A Short History of England

ᤈ
A Short History of England, by G. K.

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Title: A Short History of England
Author: G. K. Chesterton

Release Date: March 25, 2007 [eBook #20897]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND
by
G. K. CHESTERTON

London Chatto & Windus MCMXVII
Printed in England by William Clowes and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles. All rights reserved

CONTENTS
PAGE I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THE PROVINCE OF BRITAIN 6
III. THE AGE OF LEGENDS 19
IV. THE DEFEAT OF THE BARBARIANS 30
V. ST. EDWARD AND THE NORMAN KINGS 43
VI. THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES 58
VII. THE PROBLEM OF THE PLANTAGENETS 71
VIII. THE MEANING OF MERRY ENGLAND 86
IX. NATIONALITY AND THE FRENCH WARS 104
X. THE WAR OF THE USURPERS 119
XI. THE REBELLION OF THE RICH 133
XII. SPAIN AND THE SCHISM OF NATIONS 151
XIII. THE AGE OF THE PURITANS 163
XIV. THE TRIUMPH OF THE WHIGS 179
XV. THE WAR WITH THE GREAT REPUBLICS 195
XVI. ARISTOCRACY AND THE DISCONTENTS 209
XVII. THE RETURN OF THE BARBARIAN 223
XVIII. CONCLUSION 238

A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND

I
INTRODUCTION
It will be very reasonably asked why I should consent, though upon a sort of challenge, to write even a popular essay in English history, who make no pretence to particular scholarship and am merely a member of the public. The answer is that I know just enough to know one thing: that a history from the standpoint of a member of the public has not been written. What we call the popular histories should rather be called the anti-popular histories. They are all, nearly without exception, written against the people; and in them the populace is either ignored or elaborately proved to have been wrong. It is true that Green called his book "A Short History of the English People"; but he seems to have thought it too short for the people to be properly mentioned. For instance, he calls one very large part of his story "Puritan England." But England never was Puritan. It would have been almost as unfair to call the rise of Henry of Navarre "Puritan France." And some of our extreme Whig historians would have been pretty nearly capable of calling the campaign of Wexford and Drogheda "Puritan Ireland."
But it is especially in the matter of the Middle Ages that the popular histories trample upon the popular traditions. In this respect there is an almost comic contrast between the general information provided about England in the last two or three centuries, in which its present industrial system was being built up, and the general information given about the preceding centuries, which we call broadly medi?val. Of the sort of waxwork history which is thought sufficient for the side-show of the age of abbots and crusaders, a small instance will be sufficient. A popular Encyclop?dia appeared some years ago, professing among other things to teach English History to the masses; and in this I came upon a series of pictures of the English kings. No one could expect them to be all authentic; but the interest attached to those that were necessarily imaginary. There is much vivid material in contemporary literature for portraits of men like Henry II. or Edward I.; but this did not seem to have been found, or even sought. And wandering to the image that stood for Stephen of Blois, my eye was staggered by a gentleman with one of those helmets with steel brims curved like a crescent, which went with the age of ruffs and trunk-hose. I am tempted to suspect that the head was that of a halberdier at some such scene as the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. But he had a helmet; and helmets were medi?val; and any old helmet was good enough for Stephen.
Now suppose the readers of that work of reference had looked for the portrait of Charles I. and found the head of a policeman. Suppose it had been taken, modern helmet and all, out of some snapshot in the Daily Sketch of the arrest of Mrs. Pankhurst. I think we may go so far as to say that the readers would have refused to accept it as a lifelike portrait of Charles I. They would have formed the opinion that there must be some mistake. Yet the time that elapsed between Stephen and