A

HISTORY OF ENGLAND;

COMBINING THE VARIOUS HISTORIES

BY

RAPIN, HENRY, HUME, SMOLLETT, AND BELSHAM:

CORRECTED BY REFERENCE TO

TURNER, LINGARD, MACKINTOSH, HALLAM, BRODIE, GODWIN,

And other Sources.

COMPILED AND ARRANGED

BY

F. G. TOMLINS,

EDITOR OF THE "HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES," "ANCIENT UNIVERSAL HISTORY,"

&c. &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

FROM THE

INVASION BY THE ROMANS, B. c. 55, TO THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES, A. D. 1841.

VOL. I.

HALIFAX:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM MILNER,

CHEAPSIDE.

MDCCCXLV.

PREFACE.

THE materials of English history are more copious than those of any other country. The spirit of liberty and the consequent inclination to discussion, which has animated the nation from the remotest periods of civilization, have tended to this circumstance. From Gildas to Baker extends a long line of excellent chroniclers; and from Bacon to Hallam we possess a rich mass of what may be termed philosophical historians. Of the latter class, the names of Rapin, Hume, Smollett, and Henry, are the most widely diffused; although amongst the reading classes, the more modern, Hallam, Turner, Lingard, Mackintosh, Brodie, Godwin, and others, are establishing a decisive authority. To extraneous materials, such as particular histories, extended biographies, and controversial dissertations, in which we equally abound, it is not within the compass of our present purpose to allude.

With such a profusion of histories, it may appear strange that an additional one should be required; but the very accumulation proves the necessity. Each successive historian has written with a view of superseding his predecessor, and has produced arguments wherewith to justify his literary usurpation. Rapin found the English annals a disjointed mass of party statements; Hume thought them a a prolix collection concocted without spirit and without purport; Henry complained that the progress of civilization was not developed ; and later historians have urged against all their precursors, political bias and want of due research. These latter have again divided amongst themselves. One is accused of scepticism, and another of bigotry. One, it is said, leans towards the aristocracy, another towards the democracy. One is too full of dissertation, another too minute in his narration.

These mutual accusations have all some truth in them. History, unfortunately, is a kind of border land in literature, which, bounded on one hand by politics, and on the other by religion and morality, has but too often become the field where opposing theories have fiercely contended. Our chroniclers are not so deeply chargeable with this fault, as our philosophical writers. When statesmen became historians; when More narrated the reign of the last Yorkist; and Bacon drew the portrait of the first Tudor; then commenced a system of party writing, that has ever since tinged our annals with a false and delusive colour. The honour of history then disappeared; and a rhetoric, as specious, and more brilliant, than that which disgraced the declining grandeur of Rome, arose.

But though our historians may but too much have assimilated themselves to the literati of a decaying empire; thank Heaven! the people have progressed in an opposite direction. Whilst our annalists have been sinking to special pleading, the mass have risen to solid thinking. The power of party has been daily lessening; the prejudices of distinct classes are gradually melting, and an earnest desire for the truth is universally manifesting itself.

To meet this feeling, the present history has been compiled; and with a just admiration of the unrivalled ability which adorns much of our annals, the Editor has humbly approached

his task; guided by the admirable criticism which has now for thirty years done so much to purify and elevate the public taste. To combine, as far as is practicable, the excellencies of all parties, has been his aim; and thus to give in a connected mode, those improvements and additions which the last half century has afforded to this branch of our literature.

Hume is the basis of the work, and his eloquent narration is only broken in upon, where he is discovered to have erred from a want of those means, which the diligence of subsequent historians has supplied; or where his political bias has been proved to have led him into erroneous statements. The Saxon portion of the history is taken from Rapin, a name which always inspires respect, if not admiration, from the fidelity and diligence with which he composed. His language is poor and tedious; though in the present condensation it has been retrenched, where it was possible to do so, without altering his style; it being the particular object of the present series of works to give the standard authors of the country with all their originality, when compatible with the conveyance of sound and undoubted facts. But the great feature of the present undertaking, is the incorporation of that portion of the history by Henry, which illustrates the progress of the nation in Literature, Arts, and Manners; a part of history which has been but too much neglected, although these are subjects which concern every one; and are often far more important than the most brilliant victory or the most successful treaty. It has been the error of historians to deem a notice of them beneath the dignity of history; a phrase which generally means an inflated account of the transactins of a few individuals out of a nation. But we are growing wiser; the means by which men have been humanized, and by which civilized comforts have been multiplied, are now deemed more worthy of consideration than the change of a dynasty or the contest of a faction.

Turner, Lingard, Mackintosh, and Hallam, have all been carefully looked to during the progress of the work; and the opinions of these, in many respects admirable writers, have been quoted when they have thrown new light on our history and equal care has been taken to refer for the like purpose to all the other modern celebrated writers who have treated of a later period, and particularly Godwin, Brodie, and D'Israeli.

To that class, even, who can afford to indulge in the luxury of books, our work may offer the advantage of giving in a succinct shape the excellencies of many authors. But to those to whom books are a necessary, and the means of procuring them a consideration, we confidently offer it as a valuable collection, which will at once save them much time and money. A history of his native country, must be, to every intelligent inhabitant of it a desideratum; and in the present he will find, not a work re-written by one whose name cannot attract attention, but a combination of our most celebrated writers; illustrated by much interesting information from those later authors who are alone prevented, by the high price of their works, from benefitting that class, whose pecuniary circumstances are not commensurate with the mental elevation which modern education has bestowed upon them.