Magna Charta, 1215: King John submits to the Barons,
and signs the Great Charter of British Liberties.

A SHORT HISTORY OF

ENGLAND, IRELAND
AND SCOTLAND

BY

MARY PLATT PARMELE

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1907

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON

COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1900, 1906, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

PREFACE

Will the readers of this little work please bear in mind thedifficulties 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 thecurrents which enter into the life of Great Britain to-day, and toindicate the starting-points of some among the variousthreads—legislative, judicial, social, etc.—which are gathered intothe imposing strand of English civilization in this closing nineteenthcentury.

The reader will please observe that there seem to have been two thingsmost closely interwoven with the life of England—RELIGION and MONEYhave been the great evolutionary factors in her development.

It has been, first, the resistance of the people to the extortions ofmoney by the ruling class, and second, the violating of their religiousinstincts, which has made nearly all that is vital in English history.

The lines upon which the government has developed to its presentconstitutional form are chiefly lines of resistance to oppressiveenactments in these two matters. The dynastic and military history ofEngland, although picturesque and interesting, is really only anarrative of the external causes which have impeded the nation's growthtoward its ideal of "the greatest possible good to the greatestpossible number."

The historic development of Ireland and Scotland, and the events whichhave brought these two countries into organic union with England are,of necessity, very briefly related.

M. P. P.

CONTENTS

HISTORY OF ENGLAND