Part 1

Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/ashorthistory00chesuoft

A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND

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

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 mediaeval. 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 Encyclopaedia 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 mediaeval; and any old helmet was good enough for Stephen.