[Title page]

THE 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
FOR 
THE USE OF SCHOOLS 
AND 
YOUNG PERSONS. 
BY EDWARD BALDWIN, ESQ. 
AUTHOR OF FABLES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
WITH THIRTY-TWO HEADS OF THE KINGS, 
ENGRAVED ON COPPER-PLATE, 
AND A STRIKING REPRESENTATION OF AN ANCIENT 
TOURNAMENT.

LONDON: 
PRINTED FOR THOMAS HODGKINS, AT THE JUVENILE 
LIBRARY, HANWAY STREET (OPPOSITE SOHO 
SQUARE), OXFORD STREET, AND TO BE 
HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
1806.

[Next Page]

PREFACE.

ENCOURAGED by the general acceptance which my Fables, Ancient and Modern, have found with the public, I have been excited to try how far a similar mode of familiar and playful writing might be successfully applied in the composition of History. Too long have books, designed for the instruction of children, been written in a dry and repulsive style, which the patience and perseverance of our maturer years would scarcely enable us to conquer. Too long have their tender memories been loaded with a variety of minute particulars, which, as they excite no passion in the mind, and present no picture, can be learned only to forget. I have lately seen Grammars of Geography, and Grammars of History, in which these faults, if they are faults, are carried to a height hitherto unequalled.

Moliere, when he wrote his admirable comedies, was accustomed to read them in manuscript to an old woman, his housekeeper, and be always found that, where the old woman laughed or was out of humour, there the audiences laughed or were out of humour also. In the same manner I am accustomed to consult my children in this humble species of writing in which I have engaged. I put the two or three first sections of this work into their hands as a specimen. Their remark was, How easy this is! Why, we learn it by heart, almost as fast as we read it! Their suffrage gave me courage, and I carried on my work to the end.

*For a specimen of the manner in which this outline might advantageously be filled up for children, in those parts which are peculiarly instructive and interesting, the reader is referred to the Life of Lady Jane Grey by Theophilus Marcliffe. [end v]

Judging from the experiment of my own children, I am led to imagine that the sections of this volume might easily, as well as usefully, be committed to memory. The Tables at the end, are intended merely to fix the pupil's recollection of what he has previously learned. They may also convey to the inexperienced reader a vivid feeling, that there are other countries beside England, and other histories worthy to be read. In a word, they obviously serve as an introduction and remote prospect to the whole magazine of human sciences and arts. [end page vi]

HISTORY 
OF 
ENGLAND. 
SHORT CHARACTERS OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND.

WILLIAM I. 
WILLIAM the Conqueror was harsh and severe.

WILLIAM II. 
William Rufus was passionate and rash.

HENRY I. 
Henry Beauclerc was an excellent scholar. [end B]

STEPHEN. 
Stephen of Blois got the crown by a trick, but was hardly able to keep it.

HENRY II. 
Henry Fitz-Empress was a man of spirit and sense, but was whipped at the tomb of Thomas à Becket.

RICHARD I. 
Richard Coeur de Lion fought for the Holy Land with the sultan Saladin.

JOHN. 
John Lackland was a pitiful fellow, and died of eating peaches: in his time was Magna Charta.

HENRY III. 
Henry of Winchester was a poor creature, and had a troublesome reign of fifty-six years. [end 2]

EDWARD I. 
Edward Longshanks was knowing and wise, but he loved war, and conducted it barbarously.

EDWARD II. 
Edward of Caernarvon, a weak prince, was governed by upstarts, and cruelly murdered by his wife in Berkeley castle.

EDWARD III. 
Edward the Third was the conqueror of France.

RICHARD II. 
Richard of Bourdeaux was admirable while a boy, and contemptible when he grew to be a man; he was deprived of his crown and starved to death in Pomfret castle. [end 3]

HENRY IV. 
Henry of Bolingbroke wrested the crown from Richard of Bourdeaux, and was miserable all the days of his reign.

HENRY V. 
Henry of Monmouth won the battle of Agincourt on St. Crispin's day.

HENRY VI. 
Henry of Windsor, half madman, and half fool, lost the crown that his grandfather had wickedly seized.

EDWARD IV. 
Edward the Fourth was an arrant libertine, and took away the famous Jane Shore from her husband that she might live with him.

EDWARD V. 
Edward the Fifth, and his brother, the duke of York, are said to have been [end 4] murdered in the Tower, while children, by their uncle, Richard Crookback.

RICHARD III. 
Richard Crookback I believe was not crooked, and perhaps not a murderer of children; but he was conquered in battle by Henry of Richmond; and Henry was not contented to kill him, without making people think him a monster after he was dead.

HENRY VII. 
Henry of Richmond was nicknamed by his courtiers the wisest of monarchs, but was in reality nothing better than a hard-hearted, scraping old miser.

HENRY VIII. 
Henry the Eighth had six wives: he cut off the heads of two of them, [end 5] and put away two more: in his reign England changed from the Roman Catholic to the Protestant religion.

EDWARD VI. 
Edward the Sixth was nine years old when he began to reign, and sixteen when he died: he was a good boy, studied Greek, and was a towardly scholar.

MARY. 
Bloody queen Mary burned three hundred Protestants in four years, because they did not think just as she did, and would not tell lies about the matters.

ELIZABETH. 
Queen Elizabeth of all her sex had a genius best fitted to govern; but she was apt to swear, and box her [end 6] ministers' ears; in her time was the Spanish Armada.

JAMES I. 
James the First would have made a very good schoolmaster, and a very good schoolmaster is a most excellent member of society: what a pity people should be put to a business they are not fit for!

CHARLES I. 
Charles the First loved and understood the works of Shakespear and Raphael and Titian; he was a noble and accomplished gentleman; but he was not a good king, and he had a hard fate; his subjects went to war with him, defeated him, and cut off his head.

CHARLES II. 
Charles the Second had a good deal of wit, but made a bad use of it; he [end 7] never said a foolish thing nor ever did a wise one.

JAMES II. 
James the Second, like his grandfather James the First, was put to a wrong trade; he was more like a monk, than a king; he wanted to make us Roman Catholics, but we were a hundred and fifty years too old for it.

WILLIAM III. 
William the Third was a Dutchman: we sent for him over, because we would not be made Roman Catholics by James the Second; and so James was sent away, and William reigned in his stead.

ANNE. 
Queen Anne was a quiet, good-natured woman, and wanted nothing but [end 8] peace: but the duke of Marlborough was her general, and won several famous battles for her abroad; his duchess governed queen Anne at home, and would sometimes affront her majesty, and the make the queen beg her pardon.

GEORGE I. 
George the First was invited from Hanover to preserve the Protestant religion: queen Anne wanted to have given the crown to her brother, the son of James the Second; but he, like his father, was a Catholic: in 1715 there was a rebellion in Scotland in favour of queen Anne's brother.

GEORGE II. 
George the Second had to contend with the rebellion in 1745; the rebels were defeated at Culloden by [end 9] William duke of Cumberland, the king's son.

GEORGE III. 
In the reign of George the Third, who has reigned between forty and fifty years, happened the Independence of America, and the French Revolution: Lords Rodney, Howe, Duncan, St. Vincent and Nelson have adorned this reign by their victories at sea. [end 10]

HISTORY 
OF 
ENGLAND.

THE BRITONS.

THE history of the world is divided into Ancient and Modern History: the birth of Christ, who was the great author of the Christian religion, is the event at which Ancient History ends, and Modern History begins.

The inhabitants of Britain before Christ wrote no books; therefore all that we know about them is obscure and imperfect. [end 11]

The first inhabitants of Britain, that we know any thing about, came over from France, anciently called Gaul: they had among them a set of learned men called Druids.

These learned men perhaps could neither read nor write; but they studied the stars, and the system of the heavens, commonly called astronomy; and they composed so many verses upon astronomy, and history, and morality, and religion, and other subjects, that Julius Caesar says it took their pupils twenty years to learn them all by heart: the Druids were lovers [end 12] of Gods and good things, and taught valuable precepts to their scholars.

THE ROMANS.

ROME, the famous mistress of the world, was at first a poor village, made up of clay-built huts; but in time grew rich, and conquered first all Italy, and then almost the whole known world: [end 13] the last country that the Romans conquered, was Britain.

The Romans made quite another thing of Britain from what they found it: the Britons lived in mean huts, and when many of these stood together, they dug a deep ditch round the whole, and called it a town: there remains however of the Ancient Britons the ruin of several stupendous structures built for religious purposes: the chief of these is Stone-henge on Salisbury Plain.

The Romans built beautiful towns in many parts of England in the best [end 14] style of architecture, and adorned them with theatres, palaces and temples; so that Britain became in length of time almost as fine as Italy itself: Greek was studied here, and Latin became the ordinary language: the Romans were fond of teaching us, and found us very apt scholars: Constantine the Great and others, were advanced from the government of Britain to the throne of the empire.

Constantine the Great, established the Christian religion in Rome, about the year of our Lord 324: the provinces followed the example of the capital, and Britain, like the rest of the empire, was soon furnished with bishops and clergy, who expounded to the people the doctrines of Christ and his apostles: the Roman government in Britain lasted till the year 420.

THE SAXONS.

THE Romans were once the most frugal, temperate and high-spirited people in the world: in length of time they became wasteful and luxurious, and betook themselves to the most disgraceful excesses: under their republican government they were free, [end 16] under the emperors they were slaves: in the former period they conquered the world, in the latter they were conquered themselves.

When the Roman empire became incapable of defending itself, it was overrun by the Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, and Lombards, and Ostrogoths, and twenty barbarous nations, who poured down upon the civilized world from the frozen regions of the north.

Britain was seized by the Saxons, who came from the shores of the Baltic to this island in their ships: the particular race of Saxons who came here were Anglo-Saxons; and from them the country they seized was for the first time called the land of the Angles, or for shortness England.

The Britons in general made but a poor resistance to their conquerors: this was not the case however with all; [end 17] the bravest among them retired to the mountains of Wales and Cornwall, and were never entirely subdued by their invaders.

THE HEPTARCHY.

THE founders of the Saxon government in England were Hengist and Horsa, two brothers; they conquered Kent; their countrymen on the shores of the Baltic, heard of their success, and followed their example; one part of England was seized by them after another; and the Saxons erected seven kingdoms in England, which are called the Heptarchy.

The barbarous Saxons abolished the Christian religion among us: they were quite as successful in teaching us ignorance, as the Romans had been in teaching us knowledge: the very ideas of the Christian God and his son were lost: and historians have supposed that, soon after the death of king Arthur, not a book was to be found in the island.

The Saxons however had a religion of their own, and Woden or Odin was [end 19] their principal God; the names of several of their Gods are preserved to us in the names of the days of the week, Sunday and Monday are the days of the Sun and Moon, Tuesday is Tuisco's day, Wednesday the day of Woden, Thursday of Thor, Friday of Friga and Saturday of Sater: it is usual to consider the Saxons as more peculiarly our ancestors than either the Britons of Romans; because they were Angles, we are called English; and, though the language they spoke (which was the Saxon) has changed its name among us, it differs not otherwise from that we speak now, than as almost all languages alter in the course of some hundred years.

In the year 596 the pope of Rome sent over some monks to convert the Saxons to the Roman Catholic faith: they went from one kingdom of Heptarchy to another, and in a short time all the Saxons became Christians; [end 20] the better sort learned to read and write; England produced students and authors, and gradually became adorned with churches, monasteries and cathedrals.

Monasteries are large houses full of monks or nuns, people who have taken a vow never to marry, and to spend all their lives in saying their prayers, and reading good books.

THE MONARCHY.

IN the year 800 Egbert, king of the West of England, put an end to the Heptarchy, and made himself first king of England.

They were times of great barbarism that Alfred lived in: he did not learn to read till he was nine years old, and then only because he begged to be taught: there were no clocks in the island, and Alfred invented a way of measuring time by candles which were made to burn eight hours apiece: he allowed himself eight hours in every day for sleep and his meals: eight hours for study, and eight hours for the public duties of his government; which he discharged with an exactness, an impartiality, and a wisdom, that almost exceeded human capacity. [end 22]

THE DANES.

BUT Alfred was not allowed to spend his life in exertions to promote the private happiness of his countrymen: the Danes, who inhabited almost exactly the same region from which the Saxons had come, sailed over to Britain in their ships, with an inclination to treat the Saxons now, as the Saxons had treated the Britons before: at one time they were so successful, that Alfred lost his army, and was obliged to hide himself for weeks in the disguise of a servant in a poor man's cottager: it was here that the cottager's wife gave him a scolding, for letting her cakes be burned while he sat by the fire where they were toasting.

The Danes were a braver race of men than the Saxons: when the Saxons came over to Britain, and settled among the remnants of Roman luxury, they grew effeminate; when they became Christians, it was but a poor religion that the tyrannical popes and ignorant monks taught them, and they lost the fine old songs and ballads, which celebrated the courage and virtues of their ancestors, that they had learned at home: the monks told them they must sing nothing but Psalms. [end 24]

The Danes felt a singular animosity to the Christian religion, especially to the monasteries in which so many persons of both sexes lived in idleness and [end 25] effeminacy: one measure which marked the progress of the Danes wherever they came, was the burning of monasteries.

The Saxons perhaps never produced a truly great man, beside Alfred: he stopped for a while the inroads of the Danes: but some time after his death they became more frequent and formidable: the pusillanimous Saxons gave them money to go away, and the Danes, when they had spent what they carried off, came back to get more: Alfred died in the year 900; and about a hundred years afterward Canute, king of Denmark, made a complete conquest of England, and after a reign of eighteen years in this country, left the crown to his sons: the Danes had by this time embraced the Christian faith.

The sons of Canute died without children; in consequence of which the Saxon royal family resumed the throne [end 26] in the person of Edward the Confessor: in his reign lived Macbeth, king of Scotland, upon whose story Shakespear has founded the finest of his plays.

THE NORMANS.

Edward the Confessor, during the reign of the Danes, had lived a banished man in Normandy; and he so greatly admired what he saw, that, as he had no children, he appointed William duke of Normandy, afterward called William the Conqueror, his successor when he died, in the throne of England. [end 28]

A TABLE OF THE KINGS AND QUEENS 
OF ENGLAND, FROM THE CONQUEST

THE NORMAN LINE.

                             A.D.

William I. began to reign 1066 
William II. - - - - 1087 
Henry I. - - - - - 1100 
Stephen - - - - - 1135

THE PLANTAGENETS.

Henry II. - - - - 1154 
Richard I. - - - - 1189 
John - - - - - 1199 
Henry III. - - - - 1216 
Edward I. - - - - 1272 
---------- II. - - - - 1307 
---------- III. - - - - 1327 
Richard II. - - - - 1377

THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER.

Henry IV. - - - - 1399 
-------- V. - - - - 1413 
-------- VI. - - - - 1422 
[end 29]

THE HOUSE OF YORK.

A.D. 
Edward IV. began to reign 1461 
----------- V. - - - - 1483 
Richard III. - - - - 1483

THE HOUSE OF TUDOR.

Henry VII. - - - - 1485 
------- VIII. - - - - 1509 
Edward VI. - - - - 1547 
Mary - - - - - 1553 
Elizabeth - - - - 1558

THE HOUSE OF STUART.

James I. - - - - - 1603 
Charles I. - - - - 1625 
Charles II. - - - - 1649 
James II. - - - - 1685

THE REVOLUTION, 1688.

William III. - - - - 1689 
Anne - - - - - 1702 
George I. - - - - 1714 
George II. - - - - 1727 
George III. - - - - 1760 
[end 30]

THE 
NORMAN LINE.

WILLIAM I. 
1066

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR WAS HARSH AND 
SEVERE.

WILLIAM the Conqueror was a prince of great abilities, and formed an entirely new plan of government for this country, agreeably to what is called the feudal system: he divided the soil into knights' fees, baronies and earldoms, and gave them to his Norman followers: a knight, a baron and an earl, meant then the lord or proprietor of a certain province or portion of land, by the name of which the knight, [end 31] the baron, or the earl, was commonly known.

William the Conqueror, when he became king of England, continued duke of Normandy, that is, lord (in subordination to the king of France) [end 32] of a valuable division of that country: his successors acquired other provinces in France, till they became feudal, or inferior, lords of a third part of that kingdom.

The Tower of London was built in the reign of William the Conqueror. [end 34]

WILLIAM II. 
1087

WILLIAM RUFUS WAS PASSIONATE AND RASH.

WILLIAM the Conqueror, at his death, appointed that his eldest son Robert should succeed him in the duchy of Normandy, and his second son William (who was his favourite) in the throne of England: Robert was not contented with this distribution, but his resistance was vain.

Pilgrimages were the fashion of this age: the well-meaning, but uninstructed, people who then lived, were accustomed to address separate prayers to every saint in heaven; and these prayers were supposed to have the more merit, if they were said at the tomb, where the bones of the saint had been laid to rest: if any body had done a wicked thing the remembrance of which made him uneasy, he thought, and the priest encouraged him to think so, that if he made a pilgrimage to some celebrated tomb, or shrine, which was perhaps a hundred miles off, and especially if he went to it barefoot, the saint would prevail upon God Almighty to forgive [end 36] him his sin: it was the same way of thinking that induced them to whip themselves, to wear shirts of horsehair, and to make the naked stones their beds; they believed that, if they punished themselves, God would be satisfied and pardon them.

If the religious in this age made pilgrimages to the shrines of so many saints, you may think that they imputed a higher merit to a visit to Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, died, and was buried: the Saracens, from civilisation and refinement, and because the resort of Christian pilgrims brought wealth into their country, tolerated and accommodated them: but when, ten years after the Conquest, the Turks took Jerusalem from the Saracens, they treated the Christian pilgrims with rudeness and barbarity.

Robert, duke of Normandy, was one of the commanders in this undertaking; and the better to enable him to raise his forces, he sold the government of his duchy during his absence, to William Rufus, for a sum of money. William Rufus, like most men of rank in this age, when amusements were so few, was very fond of hunting: one day when he was engaged in the pleasures of the chace in the New Forest, news was brought him that one of his barons in Normandy had taken up arms against his government: William was so enraged at what he heard, that he turned his horse's head, [end 38] and rode immediately to the next port; when he came there, the weather was cloudy and tempestuous, and the sailors were not willing to put to sea; William however insisted; he leaped into the vessel, and asked in a boastful sort of a tone, whether they had ever heard of a king who was drowned?

William Rufus built Westminster Hall, 200 feet long, for his dining-room: he had no children. [end 39]

HENRY I. 
1100.

HENRY BEAUCLERC WAS AN EXCELLENT 
SCHOLAR.

WHEN William Rufus was killed, Robert duke of Normandy was absent in the Holy Land: Henry, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, took advantage of this circumstance: he hastened from the New Forest to Winchester, where he got possession of the public treasure and thence to London, where he got himself crowned.

Robert hurried home, as soon as he heard of the death of William Rufus, and once more tried by the sword to gain the crown of England: but he not only failed in this, but soon after lost Normandy, where he had at first been gladly received: Henry took him prisoner, and put him in confinement, where he remained for the rest of his life, twenty-eight years. [end 40]

Henry Beauclerc had an only son, named William, whom he loved very much, but who was lost at sea at eighteen years of age. Henry was so affected at this event, that, though he outlived it fifteen years, it is remarked that he was never seen to smile afterward.

Henry had one daughter, Maud, married to Henry V, emperor of Germany.

STEPHEN. 
1135.

STEPHEN OF BLOIS GOT THE CROWN BY A TRICK, BUT WAS HARDLY ABLE TO KEEP IT.

ENGLAND had never yet been governed by a queen; and some countries, France for instance, have always refused their sceptre to a woman; so Stephen, grandson to William the Conqueror by [end 41] a daughter, thought he would try his chance with the empress Maud: Maud was out of England, and Stephen got one of Henry's ministers to swear, that to his knowledge the king wished Stephen to be his successor: so Stephen was crowned.

By and by Maud came over with the army, and there was a great deal of fighting between her and her cousin: once she took Stephen prisoner; and twice she escaped being taken herself, the first time from Oxford by dressing herself in white, and walking at night over the snow, and the second time out of Wallingford in a coffin: at last it was agreed that Stephen should reign all the days of his life, and that Henry, son of the empress Maud by her second husband Geoffrey Plantagenet, should succeed him.

The fierce and haughty barons took advantage of the unsettled state of the [end 42] kingdom under Stephen, and built themselves each a strong castle for fortress to the number of eleven hundred and fifteen: thus they took all power into their own hands, and reduced the prerogative of the king to almost nothing: beside this, they were continually quarrelling and fighting with each other, so that poor England looked like a country of savages. [end 43]

THE 
PLANTAGENETS.

HENRY II. 
1154.

HENRY FITZ-EMPRESS WAS A MAN OF SPIRIT 
AND SENSE, BUT WAS WHIPPED AT THE 
TOMB OF THOMAS A BECKET.

Henry married Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine, who brought a great addition [end 44; between 44-45 there is a page of four engraved portraits] to his territories in France: but she was a proud, ill-tempered woman, and led him a disagreeable sort of a life.

Henry had another great quarrel with Thomas à Becket: he saw how much the church in these dark ages [end 45] was disposed to domineer over the state, and how the popes made and unmade kings; and he set his heart upon remedying so disgraceful an evil.

The way it had grown was this: the pope of Rome, and the bishops and monks all over Europe, made a common cause, and agreed that whatever would add power to the one, would add power to the other: so that the popes of Rome acquired an authority, something like that of the emperors of Rome in the days of their prosperity, and had an army of priests and monks scattered in every quarter, who adhered as faithfully to their chief, as ever the body-guard of a sovereign did to the monarch who paid them.

Henry determined to break this league: he had a minister Thomas à Becket, who was exceedingly clever, and had never disobliged him in any thing: he thought, if he could once raise this [end 46] man to the highest dignity of the church in England, and make him archbishop of Canterbury, every thing else that he wished would follow of course.

You cannot think upon how familiar terms this able king and his clever minister lived with each other: one day as they were riding on horseback through the streets of London, they observed a beggar shivering with the cold: Would it not be a good action, said the king, to give that poor fellow a warm coat in this hard season? That it would, said Becket; and your majesty does well to think of such charitable actions: Then he shall have one presently, replied Henry, and with that, gave a smart pluck to Becket's cloak: the minister pulled it close about him, and defended himself as well as he could, till both king and minister had like to have been down in [end 47] the dirt: at length Becket, like a good courtier, let go his hold, and the king gave the cloak to the beggar: it was made of scarlet, and lined with ermine: the beggar knew nothing of the quality of the persons he saw, and was not a little surprised at the nature of the present.

Whether Becket gave any promises to the king I cannot tell, but if he did he certainly broke them all: he no sooner received this preferment, than he determined within himself the plan he would pursue: if he had answered the king's wishes, he would have been spoken ill of and hated by all the clergy of Europe; they would have called him a false brother, an apostate, a tool, and an atheist: this was by no means Becket's intention; he wished to be honoured, and not to be despised.

I suppose too Becket had some religious feelings concerned in the change that now took place: he thought that a courtier and a minister might take some liberties in his way of living, but that a different conduct was due from the first clergyman of a great country: according to the religious notions of those times, he laid aside all his pomp, wore sackcloth next to his skin, and fed [end 49] upon nothing but bread, water and herbs: he whipped himself often and severely, as a punishment for his sins; and, in imitation of what we read of Jesus Christ, washed the feet of a certain number of beggars every day: Thomas à Becket soon passed for the first saint in the land.

Henry, having thus, as he thought, secured himself a staunch friend in the head of the church, brought up a law to prohibit appeals to Rome, and other practices by which England was made dependent on the pope: who do you think was the principal person that opposed this measure? Thomas à Becket. He said, that he owed all manner of obligations and deference to the king, but that he could not betray the duties of his station; he would die sooner than yield: the quarrel grew hotter and hotter: the king seized all the arch- [end 50] bishop's estates, and Becket was obliged to fly beyond sea.

The pope and the king of France received Becket with great love, and determined to carry him through is difficulties: the clergy and a great part of the people of England thought the king acted very wickedly, in quarrelling with and banishing so good a man: Henry was obliged to submit: he gave up the law he wanted to establish: Becket and he met in Normandy, and seemed to be friends.

Henry could not otherwise make his peace with the pope, the king of France, and his own subjects blinded with superstition, than in the way before mentioned, by walking barefoot to the tomb of the holy man, and causing himself to be whipped on his naked back by monks of the cloister.

Poor Henry, unfortunate in his wife, unfortunate in his minister, was still more unfortunate in his children: he was on all occasions a warm-hearted man: he married for ambition, not for love, and therefore queen Eleanor of all persons perhaps had least reason to [end 52] to be pleased with him; but I have told you how kindly and familiarly he behaved to his minister; and he was a most affectionate father.

He loved his eldest son Henry so much, that he determined to admit him to a share of royalty in his own life-time: he made a fine coronation for him; and to do him the more honour, waited upon him at table, according to the manner of the feudal times: the good father could not help observing, as he did it, Never was prince more royally served! I see no such great matter in it, answered the ungracious youth, that the son of an earl should wait upon the son of a king.

In the reign of Henry happened the conquest of Ireland, which was however rather nominal, than real: we gained the city of Dublin and a little province round it; but the greater part of the island continued in the hands of its native princes. [end 54]

RICHARD I. 
1189. 
RICHARD COEUR DE LION FOUGHT FOR THE HOLY LAND WITH THE SULTAN SALADIN.

TWO years before Richard came to the crown, the sultan Saladin took Jerusalem from the Christians, after they had possessed it ninety years: all Europe was astonished and confounded at the intelligence, and a new crusade was immediately fitted out for the recovery of the Holy Land: Richard, who burned with the desire of the military glory, was one of the commanders.

King Richard was shipwrecked near Venice on his return to Europe: as he had offended most of the princes who had joined in the crusade with him by his superior glory and the violence of his temper, he disguised himself like a pilgrim, that he might cross Germany safely by land: he was found [end 56] out however and arrested by the basest of his rivals, Leopold, duke of Austria, who threw him into an obscure dungeon at Dirrenstein on the Danube: for some time no one knew what was become of him: in this perilous situation Blondel, a minstrel, and a fast friend of king Richard who had been extremely fond of his heroic songs is said to have wandered among all the fortresses of that part of the world, to find where his brave master was hid: as he approached the castle of Dirrenstein, he struck of a favourite ballad, which he and the king had often sung together: when he had finished the first stanza, a voice from within the walls, which he immediately knew for king Richard's, began the second: I suppose Blodel found some means to letting his master know what he purposed: he then went immediately and informed queen Eleanor, the [end 57] mother of Richard: a great ransom was raised, and the king was finally brought home again to his country: he did not however long survive, being killed by an arrow, as he was besieging the castle of one of his rebellious barons in Normandy.

JOHN. 
1199. 
JACK LACKLAND WAS A PITIFUL FELLOW, AND DIED OF EATING PEACHES; IN HIS TIME WAS MAGNA CHARTA.

JOHN Lackland may challenge all history to produce his equal in folly, presumption, and wickedness: you have heard how he behaved to his father.

The true heir to the crown on the death of king Richard, was Arthur of Britanny, the son of Geoffrey, John's elder brother: Richard however made a will bequeathing the succession to John; and the barons of England admitted his claim: Arthur was twelve years old at the decease of Richard, and four years after fell into the hands of his barbarous uncle, who put him to death; according to some accounts stabbed the defenceless youth in a [end 59] boat in the night-time with his own hand.

The king of France, seeing how foolish and wicked a prince John was, thought this a favourable time to take away Normandy, and unite it to his own crown, and he succeeded; when John heard of it, he said, What the French conquer in years, I will retake in a day, when I set about it: but John was all talk, and no performance.

John quarrelled with the pope, and for some time swore, and blustered, as was his custom, and boasted what great things he would do, but afterward submitted: he confessed himself the subject of the pope, and delivered his crown into the hands of the pope's legate, who kept it five days before he returned it.

John had no sooner signed Magna Charta, then he showed an inclination to break it; the barons, tired of his wickedness and tyranny, invited over Louis, the dauphin of France, who soon took possession of London, and all the southern part of the kingdom: nothing but the death of John at this crisis, prevented his entire success.

Among the other extravagances of [end 61] John, he is said to have sent a proposal to the Miramolin, or emperor of Morocco, offering to turn Mahometan, if the Miramolin would aid him against the pope, the king of France and the English nation.

King John is the name of the most ancient of Shakespear's historical plays: it contains many fine scenes respecting the unfortunate Arthur, and various considerable events of this reign: in general the productions of this incomparable author are the best Guide to the History of England, as far as he has treated upon the subject. [end 62]

HENRY III. 
1216

HENRY OF WINCHESTER WAS A POOR CREATURE, AND HAD A TROUBLESOME REIGN OF FIFTY-SIX YEARS.

THERE are four kings in the series of English monarchs, who laboured under an evident want to capacity; these are Henry of Winchester, Edward of Caernarvon, Richard of Bourdeaux, and Henry of Windsor: Henry of Winchester was the only one of the four, who died a natural death.

Henry was only nine years old, when he came to be king: William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, was appointed lord protector of England during his childhood, and under Pembroke's able administration the French invaders were driven back to their own country.

The most famous statesman in the reign of Henry of Winchester was Si- [end 63] mon Montfort: Henry reigned, comparatively with little interruption from his barons, for forty-two years: they at length grew tired of his insignificance and imbecility; and Simon Montfort being at their head, he possessed for seven years more authority in the realm than the king.

The citizens and merchants were neither lords nor slaves: about the same time there arose a middle set of men in the open country, persons who held land as freemen, and yet were not rich enough, to associate with the barons, and frequent high courts of parliament: all this gave rise to a their order of persons in the kingdom; burgesses were elected to represent the towns, and knights of shires to represent the inferior landholders: Simon Montfort was the author of the house of commons, that precious part of our government, in England.

Two great battles were fought between Simon Montfort and Henry of Winchester, the first at Lewes, here [end 65] king Henry was taken prisoner, the second at Evesham, where Simon Montfort was killed: Henry spent the short remainder of his days in peace.

Henry of Winchester was a great encourager of the fine arts of architecture, painting and sculpture: the beginning of these arts were rude, but the period of Henry III is considered as the dawn of taste: he rebuilt Westminster Abbey from the ground.

[pp 66 is a set of four engraved portraits]

EDWARD I. 
1272. 
EDWARD LONGSHANKS WAS KNOWING AND WISE, BUT HE LOVED WAR, AND CONDUCTED IT BARBAROUSLY.

THE two kings in the English history who possessed the greatest portion of understanding and genius, were William the Conqueror and Edward Longshanks.

Edward, at the same time of his father's death, was engaged on a crusade to the Holy Land.

There is an agreeable story of Edward, that while he was in the Holy Land, a Mahometan assassin came into his tent to murder him, that he stabbed Edward in the arm with a poisoned dagger, and that queen Eleanora saved her husband by sucking the poison out of his wound: certain it is that Edward was passion- [end 67] ately fond of Eleanora all the days of her life.

Edward Longshanks introduced the old Roman law, commonly called the civil law, into England, and spread over his country a face of security, propriety and order, which has never since been banished from it.

As he was a prince of extensive views, he aspired to reduce the whole island under one rule, and regarded that as the natural means of giving to the English people a permanent stability and independence of all the nations of the earth.

The Welsh, calling themselves the Ancient Britons, had continued unsubdued ever since the retreat of the Romans; they had been unconquered by the Saxons and the Danes: the Norman and Plantagenet princes had frequently been at war with them, and obliged them to pay tribute, but they had still [end 68] been governed by princes and laws of their own: Edward Longshanks completed the conquest of Wales.

From the time when the Romans flourished in Britain, the Welsh had been Christians: the Druidical religion and learning had irretrievably perished: but there was still a class of men among the Welsh called the Bards: these were such an imperfect image of the great masters of astronomy and history in the Druidical times, as could be expected to be preserved through centuries of ignorance, calamity and popish superstition: still they had songs, dear to their countrymen, which preserved among their hearers the love of Wales and of liberty.

An event occurred soon after, which gave Edward a favourable opportunity for interfering in the affairs of Scotland: the male line of the kings of that country had become extinct, and disputes had arisen between John Baliol and Robert Bruce, descendants of the female line, which of these had the best claim to the crown: Scotland was on the eve of a civil war on the subject; when the wisest heads in the government of that country, advised that Edward, famed for knowledge and sagacity, should be called in as umpire to settle the dispute, and that all parties should swear to abide by his decision.

Edward set out in execution of this [end 70] office with an army for the borders of Scotland: and, when he had got every thing into his own hand, he set up a barefaced and groundless pretence, that the kings of Scotland had been at all times feudal vassals under the kings of England, and required the candidates to swear this subjection, before he would decide upon their claims: Edward had every advantage over the country without a government or a king, and they were obliged to submit: he then decided in favour of Baliol, the descendant of the elder branch of the royal family of Scotland.

It was not that he might add a feather to the English crown, that Edward asserted the vassalage of Scotland: he soon picked a quarrel with the new king, and asserted that he had not performed all the duties that were required from the feudal vassal to his superior: he therefore, declared the vassal state for- [end 71] feited to the lord paramount, and marched an army to take possession of it: in this enterprise he succeeded.

All nations love their independence, and abhor the idea of becoming a province and an inferior member of some other nation: it is the name of ENGLAND, that has inspired our soldiers and sailors with bravery, and our poets with sublimity and imagination: Scotland is not less dear to a Scotchman: when a country is no longer its own master, it loses its peculiar name, or that name no longer excites the same glow in the bosoms of its natives.

Three times Edward conquered Scotland: a third time it rebelled; and, having been now some years without a king, the Scots chose Robert Bruce, the grandson of the competitor of John Baliol, for their sovereign: Edward marched against Bruce, but died on the road, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.

Edward, like his ancestors, the Plantagenets, was a patron of literature and the poets: in his reign Oxford had at one time thirty thousand students, a much greater number than at any subsequent period. [end 73]

EDWARD II
1307.

EDWARD OF CAERNARVON, A WEAK PRINCE, WAS GOVERNED BY UPSTARTS, AND CRUELLY MURDERED BY HIS WIFE IN BERKELLY CASTLE.

Edward of Caernarvon had attached himself while a boy, to an adventurer, by name Gaveston, and when he came to the crown, gave the government of the kingdom into his hands: Gaveston was a handsome man, expert in youthful sports, riding and fencing; but he was [end 74] vain, conceited and overbearing: the old nobles of the kingdom could not endure him: they obliged the king to send him into banishment: but, finding that neither the king nor Gaveston minded his promise, and that, as soon as the barons had gone home, Gaveston was restored to as much power as ever, they at length struck off his head without form of trial, on a hill near Warwick.

Edward of Caernarvon could not live without a favourite, and after the death of Gaveston attached himself to a young man of the name of Spencer: he was not of low rank like Gaveston: he was the son of a respectable nobleman, though not of the highest class: but the barons no sooner saw him fixed in power, than they hated him as inveterately as they did his predecessor: Spencer was finally hanged on a gibbet, together with his venerable father near [end 75] ninety years of age, in defiance of law, decorum and humanity.

The wife of Edward of Caernarvon was Isabella, sister to the king of France: she had long despised her husband, and wished to govern him; but she was never able to gain his confidence: at length she forgot herself so far as to live in open adultery with Roger Mortimer earl of March: one crime led to another: she who had first despised, and next proved unfaithful to her husband, afterward deprived him of his crown, and then of his life.

EDWARD III. 
1327.

EDWARD THE THIRD WAS THE CONQUEROR OF FRANCE

EDWARD the Third was fifteen years old when his father was murdered [end 76] and three years after, he joined in a confederacy with certain noblemen, who entered Nottingham Castle where the queen and Mortimer lay, seized Mortimer, who was tried and hanged for his crimes, and sent Isabella to prison.

By the time of Edward III the real use of chivalry was pretty well over but it had in it certain features of courage, refinement and humanity, they made it continue a favourite: when the knights no longer rode out to encounter an oppressor (or, as we find it in story-books, a giant or a dragon he dressed himself in armour, mounted on horseback, and invited any other [end 78] [n.b., image of jousting between 78 and 79] knights he could meet with to a friendly trial of skill: when a great many met together for this purpose, it was called a tournament.

There were more tournaments in the reign of Edward III, than in all the rest of the English history put together: the king was frequently one of the combatants, and the queen and all her ladies, seated upon thrones and lofty benches in a circle, were among the spectators.

As Edward was very fond of splendour and show, and a great encourager of tournaments, he was led naturally from this image of war, to wish for the reality: like too many other kings and heads of nations, he desired to be a conqueror.

Edward III found that, in right of his mother, he had a claim to the crown of Frances, and that it might admit of a dispute whether he was nearer to the inheritance, or the Frenchman whom the French nation chose to have reign over them: he therefore collected a great army, and set out for the conquest of France: if he succeeded, he thought he should be one of the most famous personages in history.

If he had succeeded, he would have fixed the seat of his government at Paris, because France is a much larger and more populous country than England; and England would have become a poor dependency of the French throne.

At first Edward made but a very small progress; after some years he got into a desperate situation, at a place called Cressy: his army was nearly made prisoners: the English warriors were very brave: they fought their way through; they defeated the French, and won at Cressy a memorable and astonishing victory: this however was not the end of the war.

When the Black Prince had made [end 81] king John prisoner, he seated him at a splendid entertainment in his tent, and himself waited behind the king's chair: this was in the very manner of the institutions of the feudal system, and of chivalry: when he brought king John over with him to London, he mounted his royal prisoner on a beautiful white horse of a large size, and rode a small black palfrey beside him along the streets: this was a much nobler spectacle than a Roman triumph, where the conqueror dragged his captive king as so many melancholy victims at his chariot-wheels.

There is a famous story of the siege of Calais by Edward III: the brave inhabitants held out for nearly a year: they surrendered at last from the pressure of hunger only: they asked for no more than their lives: Edward was determined to punish them for their honourable adherence to their duty: at last he said, if they would send six of their principal citizens to him, in their shirts, with halters about their necks, he would forgive the rest.

Edward III lived to sustain the loss of all his conquests: he grew old: the Black Prince was seized with a consuming disorder, which robbed him of all [end 83] power of exertion: the English generals did their best, but in vain: France recovered her independence and prosperity.

In the reign of Edward III lived Chaucer, the first, and one of the greatest of the English poets: the English language in his time recovered its ascendancy: the poets who had hitherto been patronised by the Plantagenet princes were French: but the descendants of the Saxons were always much more numerous in England than the Normans, and the language of the multitude at length gained the superiority: it is Chaucer who has presented to us the first genuine model of the present language of England.

Edward III was the builder of Windsor Castle: the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge also began to be founded in this reign. [end 84]

RICHARD II. 
1377.

RICHARD OF BOURDEAUX WAS ADMIRABLE WHILE A BOY, BUT CONTEMPTIBLE WHEN HE GREW TO BE A MAN: HE WAS DEPRIVED OF HIS CROWN, AND STARVED TO DEATH IN PROMFRET CASTLE.

I have told you how the commons, by means of the progress of trade and good sense, rose in process of time to a certain importance: still however the greater part of the country people were slaves: as much had been obtained, they naturally wished for more: first in France, and afterward in England and other countries, they rose in arms, and demanded those privileges which [end 85] might best conduce to their improvement and comfort.

Richard of Bourdeaux, son of Edward the Black Prince, was at this time only fourteen years and a half old: it was however thought necessary that he should go out from the Tower where he resided, and parley with the rebels in Smithfield: what they demanded was their liberty: during the conference, a quarrel arose between Wat Tyler and a knight attendant upon the king: Walworth, mayor of London, took part with the knight, and felled Tyler to the ground: the multitude grew furious: at this instant king Richard rode forth from his own people to meet the rebels: he called out to them to follow him who was their king, and he would grant them whatever they [end 87]should require: he led them into the open fields: while they were debating on terms with him, a considerable military force was collected: the multitude lost their opportunity, and in the insurrection was soon after suppressed, and rigorously punished.

Richard, as he grew up, appeared to be one of our weak sovereigns, who could not live without a favourite: the name of the man he chose was Vere, earl of Oxford, descended from the ancient nobility: but like most favourites, he was forward, presumptuous and overbearing: Richard himself was a mere man of pleasure, fond of the pomp and magnificence attendant upon royalty, but careless of its duties: his expences were lavish and prodigal, and excited a general sentiment of discontent.

Thomas of Woodstock, one of Richard's uncles, and brother to the Black [end 88] Prince, took advantage of his nephew's feeble character and unpopularity, drove the favourite into banishment, and usurped all the powers of royalty, leaving Richard nothing but the name.

This lasted three years, when a second convulsion restored Richard to his authority, under the guardianship of a new set of favourites, by whose orders Thomas of Woodstock was smothered in his bed.

Richard gained little by the murder of Thomas of Woodstock: the next year Henry of Bolingbroke, son of the famous John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster, another of Richard's uncles, raised an army against the king, took him prisoner, shut him up in Pomfret Castle, where he caused him to be starved to death, and placed himself on the throne.

The whole reign of Henry of Bolingbroke was infested with plots and conspiracies to restore the true heir: the most distinguished leader in these hostilities was the famous Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur.

Henry of Bolingbroke experienced another vexation: his eldest son Henry of Monmouth, appeared to turn out an abandoned libertine: he kept low company, was engaged in disgraceful riots, and even went so far with his licentious associates, as to rob on the highway.

King Henry, wasted and broken-hearted with perpetual griefs from without and within, died of a worn-out frame, at the age of forty-five, after an uncomfortable reign of thirteen years. [end 92]

Shakespeare has written the reign of Henry IV.

HENRY V. 
1413.

HENRY THE FIFTH WON THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT ON ST. CRISPIN'S DAY.

HENRY, surnamed of Monmouth, to the astonishment of every body, laid aside his riots the moment he came to the crown, and ever after behaved himself in such a manner as to gain the affections of his subjects.

The reign of Henry V was splendid; but those very circumstances which constitute its splendour, are in the eye of reason its deepest disgrace.

He won the battle of Agincourt, under circumstances exactly similar to the battles of Cressy and Poitiers: with a small army, he seemed to be surrounded and cut off by the numerous forces of France: he forced his way through them, and obtained the fullest and most entire victory.

It was not the battle of Agincourt that placed Henry V on the throne of France: he did not fully carry his point till five years afterward, when, having a second time crossed the seas with an army, such were the distractions of that unhappy country, that he [end 94] was able to dictate what terms he pleased: he graciously permitted the reigning sovereign to retain the title and state of a king, but took the government into his own hands, and decreed that, whenever the present king should die, he himself and his heirs were to succeed to the throne.

Shakespear had written the history play of Henry V.

HENRY VI. 
1422.

HENRY OF WINDSOR, HALF-MADMAN, AND HALF-FOOL, LOST THE CROWN THAT HIS GRANDFATHER HAD WICKEDLY SEIZED.

THE king of France died in less than two months after his conqueror; and Henry of Windsor was proclaimed king of England in London, and king of France in Paris, before he was a year [end 95] old: he lived long enough to become a poor and friendless prisoner in the Tower of London.

The son of the late king of France still maintained some authority in the southern parts of that kingdom: war was carried on for seven years between the contending parties, but the balance of success was in favour of the English: at the end of seven years their enemies appeared ruined: the last trial of strength was before the town of Orleans besieged by the English.

When every thing now looked desperate for the French, a poor young woman, twenty-seven years of age, the maid-servant of a village-inn, called Joan of Arc, came to the prince-dauphin of France, and told him she was inspired by God to raise the siege of Orleans, and to place him on the throne of his ancestors: in the now wretched state of his affairs the prince [end 96] thought any means worth trying: the defeated and unhappy French believed every thing Joan of Arc told them: she put herself at the head of a detachment, and forced her way into the town: the English were as much astonished as the French, at the appearance of this strange sort of general: the siege was raised.

Joan of Arc conducted her sovereign to the cathedral of Rheims in the northern part of the kingdom, where all his ancestors had celebrated their coronation, and where the same ceremony was now performed for him: this was the last of her exploits: she was soon after taken prisoner by the English, who barbarously caused her to be burned alive for a witch: they never however recovered the effects of her achievements, and were finally driven out of France.

This is the first part of the history [end 97] of Henry of Windsor: during the early part of his reign he fought for the crown of France; during the later he was obliged to fight for the crown of England.

John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster was the third, and Edmund of Langley duke of York the fourth son of Edward III: but the descendants of York intermarried with the Mortimers' claim to the throne of England: this was the source of the famous wars of York and Lancaster, frequently called the wars of Two Roses, White and Red.

The mischiefs which the English had inflicted upon France, now recoiled upon ourselves: our king became mad with a madness exactly similar to that of the late king of France: his government was not less weak, and distracted with factions; and Richard duke of York [end 98] was appointed lord protector of England during the king's indisposition.

Henry VI had for his queen, Margaret of Anjou, a lady of great beauty, understanding and accomplishments: this woman for a long time supported the party of Lancaster by her abilities: she had borne to king Henry an only son, a child of great promise, and it was to the maintaining his claim to succeed after the death of his father, that she directed all her exertions.

Richard duke of York, lord protector of the kingdom, had a better claim to the crown than he who wore it: this was a critical situation: queen Margaret thought it dangerous to suffer him to retain his office: he seemed to aspire to nothing more, but he would not part with what he had got: both sides had recourse to arms: after his second victory over the Lancastrians, and having twice taken king Henry [end 99] prisoner, duke Richard caused the parliament to confirm him lord protector during the life of Henry, and heir to the crown after his decease.

Margaret having raised new forces in the north, the battle of Wakefield was soon after fought: in this battle the Yorkists were defeated, and duke Richard killed.

Eton college, the most celebrated school in England, was founded by king Henry VI.

Shakespear has described the principal events of this reign in three historical plays, called the First, Second, and Third Parts of the Reign of Henry VI.

THE 
HOUSE OF YORK.

EDWARD IV. 
1461. 
EDWARD THE FOURTH WAS AN ARRANT LIBERTINE, AND TOOK AWAY THE FAMOUS JANE SHORE FROM HER HUSBAND THAT SHE MIGHT LIVE WITH HIM.

EDWARD, eldest son of Richard duke of York, was daring and adventurous, and in a short time after the death of his father, caused himself to be proclaimed king by the title of Edward IV.

Three years after, his reign became fully established by the victory he obtained over queen Margaret at Hex- [end 101, n.b. no page number on this page] ham: Margaret, flying alone by night with her son, now ten years old, through the neighbouring forest after the battle, was met by a robber with a drawn sword: Margaret, with the sound judgment and the courage which she always displayed, finding she could not escape, advanced boldly toward the robber, saying, Behold the son of your king! I commit him to your protection! the outlaw was struck with the magnanimity of this action, accepted the trust, and concealed his royal guests, till the danger was over, and a vessel procured to transport them to Flanders.

The principal partisan of Edward IV was Neville earl of Warwick, who, from the share he had in raising Edward to the throne, obtained the surname of the king-maker: when Edward had already been king nine years, he and his great partisan quarrelled; [end 102] and, as Warwick had before obtained Edward the crown, he resolved now to deprive him of it: he accordingly took his measures so well that Edward was obliged to fly the kingdom: according to the old historians he was for some time Warwick's prisoner: in six months however he appeared again at the head of an army: Warwick was defeated and killed in the battle of Barnet; and, Edward having obtained a second victory at Tewkesbury, king Henry VI, and his beloved son, now sixteen years of age, were murdered by his order.

Never were any wars more cruel than those of the Two Roses: queen Margaret from resentment and passion, and Edward out of hardness of his heart, sanctioned the most bloody proceedings: in all the later battles no quarter was given, and the nobility and leaders of the defeated army who were not so fortunate as to perish in the field, [end 103] were instantly led to the scaffold: it seemed as if refinement, civilisation and science were perishing from the land, and we were hastening to become a nation of savages.

Edward IV put to death his own brother George duke of Clarence, who had been the abettor of Warwick in his insurrection: there is a vulgar story that he was prompted to this violence by a prophecy, which said that his brother G. would deprive Edward's children of the crown: people afterward found out that this prophecy related to his other brother, Richard duke of Gloucester.

One of the most remarkable circumstances of this reign is the introduction of printing into England: the first English printer was William Caxton. [end 104] [n.b., engraving in between 104-105]

EDWARD V. 
1483. 
EDWARD THE FIFTH, AND HIS BROTHER, THE DUKE OF YORK, ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN MURDERED IN THE TOWER WHILE CHILDREN, BY THEIR UNCLE, RICHARD CROOKBACK.

EDWARD V reigned two months and eleven days, and was twelve years old at the time of his death. [end 105]

RICHARD III. 
1483 
RICHARD CROOKBACK I BELIEVE WAS NOT CROOKED, AND PERHAPS NOT A MURDERER OF CHILDREN; BUT HE WAS CONQUERED IN BATTLE BY HENRY OF RICHMOND; AND HENRY WAS NOT CONTENTED TO KILL HIM, WITHOUT MAKING A MONSTER OF HIM AFTER HE WAS DEAD.

THE libertine Edward IV indulged himself so licentiously with regard to women, that it became a question after his death who was his wife: when he married Elizabeth Woodville, mother to the young princes, there was another lady, Eleanor Butler, still living, who said he had married her: Richard duke of Gloucester took advantage of this circumstance, alleged that his nephews, not born in lawful wedlock, could not inherit the crown, and caused himself to [end 106] be proclaimed in their room: this was a violent and ungenerous proceeding toward the boys who were placed under his protection: and, if they were set aside, the children of his brother the duke of Clarence, had a better right than he.

At this time the cruelties which had been practised by the house of York were visited on their own heads: almost all the ancient nobility of England had been destroyed in the wars of the Two [end 107] Roses: the Lancastrians, who nearly in every family had had a father, a brother, or a son, murdered upon the scaffold, watched for an occasion of revenge.

Henry of Richmond, who had a very remote and doubtful claim to the crown derived from the house of Lancaster, caballed with the partisans of that house to expel Richard: many even of the party of York, disgusted with Richard's usurpation, encouraged this enterprise: Henry sailed for England, and the king, who was a brave and gallant soldier, immediately gave him battle at Bosworth in Leicestershire: Richard was killed, and the crown was placed on the head of his competitor.

Shakespear wrote the historical play of king Richard III; and, to please queen Elizabeth, the grand-daughter of Henry of Richmond, has represented Richard more like a monster than a man. [end 108]

THE 
HOUSE OF TUDOR.

HENRY VII. 
1485. 
HENRY OF RICHMOND WAS NICKNAMED BY HIS COURTIERS THE WISEST OF MONARCHS, BUT WAS IN REALITY NOTHING BETTER THAN A HARD-HEARTED, SCRAPING OLD MISER.

HENRY of Richmond, to patch up his doubtful title, married Elizabeth, sister to the two young princes; and this he called the Union of the Two Houses of York and Lancaster.

The ruling passion of Henry of Richmond was the love of money: he found two convenient instruments, Empson and Dudley, to inforce his extortions on his subjects: they were [end 110] hanged for their practices of this sort in the beginning of the following reign.

In this reign occurred that extraordinary event, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.

HENRY VIII. 
1509. 
HENRY THE EIGHTH HAD SIX WIVES: HE CUT OFF THE HEADS OF TWO OF THEM, AND PUT AWAY TWO MORE: IN HIS REIGN ENGLAND CHANGED FROM the ROMAN CATHOLIC TO THE PROTESTANT RELIGION.

THE prime minister of Henry VIII in the earlier part of his reign, was cardinal Wolsey, the son of a butcher at Ipswich: he was a man of a noble mind, and a great lover of learning and learned men: he was also vain, ostentatious and arrogant: he [end 111] built for his private use the palace of Whitehall: no minister of this country ever lived in so splendid and expensive a manner as cardinal Wolsey.

Martin Luther and John Calvin, the great authors of the Protestant religion, lived, the one in Germany, and other in France, in the reign of Henry VIII: king Henry wrote a book against Luther: but he afterward quarrelled with the pope, because the pope would not consent to Henry's dismissing a wife he was tired of, and marrying another woman that he liked better: and to be revenged of the pope, Henry set up the Protestant religion: this event is commonly called the Reformation.

About this time painting and statuary first eminently assumed a character of nobleness, beauty and truth, among the moderns: the country in which they were chiefly cultivated was Italy: the great masters were Michael Angelo, Raphael and Titian. [end 113]

Shakespeare wrote the historical play of Henry VIII.

EDWARD VI. 
1547. 
EDWARD THE SIXTH WAS NINE YEARS OLD WHEN HE BEGAN TO REIGN, AND SIXTEEN WHEN HE DIED: HE WAS A GOOD BOY, STUDIED GREEK, AND WAS A TOWARDLY SCHOLAR.

EDWARD VI, though he was a very good boy, did not always learn his lesson: this was while he was prince of Wales, and before he was nine years old: it was the custom of those times for the prince of Wales to have a whipping boy: that is, a boy who learned along with him, and was whipped whenever the prince happened to be idle: the boy therefore teazed the prince to learn, and said, Oh, pray, save me a whipping! [end 114] [n.b., there is a page of engravings between 114 and 115] The name of Edward VI's whipping-boy was young Browne.

Edward VI was sincerely attached to the Protestant religion; and all Englishmen, who wished well to Reformation and improvement, earnestly prayed [end 115] for his long life and prosperity: by his death their prospects became discouraging and gloomy.

Edward VI was the founder of Christ's Hospital (commonly called the Blue-Coat-School), and St Thomas's Hospital for the sick and wounded: these and other establishments (Westminster School by queen Elizabeth) grew out of the ruins of the monasteries, demolished by Henry VIII in his rage against the pope.

MARY. 
1553. 
BLOODY QUEEN MARY BURNED THREE HUNDRED PROTESTANTS IN FOUR YEARS, BECAUSE THEY DID NOT THINK JUST AS SHE DID, AND WOULD NOT TELL LIES ABOUT the MATTER.

MARY was the daughter of Henry VIII by his first wife that he quarrelled with the pope about: there was therefore no hope but that she would do her utmost to root out the Reformation in England: a few Protestants set up lady Jane Grey for queen: this was a very wicked and a very silly scheme: the admirable young lady was hardly persuaded to come into it by the importunities of her father, her mother, her father-in-law, and her husband: her mock reign lasted nine days, and then Bloody queen Mary cut off her head.

Mary married Philip king of Spain, partly because he was the most bigoted and furious Catholic to be found in Europe.

ELIZABETH. 
1558. 
QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ALL HER SEX HAD A GENIUS BEST FITTED TO GOVERN; BUT SHE WAS APT TO SWEAR, AND BOX HER MINISTERS' EARS: IN HER TIME WAS THE SPANISH ARMADA.

ELIZABETH was the daughter of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn, the lady for whose sake Henry turned off Mary's mother: we may therefore say that she was born a Protestant, and on that account she was brought in the danger of her [end 118] life during the reign of her bloody sister.

Queen Elizabeth is said to have had some of the wisest ministers that ever a sovereign was blessed with; particularly lord Burleigh and sir Francis Walsingham: I do not know that she boxed the ears of either of these.

The question whether England should belong to the Protestants or the pope was not yet decided: the Catholics supported the title of Mary queen of Scots, great-grand-daughter of Henry VII, to the throne of England, in preference to that of queen Elizabeth.

Mary queen of Scots was the most beautiful woman of her times: she was exceedingly accomplished and prepossessing in her manners: she wrote very tolerable verses: but she wanted prudence and judgment in her conduct, and this defect proved her ruin. [end 119]

Mary married a very weak young nobleman, her cousin: almost as soon as they were man and wife, they began to have violent quarrels; and about a year and a half after, he was found murdered: from the circumstances of the case Mary was suspected of being concerned in it: she was never able to clear herself, and was obliged to fly from Scotland: she took refuge in England, and Elizabeth threw her into prison.

As long as Mary was alive, the Catholics of England would never be quiet: they formed many conspiracies: they entered into secret correspondences with Mary: at last, after eighteen years' imprisonment, this unfortunate queen had her head cut off at Fotheringay Castle.

The year after her death Philip king of Spain fitted out an immense fleet for the conquest of England: it was [end 120] called the Invincible Armada: several people were so terrified, when they heard that it had sailed, or that it was seen off our coast, that they died of the fright: queen Elizabeth put herself on horseback at the head of her army to repel the invaders: the English captains and seamen, sir Francis Drake, sir Walter Raleigh, and others, baffled all their attempts to land: at length they were overtaken by a violent storm, and after having lost half their numbers, the rest were glad to escape safe to the place from which they came.

Queen Elizabeth, skilful in government, and of a masculine temper, would never consent to take a husband: she said that, when she died, it should be inscribed upon her tomb-stone, Here lies Elizabeth, who lived and died a maiden queen: she however had favourites, particularly two, Robert Dudley earl of Leicester, and Robert Devereux earl of [end 121] Essex: with these she coquetted, and carried on a Platonic correspondence; and thus she endeavoured to solace herself for the sacrifice she made to her ambition, in having neither husband nor child.

The court of queen Elizabeth was exceedingly refined, and the Platonic and romantic ideas she cultivated made it still more so: the brightest ornament of this court was sir Philip Sidney: he was the most generous and benevolent of mankind: no error, no blemish is to be discovered in his behaviour: he was as learned in the closet, as he was graceful and elegant in the drawing-room: he died in battle at the age of thirty-two years, leaving behind him an agreeable and singular romance, entitled Arcadia.

One of the friends of sir Philip Sidney was Edmund Spenser: he possessed, perhaps beyond any poet that ever [end 122] lived, the power of representing in words the impressions received by the sense of sight: his great work is the Fairy Queen, the hero of which is king Arthur.

Of all the vehicles through which writers of imagination have conveyed their conceptions to others, perhaps the most striking is the theatre: among the Greeks were many eminent dramatic writers, Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander: among the Romans Terrence, and Seneca, and Ovid: in the dark ages there were few public amusements: the minstrels went from house to house, playing on the harp, singing ballads of humour or heroic achievements, showing juggler's tricks, amusing their hearers with raillery and ribaldry, and performing a rude sort of plays: the monks of these uncultivated time envied the minstrels their powers [end 123] of pleasing: they invented godly plays, called Mysteries, and Moralities, to rival the profane plays of the vagabonds: the Mysteries were sometimes a representation of God making the world, and sometimes of the sufferings and death of Christ.

THE 
HOUSE OF STUART.

JAMES I. 
1603.

JAMES the First, son of the unfortunate Mary queen of Scots by her kinsman-husband, and who, before his succession to the English throne, was James the Sixth, king of Scotland, became sovereign of the whole island on the death of Elizabeth.

Two years after, happened one of the most extraordinary events known in his- [end 126, n.b. no page number on page] tory, commonly called the Gunpowder Treason: though the mother of James the First was a Catholic, he himself was bred in the Protestant faith: some Catholics, despairing now of the restoration of their religion, and thinking that the English nation would be hated by God Almighty as long as they continued Protestants, or, as the Catholics called it, Heretics, formed the diabolical plan of blowing up king, lords, and commons, with gunpowder, on the day of the meeting of parliament, Nov. 5, 1605, and for that purpose placed thirty-five barrels of gunpowder, ready to be lighted, in a cellar under the parliament-house: their treason was not found out, till the very day before.

His next favourite was Villiers, afterward created created duke of Buckingham: he was handsome, accomplished, and not without abilities; but, like all other favourites, he was presumptuous, arrogant, and offensive in his demeanour: he soon acquired the hatred of the nation, and his master lost much of the good will of his subjects on his account.

The greatest disgrace of the reign of James the First was the death of sir Walter [end 129] Raleigh: he was one of the remaining ornaments of the court of queen Elizabeth, a great scholar, a great statesman, an accomplished gentleman: we have still remaining of his the History of the World, and several sweet pieces of poetry: in the beginning of James's reign, he was tried and convicted on an obscure charge of treason: after he had remained several years a prisoner in the Tower, James took him out, employed him, and gave him a fleet with which he sailed to South America: this was virtually setting aside the sentence of death which had been pronounced upon him: but the Spaniards pretended that the whole of South America was theirs, and threatened to go to war if sir Walter Raleigh was not exemplarily punished for the infractions he had committed there; and the effeminate and cowardly James, to soothe the king of Spain, caused this great man's head to [end 130] be cut off, under pretence of the sentence which had been passed eighteen years before.

In the latter end of Elizabeth's reign the power of the native Irish was first completely subdued under the English arms: in the reign of James measures, severe, but perhaps necessary, were taken to perpetuate the new establishment.

CHARLES I. 
1625.

CHARLES THE FIRST LOVED AND UNDERSTOOD THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEAR AND RAPHAEL AND TITIAN; HE WAS A NOBLE AND ACCOMPLISHED GENTLEMAN; BUT HE WAS NOT A GOOD KING, AND HE HAD A HARD FATE; HIS SUBJECTS WENT TO WAR WITH HIM, DEFEATED HIM, AND CUT OF HIS HEAD.

VILLIERS duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James the First, became after the death of James the favourite of his son: by the violence of his temper he involved his master in many rash measures: but, three years after the accession of Charles, he was stabbed by Felton, in a dark passage at Portsmouth, just as he was going to set out on an expedition against France.

The great power of parliament consists of this, that they only have a right to raise taxes on the people: though some irregularity had prevailed upon the subject, this had been admitted for [end 133] centuries to be a fundamental law of the English constitution.

How long this assumed authority of Charles would have gone on is uncertain: but he quarrelled with the people of his native country, Scotland; they determined to be without bishops: he determined they should not: this quarrel produced a war; and war could not be maintained without a fresh sup [end 134] ply of money: so king Charles once more summoned a parliament.

It is difficult for the wisest man, or the most venerable assembly, when they have got all power in their hands, to know where to stop: both parties, the king and the parliament, behaved ill: the parliament though they never [end 135] could not do enough to secure their late asserted liberties: the king hated the parliament, particularly for the death of the earl of Strafford: he had not the fortitude to convince them, that he would frankly and cheerfully yield so much of his power that he might preserve the rest: they went to war.

Charles the First was capable of acting judiciously, when he followed his own understanding; but he was too apt to take advice, and often adopted the worst advice that could be got: this was the immediate occasion of the war: on the 5th of January 1642 he went suddenly to the house of commons, got into the speaker's chair, and demanded that they should surrender their five ablest members, with John Hambden [sic] at their head, into this hands: a senseless thing for him to ask; an impossible thing for them to grant. [end 136]

The English have always mixed a great deal of humour and smart jesting at each other with their quarrels: the parliament-party, who stood up for their liberties, had very grave faces, said long prayers, and wore short hair: their adversaries nicknamed them Roundheads: the king's party set up for jolly, spirited gentlemen: they called themselves the Cavaliers.

The war lasted three years, and the king was conquered: then perhaps Charles might have been restored, and every thing placed on a right footing: but a new and extraordinary personage had arisen during the war, and had been a main instrument of bringing it to a successful conclusion: his name was Oliver Cromwel, the son of a brewer at Huntingdon: Oliver Cromwel resolved that king Charles should never again sit upon the throne: he proceeded so artificially that he baffled [end 137] every attempt for that purpose: he at length contrived that the king should be brought to trial before a high court of justice, for having made war upon the nation: Charles the First was condemned, and beheaded at Whitehall, January 30, 1649.

OLIVER CROMWEL. [sic] 
1649. 
OLIVER CROMWEL [sic] WAS A PITIFUL, CANTING HYPOCRITE; BUT HE GOVERNED THIS NATION WITH MORE VIGOUR AND GLORY, THAN ANY KING THAT EVER SAT UPON THE THRONE.

In the year of king Charles's death Cromwel [sic] was made lord lieutenant of Ireland, and in a short time reduced that turbulent people to subjection: the year after, he was appointed lord general and commander in chief of all the English forces, and defeated the party that wanted to set Charles II on the throne, in the battle of Dunbar, and the battle of Worcester: Charles II saved his life by hiding for a whole day in the branches of an oak: Cromwel's [sic] [end 139] last title was lord protector of England: he wanted to have been king.

Since the reign of queen Elizabeth, England had had very little influence among the nations of Europe: Cromwel [sic] raised his country to the highest importance: he went to war with the Dutch, then the greatest naval power in Europe, and gave the command of his fleet to admiral Blake, who by his meritorious exertions soon put an end to the vaunts of the Dutch admiral Van Tromp, that had fastened a broom to his main-mast, and boasted he would sweep the English vessels from the face of the sea.

Comwel [sic] was courted equally by the kings of France and Spain, who wished for his alliance: he decided for France: he remembered the Spanish Armada, and knew that the people of that country were the most bigoted Catholics in Europe: admiral Blake was not less [end 140] successful against the Spaniards, than he had before been against the Dutch: in the reign of Cromwel the island of Jamaica and the harbour of Dunkirk were added to the English dominions.

CHARLES II. 
1660. 
CHARLES THE SECOND HAD A GOOD DEAL OF WIT, BUT MADE A BAD USE OF IT; HE NEVER SAID A FOOLISH THING, NOR EVER DID A WISE ONE.

AS long as Cromwel [sic] lived, Charles II remained in exile, one misfortune followed from this; Charles II and his brother, James duke of York, became Catholics: Charles II, who had seldom serious thoughts about any thing, was contented to conceal his desertion of the religion in which he had been brought up; but the duke of York would make no secret of the matter.

After the death of Cromwel [sic], many experiments were made with the English government: Richard Cromwel [sic], his son, was lord protector for seven or eight months: at last with the approbation of a vast majority of the [end 142] nation, the king was sent for home again.

Charles the Second was a depraved and licentious character: he kept a great many mistresses, actresses, opera-dancers and others, and had a number of children by them, but none by his wife.

The people of England remembered how ill they had been governed by a Catholic sovereign, Bloody queen Mary; and a great party among them were anxious to shut out the duke of York from the succession to the crown, and to place it on the head of one of his daughters, [end 143] Mary and Anne: Charles II, who was seldom serious about any thing, made a conscience of this, and determined rather to lose the crown himself, than that his brother should not succeed him.

All king Charles's measures were bad, and his debauched way of living was very expensive: so that he had more things to quarrel with his parliament about, than the exclusion of the duke of York: at last he resolved, like his father, to govern without parliaments. [end 144]

The greatest literary genius of the reign of Charles II is sir Isaac Newton: he made many discoveries in mathematics and the knowledge of nature: he first demonstratively taught the true system of the universe; and his doctrines respecting light and colours, and many other subjects, are highly curious and important: sir Isaac Newton is the greatest natural philosopher that ever existed. [end 145]

The favourite poet of the reign of Charles II is Dryden: he is not so original as Shakespear, nor so sublime as Milton: he does not possess the imagination of Spenser, nor the acute observation of life displayed by Chaucer: but he has much fire, and still more richness of language and versification in his writings.

JAMES II. 
1685.

JAMES THE SECOND, LIKE HIS GRANDFATHER JAMES THE FIRST, WAS PUT TO A WRONG TRADE; HE WAS MORE LIKE A MONK, THAN A KING; HE WANTED TO MAKE US ROMAN CATHOLICS, BUT WE WERE A HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS TOO OLD FOR IT.

THE whole of the short reign of James II was devoted to one purpose, the re-establishment of the Roman Ca- [end 146] tholic religion in England: and he set about it with so much passion and so little prudence, that even the pope disapproved of his proceedings.

Charles II had a favourite son by one of his mistresses, the duke of Monmouth: this young man had been encouraged by some of the advocates of the bill of exclusion in the last reign, to hope that he might one day be king: four or five months after the accession of James II, he landed from Holland in the West of England, with a few followers: many of the more zealous Protestants in that part of the kingdom joined him: but he was defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor; and, being discovered in a ditch, with a few pease in his pocket for food, was conducted to London, and beheaded on Tower Hill: the savage and inhuman Jefferies was sent down to try the rebels: the brutality of his proceedings was long remem- [end 147] bered, and this transaction is commonly known by the name of the Bloody Western Assizes.

James II resolved that his ministers, and the persons in principal employment about him, should be Catholics: there was a law requiring that they should be Protestants: but James undertook of his own authority to dispense with this law: this he called his Dispensing Power.

There were several laws of England hostile to the Roman Catholics, forbidding them the open exercise of their religion, and subjecting them to other severities: James published of his own will and pleasure a Declaration of Indulgence suspending the operation of these laws, and ordered this Declaration to be read in all churches.

Another circumstance happened nearly at the same time, which in its consequences deprived James of the throne: this was the birth of his only son, June 10, 1688: previously to this, the next heir to the crown was Mary, the king's eldest daughter, a zealous Protestant: and, as James was now past middle age, his subjects had no doubt that Mary, after his death, would speedily undo all that the king could do: the birth of this son put an end to their hopes. [end 149] Mary was married to William prince of Orange, chief magistrate of the republic of Holland: he was a person of great ambition, sagacity and fortitude: it was well known that, if Mary succeeded to the crown of England, she would desire that the functions of government should be committed to her husband: to this prince therefore the Protestants looked for succour, and he resolved to gratify them: he sailed with a considerable fleet and army, to redress the injuries of the people of England, and oblige the king to call a free parliament: he landed at Torbay on the fourth of November, five months after the birth of the king's son: James II was deserted by almost every body; and, terrified at the recollection of his father's fate, fled secretly from his palace in the following month, and took refuge in France.

THE 
REVOLUTION

WILLIAM III. 
1689. 
WILLIAM THE THIRD WAS A DUTCHMAN: WE SENT FOR HIM OVER, BECAUSE WE WOULD NOT BE MADE ROMAN CATHOLICS BY JAMES THE SECOND; AND SO JAMES WAS SENT AWAY, AND WILLIAM REIGNED IN HIS STEAD.

THE discovery of America conduced more to the profit of the Spaniards than of any other European nation: they made themselves masters, by means of excessive cruelties, of the mines of Mexico and Peru: the neighbouring states began to fear that Spain would grow too powerful for the preservation of their independence. [end 153, n.b. page number not included on page]

Spain had once been under the dominion of the Saracens or Moors, who were Mahometans: the Christians afterward got the better: but the Moors of Spain were still very numerous, as well as very industrious: Philip II, the husband of Bloody queen Mary, could not bear that his subjects should be of any other religion than his own: so he drove out the Moors: ever since that time Spain has been thinly peopled, and has lost its industry, its ingenuity, and its strength.

As Spain declined, France became the most powerful government in Europe: when Cromwel [sic] directed his efforts against Spain, there was more reason why he should have been jealous of France, if indeed either of these countries afforded sufficient matter for jealousy.

Louis XIV reigned over France se- [end 154] venty-two years, and was the most prosperous of all her monarchs: William III thought that he was too powerful for the good of his neighbours, and formed a confederacy of England, Holland and Germany, to reduce him to a weaker condition.

The war was carried on principally in Flanders, a part of which country Louis XIV had taken from the Spaniards: William III fought several battles there, and was generally defeated: but, though Louis XIV won many victories, he gained no ground upon his inflexible enemy, and king William had the honour to give the first check to the progress of the power of France.

ANNE. 
1702. 
QUEEN ANNE WAS A QUIET, GOOD-NATURED WOMAN, AND WANTED NOTHING BUT PEACE: BUT THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH WAS HER GENERAL, AND WON SEVERAL FAMOUS BATTLES FOR HER ABROAD; HIS DUCHESS GOVERNED QUEEN ANNE AT HOME, AND WOULD SOMETIMES INSULT HER MAJESTY, AND THEN MAKE THE QUEEN BEG HER PARDON.

The duke of Marlborough was at first a great favourite with the English nation: they built for him the palace of Blenheim in honour of his battle of that name: at last people grew tired of the war: the duke of Marlborough never knew when to have done: Louis was humbled, but Marlborough would not make peace: a different party came into possession of the great offices of government, and made peace for him.

An accident at court contributed to [end 157] this change: great quarrels arose between queen Anne's favourites, the duchess of Marlborough and Mrs. Masham: queen Anne at length grew weary of the duchess's tyranny: one historian says, that the duchess of Marlborough spitefully spilled some watter on Mrs. Masham's best petticoat; Mrs. Masham determined to have her revenge by rooting the duchess out of queen Anne's good-will; and this decided the matter: it is a singular circumstance, that the duke and duchess of Marlborough are said to have been the handsomest man and woman at that time in England.

Another affair happened which conduced no less than the spoiling Mrs. Masham's petticoat, to check the duke of Marlborough in his career: it was the trial of doctor Sacheverel: the story is this.

In the reign of queen Elizabeth two [end 158] parties first rose in this country, one for the sovereign, the other for the people: they were then called episcopalians and puritans, that is, persons who wished to have bishops in England, and persons who thought religion would prosper better without them: these parties took opposite sides in the wars of Charles I.

If the doctrines of the tories were true, the Revolution was an act of treason, and king William a usurper: the duke of Marlborough was a whig, or at least his best friends were of that party: queen Anne was in her heart a tory: the tories however were not all of them friends of king James: they only thought the power of the crown was too narrow, and ought to be enlarged.

King William, by whose means James II was deprived of the crown, had been exceedingly desirous to fix the succession to the throne so as to prevent the object which had been effected at the Revolution from being ever undone again: he and his consort had no children: queen Anne had one son, the duke of Gloucester, who died at twelve years of age: at king William's instigation therefore an act of parliament was made, calling to the throne, after William and Mary and Anne, the family of Hanover, the nearest in the line of inheritance who were adherents to the Protestant religion.

Queen Anne was naturally desirous to bequeath her crown to her brother, the son of James II: the tories professed to be friends to the succession of the Hanover family; but their doc- [end 161] trines so clearly pointed the other way, that people doubted their sincerity: queen Anne died in the fiftieth year of her age: her ministers were tories; the whole nation was in alarm, lest they should be once more doomed to make experiment of a Roman Catholic king, who, out of respect to his father, would be inclined to treat every thing that had been done since his exile as a usurpation: if any plans of that sort had been seriously formed, they were defeated by the quarrels of the ministers, and the sudden decease of queen Anne: she died on the first of August 1714, and George, elector of Hanover, was the same day proclaimed king.

THE 
HOUSE OF HANOVER.

GEORGE I. 
1714. 
GEORGE THE FIRST WAS INVITED OVER TO ENGLAND TO PRESERVE THE PROTESTANT RELIGION: QUEEN ANNE WANTED TO HAVE GIVEN THE CROWN TO HER BROTHER, THE SON OF JAMES THE SECOND; BUT HE, LIKE HIS FATHER, WAS A CATHOLIC: IN 1715 THERE WAS A REBELLION IN SCOTLAND IN FAVOUR OF QUEEN ANNE'S BROTHER.

GEORGE II. 
1727. 
GEORGE THE SECOND HAD TO CONTEND WITH THE REBELLION IN 1745; THE REBELS WERE DEFEATED AT CULLODEN BY WILLIAM DUKE OF CUMBERLAND, THE KING'S SON.

GEORGE II continued the reins of government in the same hands in which his father had placed them: sir Robert [end 165] Walpole did not cease to be minister till the year 1742.

The immediate cause of sir Robert Walpole's loss of power, was that the people were foolishly tired of peace, and determined to have a war: George II thought he knew something of military matters: he commanded the English army with success at the battle of Dettingen.

The French thought they could not more effectually counteract the plans of George II, than by sending the nephew of queen Anne, commonly called the Young Pretender, over to invade us: he penetrated from the north of Scotland as far as Derby: every body was frightened: but he was obliged to go back to Scotland, and there the duke of Cumberland defeated him at the battle of Culloden: the Young Pretender through a thousand dangers escaped to France. [end 166.]

The first war in which George II engaged was not brilliant: the second was very much so: the proceedings of this war were directed by William Pitt, afterward earl of Chatham: we gained victories by sea, and conquests in America: our principal ally on the continent was Frederic, king of Prussia, who defended himself heroically against the joint attacks of France, Austria, Germany and Russia: this is what the king of Prussia has called, in his History of his Own Times, the Seven Years' War. [end 167]

GEORGE III. 
1760.

IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD, WHO HAS REIGNED BETWEEN FORTY AND FIFTY YEARS, HAPPENED THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: LORDS RODNEY, HOWE, DUNCAN, ST. VINCENT AND NELSON HAVE ADORNED THIS REIGN BY THEIR VICTORIES AT SEA.

While the Spaniards enriched themselves with the spoils of South America, the English planted industrious colonies on the shores of North America: it was for the defence of these colonies that we began the war that lord Chatham conducted: when the colo- [end 168] nies were grown to a certain degree of strength, the English parliament thought proper to impose taxes upon them: the colonies conceived they had as good a right as the English to pay no taxes but what they imposed upon themselves: on this question began the war between Great Britain and America.

The colonies declared themselves Independent States: the war lasted eight years: they were happy in having a noble leader to command their armies, George Washington: after some years, France and Spain, envying our prosperity, united their forces to support the Americans against us: in the end of the war their independence was established.

In 1789 began the French revolution: the French, who (as their name implies) were once as free as any nation in Europe, had for more than a century been reduced to complete subjection: as they were a proud nation, and more vain than proud, they could not bear to hear of the liberties of their neighbors, and feel that they themselves were slaves: the successful struggle of the Americans for independence particularly inflamed them.

Louis XVI then king of France, was a harmless, and well-meaning sovereign: yet he could not feel himself quite easy: his queen, sister to the emperor of Germany, who was very unpopular, felt still more alarmed: they tried to escape out of France, and join their friends on the frontiers: they were brought back: and Louis was some time after tried, as Charles I. had been, on an accusation of stirring up war against his country: he was sentenced, and experienced the same unhappy fate. [end 171]

When the French had cut off their king's head, England joined the confederacy against them, and the flames of war spread from one end of Europe to the other: France was finally victorious.

TABLES 
OF THE 
VARIOUS SUBJECTS TREATED OF OR ALLUDED TO IN THIS HISTORY.

N.B. Where no figure is found in the Tables, the subject is to be sought in its place, in the king's reign to which it belongs.

RELIGIONS. 
I. THE Druidical, or the religion of the Ancient Britons. [p. 12, 13, 69.] 
II. The Greek and Roman, the religion of Homer and Virgil. [p. 15.] 
III. The Scandinavian, or the religion of the Saxons and Danes: a book was written, which is the Bible of this religion, about the time [end 175, n.b. number not included on page] of William the Conqueror, called the Edda. [p. 19, 25.] 
IV. The Christian [p. 11, 16]: this religion became corrupted in the dark ages, when the popes employed it as their instrument, for imposing the most absurd doctrines (such as transubstantiation, or the actual change of the bread and wine in the sacrament, into the flesh and blood of Christ), and for exercising the greatest tyranny: the popes styled their adherents the Roman Catholic church. [p. 20, 24, 36, 46, 49, 60, 90, 112, 116.] The French, the Spaniards, the Italians, with the half of Germany and Poland, are Catholics.           
V. The Protestant: an attempt to purify the Christian religion from the corruptions of the church of Rome: begun by Martin Luther [end 176] and John Calvin. [p. 112, 116.] England, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and the other half of Germany and Poland, are Protestant. 
Russia, and the Christians of the Turkish empire, are of a third sect of Christians, called the Greek church. 
VI. The Episcopalians; so called form the Latin word, episcopus, a bishop: that division of Protestants, who maintain that the government of the Christian church ought to be by bishops: this party in the reign of Charles I. assumed the name of the Cavaliers. [p. 134, 137, 159.] 
VII. The Puritans: that division of Protestants, who opposed the government by bishops, and demanded a republican equality in matters of religion. This party [end 177] in the reign of Charles I. was familiarly nicknamed the Roundheads. [p. 137, 159.] 
Whig and Tory are scarcely religious parties, but succeeded in state affairs to the two parties last mentioned: when spoken of in relation to their religious prepossessions, they are usually called High Church and Low Church. [p. 159, 161.] 
VIII. The Mahometan: Mahomet, who began to propagate this religion in the year of our Lord 622, was a native of Arabia: the Turks, the Saracens, the Persians, the Moors, and many other nations are followers of Mahomet: their Bible is a book, called the Alcoran, written by Mahomet. [p. 36, 62, 154.] [end 178]

HEATHEN GODS.

STATES, NATIONS, OR RACES OF MEN. 
The Trojans: inhabitants of the city Troy to the west of Asia: Troy was taken and destroyed by the Greeks, 1184 years before Christ. 
[p.48.] [end 179] 
The Greeks: this race of men inhabited the country now called Turkey in Europe: they excelled all nations in subtlety and invention: the principal city of Greece was Athens. [p. 12, 28, 115, 123.] 
The Romans: this race of men was at one time the most temperate, public-spirited and virtuous, and at another the most licentious and debauched of mankind: they studied the learning of the Greeks: the Greeks and Romans are the most refined nations of antiquity. [p. 12, 13, 28, 82, 123.] 
The city of Rome has been famous in three forms of government: 
1. Under the republic. [p. 16.] 
2. Under the emperors. [p. 17.] 
3. Under the popes. 
The Britons: all the adherents of the ancient Druidical religion are in [end 180] their origin Celts: in ancient times they spread over the north of Europe: the Gauls, the ancient inhabitants of France, were of this race. [p. 12, 14, 18, 68.] 
                        The Goths 
                        The Vandals 
[p. 17.] The Huns 
                        The Lombards 
                        The Ostrogoths. 
The Saxons: this race of men came from the shores of the Baltic in the fifth century: they are supposed to be of the same origin as the Germans, and to be descended from the Goths. [p. 16, 24.] 
The Danes inhabited nearly the same regions as the Saxons, and are likewise descended from the Goths. [p. 23.] 
The same may be affirmed of the Normans: also of the Franks, who invaded France at the decline of [end 181] the Roman empire, and from whom the country received it present name. [p. 27.] 
The Saracens are the original followers of Mahomet, and came from Arabia: they were a refined and ingenious people: their capital Bagdad: their descendants are called the Moors. [p. 36, 37, 55, 15[?], 170.] 
The Turks are of Tartar origin, and come from the north of Asia: they conquered the Saracens, and put an end to their improvements. [p. 37, 115.] 
The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, [p. 38, 55.] 
The sultan of Egypt and Jerusalem. [p. 55.] 
The Miramolin, or emperor of Morocco. [p. 62.] 
Wales. [p. 18,68.] [end 182] 
Scotland. [p. 27, 70, 74, 119, 126, 134, 164, 166.] 
Ireland. [p. 54, 131, 138.] 
France. [p.12, and innumerable other places.] 
Spain. [p. 117, 120, 130, 140, 153, 168, 169, 171.] 
Germany. [p. 56, 155, 167, 171, 173.] 
Austria. [p. 57, 167.] 
Prussia. [p. 167, 171.] 
Hanover. [p. 161, 162, 164.] 
Russia. [p. 167.]           
Holland: the inhabitants are called the Dutch. [p. 140, 150, 155, 173.] 
Flanders, or the Netherlands. [p. 155, 173.] 
Switzerland. [p. 173.] 
South American (Mexico, Perus, &c.) [p. 111, 130, 153, 168.] 
North America; the American States. [p. 168, 169.] 
Jamaica. [p. 141.] 
The East Indies. [p. 169.] 
The Hindoos, or Gentoos. [p. 170.] [end 183]

LANGUAGES.

Greek. [p. 15, 115, 123.] 
Latin. [p. 15, 48, 123.] 
Saxon. [p. 20, 32.] 
French: this was the language of the court of England for more than 200 years after the Norman Conquest. [p. 32, 44.] 
English. [p. 20, 32, 84.] 
Italian. [p. 38] 
Hindoo 
Arabic [p. 170.] 
Persian.

INSTITUTIONS 
OF THE TENTH, ELEVENTH, AND TWELFTH CENTURIES.

ENGLISH FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

The Ancient British, or Druidical. 
The Provincial; Britain being made a province of the Roman empire, A.D. 42. 
The First Saxon, or the Heptarchy, 449. 
The Second Saxon, or the Monarchy, 800. 
The Danish Monarchy, 1017: it continued 24 years. 
The Norman, or Feudal Monarchy, established by William the Conqueror, 1066. 
Magna Charta, a charter defining the rights of the freemen of England, under king John, 1215. 
Rise of the House of Commons, under Henry III, 1265: the feudal system, thus corrected and improved, continued to be the [end 189] government of England for two hundred and twenty years. 
Arbitrary government of the Tudors. 
Liberty re-claimed under the Stuarts. 
The Republic, or Commonwealth: Oliver Cromwel [sic] Lord Protector: 1649. 
The Restoration: the Stuarts reseated upon the throne: 1660. 
The Revolution: the liberties Englishmen had claimed and fought for under the Stuarts, peaceably recognised under William III: 1688.

AGES OF LITERATURE.

LITERARY INSTITUTIONS.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

Stone-henge, a Druidical temple on Salisbury Plain. [p. 14.] 
Roman Palaces, Theatres and Temples in Britain. [p. 15.] 
The Tower of London was built by William the Conqueror. 
Westminster Hall was built by William Rufus. 
Westminster Abbey was rebuilt by Henry III, first built in the Heptarchy. 
Windsor-Castle was build by Edward III. 
Whitehall was built by cardinal Wolsey. [end 194]

BATTLES, SIEGES, TRIALS, EXECUTIONS, AND EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS.

The siege of Troy, or the Trojan war, eleven hundred and eighty-four years before Christ. [p. 48.] 
Manner of the Romans in celebrating their triumphs. [p. 28, 82.] 
Expedition of Julius Caesar against Britain. [p. 14.] 
The Roman emperors make themselves masters of Britain. [p. 14.] 
The Roman empire destroyed by the Goths and Vandals. [p. 17.] 
The Anglo-Saxons subdue Britain, and give to their conquest the name of England. [p. 16.] Gallant stand made by king Arthur: supposed Twelve Knights of the Round Table. [p. 18.] 
Commencement of the religion of Mahomet, 622. [p. 36.] 
Charlemagne: supposed Twelve Peers of France. [p. 113.] [end 195] 
The Danes invade England. [p. 23.] 
------- become sovereigns of England for 24 years. [p. 26.]

WILLIAM I. 
The Norman Conquest.

WILLIAM II. 
The Crusades. 
Jerusalem taken by the Crusaders. 
William II accidentally shot.

STEPHEN. 
Civil wars of Stephen and Maud. 
Escape of Maud from Oxford and Wallingford.

HENRY II. 
Conquest of Ireland. 
Jerusalem taken by Saladin.

RICHARD I. 
Crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem. 
Siege of Acre. 
Battle of Ascalon.

JOHN. 
Murder of prince Arthur. [end 196] 
England in part conquered by the dauphin, son of the king of France.

HENRY III. 
The dauphin expelled. 
Wars of the barons. 
Battle of Lewes. 
Battle of Evesham.

EDWARD I. 
Edward stabbed with a poisoned dagger before Jerusalem. 
Conquest of Wales. 
Conquest of Scotland. 
Execution of sir William Wallace.

EDWARD II. 
Battle of Bannockburn: Scotland recovers its independence. 
Execution of Gaveston. 
Execution of the Spencers, father and son. 
Edward II murdered.

EDWARD III. 
Battle of Cressy. [end 197] 
Siege of Calais. 
Battle of Poitiers: John, king of France, taken prisoner.

RICHARD II. 
Wat Tyler's insurrection. 
Richard II. starved to death.

HENRY IV. 
Plots and conspiracies: Henry Hotspur.

HENRY V. 
Battle of Agincourt. 
Conquest of France.

HENRY VI. 
Orleans besieged by the English; relieved by Joan of Arc. 
English expelled from France. 
Constantinople taken by the Turks. [p. 115.] 
Civil wars of York and Lancaster. 
Battle of Wakefield: duke of York killed. [end 198]

EDWARD IV. 
Battle of Hexham: Margaret flies: adventure of the Forest. 
Battle of Barnet: earl of Warwick killed. 
Battle of Tewkesbury.

RICHARD III. 
Supposed murder of the two young princes in the Tower. 
Battle of Bosworth.

HENRY VII. 
Perkin Warbeck hanged. 
Discovery of America by Colombus.

HENRY VIII. 
The Reformation. 
Henry VIII puts two of his queens to death. 
Execution of sir Thomas More. 
Execution of the earl of Surry.

MARY. 
Execution of lady Jane Grey. 
Three hundred Protestants burned [end 199] alive for their religion in four years.

ELIZABETH. 
Execution of Mary queen of Scots. 
Spanish Armada, 1588. 
Ireland wholly reduced.

JAMES I. 
Gunpowder plot.

OLIVER CROMWEL. [sic] 
Conquest of Ireland. [end 200] 
Battle of Dunbar. 
Battle of Worcester. 
Victories of Blake over the Dutch. 
Victories of Blake over the Spaniards. 
Jamaica taken. 
Dunkirk taken.

CHARLES II.
The Restoration, 1660. 
Pretended Popish plot by Titus Oates. 
Supposed plot of Algernon Sydney and lord Russel: they are beheaded.

JAMES II. 
Battle of Sedgemoor; duke of Monmouth beheaded. 
Bloody Western Assizes by Judge Jefferies. 
Trial of the Seven Bishops. 
Abdication of king James: the Revolution, 1688.

WILLIAM III. 
War of the allies to reduce the power of Louis XIV. [end 201]

ANNE. 
Second war to reduce the power of Louis XIV. 
Battle of Blenheim. 
Battle of Ramilies. 
Battle of Oudenarde. 
Trial of Doctor Sacheveral.

GEORGE I. 
Rebellion of 1715 headed by the Pretender.

GEORGE II. 
Battle of Dettingen. 
Rebellion of 1745 headed by the Young Pretender. 
Battle of Culloden. 
The British arms victorious by sea and land, under the direction of William Pitt, earl of Chatham.

GEORGE III. 
Turbulence of John Wilkes. 
Conquests of the English in the East Indies. [end 202] 
American war: the Americans aided by France and Spain: they are successful. 
French Revolution. 
Execution of Louis XVI. 
War of the allies against France: the French conquer Flanders, Holland, Switzerland, and other countries. 
Peace of Amiens. 
Napoleon I, emperor of France. 
Second war of the allies against France. 
Vienna taken by the French. 
Death of William Pitt, prime minister.

PUBLIC CHARACTERS 
Julius Caesar, first Roman emperor. 
[p. 12, 14.] 
Claudius, fourth Roman emperor. 
[p. 14.] [end 203] 
Caractacus, king of Britain. [p. 14.] 
Constantine, emperor of Rome. [p. 15, 16.] 
Hengist and Horsa, kings of Kent. 
[p. 19.] 
King Arthur. [p. 18.] 
Mahomet. [p. 36.] 
Charlemagne, king of France. [p. 143.] 
King Egbert. [p. 21.] 
King Alfred. [p. 21.] 
King Canute. [p. 26.] 
King Edward the Confessor. [p. 27, 28.] 
Macbeth, king of Scotland. [p. 27.]

WILLIAM II. 
Robert, duke of Normandy.

HENRY I. 
William, the king's only son. 
Maud, empress of Germany, his daughter. [end 204] 
1. Henry. 
2. Richard I. 
3. Geoffrey, married to the heiress of Britanny. 
4. John. 
Fair Rosamond. 
Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. 
RICHARD I. 
Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Jerusalem. 
Leopold, duke of Austria. 
Robin Hood.

JOHN. 
Arthur of Britanny, son of Geoffrey, John's elder brother, true heir to the crown. 
Louis, dauphin of France.

HENRY III. 
William Marshal, lord protector. 
Simon Montfort. [end 205]

EDWARD I. 
Queen Eleanora of Castille. 
John Baliol and Robert Bruce, competitors for the crown of Scotland. 
Sir William Wallace. 
Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, grandson of the former Robert Bruce.

EDWARD II. 
Queen Isabella of France. 
Gaveston. 
The Spencers, father and son. 
Roger Mortimer, earl of March.

EDWARD III. 
Queen Philippa of Hainault. 
Sons of Edward III and queen Philippa. 
1. Edward, the Black Prince. 
2. Lionel, duke of Clarence: his daughter Philippa married Edmund Mortimer, earl of March. 
3. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. 
4. Edmund of Langley, duke of York. [end 206] 
5. Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester. 
John, king of France. 
Eustache de St. Pierre, citizen of Calais.

RICHARD II. 
Wat Tyler. 
Walworth, mayor of London. 
Vere, earl of Oxford.

HENRY IV. 
Edmund Mortimer, grandson of Philippa of Clarence, true heir to the crown. 
Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur.

HENRY VI. Queen Margaret of Anjou. 
The prince, son of Henry VI and queen Margaret. 
Joan of Arc. 
Richard, duke of York, lord protector, grandson of Edmund of Langley, true heir to the crown: his mother was a Mortimer. [end 207] 
Sons of Richard duke of York, by Cicely Neville. 
1. Edward IV. 
2. George duke of Clarence. 
3. Richard, duke of Gloucester, afterward Richard III.

EDWARD IV. 
Lady Eleanor Butler, supposed wife to the king. 
Queen Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the princes. 
Neville, earl of Warwick, surnamed the king-maker, first cousin to Edward IV.

EDWARD V. 
Duke of York, brother to the king, supposed to have been murdered by Richard III: in the reign of Henry VII appeared a yo[...], known in history by the name of Perkin Warbeck, who said he was the duke of York. [end 208]

HENRY VII. 
Queen Elizabeth Plantagenet, sister to the princes. 
Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, sister to Edward IV and Richard III 
Empson and Dudley, oppressive ministers of Henry VII. 
Christopher Columbus.

HENRY VIII. 
Cardinal Wolsey. 
Queen Anne Boleyn, mother of queen Elizabeth.

EDWARD VI. 
Young Browne, the king's whipping-boy.

MARY. 
Lady Jane Grey. 
Philip II, king of Spain, husband to queen Mary 
Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. 
Ridley, bishop of London. [end 209]

ELIZABETH. 
Lord Burleigh. 
Sir Francis Walsingham. 
Mary queen of Scots. 
Sir Francis Drake. 
Sir Walter Raleigh. 
Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. 
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex.

JAMES I. 
Carr. 
Sir Thomas Overbury. 
Villiers, duke of Buckingham.

CHARLES I. 
Felton. 
John Hambden [sic]. 
Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford.

OLIVER CROMWEL. 
Robert Blake, English admiral. 
Van Tromp, admiral of Holland.

CHARLES II. 
Richard Cromwel, lord protector. 
Titus Oates. 
Chief Justice Jefferies. [end 210] 
William lord Russel. 
Algernon Sydney.

JAMES II. 
Duke of Monmouth.

WILLIAM III. 
Queen Mary, daughter of James II. 
Duke of Gloucester, son of the princess, afterward queen, Anne. 
Louis XIV, king of France.

ANNE. 
Duke of Marlborough. 
Duchess of Marlborough. 
Mrs. Masham. 
Doctor Sacheverel.

GEORGE I. 
The Pretender, son of James II. 
Sir Robert Walpole.

GEORGE II. 
The Young Pretender, son to the former. 
William, duke of Cumberland. 
William Pitt, earl of Chatham. [end 211] 
Frederic, king of Prussia.

GEORGE III. 
John Wilkes. 
George Washington, president of the United States of America. 
Louis XVI, king of France. 
George Brydges Rodney, lord Rodney. 
Richard Howe, earl Howe. 
Adam Duncan, viscount Duncan. 
John Jervis, earl of Saint Vincent. 
Horatio Nelson, viscount Nelson. 
Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France. 
William Pitt.

AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS.

IN JUDEA, OR THE HOLY LAND. 
The Bible, or the Books of the Old Testament: the first part of this most interesting collection of the [end 212] early history of the human race, was written by Moses, about one thousand five hundred years before Christ: the following divisions of the volume consist of the history of the Judges and Kings of the Jews, the works of David and Solomon, and the sublime writings of the prophets: every Christian ought to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the contents of the sacred volume: the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, or the language of the Jews. 
The New Testament: this consists principally of two parts; the Life of Jesus Christ, the adored founder of the Christian religion; and the Letters of his twelve apostles, or delegates, written for the instruction of the first professors of the Christian faith: [end 213] the New Testament was written in Greek. [p. 90, 131.] 
Homer: he is usually considered as the father of that poetry, which is not appropriated to the uses of religion: he lived nine hundred years before Christ: his works are the Iliad, a historical poem on the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey, a historical poem on Ulysses, one of the Grecian kings by whom Troy was destroyed: it has been doubted whether Homer could either read or write, and whether his poems were not handed down for a long time, like those of our British Druids, by memory only: as Homer is the oldest, so he is perhaps the most perfect, of the poets. [p. 15, 115.] 
Pindar: he wrote principally Odes on [end 214] the Grecian chariot-races and other games: Homer and Pindar are considered as the sublimest of the Grecian poets. [p. 115.] 
Sophocles wrote one hundred and twenty tragedies, and lived ninety years: the city of Athens laid out 20,000l. in the decorations of one of his plays. [p. 123.] 
Euripides wrote seventy-five tragedies: he and Sophocles lived at the same time, and emulated each other in the exhibition of tragic merit. [p. 123.] 
Plato: he is one of the most admired of the prose-writers of Greece: he wrote on moral philosophy, political philosophy, and the principles of the universe, with all the fire and imagination of a poet. [p. 115.] 
Menander wrote one hundred and eight comedies. [p. 123.] [end 215]

IN ANCIENT ROME. 
Terence: we possess of this writer six elegant comedies. [p. 123.] 
Caesar: he was a great general, and enslaved his country: he wrote Commentaries, or the history of his own wars. [p. 12.] 
Virgil: he wrote the Aeneid, a historical poem on Aeneas, one of the kings who defended Troy, and who was regarded by the Roman people as their founder: his poem has been so much admired, that when we would speak of the best poets, it is usual to join together Virgil and Homer. [p. 15.] 
Ovid: he is called the poet of love: several fine works of Ovid remain: Medea, and admired tragedy of his composing, is lost. [p. 123.] 
Seneca: only seven of the ancient Roman tragedies have been pre- [end 216] served: they bear the name of Seneca, but it is uncertain by whom they were written. [p. 123.]

IN MODERN ITALY. 
Tasso: he wrote a historical poem on the Delivery of Jerusalem from the Saracens: he lived in the time of queen Elizabeth. [p. 38.]

IN GERMANY. 
Martin Luther: he lived in the reign of Henry VIII.

IN FRANCE. 
John Calvin: he lived in the reign of Henry VIII.

IN PRUSSIA. 
Frederic II: he wrote a History of his Own Times, and Other Works: he died in 1786. [p. 167.]

IN ENGLAND. 
The Druids: from the disinterestedness of these memorable personages, [end 217] or from accident, we only know that many thousands of verses were composed by them, but we are unacquainted with the name of any of the authors: an inferior class in the Druidical establishment are the Bards, who made heroic songs of the great actions of their countrymen: in allusion to them a poet is frequently in modern speech denominated a Bard: probably no genuine compositions of the ancient heathen Druids or Bards are preserved. [p. 12, 69.] 
The Scalds, called also the Scandinavian or Runic poets: these were the poets of our northern ancestors, particularly the Danes: the names of some of these poets and several of their works, are preserved. [p. 25.] 
The Minstrels: these were the poets [end 218] of the Norman and Plantagenet times: both the Minstrels and the Scalds travelled the country, and sung their songs at festivals and great men's houses: the Minstrels were the first introducers of stage-plays among the moderns. [p. 44, 57, 123.] 
The Monks: these were men who lived together in large houses called monasteries and convents: they engaged by a vow never to marry: as there was no such thing as printing, a part of their employment was transcribing books: and, as the monks were very numerous, and had a great deal of leisure, they wrote many books themselves in the Latin language, some so well that they have passed for works of the ancient Romans: they made also religious plays in emulation of [end 219] the profane plays of the Minstrels: the most profound and excellent writers among the Monks are a set of men known by the name of the Schoolmen: of these Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas are the most celebrated. [p.48, 123.]

WILLIAM I. 
Doomsday-Book: an account of all the estates in England.

RICHARD I. 
Blondel: a minstrel: a native of Provence, or the south of France. [end 220]

HENRY III. 
Friar Bacon.

EDWARD III. 
Chaucer, the father of English poetry: his principal work is Canterbury Tales.

RICHARD II. 
Wicliffe: he first translated the Bible into English.

HENRY VI. 
Blind Harry, a poet of Scotland. [p. 73.]

EDWARD IV. 
Caxton, the first English printer: he wrote some of the books, which he printed.

HENRY VIII. 
Sir Thomas More. 
Henry Howard, earl of Surry. 
Archbishop Cranmer.

EDWARD VI. 
Gammer Gurton's Needle, a comedy. [p. 124.]

MARY. 
Thomas Sackville, lord Dorset.

ELIZABETH. 
Sir Philip Sidney. 
Spenser. [p. 18: he is spoken of again in his place; reign of Elizabeth.] 
Shakespear

JAMES I. 
Sir Walter Raleigh. 
Ben Jonson. 
Beaumont and Fletcher. 
Lord Bacon. 
Our present translation of the Bible.

OLIVER CROMWEL. [sic] 
Milton. 
CHARLES II. 
Sir Isaac Newton. 
Dryden: the most popular of his works, [end 222] is an Ode for St. Cecilia's day, commonly called Alexander's Feast.

WILLIAM III. 
Locke.

ANNE. 
Swift. 
Pope. 
Addison.

GEORGE III. 
Doctor Samuel Johnson. 
Boswel. [sic] [he is not named for his own merit, but because he recorded the conversations of another.] 
Gray. [p. 25, 70.] 
Burns. [p. 74.]

THE END.

---------------

Printed by B. M^cMillan, 
Bow Street, Covent Garden. [end 224]

NEW BOOKS FOR CHILDREN, 
Published by THOMAS HODGKINS, at the JUVENILE LIBRARY, Hanway Street (opposite Soho Square) Oxford Street, and to be had of all Booksellers. I. 
Elegantly printed in two volumes, 12mo. and adorned with seventy-three superb engravings. Price 8s. handsomely bound in coloured paper, 
FABLES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
By EDWARD BALDWIN, Esq. 
“These Fables are better calculated to excite the attention of Children, to amuse and instruct them, than any we have ever perused. We recommend them without reserve.”

British Critic for November.

“They are unquestionably written on a much better plan, for making an impression on, and conveying instruction to, those for whose use they are designed, than any other Fables which have fallen under our cognizance.”

Anti-Jacobin Review and Mag. for December.

"This is not a common-place collection, but possesses much novelty and interest. The style is far superior to that of any Fables in our language. The Engravings are all made from original Designs, many of which abound with character."

General Review for Feb.

"They are neatly written; and are ornamented with Plates, considerably superior to what are usually found in works of a similar nature."

European Mag. for November.

For a further character of this Work, see Critical Review, Eclectic Review, Literary Journal, and Monthly Mirror.

II. 
Elegantly printed in one volume duodecimo, Price 4s. 
handsomely bound in coloured paper,           
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, for the Use of Schools and Young Persons. 
By EDWARD BALDWIN, Esq. 
With Thirty-two Heads of the Kings, engraved on copper-plate, and a striking Representation of an Ancient Tournament. [end 225, n.b. not paginated]

III. 
Illustrated with five copper-plates. Price 1s. 
THE LOOKING-GLASS: 
A Mirror in which every Good Boy and Girl may see what He or She is; and those who are not yet Quite Good, may find what they ought to be. 
By THEOPHILIUS MARCLIFFE.

IV. 
Illustrated with a Portrait, elegantly engraved. Price 1s. 
LIFE OF LADY JANE GREY, and of LORD GUILDFORD DUDLEY her Husband. 
By THEOPHILUS MARCLIFFE. 
This Young Lady, at Twelve Years of Age, understood Eight Languages; was for Nine Days Queen of England; and was Beheaded in the Tower in the Seventeenth Year of her Age, being at that Time the most Amiable and Accomplished Woman in Europe.

V. 
Illustrated in fifteen elegant engravings. Price 1s. plain, or 1s. 6d. coloured, 
THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS: 
Showing how Notably the Queen made her Tarts, and how Scurvily the Knave stole them away.

VI. 
Illustrated in fifteen elegant engravings. Price 1s. plain, or 1s. 6d. coloured, 
THE LITTLE WOMAN AND THE PEDLAR 
With the Strange Distraction that seized her, and the Undutiful Behaviour of her Little Dog on that Occasion.

N.B. Copies of the two preceding Publications are kept on sale in Sheets, for ladies who wish to use them as Ornaments for Screens; and may be had, either in a peculiarly delicate style of colouring, or plain by those who prefer colouring them for themselves.