HISTORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 14 (Supplement)

HISTORY

THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLAND, by J. A. Williamson (Oxford University Press); pp. 494.

The purpose of this book is best explained by the author’s preface. He observes, “the reader who is not a professed student of history is often shy of text-books which give him an array of dates and details without indicating the relative signilicancc of the events recorded. It is for this reader that the present volume is designed. It is not a text-book, since it omits many things with which a text-book of its size would be obliged to deal. Instead, it selects those transactions which best illustrate the central theme, the development of the English community and the country of its inhabitants. For such a purpose, to cite an example, the Wars of the Roses are important because they helped to eliminate the feudal aristocracy and to prepare the ground for Tudor rule and th© growth of a national spirit; but the general character of the Wars demands our attention rather than the details of the battles.”

The book is an admirable interpretation of history. To con events and to place them in sequence is a matter of importance, to tell the narrative as though it were a jolly tale worth telling for its own sake, is the right way to write history, but after all that has been done the general reader wants to know what was the effect of it all. To interpret history is not an easy matter. To apprise events in their true significance and to give them their due weight demands that the one who undertakes such work shall have a wide range of reading. The history of England is less insular than the British Isles are geographically, that is if its relativity is to be appreciated. The author of this very interesting volume reveals not only that he appreciates the essentials and relative importance of English history, but his erudition permits him to step outside of his subject and to make some very interesting comparisons. For instance he early reveals his grip and breadth of vision when he deals with the Roman Empire. “ The Roman Empire,” he writes, “is a difficult thing to describe, for there is nothing like it in the modern world. Yet without some appreciation of what it really was, it is hardly possible to form just ideas about its province of Roman Britain. First it may be useful to clear the ground by mentioning one thing which it was not. The Empire of Rome is often likened to the present British Empire of India, but the notion is wholly false. The Indian Empire is maintained by force, humanely applied, it may be granted, but none the less by force. It consists of subject races and a ruling race of different complexions, languages, religions, standards of conduct and methods of doing business; and the difference extends tu such minor matters as social etiquette and preferences in food, drink and dress. There has never been a general tendency for the one side to give up its own traditions in these things and adopt those of the other. Individuals who have done so have generally been despised by both parties. Still less has there been any approval of intermarriage between the races, and the children of such unions have been treated as aliens by both. The only point of resemblance between the two Empires lies in the single one of the many effects of their sway —both have ensured peace in the regions they have covered. The Pax Britannica and the Pax Romana form a just parallel, but one that has often been extended beyond its true limits. The Empire of Rome presented hardly one of the features of the above referred to.” The author’s lucid explanations are too numerous to cite here, hut here are a few:—

“ The events that followed proved Hastings to have been a decisive battle, a unique battle in the history of those days, because by itself it gave decisive success to an invasion. The reason, as has been said, was that Harold and his brothers wc.e all killed. What that entailed was shown by the history of the next four years. There was fighting spirit left in England, for it broke out in Western, Northern and East Anglian revolts, movements which, if organised, might have driven the Norman army out of the country. But there was no leader combining ability with the rank necessary to secure him the necessary recognition, and the revolts were all put down. William was accepted by the Witan and duly crowned on Christmas Day, little more than two months after Hastings, and thereafter his position was never seriously shaken.”

Here is another citation:—“ Henry VII. desired peace at home and abroad, and knew he could get it only by studying the interests of those of his subjects who desired it likewise. The reign of Richard and the casualties of Bosworth had still further reduced the numbers of the baronage. In Henry's first Parliament there were only a score of lay peers and about twice as many bishops and abbots. Ho determined not to increase the number and to reduce the power of the survivors. They had to take oath not to give their livery to armed retainers or to make any bargain with other, men for armed support. They swore also not to practice maintenance, that is interference with course of justice. Livery and maintenance had been the mainstay of the fighting factions and now they were to go. Henry meant what he said. Livery ceased almost at once. Maintenance, less easy to prove, did out more gradually, but the following generation knew it no more.” And finally:—“ Pitt was no enemy of Irish industry. Ho failed to secure complete freedom of trade, but the worst restrictions had been removed, and the Protestants of Ulster were partially satisfied. To the Catholics he granted the Parliamentary vote in 1793, but he would not yield full Catholic emancipation, which meant the right to sit in Parliament. The Catholics would be content with nothing less. So it came about that the most faithfully Catholic population in Europe looked for deliverance from the revolutionaries who had overthrown the Catholic Church in France, murdered its priests, and enthroned Reason in Notre Dame. The intermediaries were the leaders of the United Irishmen. But the passage of the sea was the difficulty.” The final chapters bring this bright volume down to the present time and make the reader sec the general flow of events, the continuity of which is hard to discern even though he may have himself lived through them. The book deserves all the high praise which English critics have passed on it.