Historians From England

"In the five centuries since Columbus discovered the New World, savagery has been part of American life. There has been the violence of conquest and resistance, the violence of racial difference, the violence of civil war, the violence of bandits and gangsters, the violence of lynch law, all set against the violence of the wilderness and the city."

"Et nos in vitium prona caterva sumus. [We are but cattle prone to vice.]"

"The thing that really changed the Vatican's diplomatic position was the war itself. The Entente had to rebuild relations with the Vatican."

"Heraldry has been styled 'the science of fools with long memories.’ That its true objects have been misunderstood, and that its reputation has been seriously damaged by injudicious writers in attempting to attach fanciful interpretations to devices and tinctures, there can be no question; but, as the noble science has existed from time immemorial, so must it continue to flourish as long as the pride of ancestry forms any part of the nature of man. Indeed, in the present day, the education of no gentleman can be considered complete unless he possess at least an elementary knowledge of Heraldry."

"The turn of the century raises expectations. The end of a millennium promises apocalypse and revelation. But at the close of the twentieth century the golden age seems behind us, not ahead. The end game of the 1990s promises neither nirvana nor Armageddon, but entropy."

"The model of a modern Prime Minister would be a kind of grotesque composite freak—someone with the dedication to duty of a Peel, the physical energy of a Gladstone, the detachment of a Salisbury, the brains of an Asquith, the balls of a Lloyd George, the word-power of a Churchill, the administrative gifts of an Attlee, the style of a Macmillan, the managerialism of a Heath, and the sleep requirements of a Thatcher. Human beings do not come like that."

"Even as the substantive concerns of political philosophers have begun to shift as new subject matter enters the philosophical domain, much debate still takes place in the shadow of a set of ideas that reflect the assumptions of a different age. There are benefits to working within an intellectual tradition, but there can also be costs if the tradition struggles to shed light on changing circumstances. After all, radicals in the United States are drawing more inspiration from Marxism than from liberalism."

"The British welfare state was not simply a radical, leftist project but a warfare state, an imperial state, a conservative and patriarchal state where brown and black people were not welcome."

"Hot on Sunday, Cold on Monday, Hashed on Tuesday, Minced on Wednesday, Curried Thursday, Broth on Friday, Cottage pie Saturday."

"Palmam qui meruit, ferat."

"Whatever the future may have in reserve, this present work has constantly reminded me by how deep a gulf we are separated from the time when I commenced my labours, now some twenty-two years ago. Macaulay and Forster were then in possession of the field. The worship of the Puritans was in the ascendant, and to suggest that it was possible to make out a reasonable case for Bacon and Strafford was regarded as eccentric. All this is changed now. Few are to be found to say a good word for Puritanism, and the mistakes of the Long Parliament are unveiled with an unsparing hand. A dislike of agitation and disturbance has in some quarters taken the place of a dislike of arbitrary power, whilst reverence for culture has often left little room for reverence for liberty."

"Certainly the politics of the seventeenth century, when studied for the mere sake of understanding them, assume a very different appearance from that which they had in the eyes of men who, like Macaulay and Forster, regarded them through the medium of their own political struggles. Eliot and Strafford were neither Whigs nor Tories, Liberals nor Conservatives. As Professor Seeley was, I believe, the first to teach directly, though the lesson is indirectly involved in every line written by Ranke, the father of modern historical research, the way in which Macaulay and Forster regarded the development of the past—that is to say, the constant avowed or unavowed comparison of it with the present—is altogether destructive of real historical knowledge."

"The statesman uses his imagination to predict the result of changes to be produced in the actually existing state of society, either by the natural forces which govern it, or by his own action. The historian uses his imagination in tracing out the causes which produced that existing state of society."

"What may be fairly demanded alike of Cromwell's admirers and of his critics is that they shall fix their eyes upon him as a whole. To one of them he is the champion of liberty and peaceful progress, to another the forcible crusher of free institutions, to a third the defender of oppressed peoples, to a fourth the asserter of his country's right to dominion. Every one of the interpreters has something on which to base his conclusions. All the incongruities of human nature are to be traced somewhere or other in Cromwell's career. What is more remarkable is that this union of apparently contradictory forces is precisely that which is to be found in the English people, and which has made England what she is at the present day."

"The more of a student he is—and no one can be a historian without being a very devoted student—the more he is removed from that intimate contact with men of all classes and of all modes of thought, from which the statesman derives by far the greater part of that knowledge of mankind which enables him to give useful play to his imaginative power for their benefit."

"To the historian no more interesting period can be found than one in which men of virtue and ability strove with one another in seeking the solution of the highest problems at a time when the old chain of precedent had been violently snapped, and when all things seemed possible to the active intelligence."

"Unless the historian can feel an affectionate as well as an intelligent interest in the personages with whom he deals, he will hardly discover the key to the movements of the society of which they formed a part. The statesman, too, will be none the worse if, in studying the past, he is reminded that his predecessors had to deal with actual men and women in their complex nature, and if thereby he learns that pity for the human race which was the inspiring thought of the New Atlantis, and which is the source of all true and noble effort."

"Ranke is cold and unenthusiastic; and, in judging individuals, it is well to be cold and unenthusiastic. But is there no room for warmth of feeling in recounting the efforts and the struggles of the race? Is it not possible to do for history what Darwin has done for science? Ranke, at all events, did not do it. He knew of the influence upon individuals of great waves of feeling and opinion; but he does not seek for the law of human progress which underlies them. He does not rejoice in that progress, or grieve at failure. Hence, perhaps, in part his preference for writing the history of many nations during the same period, rather than the history of one nation consecutively. To say this, however, is only to say that there is no finality in scientific progress. Whatever shape the histories of the future may take, they will assuredly be built on the foundations which Ranke has laid down with unerring hand."

"England, it has been said by one who, in our own days, has exhibited the old Puritan virtues to a world which had well-nigh forgotten them, has been saved by its adventurers—that is to say, by the men who, careless whether their ways are like the ways of others, or whether there may not be some larger interpretation of the laws by which the world is governed than any which they have themselves been able to conceive, have set their hearts on realising, first in themselves and then in others, their ideal of that which is best and holiest. Such adventurers the noblest of the Puritans were. Many things existed not dreamed of in their theology, many things which they misconceived, or did not even conceive at all; but they were brave and resolute, feeding their minds upon the bread of heaven, and determined within themselves to be servants of no man and of no human system."

"It has not, I hope, been for nothing that many years ago, as a young and unknown writer, I deliberately refrained from selecting a subject more attractive in its own nature than the reign of James I. could possibly be. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that it was the duty of a serious inquirer to search into the original causes of great events rather than, for the sake of catching at an audience, to rush unprepared upon the great events themselves. My reward has been that, whether the present work is well or ill done, it is at all events far better done than it could have been if I had commenced with the tale of the Puritan Revolution itself."

"By those who stand aloof from us we are represented as grasping at wealth and territory, incapable of imaginative sympathy with subject races, and decking our misconduct with moral sentiments intended to impose on the world. From our own point of view, the extension of our rule is a benefit to the world, and subject races have gained far more than they have lost by submission to a just and beneficent administration, whilst our counsels have always, or almost always, been given with a view to free the oppressed and to put a bridle in the mouth of the oppressor."

"He has been our Master Interpreter; he has toiled year after year that his countrymen might understand what their forebears really thought and did, when they failed, where they succeeded. He has made it possible for us to understand the curious warp or twist in the regular development of this nation that has made it different from other European nations in its political and social life—a warp of a strange, possibly not wholly beneficial, kind, but a warp the conditions of which can now to some extent be made out. He has done for us as to Cromwell's day what Stubbs has done for us as to the days of Henry FitzEmpress and Earl Simon and Edward I, and he has done it by enormous toil, and by a well-devised and consistent method. Knowledge can only be achieved by rightly directed and unselfish effort. Gardiner knew this, and in the security and helpfulness of his results he had the sole reward he sought or valued."

"[Gardiner's works] constitute the standard authority and though the conceptual framework has been challenged (above all in the treatment of parliamentary affairs) it remains unshakeable as a balanced narrative."

"The late Professor Samuel Gardiner, for instance, could absorb facts, and he could state them; but he had no point of view; and the result is that his book on the most exciting period of English history resembles nothing so much as a very large heap of sawdust."

"His best memorial is his history. Its pages reveal the thoroughness of his workmanship and his single-minded devotion to truth. The book was based on a mass of materials hitherto unknown or imperfectly utilised, and those materials were weighed and sifted with scientific skill. Each new edition was corrected with conscientious care as fresh evidence came to light. In his narrative minute accuracy and wide research were combined with sound judgment, keen insight, and a certain power of imagination. Earlier historians of the period, and some of Gardiner's own contemporaries, had written as partisans. Gardiner succeeded in stating fairly and sympathetically the position and the aims of both parties. He did not confine himself to relating facts, but traced the growth of the religious and constitutional ideas which underlay the conflict. No side of the national life was neglected. He won the praise of experts by his accounts of military and naval operations, elucidated continually the economic and social history of the time, and was the first to show the interaction of English and continental politics. The result of his labours was to make the period he treated better known and better understood than any other portion of English history. A narrative which fills eighteen volumes and took forty years to write is necessarily somewhat unequal as a literary composition. Many critics complained that Gardiner's style lacked the picturesqueness and vivacity of Macaulay or Froude; others that his method was too chronological. There was truth in both criticisms; but the chronological method was chosen because it enabled the historian to show the development of events far better than a more artificial arrangement would have done. He sought to interest his readers by his lucid exposition of facts and the justice of his reflections rather than by giving history the charms of fiction, and was content with the distinction of being the most trustworthy of nineteenth-century historians."

"Everybody who now writes about Cromwell must, apart from old authorities, begin by grateful acknowledgment of his inevitable debt to the devoted labours of Mr. Gardiner, our master historian of the seventeenth century."

"Whatever we may say, we are and have been a forceful nation, full of vigorous vitality, claiming empire as our due, often with scant consideration for the feelings and desire of other peoples. Whatever foreigners may say, we are prone, without afterthought, to place our strength at the service of morality and even to feel unhappy if we cannot convince ourselves that the progress of the human race is forwarded by our action. When we enter into possession, those who look on us from the outside dwell upon the irregularity of our conduct in forcing ourselves into possession; whilst we, on the contrary, dwell upon the justice and order maintained after we have once established ourselves."

"With Cromwell's memory it has fared as with ourselves. Royalists painted him as a devil. Carlyle painted him as the masterful saint who suited his peculiar Valhalla. It is time for us to regard him as he really was, with all his physical and moral audacity, with all his tenderness and spiritual yearnings, in the world of action what Shakespeare was in the world of thought, the greatest because the most typical Englishman of all time. This, in the most enduring sense, is Cromwell's place in history. He stands there, not to be implicitly followed as a model, but to hold up a mirror to ourselves, wherein we may see alike our weakness and our strength."

"Freeman and Macaulay are alike in the high value they set upon parliamentary institutions. On the other hand, when Macaulay wants to make you understand a thing, he compares it with that which existed in his own day. The standard of the present is always with him. Freeman traces it to its origin, and testifies to its growth. The strength of this mode of proceeding in an historian is obvious. Its weakness is that it does not help him to appreciate statesmanship looking forward and trying to find a solution of difficult problems. Freeman's attitude is that of the people who cried out for the good laws of King Edward, trying to revive the past."

"The most important works for the period are by the late Samuel Rawson Gardiner and Charles Harding Firth... Gardiner's History of England, 1603–42, 10 vols., 1883–4; History of the Great Civil War, 1642–9, 4 vols., 1893; and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 4 vols., 1903, cover the period from 1603 to 1656 with unexampled thoroughness. Even after the lapse of fifty years, it is difficult to add substantially to, or to make more than minor corrections of, this narrative, which is, however, mainly confined to political and constitutional history, with no attempt to treat systematically the economic or social life of the period."

"Hallam's View of Europe, during the Middle Ages. 2 vols. A work of profound research, and displaying a free and vigorous spirit of inquiry and criticism."

"The principal works of this judicious and learned writer are A View of Europe during the Middle Ages, The Constitutional History of England, and An Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first half of the nineteenth century."

"Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, in 4 vols. This is a production of the greatest value, and distinguished like his other work, for research, judgment, taste and elegance."

"The chief value of Turner's writings today is found in his notes. His artistic pretensions were least happy of all; his arrangement was neither orderly nor luminous, and digressions annoy the reader. Southey winced over some of his later volumes. When Turner emerged from the Saxon period he had little to offer which was new, and Lingard's work superseded these later portions. But in his proper domain he worked with enthusiasm and effectiveness, won the esteem of Hallam, Southey, Scott, and Tennyson, and had the satisfaction of stirring the English mind to a new consciousness of its ancestry. As a student of Anglo-Saxon materials, Turner held his own until Kemble and Thorpe appeared."

"Turner's work came as a revelation to the reading public. Based on solid and patient erudition, its judicious and authoritative note won approval... After speaking of the Britons and Romans, Turner described the life and customs of the Teutonic invaders before they left the mainland,—and devoted much space to the religious, economic, and social features of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England. Inferior to Hume in the narrative portions, he offered a far broader view of early life in the island."

"The Revolution is not to be considered as a mere effort of the nation on a pressing emergency to rescue itself from the violence of a particular monarch; much less as grounded upon the danger of the Anglican church, its emoluments, and dignities, from the bigotry of a hostile religion. It was rather the triumph of those principles which, in the language of the present day, are denominated liberal or constitutional, over those of absolute monarchy, or of monarchy not effectually controlled by stated boundaries. It was the termination of a contest between the regal power and that of parliament, which could not have been brought to so favourable an issue by any other means."

"In Hallam's "Constitutional History of England," the good qualities of the antiquarian student are united with a masterly and impartial analysis of the growth of our political institutions, and set off by a classical grace of diction, and much power of exciting interest. The work is the only one of its kind and time, that combines, in a high degree, literary skill with valuable matter; and its merit is the greatest that can belong to an historical work, avowedly and designedly dissertative rather than narrative. The distinguished writer, (whose varied learning we shall yet meet on different ground,) conferred another standard work on our language, in his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages.""

"War and religion were the absorbing subjects of this period, and all the imagination, and feeling, and thought which exist in the Anglo-Saxon poetry are connected with one or both of these topics."

"If we had no other evidence of the political wisdom of our Gothic or Teutonic ancestors than their institution of the witena-gemots, or national parliaments, this happy and wise invention would be sufficient to entitle them to our veneration and gratitude. For they have not only given to government a form, energy, and direction more promotive of the happiness of mankind than any other species of it has exhibited, but they are the most admirable provision for adapting its exercise and continuance to all the new circumstances ever arising of society, and for suiting and favouring its continual progress."

"The first edition was published as early as 1805; and though for the edition of 1807 the work was carefully revised, it can hardly be considered a standard authority at the present day. The investigations of Kemble, Palgrave, and others have deprived it of a value it once possessed. It will be found, however, that the volumes contain many minute details of considerable interest. The author was a special student of this period; but, though he accumulated a vast number of interesting facts, his methods were much less philosophical than those of his more distinguished successors in the same field. The literary style is not such as to give additional value to the volumes. Aside from its intrinsic merits, the work is entitled to some respect; for, when it was first published, it was a genuine revelation to the English people. Until that time, no one had taken the trouble to collect the accessible evidence and bring it into a single book. Turner, therefore, performed a very useful work in calling attention to a field which has since been very successfully cultivated."

"Among many historical efforts, principally concerning England in different periods, his History of the Anglo-Saxons stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history. The style is not good—too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for a knowledge of the Saxon period."

"The reign of Alfred, from his restoration to his death, was wise and prosperous. One great object of his care was, to fortify his kingdom against hostile attacks. He rebuilt the cities and castles which had been destroyed, and constructed new fortifications in every useful place; and he divided the country into hundreds and tythings for its better military defence and internal peace, and to repel that disposition for depredation which was prevailing even among his own subjects. By these defensive precautions, he gave to the country a new face, and not only kept in awe the Northmen who were in it, but was prepared to wage, with advantage, that defensive war, which the means and disposition of the impetuous invaders could never successfully withstand."

"One of the best writers, of the most learned antiquarians and most enlightened scholars of his time."

"Turner's Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons ought to be upon your shelves...so much new information was probably never laid before the public in any one historical publication."

"The character of the ancient Saxons displayed the qualities of fearless, active, and successful pirates. It is not merely the Spanish churchman Orosius, who speaks of them as dreadful for their courage and agility, but the emperor Julian, who had lived among barbarians, and who had fought with some Saxon tribes, denotes them as distinguished amongst their neighbours for vehemence and valour. Zosimus, their contemporary, expresses the general feeling of his age, when he ranks them as superior to others in energy, strength, and warlike fortitude."

"Woden was the great ancestor from whom they deduced their genealogies. It will be hereafter shown that the calculations from the Saxon pedigrees place Woden in the third century... Woden was the predominant idol of the Saxon adoration, but we can state no more of him but so far as we describe the Odin of the Danes and Norwegians."

"Nothing is more curious nor more interesting in history than to remark that when great political exigencies occur, which threaten to shake the foundations of civil society, they are usually as much distinguished by the rise of sublime characters, with genius and ability sufficient to check the progress of the evil, and even to convert its disasters to benevolent issues. One of these extraordinary persons was Alfred the Great, and considered with regard to the time of his appearance, the great ends which he achieved, and the difficulties under which he formed himself, no historical character can more justly claim our attention and admiration than our venerated king."

"Turner's History of England down to the Lives of the Tudors, is replete with Anglo-Saxon and other ancient learning; and it is written with dignity, purity and eloquence. Turner surpasses Hume in the depth and fulness of his researches, and in the spirit and tenor of his moral reflections."

"The publication of the first edition of Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons in successive volumes between the years 1799 and 1805, appears to have excited an attention not only towards their history, but by the addition to it of an account of their language and literature, a slow but gradually increasing attention has been awakened... [T]he research which, within a few years past, has characterized the inquiries into the institutions, laws, and polity of the Anglo-Saxons, has been in a great degree the offspring of a previous acquaintance with the pages of Sharon Turner's highly interesting and instructive work."

"... I suggested that he write for Oldham's Press, which I was advising, a biography of Mountjoy: Elizabethan General. This was a congenial subject, which made the most of. ... ... 's long liaison with , the wife of , was recognised by society, until Mountjoy married the lady, when social humbug made a scandal of it. All this appealed to Cyril, who had a soldierly gallantry for the fair sex."