The Evolution of an Empire

The Evolution of an Empire

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Title: The Evolution of an Empire
Author: Mary Parmele
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6134] [Yes, we are more than one
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EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE ***

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THE EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE A BRIEF HISTORICAL
SKETCH OF ENGLAND
BY MARY PARMELE

PREFACE.
Will the readers of this little work please bear in mind the difficulties
which must attend the painting of a very large picture, with
multitudinous characters and details, upon a very small canvas! This
book is mainly an attempt to trace to their sources some of the currents
which enter into the life of England to-day; and to indicate the
starting-points of some among the various threads--legislative, judicial,
social, etc.--which are gathered into the imposing strand of English
Civilization in this closing 19th Century.
The reader will please observe that there seem to have been two things
most closely interwoven with the life of England. RELIGION and
MONEY have been the great evolutionary factors in her development.
It has been, first, the resistance of the people to the extortions of money
by the ruling class, and second, the violating of their religious instincts,
which has made nearly all that is vital in English History.
The lines upon which the government has developed to its present
Constitutional form are chiefly lines of resistance to oppressive
enactments in these two matters. The dynastic and military history of
England, although picturesque and interesting, is really only a narrative
of the external causes which have impeded the Nation's growth toward
its ideal of "the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number."
M. P.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I
.
Ancient Britain--Caesar's Invasion--Britain a Roman
Province--Boadicea --Lyndin or London--Roman Legions
Withdrawn--Angles and Saxons-- Cerdic--Teutonic Invasion--English
Kingdoms Consolidated
CHAPTER II
.
Augustine--Edwin--Caedmon--Baeda--Alfred--Canute--Edward the
Confessor--Harold--William the Conqueror
CHAPTER III
.
"Gilds" and Boroughs--William II.--Crusades--Henry I.--Henry II.--
Becket's Death--Richard I.--John--Magna Charta
CHAPTER IV
.
Henry III.--Roger Bacon--First True Parliament--Edward I.--Conquest
of Wales--of Scotland--Edward II.--Edward III.--Battle of
Crecy--Richard II.--Wickliffe
CHAPTER V
House of Lancaster--Henry IV.--Henry V.--Agincourt--Battle of
Orleans-- Wars of the Roses--House of York--Edward IV.--Richard
III.--Henry VII. --Printing Introduced
CHAPTER VI
Henry VIII--Wolsey--Reformation--Edward VI--Mary
CHAPTER VII
Elizabeth--East India Company Chartered--Colonization of Virginia--

Flodden Field--Birth of Mary Stuart--Mary Stuart's Death--Spanish
Armada--Francis Bacon
CHAPTER VIII
James I--First New England Colony--Gunpowder Plot--Translation of
Bible--Charles I--Archbishop Laud--John Hampden--_Petition of
Right_-- Massachusetts Chartered--Earl Strafford--Star Chamber
CHAPTER IX
Long Parliament--Death of Strafford and Laud--Oliver
Cromwell--Death of Charles I.--Long Parliament Dispersed--Charles II.
CHAPTER X
Act of Habeas Corpus--Death of Charles II.--Milton--Bunyan--James II.
--William and Mary--Battle of Boyne
CHAPTER XI
.
Anne--Marlborough--Battle of Blenheim--House of Hanover--George
I.-- George II.--Walpole--British Dominion in India--Battle of
Quebec--John Wesley
CHAPTER XII
.
George III.--Stamp Act--Tax on Tea--American Independence
Acknowledged --Impeachment of Hastings--War of 1812--First English
Railway--George IV.--William IV.--Reform Bill--Emancipation of the
Slaves
CHAPTER XIII
.
Victoria--Famine in Ireland--War with Russia--Sepoy
Rebellion--Massacre at Cawnpore

CHAPTER XIV
.
Atlantic Cable--Daguerre's Discovery--First World's Fair--Death of
Albert--Suez Canal--Victoria Empress of India--Disestablishment of
Irish Branch of Church of England--Present Conditions

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I
.
The remotest fact in the history of England is written in her rocks.
Geology tells us of a time when no sea flowed between Dover and
Calais, while an unbroken continent extended from the Mediterranean
to the Orkneys.
Huge mounds of rough stones called Cromlechs, have yielded up still
another secret. Before the coming of the Keltic-Aryans, there dwelt
there two successive races, whose story is briefly told in a few human
fragments found in these "Cromlechs." These remains do not bear the
royal marks of Aryan origin. The men were small in stature, with
inferior skulls; and it is surmised that they belonged to