King's Friends," who stood ready at all times to vote for his measures. In this way he actually revived "personal monarchy"[4] for a time, and by using his "Friends" in the House of Commons and in the Lords as his tools, he made himself quite independent of the checks imposed by the Constitution.

[3] Pitt (Lord Chatham) was one of the few public men of that day who would neither give nor take a bribe; Walpole declared with entire truth that the great majority of politicians could be bought,--it was only a question of price. The King appears to have economized in his living, in order to get more money to use as a corruption fund. See May's "Constitutional History." [4] "Personal monarchy": see S15 of this Summary.

29. The American Revolution.

The King's power reached its greatest height between 1770 and 1782. He made most disastrous use of it, not only at home but abroad. He insisted that the English colonists in America should pay taxes, without representation in Parliament, even of that imperfect kind which then existed in Great Britain. This determination brought on the American Revolution--called in England the "King's War" (SS549- 552). The war, in spite of its ardent support by the "King's Friends," roused a powerful opposition in Parliament. Chatham, Burke, Fox, and other able men protested against the King's arbitrary course. inally, Dunning moved and carried this resolution (1780) in the Commons: "Resolved, that the power of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished" (S548). This vigorous proposition came too late to affect the conduct of the war, and England lost the most valuable of her colonial possessions. The struggle, which ended successfully for the patriots in America, was in reality part of the same battle fought in England by other patriots in the halls of Parliament. On the western side of the Atlantic it resulted in the establishment of national independence; on the eastern side, in the final overthrow of royal tyranny and the triumph of the constitution. It furthermore laid the foundation of that just and generous policy on the part of England toward Canada and her other colonies which has made her mistress of the largest and most prosperous empire on the globe.[1]

[1] The area of the British Empire in 1911 was nearly 12,000,000 square miles.

30. John Wilkes and the Middlesex Elections; Publication of Parliamentary Debates.

Meanwhile John Wilkes (S556), a member of the House of Commons, had gained the recognition of a most important principle. He was a coarse and violent opponent of the royal policy, and had been expelled from the House on account of his bitter personal attack on the King.[2] Several years later (1768) he was reelected to Parliament, but was again expelled for seditious libel;[3] he was three times reelected by the people of London and Middlesex, who looked upon him as the champion of their cause; each time the House refused to permit him to take his seat, but at the fourth election he was successful. A few years later (1782) he induced the House to strike out from its journal the resolution there recorded against him.[4] Thus Wilkes, by his indomitable persistency, succeeded in establishing the right of the people to elect the candidate of their choice to Parliament. During the same period the people gained another great victory over Parliament. That body had utterly refused to permit the debates to be reported in the newspaperes. But the redoubtable Wilkes was determined to obtain and publish such reports; rather than have another prolonged battle with him, Parliament conceded the privilege (1771) (S556). The result was that the public then, for the first time, began to know what business Parliament actually transactaed, and how it was done. This fact, of course, rendered the members of both Houses far more directly responsible to the will of the people than they had ever been before.[1]

[2] In No. 45 of the _North Briton_ (1763) Wilkes rudely accused the King of having deliberately uttered a falsehood in his speech to Parliament. [3] The libel was contained in a letter written to the newspapers by Wilkes. [4] The resolution was finally stricken out, on the ground that it was "subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors." [1] The publication of Division Lists (equivalent to Yeas and Nays) by the House of Commons in 1836 and by the Lords in 1857 completed this work. Since then the public have known how each member of Parliament votes on every important question.

31. The Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, 1884; Demand for "Manhood Suffrage."

But notwithstanding this decided political progress, still the greatest reform of all--that of the system of electing members of Parliament--still remained to be accomplished. Cromwell had attempted it (1654), but the Restoration put an end to the work which the Protector had so wisely begun. Lord Chatham felt the necessity so strongly that he had not hesitated to declare (1766) that the system of representation--or rather misrepresentation--which then existed was the "rotten part of the constitution." "If it does not drop," said he, "it must be amputated." Later (1770), he became so alarmed at the prospect that he declared that "before the end of the century either the Parliament will reform itself from within, or be reformed from without with a vengeance" (S578).

But the excitement caused by the French Revolution and the wars with Napoleon not only prevented any general movement of reform, but made it possible to enact the Six Acts and other stringent laws against agitation in that direction (S571). Finally, however, the unrepresented classes rose in their might (SS580-582), and by terrible riots made it evident that it would be dangerous for Parliament to postpone action on their demands. The Reform Bill--the "Great Charter of 1832"--swept away the "rotten boroughs," which had disgraced the country. It granted the right of election to many large towns which had hitherto been unable to send members to Parliament, and it placed representation on a broader, healthier, and more equuitable basis than had ever existed before (S582). It was a significant fact that when the first reformed Parliament met, composed largely of Liberals, it showed its true spirit by abolishing slavery in the West Indies. It was followed by the Municipal Reform Act of 1835 (S599). Later (1848), the Chartists advocated further reforms (S591), most of which have since been adopted.

In 1867 an act (S599), scarcely less important than that of 1832, broadened representation still further; and in 1884 the franchise was again extended (S599). A little later (1888) the County Council Act reconstructed the local self-government of the country in great measure.[2] It was supplemented in 1894 by the Parish Council Act (S600). The cry is now for unrestricted "manhood suffrage," on the principle of "one man one vote";[1] woman suffrage in a limited degree has existed since 1869 (S599).

[2] The "Local Government" Act: this gives to counties the management of their local affairs and secures uniformity of method and of administration. [1] That is, the abolition of certain franchise privileges springing from the possession of landed property in different counties or parliamentary districts by which the owner of such property is entitled to cast more than one vote for a candidate for Parliament.

32. Extension of Religious Liberty; Admission of Catholics and Jews to Parliament, Free Trade.

Meanwhile immense progress was made in extending the principles of religious liberty to all bodies of believers. After nearly three hundred years (or since the Second Act of Supremacy, 1559), Catholics were admitted in 1829 to the House of Commons (S573);and in the next generation, 1858, Jews were likewise admitted (S599). The Oaths Act of 1888 makes it impossible to exclude any one on account of his religious belief or unbelief (S599).

Commercially the nation has made equal progress. The barbarous Corn Laws (SS592, 594) were repealed in 1848, the narrow protective policy of centuries abandoned; and since that period England has practically taken its stand on unlimited free trade with all countries.

33. Condition of Ireland; Reform in the Land and the Church Laws; Civil-Service Reform; Education.

In one direction, however, there had been no advance. Following the example of Scotland (S513), Ireland was politically united to Great Britain (S562); at the beginning of the century when the first Imperial Parliament met (1801), but long after the Irish Catholics had obtained the right of representation in Parliament, they were compelled to submit to unjust land laws, and also to contribute to the support of the Established (Protestant) Church in Ireland. Finally, through the efforts of Mr. Gladstone and others, this branch of the Church was disestablished (1869) (S601); later (1870, 1881, 1903), important reforms were effected in th eIrish land laws (SS603, 605, 620).

To supplement the great electoral reforms which had so widely extended the power of the popular vote, two other measures were now carried. One was that of Civil-Service Reform, 1870, which opened all clerkships and similar positions in the gift of the government to the free competition of candidates, without regard to their political opinions (S609). This did away with most of that demoralizing system of favoritism which makes government offices the spoils by which successful political parties reward "little men for little services." The "secret ballot," another measure of great importance, followed (1872) (S609).

The same year, 1870, England, chiefly through Mr. Forster's efforts, took up the second measure, the question of national education. The conviction gained ground that if the working classes are to vote, then they must not be allowed to remain in ignorance; the nation declared "we must educate our future masters." In this spirit a system of elementary government schools was established, which gives instruction to tens of thousands of children who hitherto were forced to grow up without its advantages (S602). These schools are not yet entirely free, although the legislation of 1891-1894 practically puts most of them on that basis.

England now has a strong and broad foundation of national education and of political suffrage.

34. Imperial Federation; Labor enters Parliament; Old Age Pensions; Budget of 1910; Veto Power of the Lords.

The defeat of the Boers in the Great Boer War (1899-1902) led to the completion of the scheme of Imperial Federation, by the establishment of the Union of South Africa (1910) as the fourth of the self- governing colonies, of which Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are the other three.

In 1906, in the reign of Edward VII, organized Labor secured for the first time adequate representation in Parliament, through the overwhelming victory gained at the elections by the combined Liberal and Labor parties (S628). The "Laborites," as they are popularly called, claim that their influence obtained the passage of the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908.

Two years later the Liberal Government compelled the Lords to accept a Budget calling for an enormous increase of taxes imposed in large measure on land and incomes and levied partly for the purpose of paying the new pensions (SS629, 630).

The death of Edward VII, in the spring of 1910, brought George V to the throne. He came at a critical time. Mr. Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister, was then demanding that the veto power of the House of Lords should be limited or practically abolished so that in future the House of Commons should be distinctly recognized as the dominant factor in the government (S631).

In the summer of 1911 Mr. Asquith succeeded in passing his Veto Bill restricting the power of the House of Lords, and making it impossible for that body to resist any measures the Commons should resolutely resolve to carry. He also passed the Salary Bill, by which members of the House of Commons are paid 400 pounds annually. Later, in 1911, he passed the Workmen's Compulsory Insurance Bill against sickness and unemployment. The worker contributes a small sum weekly, his employer does the same, and the Government gives the rest. The law applies to many millions of people and it is expected to do great good.

These facts show that while England remains a monarchy in name, it has now become a republic in fact. A sovereign reigns, but the People rule. The future is in their hands.

CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS

Abstract of the Articles of Magna Carta, 1215.

1. "The Church of England shall be free, and have her whole rights, and her liberties inviolable." The freedom of elections of ecclesiastics by the Church is confirmed. 2-8. Feudal rights guaranteed, and abuses remedied. 9-11. Treatment of debtorrs alleviated. 12. "No scutage or aid [except the three customary feudal aids] shall be imposed in our kingdom, unless by the Common Council of the realm."[1] 13. London, and all towns, to have their ancient liberties. 14. The King binds himself to summon the Common Council of the realm respecting the assessing of an aid (except as provided in 12) or a scutage.[1] 15, 16. Guarantee of feudal rights to tenants. 17-19. Provisions respecting holding certain courts. 20, 21. Of amercements. They are to be proportionate to the offence, and imposed according to the oath of honest men in the neighborhood. No amercement to touch the necessary means of subsistence of a free man, the merchandise of a merchant, or the agricultural tools of a villein; earls and barons to be amerced by their equals. 23-34. Miscellaneous, minor articles. 35. Weights and measures to be uniform. 36. Nothing shall be given or taken, for the future, for the Writ of Inquisition of life or limb, but it shall be freely granted, and not denied.[2] 37, 38. Provisions respecting land-tenure and trials at law. 39. "NO FREEMAN SHALL BE TAKEN OR IMPRISONED, OR DISSEIZED, OR OUTLAWED, OR BANISHED, OR ANY WAYS DESTROYED, NOR WILL WE PASS UPON HIM, NOR WILL WE SEND UPON HIM, UNLESS BY THE LAWFUL JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS, OR BY THE LAW OF THE LAND." 40. "WE WILL SELL TO NO MAN, WE WILL NOT DENY TO ANY MAN, EITHER JUSTICE OR RIGHT." 41, 42. Provisions respecting merchants, and freedom of entering and quitting the realm, except in war time. 43-46. Minor provisions. 47, 48. Provisions disafforesting all forests seized by John, and guaranteeing forest rights to subjects. 49-60. Various minor provisions. 62. Provision for carrying out the charter by the barons in case the King fails in the performance of his agreement. 63. The freedom of the Church reaffirmed. Every one in the kingdom to have and hold his liberties and rights.

"Given under our hand, in the presence of the witnesses above named, and many others, in the meadow called Runnymede between Windsor and Stains, the 15th day of June, in the 17th of our reign." [Here is appended the King's seal.]

[1] These important articles were omitted when Magna Carta was reissued in 1216 by Henry III. Stubbs says they were never restored: but Edward I, in his Confirmation of the Charters, seems to reaffirm them. See the Confirmation; see also Gneist's "English Constitution," II, 9. [2] This article is regarded by some authorities as the prototype of the statute of Habeas Corpus; others consider that it is implied in Articles 39-40.

Confirmation of the Charters by Edward I, 1297.

In 1297 Edward I confirmed Magna Carta and the Forest Charter granted by Henry III in 1217 by letters patent. The document consists of sevent articles, of which the following, namely, the sixth and seventh, are the most important.

6. Moreover we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to eaarls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that *for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises but by the common consent of the realm,* and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.

7. And for so much as the more part of the commonalty of the realm find themselves sore grieved with the maletote [i.e. an unjust tax or duty] of wools, that is to wit, a toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool, and have made petition to us to release the same; we, at their requests, have clearly released it, and have granted for us and our heirs that we shall not take such thing nor any other without their common assent and good will; saving to us and our heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather, granted before by the commonalty aforesaid. In witness of which things we have caused these our letters to be made patents. Witness Edward our son, at London, the 10th day of October, the five-and-twentieth of our reign.

And be it remembered that this same Charter, in the same terms, word for word, was sealed in Flanders under the King's Great Seal, that is to say, at Ghent, the 5th day of November, in the 25th year of the reign of our aforesaid Lord the King, and sent into England.

THE PETITION OF RIGHT

June 7, 1628

The Petition exhibited to His Majesty by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, concerning divers Rights and Liberties of the Subjects, with the King's Majesty's Royal Answer thereunto in full. Parliament.

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY: Humbly show unto our Sovereign Lord the King, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, that whereas it is declared and enacted by a statute made in the time of the reign of King Edward the First, commonly called Statutum de Tallagio non concedendo,[1] that no tallage [here, a tax levied by the King upon the lands of the crown, and upon all royal towns] or aid shall be laid or levied by the King or his heirs in this realm, without the goodwill and assent of the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Barons, Knights, Burgesses, and other the freemen of the commonalty of this realm: and by authority of Parliament holden in the five and twentieth year of the reign of King Edward the Third, it is declared and enacted, that from henceforth no person shall be compelled to make any loans to the King against his will, because such loans were against reason and the franchise of the land; and by other laws of this realm it is provided, that none should be charged by any charge or imposition, called a Benevolence, or by such like charge, by which the statutes before-mentioned, and other the good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they shuld not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in Parliament.

[1] A statute concerning tallage not granted by Parliament. This is now held not to have been a statute. See Gardiner's "Documents of the Puritan Revolution," p. 1. It is considered by Stubbs an unauthorized and imperfect abstract of Edward I's Confirmation of the Charters-- which see.

Yet nevertheless, of late divers commissions directed to sundry Commissioners in several counties with instructions have issued; by means whereof your people have been in divers places assembled, and required to lend certain sums of money unto your Majesty, and many of them upon their refusal so to do, have had an oath administered unto them, not warrantable by the laws or statutes of this realm, and have been constrained to become bound to make appearance and give attendance before your Privy Council, and in other places, and others of them have been therefore imprisoned, confined, and sundry other ways molested and disquieted: and divers other charges have been laid and levied upon your people in several counties, by Lords Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, Commissioners for Musters, Justices of Peace and others, by command or direction from your Majesty or your Privy Council, against the laws and free customs of this realm:

And where also by the statute called, "The Great Charter of the Liberties of England," it is declared and enacted, that no freeman may be taken or imprisoned or be disseized of his freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land:

And in the eighth and twentieth year of the reign of King Edward the Third, it was declared and enacted by authority of Parliament, that no man of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his lands or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disenherited, nor put to death, without being brought to answer by due process of law:

Nevertheless, against the tenor of the said statutes, and other the good laws and statutes of your realm, to that end provided, divers of your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed, and when for their deliverance they were brought before your Justices, by your Majesty's writs of Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as the Court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer; no cause was certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty's special command, signified by the Lords of your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with anything to which they might make answer according to law:

And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of this realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people:

And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of this realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people:

And whereas also by authority of Parliament, in the 25th year of the reign of King Edward the Third, it is declared and enacted, that no man shall be forejudged of life or limb against the form of the Great Charter, and the law of the land: and by the said Great Charter and other the laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to death; but by the laws established in this your realm, either by the customs of the same realm or by Acts of Parliament: and whereas no offender of what kind soever is exempted from the proceedings to be used, and punishments to be inflicted by th elaws and statutes of this your realm; nevertheless of late divers commissions under your Majesty's Great Seal have issued forth, by which certain persons have been assigned and appointed Commissioners with power and authority to proceed within the land, according to the justice of martial law against such soldiers and mariners, or other dissolute persons joining with them, as should commit any murder, robbery, felony, mutiny, or other outrage or misdemeanour whatsoever, and by such summary course and order, as is agreeable to martial law, and is used in armies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and put to death, according to the law martial:

By pretext whereof, some of your Majesty's subjects have been by some of the said Commissioners put to death, when and where, if by the laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same laws and statutes also they might, and by no other ought to have been, adjudged and executed.

And also sundry grievous offenders by colour thereof, claiming an exemption, have escaped the punishments due to them by the laws and statutes of this your realm, by reason that divers of your officers and ministers of justice have unjustly refused, or forborne to proceed against such offenders according to the same laws and statutes, upon pretence that the said offenders were punishable only by martial law, and by authority of such commissions as aforesaid, which commissions, and all other of like nature, are wholly and directly contrary to the said laws and statutes of this your realm:

They do therefore humbly pray your Most Excellent Majesty, that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament; and that none be called to make answer, or take such oath, or to give attendance, or be confined, or otherwise molested or disquieted concerning the same, or for refusal thereof; and that no freeman, in any such manner as is before-mentioned, be imprisoned or detained; and that your Majesty will be pleased to remove the said soldiers and mariners, and that your people may not be so burdened in time to come; and that the foresaid commissions for proceeding by martial law may be revoked and annulled; and that hereafter no commissions of like nature may issue forth to any person or persons whatsoever, to be executed as aforesaid, lest by colour of them any of your Majesty's subjects be destroyed or put to death, contrary to the laws and franchise of the land.

All which they most humbly pray of your Most Excellent Majesty, as their rights and liberties according to the laws and statutes of this realm: and that your Majesty would also vouchsafe to declare, that the awards, doings, and proceedings to the prejudice of your people, in any of the premises, shall not be drawn hereafter into consequence or example: and that your Majesty would be also graciously pleased, for the further comfort and safety of your people, to declare your royal will and pleasure, that in the things aforesaid all your officers and ministers shall serve you, according to the laws and statutes of this realm, as they tender the honour of your Majesty, and the prosperity of this kingdom.

[Which Petition being read the 2d of June, 1628, th eKing gave the following evasive and unsatisfactory answer, instead of the usual one, given below.]

The King willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm: and that the statutes be put in due execution, that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppressions, contrary to their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof he holds himself as well obliged as of his prerogative.

On June 7 the King decided to make answer in the accustomed form, Soit droit fait comme est desir'e. [Equivalent to the form of royal assent, "Le roi (or la reine) le veult," meaning "the King grants it." On the Petition of Right, see Hallam and compare Gardiner's "England"; and his "Documents of the Puritan Revolution."]

The Bill of Rights, 1689.

This Bill consists of thirteen Articles, of which the following is an abstract. It begins by stating that "Whereas the late King James II, by the advice of divers evil counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom:" 1. By dispensing with and suspending the laws without consent of Parliament. 2. By prosecuting worthy bishops for humbly petitioning him to be excused for concurring in the same assumed power. 3. By erecting a High Commission Court. 4. By levying money without consent of Parliament. 5. By keeping a standing army in time of peace without consent of Parliament. 6. By disarming Protestants and arming Papists. 7. By violating the freedom of elections. 8. By arbitrary and illegal prosecutions. 9. By putting corrupt and unqualified persons on juries. 10. By requiring excessive bail. 11. By imposing excessive fines and cruel punishments. 12. By granting fines and forfeiture against persons before their conviction.

It is then declared that "the late King James the Second having abdicated the government, and the throne being thereby vacant," therefore the Prince of Orange ("whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious instrument of delivering their kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power") did by the advice of "the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and divers principal persons of the Commons "summon a Convention Parliament."

This Convention Parliament declares, that the acts above enumerated are contrary to the law. They then bestow the Crown on William and Mary--the sole regal power to be vested only in the Prince of Orange-- and provide that after the decease of William and Mary the Crown shall descend "to the heirs of the body of the said Princess; and, for default of such issue, to the Princess Anne of Denmark[1] and the heirs of her body; and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the body of the said Prince of Orange."

[1] The Princess Anne, sister of the Princess Mary, married Prince George of Denmark in 1683; hence she is here styled "the Princess of Denmark."

Here follow new oaths of allegiance and supremacy in lieu of those formerly required.

The subsequent articles are as follows: IV. Recites the acceptance of the Crown by William and Mary. V. The Convention Parliament to provide for "the settlement of the religion, laws, and liberties of the Kingdom." VI. All the clauses in the Bill of Rights are "the true, ancient, and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this Kingdom." VII. Recognition and declaration of William and Mary as King and Queen. VIII. Repetition of the settlement of the Crown and limitations of the succession. IX. Exclusion from the Crown of all persons holding communion with the "Church of Rome" or who "profess the Popish religion" or who "shall marry a Papist." X. Every King or Queen hereafter succeeding to the Crown to assent to the Act [i.e. Disabling Act of 1678 (S478)] "disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament." XI. The King and Queen assent to all the articles of the Bill of Rights. XII. The Dispensing Power (S488, note 1) abolished. XIII. Exception made in favor of charters, grants, and pardons made before October 23, 1689.

The Act of Settlement, 1700-1701.[2]

Excludes Roman Catholics from succession to the Crown; and declares that if a Roman Catholic obtains th eCrown, "the people of these realms shall be and are thereby absolved of their allegiance." Settles the Crown on the Electress Sophia,[3] and "the heirs of her body being Protestants." Requires the sovereign to join in communion with the Church of England. No war to be undertaken in defence of any territories not belonging to the English Crown except with the consent of Parliament. Judges to hold their office during good behavior. No pardon by the Crown to be pleadable against an impeachment by the House of Commons (S488).

[2] This act, says Taswell-Langmead, is "the Title Deed of the reigning Dynasty, and a veritable original contract between the Crown and the People." [3] The Electress Sophia was the granddaughter of James I: she married the Elector of Hanover, and became mother of George I. See genealogical table of Descent of the English Sovereigns in the Appendix.

MISCELLANEOUS ACTS AND LAWS

I. The Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164.

These measures (S165), says Bishop Stubbs, were "really a part of a great scheme of administrative reform." They were drawn up by a committee of bishops and barons, with the Justiciar or Chief Minister at the head. The object of the Constitutions was "to assert the supremacy of the State over clergy and laity alike." They limited the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts; they established a more uniform system of justice; and, in certain cases, they provided for a kind of jury trial (see Stubb's "Constitutional History," I, 525; or, for a brief abstract of the Constitutions, see Acland and Ransome's "Political History," p. 24).

II. Bill of Attainder, 1321.

This was a bill (first used apparently in 1321) passed by Parliament, which might in itself decree sentence of death (SS351, 356). Originally, the blood of a person held to be convicted of treason or felony was declared to be *attainted* or corrupted so that his power to inherit, transmit, or hold property was destroyed. After Henry VIII's reign the law was modified so as not to work "corruption of blood" in the case of new felonies. Under the Stuarts, Bills of Attainder were generally brought only in cases where the Commons believed that impeachment would fail,--as in the cases of Strafford and Laud. It should be noticed that in an Impeachment the Commons bring the accusation, and the Lords act as judges; but that in a Bill of Attainder the Commons--that is, the accusers--themselves act as judges, as well as the Lords.

III. The Great Statutes of Praemunire, 1393.

This statute, (first passed in 1353) was reenacted in 1393 to check the power claimed by the Pope in England in cases which interfered with power claimed by the King, as in appeals made to the Court of Rome respecting Church matters, over which the King's court had jurisdiction. The statute received its name from th ewrit served on the party who had broken the law: "Praemunire facias, A.B."; that is, "Cause A.B. to be forewarned" that he appear before us to answer the contempt with which he stands charged. Henry VIII made use of this statute in order to compel the clergy to accept his supremacy over the English Church (SS265, 346, 348).

IV. Habeas Corpus Act, 1679.

The name of this celebrated statute is derived from its referring to the opening words of the writ: "Habeas Corpus ad subjiciendum." Sir James Mackintosh declares that the essence of the statute is contained in clauses 39, 40 of Magna Carta--which see. The right to Habeas Corpus was conceded by the Petition of Right and also by the Statute of 1640. But in order to better secure the liberty of the subject and for prevention of imprisonments beyond the seas, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 was enacted, regulating the issue and return of writs of Habeas Corpus.

The principal provisions of the Act are: 1. Jailers (except in cases of commitment for treason or felony) must within three days of the reception of the writ produce the prisoner in court, unless the court is at a distance, when the time may be extended to twenty days at the most. 2. A jailer, refusing ot do this, forfeits 100 pounds for the first offence, and 200 pounds for the second. 3. No one set at liberty upon any Habeas Corpus to be recommitted for the same offsense except by the court having jurisdiction of the case. 4. The Act not to apply to cases of debt.

V. Abstract of the Parliament Act (or Veto Act, S631), 18th August, 1911.

The Preamble states that "it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords, as it at present exists, a Second Chamber *constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis,* but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation": therefore "it is expedient oto make such provision as in this Act appears for restricting the existing powers of the House of Lords" (i.e. the power of the Lords to veto bills sent them by the Commons).

1. If a Money Bill--that is, a Public Bill concerning taxation or the appropriation of money or the raising of a loan, etc.--shall be passed byy the House of Commons, but shall not be passed by the House of Lords, within one month, then it shall become law without the consent of the Lords.

2. If any Public Bill (other than a Money Bill or a bill providing for the extension of the maximum duration of Parliament beyond five years) shall be passed by the House of Commons in three successive sessions (whether of the same Parliament or not) and shall be rejected by the House of Lords in each of those sessions, "that Bill shall on its rejection for the third time by the House of Lords, unless the House of Commons direct to the contrary, become an Act of Parliament, without the consent of the Lords, provided that two years have elapsed since the Bill was introduced and passed by the House of Commons."

7. Five years shall be substituted for seven years as the time fixed for the maximum duration of Parliament under the Septennial Act of 1715[1] (S535).

See "The Public General Statutes," of Great Britain and Ireland, for 1911; Chapter 13, pp. 38-40.

[1] This date is usually given 1716.

VI. William the Conqueror's Charter to London (S107).

"William, the King, greets William the Bishop, and Gosfrith the Port-reeve [or chief officer of the city] and all the burghers [or citizens] within London, French and English, friendly: and I do you to wit that I will that ye twain be worthy of all the law that ye were worthy of in King Edward's day. And I will not endure that any man offer any wrong to you. God keep you."

Taswell-Langmead's "English Constitutional History," Chapter 1, p.18. E.A. Freeman, in his "Norman Conquest," IV, 29, says that William signed this charter with a cross (in addition to his seal, which was attached to the document), but Dr. R.R. Sharpe, in his "History of London and the Kingdom," I, 34, note 1, states that "this appears to be a mistake." Dr. Sharpe is the "Records Clerk" of the City, and he shows that there is no trace of any cross on the charter, which is now preserved in Guildhall Library, London.

DESCENT OF THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS FROM EGBERT TO GEORGE V*

1. Egbert (descended from Cerdic, 495), first "King of the English," H 828-837 2. Ethelwulf, 837-858 H H================================================= H H H H 3. Ethelbald, 4. Ethelbert, 5. Ethelred I, 6. Alfred, 858-860 860-866 866-871 871-901 H =======================*=============== H * * 7. Edward I, 901-925 15. Sweyn, the Dane, 1013 H | ========================== \________ H H H \ 8.Ethelstan 9. Edmund 10. Edred, 17. Canute, 925-940 940-946 946-955 1017-1035 H | ============ ------------------------- H H | * | 11. Edwin, 12. Edgar 18. Harold * * 19. Hardicanute 955-959 959-975 1035-1040 Richard I 1040-1042 H Duke of Normandy H H ================*============= H============== H * * H H H 13.Edward II Elgiva, ? m. 14. Ethelred II, m. (2) Emma Richard II, 975-979 H 979-1016 H * Duke of 16. Edmund II =================H* * Normandy (Ironside), H Godwin, Earl H 1016-1016 20. Edward III, of Kent H H the Confessor, H H Edgar Atheling, 1042-1066, second ______H H grandson of Edward II cousin of William | H H [should have succeeded the Conqueror, m. Edith H H Harold II (No. 21)] H H 21. Harold II, H ----------------------------- 1066-1066, slain H * This sign shows that the| at Hastings, 1066 H * * person over whose name | H it stands was not in the | Robert, Duke of Normandy direct line of descent. | H ----------------------------- THE NORMAN KINGS 22. William the Conqueror 1066-1087, second cousin of Edward the Confessor (No. 20)