ENGLAND

FROM THE ROMAN TO THE TUDOR PERIOD

(55 B.C. TO A.D. 1485).

ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY.

THERE is a difference between ancient and modern history, which justifies the limit usually assigned to them, the fall, namely, of the western empire; that is to say, the fall of the western empire separates the subsequent period from that which preceded it by a broader line, so far as we are concerned, than can be found at any other point either earlier or later... For the state of things now in existence dates its origin from the fall of the western empire; so far we can trace up the fortunes of nations which are still flourishing, history so far is the biography of the living; beyond, it is but the biography of the dead. In our own island we see this most clearly; our history clearly begins with the coming over of the Saxons; the Britons and Romans had lived in our country, but they are not our fathers; we are connected with them as men indeed, but, nationally speaking, the history of Cæsar's invasion has no more to do with us than the natural history of the animals which then inhabited our forests... We, this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning the earth from one end of it to the other, we were born when the white horse of the Saxons had established his dominion from the Tweed to the Tamar. So far we can trace our blood, our language, the name and actual divisions of our country, the beginnings of some of our institutions. So far our national identity extends, so far history is modern, for it treats of a life which was then and is not yet extinguished.

The essential character, then, of modern history appears to be this, that it treats of national life still in existence; it commences with that period when all the great elements of the existing state of things had met together; so that subsequent changes, great as they have been, have only combined or disposed these same elements differently; they have added to them

ENGLAND

FROM THE ROMAN TO THE TUDOR PERI (55 B.C. TO 4.D. 1485,.

ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY

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no new one... .By the great elements of nationality, I mean race, language, institutions, and religion; and throughout Europe all these four may be traced up, if not actually in every case to the fall of the western empire, at least to the dark period which followed that fall; while in no case are all the four to be found united before it. Otherwise, if we allow the two first of these elements, without the third and fourth, to constitute national identity, especially when combined with sameness of place, we must then say that the northern countries of Europe have no ancient history, inasmuch as they have been inhabited from the earliest times by the same race, speaking what is radically the same language... But it is better not to admit national identity till the two elements of institutions and religion, or at any rate one of them, be added to those of blood and language. At all events it cannot be doubted that, as soon as the four are united, the national personality becomes complete. Dr. Arnold.

STRUGGLES FOR THE POSSESSION OF ENGLAND.

NOTHING in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness which she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants, when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman arms, but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Cæsars, she was the last that was conquered, and the first that was flung away.

After a protracted period of obscure and doubtful vicissitudes and struggles, the country, after having been lost to view as the land of the Britons, reappears as England. The conversion of the Saxon invaders to Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions.

Into the ecclesiastic federation our Saxon ancestors were admitted. Aregular communication was opened between our shores and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible. The dome of Agrippa still glittering with bronze, the mausoleum of Adrian not yet deprived of its columns and statues, the Flavian amphitheatre not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the rude Anglo-Saxon pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilised world which had passed away. The islanders returned with awe deeply impressed on their half-opened minds, and told the wondering inhabitants of the hovels of London and York, that near the grave of St. Peter,

a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would never be dissolved till the judgment day... Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age were assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede and others were justly celebrated throughout Europe... Such was the state of our country when, in the ninth century, began the last great descent of the northern barbarians.

During several generations Scandinavia continued to pour forth innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valor, by merciless ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country suffered so much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay near to the ports whence they sailed, nor was any part of our island so far distant from the sea as to be secure from attack... The same atrocities which had attended the victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Civilisation, just as it began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank down once more... Large colonies of adventurers from the Baltic established themselves on the eastern shores, spread gradually westward, and, supported by constant reinforcements from beyond the sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole realm. The struggle between the two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted during six generations. Each was alternately paramount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel retribution, provinces wasted, convents plundered, and cities rased to the ground, make up the greater part of the history of those evil days... At length the North ceased to send forth a constant stream of fresh depredators, and from that time the mutual aversion of the races began to subside. Intermarriage became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons, and thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and Saxon tongues, both dialects of one wide-spread language, were blended together. But the distinction between the two nations was by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both in common slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third people.

The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valor and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long the terror of both coasts of the channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris... At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers the fertile pro