E-text prepared by Brian Coe, MWS,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive/American Libraries
(https://archive.org/details/americana)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See https://archive.org/details/battlesofenglish00geor |
BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY
BATTLES
OF
ENGLISH HISTORY
BY
HEREFORD B. GEORGE, M.A., F.R.G.S.
FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1895
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,London & Bungay.
PREFACE
It has been the business of my life to teach history: andthe informal division of labour which comes to pass in aUniversity has led me to pay special attention to the militaryside of it. This aspect of history involves much comparisonof statements and weighing of evidence, and is thereforecalculated to be very useful to those for whom the study ofhistory is, not their permanent occupation, but the meansof completing their mental training. Campaigns and battlespresent in an exceptionally clear shape the stock problemsof history, what was done, why it was done, what were theresults, what ought to have been done, what would havebeen the consequences if this or that important detail hadbeen different.
It is however not easy to gain from books a clear generalidea of a campaign or a battle, harder perhaps than to obtaina similar grasp of the work of a legislator, or of the drift ofa social change. To the ordinary historian the military sideis only one aspect of his theme, and very possibly an aspectwhich interests him but little. He narrates the facts asgiven him by his authorities: but when these are vague,as mediæval writers mostly are, or discrepant, as modernwriters are who mean to be precise and write from differentstandpoints, he need be something of an expert to make hisnarrative lifelike. On the other hand, purely military worksare, very reasonably, technical: they are written for experts,to whom the technical language is familiar, and they oftengo into considerable detail. Ordinary readers are apt, consequently,to want help in obtaining from them a clear ideaof the outline of events. Like Pindar's poetic shafts, theyare φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν, ἐς δὲ τοπὰν ἑρμηνέων χατίζει.
Having experienced these difficulties myself, both as[viii]student and as teacher, I have thought that I might rendersome service by trying to act as interpreter, and to describethe chief military events of English history in a way whichshall not be technical, but yet shall bring out their meaning.I do not write for experts, though it is they who must judge