Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I THE CHIEF CRISES IN THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLAND
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I The Britons, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons
- CHAP. II Transfer of the Anglo-Saxon crown to the Normans and Plantagenets
- CHAP. III The crown in conflict with Church and Nobles
- CHAP. IV Foundation of the Parliamentary Constitution
- CHAP. V Deposition of Richard II. The House of Lancaster
- BOOK II ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE KINGDOM INDEPENDENTLY IN ITS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
- BOOK III QUEEN ELIZABETH. CLOSE CONNEXION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
- BOOK IV FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER THE STUARTS
- BOOK V DISPUTES WITH PARLIAMENT DURING THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I AND THE EARLIER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
CHAP. I - The Britons, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I THE CHIEF CRISES IN THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLAND
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I The Britons, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons
- CHAP. II Transfer of the Anglo-Saxon crown to the Normans and Plantagenets
- CHAP. III The crown in conflict with Church and Nobles
- CHAP. IV Foundation of the Parliamentary Constitution
- CHAP. V Deposition of Richard II. The House of Lancaster
- BOOK II ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE KINGDOM INDEPENDENTLY IN ITS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
- BOOK III QUEEN ELIZABETH. CLOSE CONNEXION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
- BOOK IV FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER THE STUARTS
- BOOK V DISPUTES WITH PARLIAMENT DURING THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I AND THE EARLIER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
Summary
The history of Western Europe in general opens with the struggle between Kelts, Romans, and Germans, which determined out of what elements modern nations should be formed.
Just as it is supposed that Albion in early times was connected with the Continent, and only separated from it by the raging sea-flood which buried the intermediate lands in the abyss, so in ethnographic relations it would seem as if the aboriginal Keltic tribes of the island had been only separated by some accident from those which occupied Gaul and the Netherlands. The Channel is no national boundary. We find Belgians in Britain, Britons in Eastern Gaul, and very many names of peoples common to both coasts; there were tribes which, though separated by the sea, yet acknowledged the same prince. Without being able to prove how far natives of the island took part in the expeditions of conquest, which pouring forth from Gaul inundated the countries on the Danube and Italy, Greece and Western Asia, we yet can trace the affinity of names and tribes as far as these expeditions extend. This island was the home of the religion that gave a certain unity to the populations, which, though closely akin, nevertheless contended with each other in ceaseless discord. It was that Druidic discipline which combined a priestly constitution with civil privileges, and with a very peculiar doctrine of a political and even moral purport. We might be tempted to suppose that the atrocity of human sacrifice was first introduced among them by the Punic race.
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- A History of EnglandPrincipally in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 5 - 21Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1875