The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12)

During the period of Mr. Burke's Parliamentary labors, some alterations in the Acts of Uniformity, and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, were agitated at various time...

We are now arrived at one of the most memorable periods in the English story, whether we consider the astonishing revolutions which were then wrought, the calamities in which bo...

Before we begin to consider the laws and constitutions of the Saxons, let us take a view of the state of the country from whence they are derived, as it is portrayed in ancient...

The death of Stephen left an undisputed succession for the first time since the death of Edward the Confessor. Henry, descended equally from the Norman Conqueror and the old Eng...

After the Battle of Hastings, the taking of Dover, the surrender of London, and the submission of the principal nobility, William had nothing left but to order in the best manne...

The death of Cæsar, and the civil wars which ensued, afforded foreign nations some respite from the Roman ambition. Augustus, having restored peace to mankind, seems to have mad...

That Britain was first peopled from Gaul we are assured by the best proofs,--proximity of situation, and resemblance in language and manners. Of the time in which this event hap...

The marriage of Ethelbert to a Christian princess was, we have seen, a means of introducing Christianity into his dominions. The same influence contributed to extend it in the o...

There is scarce any object of curiosity more rational than the origin, the progress, and the various revolutions of human laws. Political and military relations are for the grea...

After having been so long subject to a foreign dominion, there was among the Britons no royal family, no respected order in the state, none of those titles to government, confir...

After the period which we have just closed, no mention is made of the affairs of Britain until the reign of Adrian. At that time was wrought the first remarkable change in the e...

Whilst Henry lived, the King of France had always an effectual means of breaking his power by the divisions in his family. But now Richard succeeded to all the power of his fath...

Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was hunting at the same time and in the same forest in which his brother met his fate. He was not long before he came to a resolution o...

His son Edward succeeded. Though of less learning than his father, he equalled him in his political virtues. He made war with success on the Welsh, the Scots, and the Danes, and...

William had by his queen Matilda three sons, who survived him,--Robert, William, and Henry. Robert, though in an advanced age at his father's death, was even then more remarkabl...

In order to obtain a clear notion of the state of Europe before the universal prevalence of the Roman power, the whole region is to be divided into two principal parts, which we...

Though Edgar Atheling had the best title to the succession, yet Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, on account of the credit of his father, and his own great qualities, which suppor...

It was in the midst of these distractions that Alfred succeeded to a sceptre which, was threatened every moment to be wrenched from his hands. He was then only twenty-two years...

Before the period of which we are going to treat, England was little known or considered in Europe. Their situation, their domestic calamities, and their ignorance circumscribed...

Although the authority of the crown had been exercised with very little restraint during the three preceding reigns, the succession to it, or even the principles of the successi...

The Christian religion, having once taken root in Kent, spread itself with great rapidity throughout all the other Saxon kingdoms in England. The manners of the Saxons underwent...