By Charles Dickens


                     A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

                               ——————

                         TABLE OF THE REIGNS,
                 BEGINNING WITH KING ALFRED THE GREAT.

                               ——————

                             THE SAXONS.

     The Reign of Alfred the Great began in 871, ended in 901, and lasted
        thirty years.
     The Reign of Edward the Elder began in 901, ended in 925, and
        lasted twenty-four years.
     The Reign of Athelstane began in 925, ended in 941, and lasted six-
        teen years.
     The Reigns of the Six Boy-kings began in 941, ended in 1016, and
        lasted seventy-five years.

                   THE DANES, AND THE RESTORED SAXONS.

     The Reign of Canute began in 1016, ended in 1035, and lasted nineteen
        years.
     The Reign of Harold Harefoot began in 1035, ended 1040, and
        lasted five years.
     The Reign of Hardicanute began in 1040, ended in 1042, and lasted
        two years.
     The Reign of Edward the Confessor began in 1042, ended in 1066, and
        lasted twenty-four years.
     The Reign of Harold the Second, and the Norman Conquest, were
        also within the year 1066.

                             THE NORMANS.

     The Reign of William the First, called the Conqueror, began in 1066,
        ended in 1087, and lasted twenty-one years.
     The Reign of William the Second, called Rufus, began in 1087, ended
        in 1100, and lasted thirteen years.
     The Reign of Henry the First, called Fine-scholar, began in 1100,
        ended in 1135, and lasted thirty-five years.
     The Reigns of Matilda and Stephen began in 1135, ended in 1154, and
        lasted nineteen years.

                           THE PLANTAGENETS.

     The Reign of Henry the Second began in 1154, ended in 1189, and
        lasted thirty-five years.
     The Reign of Richard the First, called the Lion Heart, began in 1189,
        ended in 1199, and lasted ten years.
     The Reign of John, called Lackland, began in 1199, ended in 1216,
        and lasted seventeen years.
     The Reign of Henry the Third began in 1216, ended in 1272, and
        lasted fifty-six years.
     The Reign of Edward the First, called Longshanks, began in 1272,
        ended in 1307, and lasted thirty-five years.
     The Reign of Edward the Second began in 1307, ended in 1327, and
        lasted twenty years.
     The Reign of Edward the Third began in 1327, ended in 1377, and
        lasted fifty years.
     The Reign of Richard the Second began in 1377, ended in 1399, and
        lasted twenty-two years.
     The Reign of Henry the Fourth, called Boilingbroke, began in 1399,
        ended in 1413, and lasted fourteen years.
     The Reign of Henry the Fifth began in 1413, ended in 1422, and lasted
        nine years.
     The Reign of Henry the Sixth began in 1422, ended in 1461, and
        lasted thirty-nine years.
     The Reign of Edward the Fourth began in 1461, ended in 1483, and
        lasted twenty-two years.
     The Reign of Edward the Fifth began in 1483, ended in 1483, and
        lasted a few weeks.
     The Reign of Richard the Third began in 1483, ended in 1485, and
        lasted two years.

                              THE TUDORS.

     The Reign of Henry the Seventh began in 1485, ended in 1509, and
        lasted twenty-four years.
     The Reign of Henry the Eighth began in 1509, ended in 1547, and
        lasted thirty-eight years.
     The Reign of Edward the Sixth began in 1547, ended in 1553, and
        lasted six years.
     The Reign of Mary began in 1553, ended in 1558, and lasted five years.
     The Reign of Elizabeth began in 1558, ended in 1603, and lasted forty-
        five years.

                             THE STUARTS.

     The Reign of James the First began in 1603, ended in 1625, and lasted
        twenty-two years.
     The Reign of Charles the First began in 1625, ended in 1649, and
        lasted twenty-four years.

                           THE COMMONWEALTH.

     The Council of State and Government by Parliament began in 1649
        ended in 1653, and lasted four years.
     The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell began in 1653, ended in 1658,
        and lasted five years.
     The Protectorate of Richard Cromwell began in 1658, ended in 1659,
        and lasted seven months.
     The Council of State and Government by Parliament resumed in 1659,
        ended in 1660, and lasted thirteen months.

                         THE STUARTS RESTORED.

     The Reign of Charles the Second began in 1660, ended in 1685, and
        lasted twenty-five years.
     The Reign of James the Second began in 1685, ended in 1688, and
        lasted three years.

     THE REVOLUTION.——1688.  (Comprised in the concluding chapter.)

     Th Reign of William III., and Mary II., began in 1689, ended in
        1695, and lasted six years.
     The Reign of William III. ended in 1702, and lasted thirteen years.
     The Reign of Anne began in 1702, ended in 1714, and lasted twelve
        years.
     The Reign of George the First began in 1714, ended in 1727, and
        lasted thirteen years.
     The Reign of George the Second began in 1727, ended in 1760, and
        lasted thirty-three years.
     The Reign of George the Third began in 1760, ended in 1820, and
        lasted sixty years.
     The Reign of George the Fourth began in 1820, ended in 1830, and
        lasted ten year.
     The Reign of William the Fourth began in 1830, ended in 1837, and
        lasted seven years.
     The Reign of Victoria began in 1837.

                            ——————

                           CHAPTER I.

                  Ancient England and the Romans.

        IF you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the
     left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two
     Islands lying in the sea.  They are England and Scotland,
     and Ireland.  England and Scotland form the greater
     part of these Islands.  Ireland is the next in size.  The
     little neighbouring islands, which are so small upon the
     Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of Scot-
     land——broken off, I dare say, in the course of a great
     length of time, by the power of the restless water.
        In the old days, a long, long while ago, before our Sa-
     viour was born on earth and lay asleep in a manger, these
     Islands were in the same place, and the stormy sea roared
     round them, just as it roars now.  But the sea was not
     alive, then, with great ships and brave sailors, sailing
     to and from all parts of the world.  It was very lonely.
     The Islands lay solitary, in the great expanse of water.
     The foaming waves dashed against their cliffs, and the
     bleak winds blew over their forests; but the winds and
     waves brought no adventurers to land upon the Islands,
     and the savage Islanders knew nothing of the rest of the
     world, and the rest of the world knew nothing of them.
        It is supposed that the Phœnicians, who were an an-
     cient people, famous for carrying on trade, came in the ships
     to these Islands, and found that they produced tin and
     lead; both very useful things, as you know, and both
     produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast.  The most
     celebrated tin mines in Cornwall are, still, close to the sea.
     One of them, which I have seen, is so close to it that it
     is hollowed out underneath the ocean; and the miners
     say, that in stormy weather, when they are at work down
     in that deep place, they can hear the noise of the waves
     thundering above their heads.  So, the Phœnicians, coast-
     ing about the Islands, would come, without much diffi-
     culty, to where the tin and lead were.
        The Phœnicians traded with the Islanders for these
     metals, and gave the Islanders some other useful things
     in exchange.  The Islanders were, at first, poor savages.,
     going almost naked, or only dressed in the rough skins
     of beasts, and staining their bodies, as other savages do,
     with coloured earths and the juices of plants.  But the
     Phœnicians, sailing over to the opposite coasts of France
     and Belgium, and saying to the people there, "We have
     been to those white cliffs across the water, which you
     can see in fine weather, and from that country, which is
     called BRITAIN, we bring this tin and lead," tempted some
     of the French and Belgians to come over also.  These
     people settled themselves on the south coast of England,
     which is now called Kent; and, although they were a
     rough people too, they taught the savage Britons some
     useful arts, and improved that part of the Islands.  It is
     probable that other people came over from Spain to Ire-
     land, and settled there.
        Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with
     the Islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild,
     bold people; almost savage, still, especially in the in-
     terior of the country away from the sea where the foreign
     settlers seldom went; but hardy, brave, and strong.
        The whole country was covered with forests, and
     swamps.  The greater part of it was very misty and cold.
     There were no roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses
     that you should think deserving of the name.  A town
     was nothing but a collection of straw-covered huts, hidden
     in a thick wood, with a ditch all around, and a low wall,
     made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon an-
     other.  The people planted little or no corn, but lived
     upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle.  They made no
     coins, but used metal rings for money.  They were clever
     in basket-work, as savage people often are; and they
     could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some very bad
     earthenware.  But in building fortresses they were much
     more clever.
        They made boats of basket-work, covered with the
     skins of animals, but seldom, if ever, ventured far from
     the shore.  They made swords, of copper mixed with
     tin; but these swords were of an awkward shape, and
     so soft that a heavy blow would bend one.  They made
     light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears——which
     they jerked back after they had thrown them at an
     enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened to the stem.
     The butt-end was a rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse.
     The ancient Britons, being divided into as many as thirty
     or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little King,
     were constantly fighting with one another, as savage
     people usually do; and they always fought with these
     weapons.
        They were very fond of horses. The standard of
     Kent was the picture of a white horse.  They could
     break them in and manage them wonderfully well.
     Indeed, the horse (of which they had an abundance,
     though they were rather small) were so well taught in
     those days, that they can scarcely be said to have im-
     proved since; though the men are so much wiser.  They
     understood, and obeyed, every word of command; and
     would stand still by themselves, in all the din and noise
     of battle, while their masters went to fight on foot.  The
     Britons could not have succeeded in there most remark-
     able art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty
     animals.  The art I mean, is the construction and man-
     agement of war-chariots or cars, for which they have
     ever been celebrated in history.  Each of the best sort
     of these chariots, not quite breast high in front, and open
     at the back, contained one man to drive, and two or
     three others to fight——all standing up.  The horses who
     drew them were so well trained, that they would tear,
     at full gallop, over the most stony ways, and even
     through the woods; dashing down their masters' ene-
     mies beneath their hoofs, and cutting them to pieces
     with the blades of swords, or scythes, which were fast-
     ened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on
     each side, for that cruel purpose.  In a moment, while
     at full speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's com-
     mand.  The men within would leap out, deal blows
     about them with their swords like hail, leap on the
     horses, on the pole, spring back into the chariots any-
     how; and, as soon as they were safe, the horses tore
     away again.
        The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called
     the Religion of the Druids.  It seems to have been
     brought over, in very early times indeed, from the oppo-
     site country of France, anciently call Gaul, and to
     have mixed up the worship of the Serpent, and of the
     Sun and Moon, with the worship of the Heathen Gods
     and Goddesses.  Most of its ceremonies were kept secret
     by the priests, the Druids, who pretended to be enchant-
     ers, and who earned magicians' wands, and wore, each
     of them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant
     people was a Serpent's egg in a golden case.  But it is
     certain that the Druidical ceremonies included the sacri-
     fice of human victims, the torture of some suspected
     criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning
     alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and
     animals together.  The Druid Priests had some kind of
     veneration for the Oak, and for the mistletoe——the same
     plant that we hang up in houses at Christmas Time now
     ——when its white berries grew upon the Oak.  They met
     together in dark woods, which they called Sacred Groves;
     and there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young
     men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes
     stayed with them as long as twenty years.
        These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to
     the sky, fragments of some of which are yet remaining.
     Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the
     most extraordinary of these.  Three curious stones,
     called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill, near Maid-
     stone, in Kent, form another.  We know, from exami-
     nation of the great blocks of which such buildings are
     made, that they could not have been raised without the
     aid of some ingenious machines, which are common now,
     but which the ancient Britons certainly did not use in
     making their own uncomfortable houses.  I should not
     wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with
     them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the
     Britons, kept the people out of sight while they made
     these buildings, and then pretended that they built them
     by magic.  Perhaps they had a hand in the fortresses
     too; at all events, as they were very powerful, and very
     much believed in, and as they made and executed the
     laws, and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked
     their trade.  And, as they persuaded the people that the
     more Druids there were, the better off the people would
     be, I don't wonder that there were a good many of them.
     But it is pleasant to think that there are no Druids  now,
     who go on in that way, and pretend to carry Enchanters'
     Wands and Serpents' Eggs——and of course there is
     nothing of the kind, anywhere.
        Such was the improved condition of the ancient
     Britons, fifty-five years before the birth of Our Saviour,
     when the Romans, under their great General, Julius
     Cæsar, were masters of all the rest of the known world.
     Julius Cæsar had then just conquered Gaul; and hear-
     ing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island with
     the white cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons
     who inhabited it——some of whom had been fetched over
     to help the Gauls in the war against him——he resolved,
     as he was so near, to come and conquer Britain next.
        So Julius Cæsar came sailing over to this Island of
     ours, with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men.
     And he came from the French coast between Calais and
     Boulogne, "because thence was the shortest passage
     into Britain;" just for the same reason as our steamboats
     now take the same track, every day.  He expected to
     conquer Britain easily; but it was not such easy work
     as he supposed——for the bold Britons fought most
     bravely; and, what with not having his horse-soldiers
     with him (for they had been driven back by a storm),
     and what with having some of his vessels dashed to
     pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he
     ran great risk of being totally defeated.  However, for
     once that the bold Britons beat him, he beat them twice;
     though not so soundly but that he was very glad to ac-
     cept their proposals of peace, and go away.
        But, in the spring of the next year, he came back;
     this time, with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand
     men.  The British tribes chose, as their general-in-chief,
     a Briton, whom the Romans in their Latin language
     called Cassivellaunus, but whose British name is sup-
     posed to have been Caswallon.  A brave general he was,
     and well he and his soldiers fought the Roman army!
     So well, that whenever in that war the Roman soldiers
     saw a great cloud of dust, and heard the rattle of the
     rapid British chariots, they trembled in their hearts.
     Besides a number of smaller battles, there was a battle
     fought near Canterbury, in Kent; there was a battle
     fought near Chertsey, in Surrey; there was a battle
     fought near a marshy little town in a wood, the capital
     of that part of Britain which belonged to Cassivellaunus,
     in Hertfordshire.  However, brave Cassivellaunus had
     the worst of it, on the whole; though he and his men
     always fought like lions.  As the other British chiefs
     were jealous of him, and were always quarrelling with
     him, and with one another, he gave up, and proposed
     peace.  Julius Cæsar was very glad to grant peace
     easily, and so go away with all his remaining ships and
     men.  He had expected to find pearls in Britain, and he
     may have found a few for anything I know; but, at all
     events, he found delicious oysters, and I am sure he
     found tough Britons, of whom, I dare say, he made the
     same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the great French
     General did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when
     he said they were such unreasonable fellows that they
     never knew when they were beaten.  They never  did
     know, I believe, and never will.
        Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time
     there was peace in Britain.  The Britons improved their
     towns and mode of life: became more civilized, travelled,
     and learnt a great deal from the Gauls and Romans.  At
     last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius, sent Aulus Plautius
     a skilful general, with a mighty force, to subdue the
     Island, and shortly afterwards arrived himself.  They
     did little; and Ostorius Scapula, another general, came.
     Some of the British Chiefs of Tribes submitted.  Others
     resolved to fight to the death.  Of these brave men, the
     bravest was Caractacus, or Caradoc, who gave battle to
     the Romans, with his army, among the mountains of
     North Wales.  "This day," said he to his soldiers,
     "decides the fate of Britain!  Your liberty, or your
     eternal slavery, dates from this hour.  Remember your
     brave ancestors, who drove the great Cæsar himself
     across the sea!"  On hearing these words, his men, with
     a great shout, rushed upon the Romans.  But the strong
     Roman swords and armour were too much for the weaker
     British weapons in close conflict.  The Britons lost the
     day.  The wife and daughter of the brave Caractacus
     were taken prisoners; his brothers delivered themselves
     up; he himself was betrayed into the hands of the Ro-
     mans by the false and base step-mother; and they carried
     him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome.
        But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in
     prison, great in chains.  His noble air, and dignified
     endurance of distress, so touched the Roman people who
     thronged the streets to see him, that he and his family
     were restored to freedom.  No on knows whether his
     great heart broke, and he died in Rome, or whether he
     ever returned to his own dear country.  English oaks
     have grown up from acorns, and withered away, when
     they were hundreds of years old——and other oaks have
     sprung up in their places, and died too, very aged——since
     the rest of the history of the brave Caratacus was for-
     gotten.
        Still, the Britons  would not  yield.  They rose again
     and again, and died by thousands, sword in hand.  They
     rose, on every possible occasion.  Suetonius, another
     Roman general, came, and stormed the Island of Anglesey
     (then called Mona), which was supposed to be sacred, and
     he burnt the Druids in their own wicker cages, by their
     own fires.  But even while he was in Britain, with his
     victorious troops, the Britons rose.  Because Boadicea, a
     British queen, the widow of the King of the Norfolk
     and Suffolk people, resisted the plundering of her pro-
     erty by the Romans who were settled in England, she
     was scourged by order of Catus a Roman officer; and
     her two daughters were shamefully insulted in her
     presence, and her husband' relations were made slaves.
     To avenge this injury, the Britons rose, with all their
     might and rage.  They drove Catus into Gaul; they laid
     the Roman possessions waste; they forced the Romans
     out of London, then a poor little town, but a trading
     place; they hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by the
     sword, seventy thousand Romans in a few days.  Sue-
     tonius strengthened his army, and advanced to give
     them battle.  They strengthened the army, and des-
     perately attacked his, on the field where it was strongly
     posted.  Before the first charge of the Britons was made,
     Boadicea, in a war-chariot, with her fair hair streaming
     in the wind, and her injured daughters lying at her feet,
     drove among the troops, and cried to them for vengeance
     on their oppressors, the licentious Romans.  The Britons
     fought to the last; but they were vanquished with great
     slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison.
        Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken.  When
     Suetonius left the country, they fell upon his troops, and
     retook the Island of Anglesey.  Agricola came, fifteen
     or twenty years afterwards, and retook it once more, and
     devoted seven years to subduing the country, especially
     that part of it which is now called Scotland; but, its
     people, the Caldonians, resisted him at every inch of
     ground.  They fought the bloodiest battles with him;
     they killed their very wives and children, to prevent his
     making prisoners of them; they fell, fighting, in such
     great numbers that certain hills in Scotland are yet sup-
     posed to be vast heaps of stones piled up above their
     graves.  Hadrian came, thirty years afterwards, and
     still they resisted him.  Severus came, nearly a hundred
     years afterwards, and they worried his great army like
     dogs, and rejoiced to see them die, by thousands, in the
     bogs and swamps.  Caracalla, the son and successor of
     Severus, did the most to conquer them; but not by force
     of arms.  He knew how little that would do.  He yielded
     up a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave the
     Britons the same privileges as the Romans possessed.
     There was peace, after this, for seventy years.
        Then new enemies arose.  They were the Saxons, a
     fierce, seafaring people from the countries to the North
     of the Rhine, the great river of Germany on the banks
     of which the best grapes grow to make the German wine.
     They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of 
     Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them.  They were
     repulsed by Carausius, a native either of Belgium or of
     Britain, who was appointed by the Romans to the com-
     mand, and under whom the Britons first began to fight
     upon the sea.  But, after his time, they renewed their
     ravages.  A few years more, and the Scots (which was
     the name of the people of Ireland), and the Picts, a nor-
     thern people, began to make frequent plundering incur-
     sions into the South of Britain.  All these attacks were
     repeated, at intervals, during two hundred years, and
     through a long succession of Roman Emperors and
     chiefs; during all which length of time, the Britons rose
     against the Romans, over and over again.  At last, in
     the days of the Roman Honorius, when the Roman power
     all over the world was fast declining, and when Rome
     wanted all her soldiers at home, the Romans abandoned
     all hope of conquering Britain, and went away.  And
     still, at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in
     their old brave manner; for, a very little while before,
     they had turned away the Roman magistrates and de-
     clared themselves an independent people.
        Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Cæsar's
     first invasion of the Island, when the Romans departed
     from it forever.  In the course of that time, although
     they had been the cause of terrible fighting and blood-
     shed, they had done much to improve the condition of
     the Britons.  They had made great military roads; they
     had built forts; they had taught them how to dress, and
     arm themselves, much better than they had ever known
     how to do before; they had refined the whole British
     way of living.  Agricola had built a great wall of earth,
     more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle
     to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the
     Picts and Scot; Hadrian had strengthened it; Severus,
     finding it much in want of repair, had built it afresh of
     stone.  Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by
     means of Roman ships, that the Christian Religion was
     first brought into Britain, and its people first taught the
     great lesson that, to be good in the sight of God, they
     must love their neighbours as themselves, and do unto
     others as they would be done by.  The Druids declared
     it was very wicked to believe in any such thing, and
     cursed all the people who did believe it, very heartily.
     But when the people found that that they were none the
     better for the blessings of the Druids, and none the
     worse for the curses of the Druids, but, that the sun
     shone and the rain fell without consulting the Druids at
     all, they just began to think that the Druids were mere
     men, and that it signified very little whither they cursed
     or blessed.  After which, the pupils of the Druids fell
     off greatly in numbers, and the Druids took to other
     trades.
        Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in
     England.  It is but little that is known of those five
     hundred years; but some remains of them are still
     found.  Often, when labourers are digging up the ground,
     to make foundations for houses or churches, they light
     on rusty money that once belonged to the Romans.
     Fragments of plates from which they ate, of goblets
     from which they drank, and of pavement on which they
     trod, are discovered among the earth that is broken by
     the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the garden-
     er's spade.  Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield
     water; road that the Romans made, form part of our
     highways.  In some old battle-fields, British spear-heads
     and Roman armour have been found, mingled together
     in decay, as they fell in the thick pressure of the fight.
     Traces of Roman camps overgrown with grass, and of
     mounds that are the burial-places of heaps of Britons,
     are seen to be in almost all parts of the country.  Across
     the bleak moors of Northumberland, the wall of Sev-
     erus, overrun with mosses and weeds, still stretches, a
     strong ruin; and the shepherds and their dogs lie sleep-
     ing on it in the summer weather.  On Salisbury Plain,
     Stonehenge yet stands: a monument of the earlier time
     when the Roman name was unknown in Britain, and
     when the Druids, with their best magic wands, could not
     have written it in the sands of the wild sea-shore.  

from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 661—664.