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CASSELL'S ILLUSTRATED

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

New and Revised Edition,

CONTINUED TO THE END OF 1873.

VOL. II.

FROM THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE FOURTH TO THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

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PREFA CСЕ.

N the present Volume we have stepped out of feudalism into the first day-spring of modern history. We have left the race of barons, grown too powerful for both Crown and country, and a divided Royal house which consumed the energies and the intellect of the nation in bloody conflicts for the possession of the throne. The predominating space which the Tudor dynasty occupies in the present pages is worthy of all attention. With Henry VII. a new blood and spirit entered the palace, and stirred within the golden circle of the Crown. The grandson of a Welsh yeoman of the guard became the monarch, and a vigour which had dwindled in the ancient race, from the days of Henry V., re-appeared, but linked inseparably with an absolute self-will, which, whilst appearing to resist the onward progress of the nation, really gave to it accelerated momentum and spirit. The old impediments of religion and of aristocracy were swept away, to give unopposed scope to Royal license; but this only cleared the ground for popular action. The nation had so far advanced that its impulses became the unmistakable law of tendency. From the remains of the ancient hierarchy arose the undaunted soul of religious freedom. With religious freedom, civil freedom was a necessity; and on the ruins of the ancient aristocracy arose a new race of landed proprietors, whose interests were more allied to the interest of the people. Before the close of the Tudor dynasty in Elizabeth, we behold unequivocal manifestations of a new order of things, of the limitation of the power of the Crown, and the establishment of the power of Parliament. We shall find in the opening of our next Volume the efforts of an unwise dynasty-that of the Stuarts-to resist this popular development, but only to its own destruction.

In our tracing of these events we have taken an impartial view of the character and conduct of Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps with no other monarch is it so necessary to discriminate between fond traditions and the cold facts of history. Elizabeth was a woman of a masculine and penetrating mind; no ruler ever knew more ably how to select capable ministers, and surround herself with the splendour of statesmanlike talent, bravery, and genius. With a stout heart, and assisted by the counsels and the gallant deeds of those men, she carried the country through an arduous crisis proudly, and bore down and broke to atoms every foreign influence and the Armada which was directed against the Protestant ascendancy of England. All honour to her and to them on that account. But when we penetrate through the splendour of such glories, and through the extravagant adulations of the Elizabethan courtiers, we come to some deeds and characteristics which demand just reprehension.

We must remind our readers that we are not writing romance, in which we can at will colour, turn, and dispose of things as we please; but our object and bounden duty is historic truth. We are tied up to that standard inexorably by harsh and unbendable official documents, which, like the rocks about our coast, may not be shaken in their place or changed in their hard outline. The modern

researches in the archives of the Tower and the State Paper Office, and the publication of many of the documents there remaining, the journals of the Lords and Commons, the rolls of Parliament and the patent rolls, and the mass of original letters collected by Howell, Ellis, Nicolas, &c., enable us and compel us to draw a somewhat different picture from that which was presented to the last generation. In our portraiture of "good Queen Bess" we have used the facts left under the very hands of herself and her ministers, and from these there can be no appeal. On the other hand, it should be remembered by those who are startled into too severe a judgment of this queen, that the Elizabethan age, though the bright dawn of happier times, lies far behind our own in moral strength and purity; that the darkness of the Middle Ages was not yet quite banished, and threw still its shadow even upon high places; and that consequently our verdict upon this great and imperious monarch must have its just relation to those precedents and traditions which no longer attach to the throne.

Again, some readers may be ready to accuse us of placing the Roman Catholics of those times in too favourable a light. We can only reply that the same undoubted authorities have guided our pen. We will yield to no man in our attachment to Protestant principles, nor in our estimation of their paramount truth and value. We regard the liberation of mind effected by the Reformation as the source of all our present blessings, and our national preeminence. We believe that our firm stand by the truths of the Bible, and the spirit of liberty and law which is their direct result, is the reason why the Almighty has seen fit to place us at the head of nations, and to give to the language, the institutions, the dominion, and the glory of England a pre-eminence and an expanse such as no nation ever before enjoyed; that this is the secret of our invincible arms in all quarters of the globe, of our being chosen as the founders of the new and vast people of North America, of India, South Africa, and Australia, who form the links of a chain of British life, enlightenment, manliness, and religious reverence which encircles the globe as with an imperial zone. But as we hold and must hold the right of every man to maintain the independence of his creed and conscience, we are bound as citizens and subjects to deal out justice and impartiality to Roman Catholics as to Protestants; and were we to sketch and colour the religious partisans of the periods over which we have passed in this Volume, not by the undoubted documents which those times furnish, but by the colours in which the opponents on each side arrayed them to themselves, we should commit a gross and unpardonable violation of the truth of history, and be unworthy to hold the high and responsible position of the narrators of the veritable past in its manysided completeness.

In our next Volume we shall be called on to detail the progress of still greater events and changes, the conflict of the monarchical and the national will, the overthrow of thrones and intolerance, and to hail the rising of the British Constitution as it now exists out of the waters of this agitated sea of antagonistic principles.

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Richard III.

Great Seal of Richard III.

The Murder of the Prinees in the Tower Battle of Bosworth Field. Lord Stanley bringing the Crown of Richard to Richmond

Jockey of Norfolk," killed at Bosworth House of the 15th Century, in which Richard is said to have slept on the night before the Battle of Bosworth Tournament, Harl. MS., 4,379 Criminals conducted to Execution, 15th Century. Harl. MS., 4,374 Execution of a Criminal, from a MS. of Froissart's Chronicles, 15th Century Friar preaching from a movable Pulpit, Royal MS., 14 E. 3

...

Isabel Hervey, Abbess of Elstow, from a Brass

Pilgrim buying a Glass Mirror. From a MS. of Lydgate's Poem of "The Pilgrim"

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Bedstead of the 15th Century. From a

MS. romance of the Comte d'Artois Bedroom Furniture, time of Henry VI. Harl. MS., 2,278

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Kitchen of the 15th Century. Harl. MS., 4,375

The Knight's Return from the War. MS. in the British Museum

Costume of the Middle Classes in the 15th Century. Cotton MSS., Nero, D.7 Costume of Gentlemen, A.D. 1460. From a MS. History of Thebes...

Male Costume of Henry IV.'s reign. Harl.
MS., 2,332
Ladies' Head-dresses

Costume of the Reign of Henry V. Royal
MSS., 15 D 3

Robert Skerne and Joan his wife. From

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a Brass

Female Costume. Royal MS. 16, G. 5 ... Male Costume. From various MSS. Reign of Edward IV.

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Hats and Caps. Harl MSS., 4,379-80 Ladies' Head-dresses. Harl. MS., 2,278

From a MS. of

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Froissart's Chronicles

Female Costume. From a MS. History of Thebes

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Couvrechef or Kerchief

Parish Priest in Ordinary Costume, and attired for the Altar, 15th Century Earl Rivers presenting William Caxton to Edward VI. From a MS in the library of Lambeth Palace...

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Erasmus and Sir Thomas More ::

Windsor Castle

Old Greenwich Palace, as it appeared in

the Reign of Henry VIII.

Hampton Court Palace, the Residence of Cardinal Wolsey

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King Henry VIII. and his Council. From
Hall's Chronicle
Francis I., King of France, taken Pri-
soner at the Battle of Pavia
Louise reading of the Capture of the
King

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Bird's-eye View of Rhodes in the 16th
Century. From an ancient Manuscript 175
Bondoir of Anne Boleyn, in the Gateway
of Hever Castle

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Hever Castle, Kent. Residence of Anne Boleyn...

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Entrance to Wolsey's College, Ipswich... Queen Anne Boleyn

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Ball at old Greenwich Palace.

Henry

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