YORK LANCASTER

Edward iv. John Beaufort

Margaret Beaufort

Elizabeth of York m. Henry vii.

1. 16. Louis XI., king of France, reigned from 1461-1483. In order to weaken his feudal vassals he greatly increased the power and number of parliaments, an institution agreeable to the towns and to the middle class, and to which he began to grant a voice in matters of state.

1. 17. Richelieu, Armand Jean Duplessis, Cardinal, Due de Richelieu, one of the greatest statesmen of France, was born in 1585. He became minister of state in 1624, and retained this position till his death in 1642. He was firmly convinced that the only safe government for France was a strong absolutism, uncontrolled either by the selfish ambition of the nobles, or by the constitutional legalism represented by the Parliament of Paris. He crushed the corrupt and selfish nobles with a severity so merciless that he drove twenty-one persons into exile, all of them the G

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greatest names of France, banished sixty-five, while seventy-three noblemen were flung into prison by his orders, and of these, forty-three were beheaded or died in captivity.

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1. 8. Thomas Morus. Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), at one time Lord Chancellor of England under Henry viii., disapproved of the King's breach with Rome. In 1534, when Henry viii. declared himself head of the English Church, More steadily refused to recognise any other head of the Church than the Pope. This led to his indictment for high treason and his execution in 1535. Apart from his political career, he was the author of the famous Utopia (1516), a book well known in his own day in France. He also wrote a history of King Richard iii.

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1. 10. Le premier roi de la maison de Stuart. James i., son of Mary,

Queen of Scots.

1. 20. Les principaux traits d'analogie. Madame de Staël finds the following resemblances : first, the execution of Charles i. and of Louis XVI. ; secondly, the military dictatorships of Cromwell and of Napoleon, and the Restoration of the House of Stuart and of the House of Bourbon.

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1. 13. la noblesse de seconde classe était réunie avec les Communes. In support of this Madame de Staël quotes the following from a parliamentary address in the time of James i.

' The Commons of this kingdom comprise not alone the citizens, burgesses, and farmers, but also the lesser nobility of the kingdom, knights, squires, and gentry. Many of them belong to the greatest families ; others by their merit have attained the honour of membership of your Majesty's Privy Council, and have obtained most honourable posts. In fine, with the exception of the highest nobility, the Commons contain the flower and the might of your kingdom. They serve you in war with their bodies, and swell your treasury with their money ; to them is due the strength and the stability of your kingdom. The entire nation, consisting of several million men, is represented by us in the House of Commons.'

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1. 17. Russell. William, Lord Eussell, was born in 1639. At the Restoration he became M.P. for Tavistock. In 1674 he spoke strongly against the doings of the Cabal ministry. In 1683 he was arrested with Essex and Algernon Sidney as having participated in the Rye House Plot. He was arraigned at the Old Bailey and fonnd guilty. His father's offer of ^100,000 for his life availed nothing, nor did his own solemn disavowal of any idea against the king-'s life enable him to escape death. He was beheaded in the same year. The pity of his judicial murder, the pathos of Burnet's story of his end, and the exquisite letters of his wife, who at his trial appeared in court as his secretary, have secured him a place in history that else he had never attained to for he was a man of virtues rather than a statesman. See Mme. de Staël's account (pages 81-82).

Sidney, Algernon, grand-nephew of the famous Sir PhUip, was born in 1622. His brilliant career was ended on the scaffold in 1683. He was tried for high treason and accused of having taken a hand in the Rye House Plot. The only evidence against him was that of the traitor, Lord Howard, and his own Discourses Concerning Government. He met his doom, as Mme. de Staël teUs us, very bravely.

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1. 8. Locke, John (1632-1704), one of the most conspicuous figures in the intellectual history of modern Europe, and in whom, directly or indirectly, the course of opinion, especially in the eighteenth century, is probably more represented than in any other man. His philosophy is embodied in his three great works, the Epistola de Tolerantia in 1689, a Treatise on Civil Government (1690), and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). His aim was, not to ex^jlain the universe, but to adapt his own intellectual life and that of others to the actual conditions. He sought to awaken the intellectual spirit, and to bring about an amendment of the operations of the understanding, more than to solve the enigmas of existence. Hence the lasting educational value of his work.

1. 26. deux cent mille louis, a sum equivalent to about .£160,000.

'Co.vers/taj^

i( BIBLIOTHECA

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1. 13. La loi d'Habeas Corpus. The Habeas Corpus Act was passed in 1679. Its chief rules are as follows. When a person is committed to prison, any judge to whom application is made must grant a writ of habeas coiyus, that is, a writ directing the person who has another in custody to produce the body of the prisoner. This writ must be obeyed promptly, and in no case must the delay exceed twenty days. This 'prerogative writ' is one of the chief securities of English liberty.

1.22. haute trahison. The foundation of the English legislation on the subject of High Treason is the Statute of Treasons (1.352) passed in Edward iii.'s reign. This law enumerated various acts which constitute the crime. These were : compa.ssing the king or queen's death ; seducing the king's wife or his eldest daughter, or the wife of his heir ; levying war against the king or assisting his enemies ; and killing the judges whilst in the execution of their duties. The punishment for high treason has always been and is still death.

1. .31. Rochester. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680), the wittiest reprobate at the court of Charles ii. He lived a life of the grossest debauchery. In his inters^als of comparative sobriety he wrote excellent letters, satires, bacchanalian and amatory songs. !Mr. Swinburne has said that 'Dryden, greatest and best representative of that age at its best and worst, is not for a moment to compare as a song-writer to Rochester.'

L 32. Wycherley, Congrève. Two famous Restoration dramatists. Wycherley's best plays are The Plain Dealer, imitated from Molière's Misanthrope, and The Country Wife. Congreve wrote, amongst other comedies, Tlie Old Bachelor, Love for Love, and The Way of the World. Though both were skilful dramatists, their work was greatly marred by the obscenity and coarseness which was then the fashion.

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1.9. Hume, David (1711-1776), the famous Scotch philosopher and historian. Besides his many philosophical works, he wrote in 1754 a History of the Stuarts, containing the Eeiyns of James I. and Charles I., and presently completed this portion of the work in a second volume, bringing it down to the Revolution. He

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then went backwards through the House of Tudor, and completed the work from the Roman period downwards in 1762. This work, which enjoyed great popularity in its day, was not remarkable for historic impartiality (in a later edition more than a hundred alterations in the reigns of the first two Stuarts were made by Hume himself, and all to the Tory side), and has been superseded largely by modern works.

1. 25. Tanger. Tangier or Tangiers, a seaport of Morocco. It was taken by the Portuguese in 1471, and given to Charles ii. of England as dowry with Catherine of Braganza. It was held by England till 1684, when, on account of the expense of maintenance and the badness of the climate, it was evacuated. The notorious Kirke commanded the garrison.

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1. 8. la bataille de Sedgemoor. This marshy district, five miles southeast of Bridgwater, was the scene of a fight between 4000 soldiers of James ii. and 8000 of the undiscii^lined followers of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685. The latter were defeated. The account of the fight in Macaulay's History should be read, and also the description in Blackmore's Lorna Doone.

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L 24. Stathouder, in English Stadtholder, a barbarous form of the Dutch Stadhonder, ' steadholder,' of which the French lindenant is a literal translation. The word has nothing to do with the German word Stadt, a city. It corresponds to our 'viceroy,' and became hereditary in the House of Orange until superseded by the title of king.

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1. 2. qu'elle aurait 'dû céder à son frère. Madame de Staël refers to

James Francis Edward, the Chevalier de St. George (1688-1765),

James ii.'s son by his second wife. He was consequently not

Anne's brother but her half-brother.

1. 12. bataille de Culloden en 1746. It was here that Prince Charles

Edward, 'bonnie Prince Charlie,' was routed by the Duke of

Cumberland.

CHAPTER III Page 26.

1. 1. ving^t et un ans que les Anglais étaient en guerre. France had declared war against England and Holland in 1793, and it was not till 1802 that peace was made by the treaty of Amiens. It was not to last, and war broke out again in 1803, and continued till Napoleon's abdication in 1814, only to begin again after his escape from Elba.

1.7. le respectable monarque. In 1810 George iii.'s favourite daughter

became dangerously ill ; this preyed upon him and hastened an attack of mental derangement which prevented him from reigning. He had suôered from a similar malady in 1788. From 1810 till his death in 1820 he was hopelessly insane.

1. 9. Pitt, William (1759-1806), perhaps the greatest of English statesmen, and the most powerful minister in all English history. His splendid talents, and his skilful management of politics and finance did much for England. The best biography of Pitt is that by Lord Stanhope, and Macaulay's well-known biographical essay should be consulted.

1. 10. Fox, Charles James (1749-1806), had a very distinguished career as a Whig statesman. During the American War of Independence he energetically advocated the cause of the colonies. In 1782 he was appointed one of the Secretaries of State, and in 1783 commenced a long contest between himself and Pitt as leaders of opposite parties. He was a great orator and a magnificent debater. He died very soon after his great rival Pitt in 1806.

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1. 4. persécutée par un ennemi de la liberté. Consult the Preface.

1. 8. le souvenir de mon père. Necker, minister of finance under

Louis XVI. from 1776-1781. In the latter year he had to resign owing to the popular feeling excited by the fallacies of his f;\mous 'Compte Rendu' or Budget. He came to power again in 1787, on the resignation of Brienne, and acted as Prime Minister till 1789. He finally retired to Switzerland in September 1790. For further information consult the Preface. 1. 31. on venait d'apprendre l'armistice. After the indecisive battles of Liitzen and Bautzen in May 1813, the French reoccupied Leipzig

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and Dresden and an armistice was agreed upon from June 4 to August 10 to give time for negotiations mediated by Austria.

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1. 8. Un papier tenant lieu de monnaie. The French war had pressed heavily on the country, and in 1797 it was evident that the Bank of England, which had advanced more than 10 millions for the public service, would be unable to meet its payments in specie. An order in council appeared prohibiting the Bank from paying their notes in specie. Notes of £1 and £2 were issued, and in March Pitt brought in his Bank Restriction Bill to indemnify the Bank for refusing cash payments, and to prohibit them from making such payments except in sums under 20s. The Bank did not resume cash payments till 1821.

1. 15. l'Angleterre comme abîmée de dettes. At the commencement of the war in 1797 the English funded debt had been 240 millions. In 1816 it amounted to nearly 900 millions.

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1. 12. Montesquieu (1689-1755), author of the Lettres Persanes, a social and poUtical satire. Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la décadence des Romains, the first French work in which philosophy is applied to history without recourse to theology, and the famous Esprit des lois, which is a study of laws and their relation to government, to religion, to manners and to climate. It is from l'Esprit des lois that Mme. de Staël quotes.

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1.3. l'empereur Alexandre. Alexander i. (1777-1825), Emperor of Russia, came to Paris in 1814 after Napoleon's downfall and was a central figure of the politics and diplomacy of the time. His courtesy, humanity, and regard for the feelings and interests of the French won for him a personal regard amounting to enthusiasm. He was received with the same feelings in London, which he visited in June 1814.

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1. 6. disait un poète anglais à Guillaume III. The quotation is from Addison's complimentary Address to King William.

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]. 8. Leipsick. The great battle of Leipzig, called the 'battle of the Nations' lasted from the 16th to the 18th of October, 1813. Napoleon with 180,000 men was defeated by the allies with 300,000. The former lost 68,000 men killed and prisoners, and the loss of the allies was about 52,000. Their victory was complete and the French had to evacuate Leipzig.

1. 28. Wilberforce, William (1759-1833). In 1787 he entered on his twenty years' struggle for the abolition of the slave trade, to which he devoted all his energies. The measure received the royal assent in 1807. Declining health compelled him to retire from Parliament in 1825 and three days before his death news was brought him that the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery had passed a second reading. He died thanking God that he had lived to see his country spend twenty millions sterling in such a cause.

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1. 15. Lord-Maire. The Mayor of London, who has been called Lord Mayor from time immemorial, is held to rank as an earl, and within the city boundaries next his sovereign. He attends at the Law Courts to be sworn in on the 9th of November and holds office for a year. The city is itself a county, but although the Crown appoints a Lord Lieutenant to every other county, a com-

f mission of lieutenancy is issued to the Lord Mayor and his

nominees.

1. 27. dans un vieux bâtiment de la cité. Mme. de Staël refers to a banquet at Guildhall on Lord Mayor's day. It was at Guildhall on Nov. 9, 1805, that Pitt said ' England has saved herself by her exertions ; and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.'