



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: 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 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 Great Britain 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 nineteenth
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