The best form of government is that which doth actuate VOLUME I New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1899 All rights reserved HARVARD COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. PREFACE THE limited aim of these pages is to give the ordinary reader, so far as was in the author's power, a clear, connected, and succinct view of the political history of the United Kingdom as it appears in the light of recent research and discussion. Among works of special research by which the writer has been assisted, and to the authors of which his grateful acknowledgments are due, are the following: Freeman's "History of the Norman Conquest of England." Miss Kate Norgate's "England under the Angevin Kings." "The Life and Reign of Edward I.," by the author of "The Greatest of the Plantagenets." James Hamilton Wylie's "History of England under Henry the Fourth." Sir James H. Ramsay's "Lancaster and York." Mrs. J. R. Green's "Town Life in the Fifteenth Century." J. S. Brewer's "Reign of Henry VIII.," edited by James Gairdner. Francis Aidan Gasquet's "Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries." Paul Friedmann's "Anne Boleyn." Froude's "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth" (the later volumes). Gilbert W. Child's "Church and State under the Tudors." David Masson's "Life of John Milton, narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time." V |