THE

HISTORY OF ENGLAND

FROM

THE EARLIEST TIMES

TO

THE FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMATION:

BY

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

A NEW EDITION, REVISED BY THE AUTHOR'S SON,

THE authors of the Histories of Scotland and Ireland in the Cabinet Cyclopædia, in which the present Work also first appeared, were respectively Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Moore. The volumes now in the reader's hand have been again consigned to the press under the same superintendence as was exercised in the previous instance of the collection of the Miscellaneous Works of the present Author; and the fact is thus prominently intimated in consequence of a similarly large responsibility in the revision-occasionally venturing to the extent of a supposed emendation—of the text having been again on the present occasion assumed by the Editor. The propriety of such assumptions of authority must be left, probably always, to be judged according to the ever-varying standard of individual taste: but of the fact of their existence notice would seem to be in each case required. Further while these volumes contain the whole of what, at the period of the Author's death, was designed for publication,—with a view of obviating, in as much as is now permitted, the reproach of incompleteness,

2

which the image, as it were, of a plough left standing in mid-furrow never fails painfully to suggest,

a few passages of an insulated character have been now thrown into an appendix, and the termination of the main narrative has been made to coincide with the real conclusion, in so far as this kingdom was concerned, of the most important of the recent epochs in human affairs.

R. J. MACKINTOSH.

THE following volumes are a part of an experiment to ascertain how far the most necessary portions of historical knowledge may, even in an abridged narrative, be rendered acceptable to general readers. Neither my habitual relish for English history, nor the hazardous honour of acting with such fellow-labourers, has blinded me to the difficulties of the attempt, which experience has shown to be more considerable than I apprehended they would prove. I need not compare the convenience of abridgment with the merits of circumstantial recital: both these sorts of historical composition have their use, and they must both always continue to be written. On behalf of such sketches, I may venture to take it for granted that an outline may be useful as an introduction, and convenient as a remembrancer; that it is a particularly accessible manual for reference; and that it may contain information concerning the affairs of one people, which men of different pursuits, of little leisure, or of other countries, may think it necessary to have always within their reach. The object at

* Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Thomas Moore were the authors respectively of the Histories of Scotland and Ireland which appeared in conjunction with this work in the "Cabinet Cyclopædia."— ED.