The History of England A Study in Political Evolution

no longer in England the instrument of a family or a class; and the only real check upon its power is the circumstance that in some matters it acts as the execu

al or unconstitutional, because there are no fundamental laws and no written constitution in this country; and when people loosely speak of an Act being unconstitutional, all that they mean is that they do not agree with it. Other countries, like the United States, have drawn up a written consti

hed its claim to be the real representative of the state; and in the cases of Strafford, Danby, and others it even asserted that loyalty to the king might be treason to the state. The church, vanquished at the Reformation, dropped more and more out of the struggle for sovereignty, because, while the state grew more comprehensive, the church grew more exclusive. It was not that, after 1662, it seriously narrowed its formulas or doctrines, but it failed to enlarge them, and a larger and

and use it to amend their constitution; and so jealously is sovereignty confined that anarchy often seems to reign in its stead. There was, indeed, some excuse for distrusting a sovereignty claimed by George III and the unreformed British parliament; and it was natural enough that people should deny its necessity and set up in its place Declarations of the Rights of Man. Sovereignty of Hobbes's type was a somewhat novel conception; men had not grasped its possibilities as an engine of popular will, because they were only familiar wit

sed in possession prefer a policy of laissez faire; they are all for Liberty and Property, enjoying sufficient means for doing whatsoever they like with what they are pleased to call their own. But those who have little to call their own, and much that they would like, prefer strong government if they can control it; and the strength of gov

These and the Franchise Acts made the House of Commons infinitely more representative than it had been before, and gave it its conclusive superiority over the House of Lords. Not that the Peers represent no one but themselves; had that been true, the House of Lords would have disappeared long ago. In reality it came to embody a fairly complete representation of the Conservative party; and as a party does not need two legislative

eges are of no value to people who do not understand how they may be used, or are so unimaginative and ill-disciplined as to prefer such immediate and tangible rewards as a half-crown for their vote, a donation to their football club or local charity, or a gracious word from an interested lady, to their distant and infinitesimal share in the direction of national government. This participation i

ht be quite as degrading as that primitive condition of natural war, in which Hobbes said that the life of man was "nasty, short, brutish and mean," and that it might as urgently require a similar sovereign remedy. The repugnance to such a remedy was reinforced by crude analogies between a perverted Darwinism and politics. Darwin's demonstration of evolution by means of the struggle for existence in the natural world was used to support the assumption that a similar struggle among civilized men was natural and t

ecured the franchise, were reluctant to believe that the action of the state had lost its virtue at the moment when the control of the state came within their grasp. The vote seems to have been given them under the amiable delusion that they would be happy when they got it, as if it had any value whatever except as a means to an end. Nor is it adequate as a means: it is not sufficient for a nation by adult suffrage to express its will; that will has also to be carried into execution, and it requires a strong exec

educed to one of Woman versus the State. But representative government, which promised to be ideal when every man, or every adult, had a vote, is threatened in various quarters. Its operations are too deliberate and involved to satisfy impatient spirits, and three alternative methods of procedure are advocated as improvements upon it. One is the "direct action

of the House of Commons dealing by debate with the increasing complexities of national business, have encouraged a tendency in Liberal governments to entrust to their departments decisions which trench upon the legislative functions of parliament. The trend of hostile opinion is to regard parliament as an unnecessary middleman, and to advocate in its stead a sort of plebiscitary bureaucracy, a constitution under which legislation drafted by officials would be demanded, sanctioned, or rejected by direct popular vote, and would

the multiplication of central administrative departments, indicates the latest, but not the final, stages in the growth and specialization of English government. A century and a half ago two Secretaries of State were all that Great Britain required; now there are half-a-dozen, and a dozen other departments have been added. Among them are the Local Government Board, the Board of Education, th

, as bodies, no better provided with creeds of social morality. The Eighth Commandment is never applied to such genteel delinquencies as making a false return of income, or defrauding a railway company or the customs; but is reserved for the grosser offences which no member of the congregation is likely to have committed; and it is left to the state to provide by warning and penalty against neglect of one's duty to one's neighbour when one's neighbour is not one individual but the sum of all. It was not by any ecclesiastical agitation that

upon him the duty of meeting it, of paying fees for the education of his children, for hospital treatment, for medical inspection, and so forth. But that effort was not, and perhaps could not, in the existing condition of public opinion, be made; and the state has therefore got into the habit of providing and paying for all these things itself. When the majority of male adults earn twenty shillings or less a week, and possess a vote, there would be no raising of standards at all, if they had to pay the cost. Hence the st

nd socialists. It is a question of degree and not of dogma; and most people are at heart agreed that some economic socialism is required in order to promote a certain amount of moral and intellectual individualism. The defect of so-called economic individualism is that it reduces the mass of workers to one dead level of common poverty, in which wages, instead of increasing like capital,

alized these things and many others as well, including the crown, the church, the administration of justice, education, highways and byways, posts and telegraphs, woods and forests. Even the House of Lords has been constrained to abandon its independence by a process akin to that medieval peine forte et dure, by which the obstinate individualist was, when accused, compelled to surrender his ancient im

elegraphs have placed further powers in the hands of men; they have conquered the land and the sea and the air; and medical science has built up their physique and paved the way for empire in tropical climes. But while he has conquered nature, man has also conquered himself. He has tamed his combative instincts; he has reduced civil strife to political combats, restrained national conflicts by treaties of arbitration, and subdued private wars to judicial pro

sable weapon of progress. A powerless state means a helpless community; and anarchy is the worst of all forms of tyranny, because it is irresponsible, incorrigible, and capricious. Weakness, moreover, is the parent of panic, and panic brings cruelty in its train. So long as the state was weak, it was cruel; and the hideous treason-laws of Tudor times were due to fear. The weak cannot afford to be tolerant any more than the poor can afford to be generous. Cecil thou

ion; nature is no longer a mass of inscrutable, iron decrees, but a treasury of forces to be tamed and used in the redemption of mankind by man; and mankind is no longer a mob of blind victims to panic and passion, but a more or less orderly host marching on to more or less definite goals. The individual, however, can do little by himself; he

LOGICA

th the Lancastrians and Warwick the King-maker. 1483. RICHARD III. 1485. HENRY VII and the House of Tudor. 1487. Organization of the Star Chamber to repress disorder and over- mighty subjects. Diaz doubles the Cape of Good Hope. 1492. Columbus discovers West Indies. 1496-1497. Cabot discovers Newfoundland and Labrador. 1509. HENRY VIII. 1512-1529. Wolsey. 1529-1536. The Reformation Parliament. The submission of the Clergy, Acts of Annates, Appeals (1532-1533) and Supremacy (1534). 1536. Suppression of the Monasteries and Pilgrimage for Grace. 1539. Act of Six Articles. 1547-1553. EDWARD VI and the Protestant Reformation. 1549. First Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. Kett's rebellion. 1552. Second Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. 1553-1558. MARY and the Roman Catholic reaction. Spanish control in England. 1558. ELIZABETH. 1559. The Elizabethan settlement of religion. 1560. Elizabeth assists the Scots to expel the French. 1568-1569. Flight of Mary Queen of Scots into England, and rebellion of the northern earls. 1570. Papal excommunication and deposition of Elizabeth. 1571. Ridolfi's plot. 1572. Execution of Norfolk and extinction of English dukedoms. Beginning of the Dutch Republic. Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 1577-1580. Drake sails round the world. 1587. Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. 1588. Spanish Armada. 1599-1601. Conquest of Ireland. 1600. Foundation of East India Company. 1603. JAMES VI of Scotland and I of England. 1607. Foundation of Virginia. 1608. Plantation of Ulster. 1620. Sailing of the Mayflower. 1623. Re-creation of dukedoms. Massacre of Amboyna. 1625. CHARLES I. 1628. Petition of Right. 1629. First British capture of Quebec. 1629-1640. The "Eleven Years' Tyranny." 1638-1639. National Covenant. Bishops' war in Scotland. 1640. The Long Parliament. 1642. First Civil War. 1648. Second Civil War. 1649. THE COMMONWEALTH. Abolition of monarchy and the House of Lords. 1650-1651. Navigation Acts and Dutch War. 1653. THE PROTECTORATE. First Cromwellian constitution. 1657. Second Cromwellian constitution. 1658. Cromwell's death. 1660. The Restoration. CHARLES II. 1662. The last Act of Uniformity. 1664. War with the Dutch: conquest of New Netherlands 1667. Fall of Clarendon. The Cabal administration. 1670. Treaty of Dover. 1672. Declaration of Indulgence. 1673. Danby. The Test Act. 1678. Titus Gates' Plot. 1679. Habeas Corpus Act. 1681. Charles II's triumph over the Whigs. 1685. JAMES II. Monmouth's and Argyll's rebellions. 1688. The Revolution. WILLIAM III and MARY. 1689. Bill of Rights. Toleration Act. 1690. Battle of the Boyne. 1694. Bank of England established. 1696. The Whig Junto. 1701. Act of Settlement. 1702. ANNE. War with France. 1704. Capture of Gibraltar. England becomes a Mediterranean power. 1707. Act of Union with Scotland. 1708. Capture of Minorca. 1708-1710. Whig ministry. 1710-1714. Tory ministry. 1713. Peace of Utrecht. 1714. GEORGE I and the Hanoverian dynasty. 1721-1742. Walpole's administration. Evolution of the Cabinet and Prime Minister. Growth of imports and exports, 1727. GEORGE II. 1739. War with Spain. 1741-1748. War of the Austrian Succession. Clive in India. 1756-1763. Seven Years' War. 1757. Battle of Plassey. 1759. Capture of Quebec. 1760. GEORGE III. 1764-1779. Inventions by Arkwright, Hargreaves, and Crompton. Beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 1765. Grenville's Stamp Act. 1770. Lord North Prime Minister. Cap

IOGR

readable in very different styles, illustrate the diverse methods of treatment to which English history lends itself. More elaborate surveys are provid

itutional History sh

Constitutional Histor

ndium of facts may use

England (

lan). RAMSAY: Lancaster and York, 2 vols. FROUDE: History of England, 1529-1588, 12 vols. (Longmans). GARDINER: History of England, 1603-1642, 10 vols.; Civil War, 1642-1649, 4 vols.; Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1656, 4 vols. (Longmans). MACAULAY: History of England, 1685

LAM: Constitutional History, 1485-1760, 3 vols. (Murray). ERSKINE MAY: Constitutional History, 1760-1860, 3 vols. (Longmans)

rd; League of the Empire); for Economic and Industrial History, CUNNINGHAM'S Growth of Industry and Commerce, 3 vols.; ASHLEY'S Economic History, 2 vols. (Macmillan), and TOYNBEE'S Industrial Revolution;