Section 13 of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Colleen McMahon. The World's Story, Volume 10. England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Edited by Eva March-Tappan. Section 13. How Cromwell Dissolved Parliament, 1653. By François-Pierre Guillaume Guiseau. Cromwell wished to summon a new parliament, but the Assembly then in session refused to adjourn, and led by Sir Henry Vain was about to pass a dissolution bill, according to which the membership should remain unchanged, and none who might be elected to fill vacancies could be admitted unless the members approved. The editor. Cromwell was informed that the parliament was sitting, and that Vain, Martin, and Sidney were pressing the immediate adoption of what they called the dissolution bill. The members of the House who were with Cromwell at Whitehall went off immediately to Westminster, but Cromwell himself remained with his officers, determined still to wait and not to act unless forced to do so by extreme necessity. Presently, Colonel Ingoldsby arrived, exclaiming, If you mean to do anything decisive, you have no time to lose. The House was on the point of coming to a vote. Vain had insisted, with such warmth and earnestness on passing the bill, that Harrison had deemed it necessary, most sweetly and humbly, to conjure his colleagues to pause before they took so important a step. Cromwell left Whitehall in haste, followed by Lambert and five or six officers, and commanded a detachment of soldiers to march round to the House of Commons. On his arrival at Westminster, he stationed guards at the doors and in the lobby of the House, and led round another body to a position just outside the room in which the members were seated. He then entered alone, without noise, clad in plain black clothes with gray worsted stockings, as was his custom when he was not in uniform. Vain was speaking and passionately discounting on the urgency of the bill. Cromwell sat down in his usual place where he was instantly joined by St. John, to whom he said, That he was come to do that which grieved him to the very soul, and that he had earnestly with tears prayed God against. Nay, that he had rather be torn in pieces than do it, but there was a necessity laid upon him therein, in order to the glory of God and the good of the nation. St. John answered that he knew not what it meant, but did pray that what it was which must be done might have a happy issue for the general good, and so saying he returned to his seat. Vain was still speaking, and Cromwell listened to him with great attention. He was arguing the necessity of proceeding at once to the last stage of the bill, and with that view adjured the House to dispense with the usual formalities which should precede its adoption. Cromwell at this beckoned to Harrison. Now is the time he said, I must do it. Sir, replied Harrison anxiously, the work is very great and dangerous. You say well, answered Cromwell, and sat still for another quarter of an hour. Vain ceased speaking. The speaker rose to put the question when Cromwell stood up, took off his hat, and began to speak. At first he expressed himself in terms of commendation of the Parliament and its members, praising their zeal and care for the public good. But gradually his tone changed, his accents and gestures became more violent. He reproached the members of the House with their delays, their covetousness, their self-interest, their disregard for justice. You have no heart to do anything for the public good, he exclaimed. Your intention was to perpetuate yourselves in power, but your time has come, the Lord has done with you. He has chosen other instruments for the carrying on his work that are more worthy. It is the Lord hath taken me by the hand and set me on to do this thing. Vain went worth and Martin rose to speak to him, but he would not suffer them to speak. You think perhaps, he said, that this is not parliamentary language, I know it, but expect no other language from me. Went worth at length made himself heard. He declared that this was indeed the first time that he had ever heard such unbecoming language given to the Parliament, and that it was the more horrid in that it came from their servant and their servant whom they had so highly trusted and obliged, and whom, by their unprecedented bounty, they had made what he was. Cromwell thrust his hat upon his head, sprang from his seat into the center of the floor of the house, and shouted out, Come, come, we have had enough of this. I'll put an end to your prading, call them in. He added briefly to Harrison. The door opened and twenty or thirty musketeers entered under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Worsley. You are no Parliament, cried Cromwell. I say you are no Parliament, be gone. Give way to honester men. He walked up and down the floor of the house, stamping his foot and giving his orders. Fetch him down, he said to Harrison, pointing to the speaker, who still remained in his chair. Harrison told him to come down, but lent all refused. Take him down, repeated Cromwell. Harrison laid his hand on the speaker's gown, and he came down immediately. Algernon Sidney was sitting near the speaker. Put him out, said Cromwell to Harrison. Sidney did not move. Put him out, reiterated Cromwell. Harrison and Worsley laid their hands on Sidney's shoulders, upon which he rose and walked out. This is not honest, exclaimed Vane. It is against morality and common honesty. Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane, replied Cromwell. You might have prevented this extraordinary course, but you are a juggler, and have not so much as common honesty. The Lord delivered me from Sir Harry Vane. Anne amidst the general confusion, as the members passed out before him, he flung nicknames in the face of each. Some of you are drunkards, he said, pointing to Mr. Chaliner. Some of you are adulterers, and he looked at Sir Peter Wentworth. Some of you are corrupt, unjust persons, and he glanced at Whitelock and others. He went up to the table on which the mace lay, which was carried before the speaker, and called to the soldiers. What shall we do with this bobble? Here, take it away. He frequently repeated, It is you that have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day, that he would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work. Alderman Allen told him that it was not yet gone so far, but all things might be restored again, and that if the soldiers were commanded out of the house and the mace returned, the public affairs might go on in their course. Cromwell rejected this advice and called Allen to account for some hundred thousand pounds, which as treasure of the army he had embezzled. Allen replied that it was well known that it had not been his fault that his account was not made up long since, that he had often tendered it to the house, and that he asked no favour from any man in that matter. Cromwell ordered him to be arrested, and he was led off by the soldiers. The room was now empty. He seized all the papers, took the dissolution bill from the clerk, and put it under his cloak, after which he left the house, ordered the doors to be shut, and returned to Whitehall. At Whitehall he found several of his officers, who had remained there to await the event. He related to them what he had done at the house. When I went there he said, I did not think to have done this, but perceiving the spirit of God so strong upon me I would not consult flesh and blood. A few hours later in the afternoon he was informed that the Council of State had just assembled in its ordinary place of meeting, in Whitehall itself, under the presidency of Bradshaw. He went to them immediately, followed only by Harrison and Lambert. Gentlemen he said, if you are met here as private persons you shall not be disturbed, but if, as a Council of State, this is no place for you, and since you can't but know what was done at the house this morning, so take notice that the Parliament is dissolved. Sir, answered Bradshaw, we have heard what you did at the house in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear it. But sir you are mistaken to think that Parliament is dissolved, for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves. Therefore take you notice of that, all then rose and left the room. On the following day, the 21st of April, this announcement appeared in the Mercurious Politicus, which had become Cromwell's journal. The Lord General delivered yesterday in Parliament diverse reasons wherefore a present period should be put to the sitting of this Parliament, and it was accordingly done, the Speaker and the Members all departing. The grounds of which proceedings will, it is probable, be shortly made public. And on the same day a crowd collected at the door of the house to read a large placard, which had probably been placed there during the night by some cavalier who was overjoyed at finding his cause avenged on the Republicans by a regicide. It bore this inscription, this house to be let, unfurnished. End of Section 13. This recording is in the public domain. Section 14 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Colleen McMahon. The World's Story, Volume 10. England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Edited by Eva March Tappin. Section 14. Praise God, Bear Bones Parliament. 1653 by Edward Earl of Clarendon. After Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Parliament or Rump Parliament, as it was also called, he assumed executive authority and sent a request to the independent or congregational churches of the land that they should name persons to form a new parliament. Cromwell's council chose chiefly from among the persons thus named the Little Parliament, which from the name of one member, the royalists called the Bear Bones Parliament, the editor. There were amongst them some few of the quality and degree of gentleman and who had estates and such a proportion of credit and reputation as could consist with the guilt they had contracted. But much the major part of them consisted of inferior persons of no quality or name, artificers of the meanest trades known only by their gifts in praying or preaching, which was now practiced by all degrees of men but scholars throughout the kingdom. In which number that there may be a better judgment made of the rest, it will not be amiss to name one from whom that parliament itself was afterwards denominated, who was Praise God, that was his Christian name, Bear Bone, a leather cellar in Fleet Street, from whom he being an eminent speaker in it, it was afterwards called Praise God, Bear Bones Parliament. In a word, they were a pack of weak, senseless fellows, fit only to bring the name and reputation of parliament lower than it was yet. It was fit these new men should be brought together by some new way and a very new way it was, for Cromwell by his warrants directed to every one of them telling them of the necessity of dissolving the late parliament and of an equal necessity that the peace, safety, and good government of the commonwealth should be provided for and therefore that he had by the advice of his council of officers nominated diverse persons fearing God and have approved fidelity and honesty to whom the great charge and trust of so weighty affairs was to be committed and that having good assurance of their love to and courage for God and the interest of his cause and the good people of this commonwealth. He concluded in these words, I Oliver Cromwell, Captain General and Commander-in-Chief of all the forces raised, or to be raised within this commonwealth, do hereby summon and require you personally to be and appear at the council chamber at Whitehall, upon the fourth day of July next, then and there to take upon you the said trust, and you are hereby called and appointed to serve as a member for the county of, etc. Upon this wild summons, the persons so nominated appeared at the council chamber upon the fourth of July, which was near three months after the dissolution of the former parliament. Cromwell with his council of officers was ready to receive them and made them a long discourse of the fear of God and the honor due to his name, full of texts of scripture, and remembered the wonderful mercies of God to this nation and the continued series of providence by which he had appeared in carrying on his cause and bringing affairs into that present glorious condition, wherein they now were. He put them in mind of the noble actions of the army in the famous victory of Worcester, of the applications they had made to the parliament for a good settlement of all the affairs of the commonwealth, the neglect whereof made it absolutely necessary to dissolve it. He assured them by many arguments, some of which were urged out of scripture, that they had a very lawful call to take upon them the supreme authority of the nation and concluded with a very earnest desire that great tenderness might be used towards all conscientious persons of whatever judgment so ever they appeared to be. When he had finished his discourse, he delivered to them an instrument engrossed in parchment under his hand and seal, whereby with the advice of his council of officers, he did devolve and entrust the supreme authority of this commonwealth into the hands of those persons therein mentioned, and declared that they or any forty of them were to be held and acknowledged the supreme authority of the nation, to which all persons within the same and the territories thereunto belonging were to yield obedience and subjection to the third day of the month of November, which should be in the year 1654, which was about a year and three months from the time that he spoke to them, and three months before the time prescribed should expire, they were to make choice of other persons to succeed them, whose power and authority should not exceed one year, and when they were likewise to provide and take care for a like succession in the government. Being thus invested with this authority, they repaired to the Parliament House and made choice of one Rouse to be their speaker, an old gentleman of Devonshire, who had been a member of the former Parliament, and in that time been preferred and made Provost of the College of Eaton, whose office he then enjoyed with an opinion of having some knowledge in the Latin and Greek tongues of a very mean understanding but thoroughly engaged in the guilt of the times. At their first coming together, some of them had the modesty to doubt that they were not in many respects so well qualified as to take upon them the style and title of a Parliament, but that modesty was quickly subdued and they were easily persuaded to assume that title and to consider themselves as the supreme authority in the nation. These men, thus brought together, continued in this capacity near six months to the amazement and even mirth of the people, in which time they never entered upon any grave and serious debate that might tend to any settlement but generally expressed great sharpness and animosity against the clergy out of which they thought the clergy had grown and still would grow. There were now no bishops for them to be angry with. They had already reduced all that order to the lowest beggary. But their quarrel was against all who had called themselves ministers and who, by being called so, received tithes and respect from their neighbors. They resolved the function itself to be anti-Christian and the persons to be burdensome and they thought fit that they should be abolished altogether and that there might not for the time to come be any race of people who might revive those pretenses. They thought fit that all lands belonging to the universities and colleges in those universities might be sold and the monies that should arise thereby be disposed for the public service and to ease the people from the payment of taxes and contributions. When they had tired and perplexed themselves so long in such debates as soon as they were met in the morning upon the 12th of December and before many of them were calm who were like to dissent from the motion one of them stood up and declared that he did believe they were not equal to the burden that was laid upon them and therefore that they might dissolve themselves and deliver back their authority into the hands from whom they had received it. Which, being presently consented to, with those who were of that mind went to Whitehall and redelivered to Cromwell the instrument they had received from him acknowledged their own impotency and besought him to take care of the Commonwealth. By this frank donation he and his council of officers were once more possessed of the supreme power of the nation and in a few days after his council were too modest to share with him in this royal authority but declared that the government of the Commonwealth should reside in a single person that that person should be Oliver Cromwell Captain General of all the forces in England, Scotland and Ireland and that his title should be Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and of the dominions and territories there unto belonging and that he should have a council of one and twenty persons to be assistant to him in the government. End of Section 14 This recording is in the public domain. Section 15 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales Read for LibriVox.org by Aaron Grassy Cromwell Visiting Milton by David Neal American Artist 1837 Painting page 74 Several years before the breaking out of the Civil War Milton had already planned his paradise lost but he gave this up for the time and made himself heart and mind to the cause of the Puritans. Save for an occasional sonnet he wrote prose only but prose which is often of rare eloquence and harmony. His best known work of this period is the Areopagitica a plea for liberty of the press. After the execution of Charles I Milton stood boldly on the side of the Puritans. He was soon made Latin or foreign secretary to the Commonwealth. He had become entirely blind because of the overwork which his devotion to the state had brought upon his eyes. Of them he writes What supports me dost thou ask the conscience friend to have lost them over plied in liberty's defence my noble task. It was not until some years after the restoration that he produced his wonderful epic Paradise Lost Three years after the publication of these latter works Milton died. In this picture, Cromwell is seen in the house of his Latin secretary whom he has come to consult probably on some business of state. The stern warrior has entered unannounced but has paused in Milton's study to listen to the music of a spinet played by the great poet in Enna joining Elcove. End of section 15 This recording is in the public domain. Section 16 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales Read for LibriVox.org by Aaron Grassy England part 3 From the Restoration to the House of Hanover Historical note Cromwell died in 1658. His son succeeded him but was not strong enough to fill his father's place and resigned at the request of the army. England had worried of the strict rule of the Puritans and in 1660 Charles II son of Charles I was invited to return. Now came reaction and at first the country could not do enough for this witty, good-humoured sovereign but it was soon evident that he cared for nothing but his own pleasure. His court was the home of disilluteness and profligacy. At the death of Charles II in 1685 he was succeeded by his brother James. This new ruler had learned nothing from the fate of Charles I but proceeded to rule as he chose without regard to the wishes of his subjects. Moreover he was a Roman Catholic and was determined to re-establish that form of faith in England. The result was that he was forced to flee from the kingdom and the throne was given by Parliament to marry daughter of James together with her husband William of Orange. Parliament took advantage of this bloodless revolution and increased its power at the expense of the throne by enacting a Bill of Rights. This provided that henceforth the cabinet should be responsible to Parliament instead of to the king. On the death of William of Orange in 1702 Anne, second daughter of James II became queen. Her lack of brilliancy of intellect apparently had no effect upon the march of events. For her reign was marked both by brilliant military achievements and literature. In her first year on the throne England, Germany and Holland united in a war against France known as the War of the Spanish Succession in which the Duke of Marlborough won victory after victory for his country and under Sir Cloudsley's shovel Gibraltar was taken. By the treaty closing the war England gained in America Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and a vast area of land about Hudson Bay. England were united under the name of Great Britain. End of Section 16 This recording is in the public domain. Section 17 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sonya The World's Story, Volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales Edited by Evermarch Tappan Section 17 In the Days of the Plague 1665 By Daniel Defoe In 1665 a terrible plague swept over England The most vivid of all the accounts of this awful visitation was written by Daniel Defoe He was a boy of five at the time of the pestilence but his descriptions are so realistic that his work has often been accepted for what it claims to be namely a diary of the times the editor It is incredible and scarcely to be imagined how the posts and corners of streets were plastered over with doctor's bills and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tempering in physics inviting the people to come to them for remedies which invitation was generally set off with such flourishes infallible preventive pills against the plague never failing preservatives against the infection sovereign cordials against the corruption of the air exact regulations for the conduct of the body in case of an infection anti-pestilential pills incomparable drink against the plague never found out before a universal remedy for the plague the only true plague water the royal antidote against all kinds of infection and such a number more that I cannot reckon up and if I could it would feel a book of themselves to set them down others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for directions and advice in the case of infection these set specious titles also such as these a cover from Holland where he resided during all the time of the great plague last year in Amsterdam and cured multitudes of people that actually had the plague upon them an Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples having a choice secret to prevent infection which she found out by her great experience and did wonderful cures with it in the late plague there wherein there died a woman having practiced with great success in the late plague in this city Anno 1636 gives her advice only to the female sex to be spoken with etc an experienced physician who has long studied the doctrine of antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection has after 40 years practiced arrived to such skill as may with God's blessing direct persons how to prevent contagious this temper whatever he directs the poor gratis I take notice of these by way of specimen I could give you two or three dozen of the like and yet have abundance left behind this sufficient from these to appraise anyone of the humor of those times and how a set of thieves and pig-pockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations and some with other things as bad perfectly remote from the thing pretended to and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body in case an infection followed I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him but did nothing for them without money he had, it seems added to his bills which he gave about the streets this advertisement in capital letters this he gives advice to the poor for nothing abundance of poor people came to him accordingly to whom he made a great many fine speeches examining them to the state of their health and of the constitution of their bodies and told them many good things for them to do which were of no great moment but the issue and conclusion of all was that he had a preparation which if they took such a quantity of every morning he would pawn his life they should never have the plague no, though they lived in a house with people that were infected this made the people all resolved to have it but then the price of that was so much I think it was half a crown but sir, says one poor woman I am a poor arms woman and am kept by the parish and the bills say you give the poor your help for nothing I, good woman, says the doctor so I do as I publish there I give my advice to the poor I give my advice to the poor for nothing but not my physics Alas, sir, says she that is a snare laid for the poor then for you give them your advice for nothing that is to say you advise them gratis to buy your physics for their money so does every shopkeeper with his wares here the woman began to give him ill words and stood at his door all that day telling her tale to all the people that came till the doctor finding she turned away his customers was obliged to call her upstairs again and give her his box of physics for nothing which perhaps too was good for nothing when she had it but to return to the people whose confusion fitted them to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders and by every mount-bank there is no doubt but these quacking sorts of fellows raised great gains out of the miserable people for we daily found the crowds that ran after them were infinitely greater and their doors were more throng than those of Dr. Brooks Dr. Upton Dr. Hodges Dr. Burwick or any though the most famous men of the times and I was told that some of them got five pounds a day by their physics but there was still another madness beyond all this which may serve to give an idea of the distracted humor of the poor people at that time and this was their following a worse sort of deceivers than any of the above for these petty thieves only deluded them with their pockets and get their money in which their wickedness, for whatever it was laid chiefly on the side of the deceivers deceiving not upon the deceived but in this part I am going to mention it laid chiefly on the people deceived or equally in both and this was in wearing charms filters, exorcisms, amulets and I know not what preparations to fortify the body with them against the plague as if the plague was not the hand of God but a kind of possession of an evil spirit and that it was to be kept off with crossings signs of the zodiac papers tied up with so many knots and certain words of figures written on them as particularly the word abracadabra formed in triangle or pyramid thus abracadabra abracadabra abracadab abracadab abracad abracadabra abracadabra abracadab other said to Jesuit's mark in a cross IHS others nothing but this mark thus I might spend a great deal of time in my exclamations against the follies and indeed the wickedness of those things in a time of such danger in a matter of such consequences as this of a national infection but my memorandums of these things relate rather to take notice only of the fact and mention only that it was so how the poor people found the insufficiency of those things and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the dead cards and thrown into the common graves of every parish with these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks remains to be spoken of as we go along all this was the effect of the hurry the people were in after the first notion of the plague being at hand was among them and which may be said to be from about Mickelmas, 1664 but more particularly after the two men died in St. Giles in the beginning of December and again after another alarm in February for when the plague evidently spread itself they soon began to see the folly of trusting to those unperforming creatures who had gulled them of their money and then their fears worked another way namely to amazement and stupidity not knowing what course to take nor what to do either to help or relieve themselves but they ran about from one neighbor's house to another and even in the streets from one door to another with repeated cries of Lord have mercy upon us, what shall we do? indeed the poor people were to be pitted in one particular thing in which they had little or no relief and which I desire to mention with a serious awe and reflection which perhaps everyone that reads this may not relish namely that whereas death now began not as we may say to hover over everyone's head only but to look into their houses and chambers and stare in their faces though there might be some stupidity and dullness of the mind and there was so a great deal yet there was a great deal of just alarm sounded in the very inmost soul if I may so say of others many consciences were awakened many hard hearts melted into tears and many a penitent confession was made of crimes long concealed it would have wounded the soul of any Christian to have heard the dying groans of many a despairing creature and none durst come near to comfort them many a robbery, many a murder was then confessed aloud and nobody's surviving to record the accounts of it people might be heard even in the streets as we passed along calling upon God for mercy through Jesus Christ and saying I have been a thief I have been a murderer and the like and none durst stop to make the least inquiring to such things or to administer comfort to the poor creatures that in the anguish both of soul and body thus cried out some of the ministers did visit the sick at first and for a little while but it was not to be done it would have been present death but it was to be done into some houses the very barriers of the dead who were the most hardened creatures in town were sometimes beaten back and so terrified that they durst not go into the houses where whole families were swept away together and where the circumstances were most particularly horrible as some were but this was indeed at the first heat of the distemper time endured them to it all and they ventured everywhere afterwards without hesitation at large hereafter I am supposing now the plague to be begun as I have said and that the magistrates began to take the condition of the people into their serious consideration what they did as to the regulation of inhabitants and of infected families I shall speak to by itself but as to the affair of health it is proper to mention it here that having seen the foolish humor of the people in running after quacks and mount-banks, wizards and fortune-tellers which they did as above even to madness the Lord Mayor a very sober and religious gentleman appointed physicians and surgeons for the relief of the poor I mean the diseased poor and in particular ordered the college of physicians to publish directions for cheap remedies for the poor in all circumstances of the distemper this indeed was one of the most charitable and judicious things that could be done at that time for this drove the people from haunting the doors of every dispenser of bills and from taking down blindly and without consideration poison for physics and death instead of life End of Section 17 This recording is in the public domain Section 18 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Colleen McMahon The World's Story, Volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales Edited by Eva March-Tappen Section 18 The Fall of King Monmouth 1685 by Charles Dickens James II was a Roman Catholic and the country preferred to have a Protestant ruler Some were eager to give the crown to the Duke of Monmouth the illegitimate son of Charles II who was a Protestant King Monmouth, as he was called by his supporters came over from Holland fully expecting to be made sovereign of England the editor He immediately set up his standard in the marketplace and proclaimed the king a tyrant and a popish usurper and I know not what else charging him not only with what he had done which was bad enough but with what neither he nor anybody else had done such as setting fire to London and poisoning the late king Raising some 4,000 men by these means he marched on to Taunton where there were many Protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the Catholics Here both the rich and poor turned out to receive him Ladies waved a welcome to him from all the windows as he passed along the streets Flowers were strewn in his way and every compliment and honour that could be devised was showered upon him As he passed, 20 young ladies came forward in their best clothes and in their brightest beauty and gave him a Bible ornamented with their own fair hands together with other presents Encouraged by this homage he proclaimed himself king and went on to Bridgewater but here the government troops under the Earl of Feverisham were close at hand and he was so dispirited at finding that he made but few powerful friends after all that it was a question whether he should disband his army and endeavor to escape It was resolved at the instance of that unlucky Lord Grey to make a night attack on the King's army as it lay encamped on the edge of a morass called Sedgemore The horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky Lord who was not a brave man He gave up the battle almost at the first obstacle which was a deep drain and although the poor countrymen who had turned out for Monmouth fought bravely with scythe, poles, pitchforks and such poor weapons as they had were soon dispersed by the trained soldiers and fled in all directions When the Duke of Monmouth himself fled was not known in the confusion but the unlucky Lord Grey was taken early next day and then another of the party was taken who had confessed that he had parted from the Duke only four hours before Strict search being made he was found disguised as a peasant hidden in a ditch under fern and nettles with a few peas in his pocket which he had gathered in the fields to eat The only other articles he had upon him were a few papers and little books one of the latter being a strange jumble in his own writing of charms, songs, recipes and prayers He was completely broken He wrote a miserable letter to the King beseeching and entreating to be allowed to see him When he was taken to London and conveyed bound into the King's presence he crawled to him on his knees and made a most degrading exhibition As James never forgave or relented towards anybody he was not likely to soften towards the issuer of the Lime Proclamation so he told the supplient to prepare for death On the 15th of July 1685 this unfortunate favourite of the people was brought out to die on Tower Hill The crowd was immense and the tops of all the houses were covered with gazers He had seen his wife, the daughter of the Duke of Bucklew in the tower and had talked much of a lady whom he loved far better the lady Harriet Wentworth who was one of the last persons he remembered in this life Before laying his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp enough and that the axe was not heavy enough On the executioner replying that it was of the proper kind the Duke said, I pray you have a care and do not use me so awkwardly as you used my Lord Russell The executioner made nervous by this and trembling, struck once and merely gashed him in the neck Upon this the Duke of Monmouth raised his head and looked to the man reproachfully in the face Then he struck twice, then thrice and then threw down the axe and cried out in a voice of horror that he could not finish the work The sheriffs, however, threatening him with what should be done to himself if he did not he took it up again and struck a fourth and a fifth time Then the wretched head last fell off and James, Duke of Monmouth was dead in the 36th year of his age He was a showy, graceful man with many proper qualities and had found much favor in the open hearts of the English The atrocities committed by the government which followed this Monmouth rebellion form the blackest and most lamentable page in English history The poor peasants, having been dispersed with great loss and their leaders having been taken one would think that the implacable king might have been satisfied but no, he let loose upon them among other intolerable monsters a Colonel Kirk, who had served against the Moors and whose soldiers, called by the people Kirk's lambs because they bore a lamb upon their flag as the emblem of Christianity were worthy of their leader The atrocities committed by these demons in human shape are far too horrible to be related here It is enough to say that besides most ruthlessly murdering and robbing them and ruining them by making them buy their pardons at the price of all they possessed it was one of Kirk's favorite amusements as he and his officers set drinking after dinner and toasting the king to have batches of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the company's diversion and that when their feet quivered in the convulsions of death he used to swear that they should have music to their dancing and would order the drums to beat and the trumpets to play The detestable king informed him as an acknowledgement of these services that he was very well satisfied with his proceedings But the king's great delight was in the proceedings of Jeffries, now a peer who went down into the West with four other judges to try persons accused of having had any share in the rebellion The king pleasantly called this Jeffries' campaign The people down in that part of the country remember it to this day as the bloodiest size It began at Winchester where a poor deaf old lady, Mrs. Alicia Lyle the widow of one of the judges of Charles I who had been murdered abroad by some royalist assassins was charged with having given shelter in her house to two fugitives from Sedgemore Three times the jury refused to find her guilty until Jeffries bullied and frightened them into that false verdict When he had extorted it from them he said, gentlemen, if I had been one of you and she had been my own mother I would have found her guilty as I dare say he would He sentenced her to be burned alive that very afternoon The clergy of the cathedral and some others interfered in her favour and she was beheaded within a week As a high mark of his approbation the king made Jeffries Lord Chancellor and he then went on to Dorchester to Exeter, to Taunton and to Wells It is astonishing when we read of the enormous injustice and barbarity of this beast to know that no one struck him dead on the judgment seat It was enough for any man or woman to be accused by an enemy before Jeffries to be found guilty of high treason One man who pleaded not guilty he ordered to be taken out of court upon the instant and hanged and this so terrified the prisoners in general that they mostly pleaded guilty at once At Dorchester alone in the course of a few days Jeffries hanged 80 people besides whipping, transporting, imprisoning and selling his slaves great numbers He executed in all 250 or 300 These executions took place among the neighbors and friends of the sentenced in 36 towns and villages Their bodies were mangled, steeped in cauldrons of boiling pitch and tar and hung up by the roadsides in the streets over the very churches The sight and smell of heads and limbs the hissing and bubbling of the infernal cauldrons and the tears and terrors of the people were dreadful beyond all description One rustic who was forced to steep the remains in the black pot was ever afterwards called Tom Boyleman The hangman has ever since been called Jack Ketch because a man of that name went hanging and hanging all day long in the train of Jeffries You will hear much of the horrors of the great French Revolution Many and terrible they were there is no doubt but I know of nothing worse done by the maddened people of France in that awful time than was done by the highest judge in England with the express approval of the king of England in the bloodiest size Nor was even this all Jeffries was as fond of money for himself as of misery for others and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his pockets The king ordered at one time a thousand prisoners to be given to certain of his favorites in order that they might bargain with them for their pardons The ladies of Taunton who had presented the Bible were bestowed upon the maids of honor at court and those precious ladies made very hard bargains with them indeed When the bloodiest size was at its most dismal height the king was diverting himself with horse races in the very place where Mrs. Lyall had been executed When Jeffries had done his worst and came home again he was particularly complimented in the Royal Gazette and when the king heard that through drunkenness he was very ill his odious majesty remarked that such another man could not easily be found in England Besides all this a former sheriff of London named Cornish was hanged within sight of his own house after an abominably conducted trial for having had a share in the Rye House plot on evidence given by Rumsey which that villain was obliged to confess was directly opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial of Lord Russell and on the very same day he was named Elizabeth Gaunt was burned alive at Tibern for having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence against her She settled the fuel about herself with her own hands so that the flames should reach her quickly and nobly said with her last breath that she had obeyed the sacred command of God to give refuge to the outcast and not to betray the wanderer End of section 18 This recording is in the public domain Section 19 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales read for LibriVox.org by Alan Mapstone The Song of the Western Men 1688 by Robert Stephen Hawker James II in his determination to restore the Roman Catholic Church in England issued a declaration granting religious freedom to all and ordered that it be read in every church in the land Even those who would have rejoiced to have such a law knew that laws must be made not by the king but by parliament The Archbishop of Canterbury and six other bishops protested and were thrown into prison Among them was Trelawney the popular Cornishman the editor A good sword and a trusty hand a merry heart and true King James's men shall understand what Cornish lads can do and have they fixed the where and when and shall Trelawney die Here's 20,000 Cornish men will know the reason why Outspake their captain brave and bold a merry white was he If London Tower were Michael's hold we'll set Trelawney free We'll cross the Tamar land to land the Severn is no stay with one and all and hand in hand and who shall bid us nay and when we come to London Wall a pleasant sight to view come forth, come forth he cowards all his men as good as you Trelawney he's in keep and hold Trelawney he may die but his 20,000 Cornish bold will know the reason why to 1879, painting page 92 England had born with James II in the expectation that before many years he would be succeeded by his daughter but at the announcement that a son had been born to him the country was in despair and invited William of Orange husband of James's daughter Mary to come and lead a rising against the king The illustration pictures the dismay of James on hearing of the welcome received by William on his arrival the letter making the announcement is falling from his hand Back of him is the execrable judge Jeffries Beside him is the queen who points to the baby prince as if to arouse James to defend the future of his son Behind the screen is the lord and waiting who has brought the letter Apparently he surmises as contents and is intently listening to observe their effect The scene is laid in the royal apartment at Whitehall Palace William of Orange landed on November 5, 1688 on December 11 James realizing that resistance was hopeless fled without hasering a blow He was captured and brought back to London but escaped to France where he was given a home and a pension by King Louis XIV End of section 20 This recording is in the public domain Section 21 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales This is a LibreVox recording All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org Recording by Julie Birks The World's Story Volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales Created by Eva March Tappan Section 21 A Campaign under Marlborough by William McPeace Thackeray John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough one of the greatest as well as one of the most unscrupulous figures of the period was born in 1650 and educated as a soldier He attained a high position under James II but was one of the first to desert that monarch the landing of William of Orange by whom he was created Earl His wife, Sarah, was the favourite and virtual ruler of the Princess Anne and on Anne's accession to the throne Marlborough was given command of the United Armies of England, Holland and Germany in the War of the Spanish Succession against Louis XIV of France He proved to be the most brilliant general of his age winning every battle in which he commanded but at home his wife's influence was slowly undermined by the Duke's enemies In 1711 the Duchess was superseded by a new favourite Marlborough, left at the mercy of his rivals was accused of speculation and dismissed from all offices and the war was ended by the peace of Utrecht, 1713 the editor His grace, the captain general, went to England after Bon and our army fell back into Holland where in April 1704 his grace again found the troops embarking from Harwich and landing at Maze Land, Sluice Thence his grace came immediately to the Hague where he received the foreign ministers, general officers and other people of quality The greatest honours were paid to his grace everywhere at the Hague, Utrecht, Jermond and Maistricht The civil authorities coming to meet his coaches salvos of cannons saluting him canopies of state being erected for him where he stopped and feasts prepared for the numerous gentlemen following in his suite His grace reviewed the troops of the states general between Liège and Maistricht and afterwards the English forces under the command of general Churchill near Bois-les-Duc Every preparation was made for a long march and the army heard, with no small elation that it was the commander in chief's intention to carry the war out of the low countries and march on the Moselle Before leaving our camp at Maistricht we heard that the French under the Marshal Villeroy were also bound towards the Moselle Towards the end of May the army reached Copland and next day his grace and the generals accompanying him went to visit the Elector of Treves at his castle of Einbrikstein the horse and dragoons passing the Rhine whilst the Duke was entertained at a grand feast by the Elector All as yet was novelty, festivity and splendour a brilliant march of a great and glorious army through a friendly country and sure through some of the most beautiful scenes of nature which I ever witnessed the foot and artillery following after the horse as quick as possible crossed the Rhine under Einbrikstein and so to Castel over against mines in which city his grace his generals and his retinue were received at the landing place by the Elector's coaches carried to his highness's palace amidst the thunder of cannon and then once more magnificently entertained Giedlingen in Bavaria was appointed as the general rendezvous of the army and thither by different routes the whole forces of English, Dutch, Danes and German auxiliaries took their way the foot and artillery under general Churchill passed the Nicar at Heidelberg and Esmond had an opportunity of seeing that city and palace once so famous and beautiful though shattered and battered by the French under Turin in the late war where his grand sire had served the beautiful and unfortunate Elector's Palantine the first King Charles's sister at Mindelschein the famous prince of Savoy came to visit our commander all of us crowding eagerly to get a sight of that brilliant and intrepid warrior and our troops were drawn up in Vitalia before the prince who was pleased to express his admiration of this noble English army at length we came in sight of the enemy between Dillingen and Laumange the prince lying between the two armies the Elector judging that Donaward would be the point of his grace's attack sent a strong detachment of his best troops to Count Dargos he was posted at Schellenberg near that place where great entrenchments were thrown up and thousands of pioneers employed to strengthen the position on the 2nd of July his grace stormed the post with what success on our part needs scarce be told his grace advanced with 6,000 foot English and Dutch, 30 squadrons and three regiments of imperial curisers the Duke crossing the river at the head of the cavalry although our troops made the attack with unparalleled courage and fury rushing up to the very guns of the enemy and being slaughtered before their works we were driven back many times and should not have carried them but that the imperialist came up under the Prince of Badden when the enemy could make no head against us we pursued him into the trenches making a terrible slaughter there and into the very Danube were a great part of his troops following the example of their generals Count Dargos and the Elector himself tried to save themselves by swimming our army entered Donaward which the Bavarians evacuated and where to have said the Elector purposed to give us a warm reception by burning us in our beds the sellers of the houses when we took possession of them being found stuffed with straw but though the links were there the link boys had run away the townsmen saved their houses and our general took possession of the enemy's ammunition in the arsenals his stores and magazines five days afterward a great Tadeum was sung in Prince Louis's army and a solemn day of thanksgiving held in our own the Prince of Savoie's compliments coming to his grace the Captain General during the day's religious ceremony and concluding as it were with an amen and now having seen a great military march through a friendly country the pomp and festivities of more than one German court a severe struggle of a hotly contested battle and the triumph of victory Mr. Esmond beheld another part of military duty our troops entering the enemy's territory and putting all around them to fire and sword burning farms, wasted fields shrieking women slaughtered sons and fathers and drunken soldiery cursing and corousing in the midst of tears, terror and murder why does the stately views of history the delights in describing the valor of heroes and the grandeur of conquest leave out these scenes so brutal, mean and degrading to get formed by far the greater part of the drama of war you gentlemen of England who live at home and ease and compliment yourselves in the songs of triumph with which our chieftains are be praised you pretty maidens that come tumbling down the stairs when the fife and drum call you and his awe for the British grenadiers do you take account that these items go to make up the amount of the triumph you admire and form part of the duties of the heroes you fondle our chief, whom England and all Europe saving only the Frenchmen worshipped almost had this of the godlike in him that he was impassable before victory, before danger before defeat before the greatest obstacle or the most trivial ceremony before a hundred thousand men drawn in battalia or a peasant slaughtered at the door of his burning hovel before a carouse of drunken German lords or a monarch's court or a cottage table where his plans were laid or an enemy's battery vomiting flame and death and stirring corpses around about him he was always cold, calm, resolute like fate he performed a treason or a court bow he told a falsehood as black as sticks as easily as he paid a compliment or spoke about the weather he betrayed his benefactor and supported him or would have murdered him with the same calmness always and having no more remorse than clotho when she weaves the thread or like cases when she cuts it in the hour of battle I have heard the prince of Savoy's officers say the prince became possessed with a sort of war-like fury his eyes lighted up he rushed hither and thither raging he shrieked curses and encouragement yelling and harking his bloody war-dogs on and himself always at the front of the hunt Arduk was as calm at the mouth of the cannon as at the door of the drawing room perhaps he could not have been the great man he was had he had a heart either for love or hatred or pity or fear or regret or remorse he achieved the highest deed of daring or deepest calculation of thought as he performed the very meanest action of which a man is capable told a lie or cheated a fond woman or robbed a poor beggar of a half-penny with a like awful serenity an equal capacity of the highest and lowest acts of our nature his qualities were pretty well known in the army where there were parties of all politics and of plenty of shrewdness and wit but there existed such a perfect confidence in him as the first captain of the world and such a faith and admiration in his prodigious genius and fortune that the very men whom he notoriously cheated of their pay the chiefs whom he used and injured for he used all men great and small that came near him as his instruments alike and took something of theirs either some quality or some property the blood of a soldier it might be or a jeweled hat or a hundred thousand crowns from a king or a portion out of a starving sentinel's three farthings or, when he was young a kiss from a woman and the gold chain off her neck taking all he could from woman or man and having as I have said this of the godlike in him that he could see a hero perish or a sparrow fall with the same amount of sympathy for either not that he had no tears he could always order up this reserve at the proper moment to battle he could draw upon tears or smiles alike and whenever need was for using this cheap coin he would cringe to a boot black as he would flatter a minister or a monarch be haughty, be humble threaten, repent, weep grasp your hand or stab you whenever he saw occasion but yet those of the army who knew him best and had suffered most from him admired him most of all and as he rode along the lines to battle or galloped up in the nick of time to a battalion reeling from before the enemy's charge was shot the fainting men and officers got new courage as they saw the splendid calm of his face and felt that his will made them irresistible after the great victory of Blenheim the enthusiasm of the army for the Duke even of his bitterest personal enemies in it amounted to a sort of rage nay, the very officers who cursed him in their hearts were among the most frantic to cheer him who could refuse his mead of admiration to such a victory and such a victor not he who writes a man may profess to be ever so much a philosopher but he who fought on that day must feel a thrill of pride as he recalls it the French Rite was posted near to the village of Blenheim on the Danube where the Marshal Talard's quarters were their line extending through a league and a half before Lutsigen and up to a woody hill round the base of which and acting against the Prince of Savoy were forty of his squadrons here was a village which the Frenchmen had burned the wood being in fact a better shelter and easier of guard than any village before these two villages and the French lines ran a little stream not more than two foot broad harsh that was mostly dried up from the heats of the weather and this stream was the only separation between the two armies hours coming up and ranging themselves in the line of battle before the French at six o'clock in the morning so that our line was quite visible to theirs and the whole of this great plain was black and swarming with troops for hours before the cannonading began on one side and the other this cannonading lasted many hours the French guns being in position in front of their line and doing severe damage among our horse especially and on our right wing of imperialists under the Prince of Savoy who could neither advance his artillery nor his lines the ground before him being cut up by ditches morasses and very difficult of passage for the guns it was past the day when the attack began on our left where lord cuts commanded the bravest and most beloved officer in the English army and now as if to make his experience in war complete our young aide de camp having seen two great armies facing each other in line of battle and had the honor of riding with orders from one end to the other of the line came in for a not uncommon accompaniment of military glory and was knocked on the head along with many hundred of brave fellows almost at the very commencement of this famous day of Glenheim a little afternoon the disposition for attack being completed with much delay and difficulty and under a severe fire from the enemy's guns that were better posted and more numerous than ours a body of English and Hessians with the major general Wilkes commanding at the extreme left of our line marched upon Glenheim advancing with great gallantry the major general on foot with his officers at the head of the column and marching with his hat off intrepidly in the face of the enemy who was pouring in a tremendous fire from his guns and musketry to which our people were instructed not to reply except with pike and bayonet when they reached the French palisades to these Wilkes walked intrepidly and struck the woodwork with his sword before our people charged it he was shot down at the instant with his colonel, major and several officers and our troops cheering and hazzling and coming on as they did with immense resolution and gallantry were nevertheless stopped by the murderous fire from behind the enemy's defenses and then attacked and flanked the furious charge of French horse which swept out of Glenheim and cut down our men in great numbers. Three fierce and desperate assaults of our foot were made and repulsed by the enemy so that our columns of foot were quite shattered and fell back scrambling over the little rivulet which we had crossed so resolutely an hour before and pursued by the French cavalry slaughtering us and cutting us down and now the conquerors were met by a furious charge of the English horse under Esmond's general General Lumley behind whose squadrons the flying foot found refuge and formed again whilst Lumley drove back the French horse charging up to the village of Glenheim and the palisades were Wilkes and many hundred more gallant Englishmen lay and slaughtered heaps beyond this moment and of this famous victory Mr. Esmond knows nothing for a shot brought down his horse and our young gentleman on it who fell crushed and stunned under the animal and came to his senses he knows not how long after only to lose them again from pain and loss of blood a dim sense as if people groaning round about him a wild incoherent thought or two for her who occupied so much of his heart now after his career and his hopes and misfortunes were ended he remembers in the course of these hours when he woke up it was with a pang of extreme pain his breastplate was taken off his servant was holding his head up the good and faithful lad of Hampshire was blubbering over his master whom he found and had thought dead and a surgeon was probing a wound in his shoulder which he must at the same moment when his horse was shot and fell over him the battle was over at this end of the field by this time the village was in possession of the English it's brave defenders prisoners or fled or drowned many of them in the neighboring waters of Danau end of section 21 this recording is in the public domain section 22 of England Scotland Ireland and Wales this is a LibreVox recording all LibreVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org the world's story volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales edited by Eva March-Tappan section 22 the government in quest of a poet by William Makepeace Thackeray in 1704 the government set out in quest of a poet to compose a poem on moral boroughs victory at Blenheim someone recommended a young man named Joseph Addison and he was chosen in the poem which he produced there were two lines that especially delighted the government and the people in these he compared moral borough to an angel who pleased the Almighty's orders to perform rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm Addison was given one office after another and he won both political and literary glory in the following extract he has pictured as in the act of composing this poem the editor on the hard table one Sunday afternoon went by a chance Dick footnote Richard Steele in the footnote had a sober fit upon him he and his friend were making their way down Germaine street and Dick all of a sudden left his companions arm and ran after a gentleman who was pouring over a folio volume at the bookshop near St. James's church he was a fair tall man with a plain sword very sober and almost shabby in appearance at least when compared to Captain Steele who loved to adorn his jolly round person with the finest of clothes and shone in scarlet and gold lace the captain rushed up then to the student of the bookstore took him in his arms hugged him and would have kissed him Fort Dick was always hugging and bussing his friends but the other stepped back without flush pale face seeming to decline this public manifestation of Steele's regard my dearest Joe where has thou hidden thyself this age cries the captain still holding his friend's hands I've been languishing for thee this fortnight a fortnight is not an age Dick says the other very good humoredly he had light blue eyes extraordinary bright and a face perfectly regular and handsome like a tinted statue and I've been hiding myself where do you think what not across the water my dear Joe says deal with a look of great alarm thou knowest I have always know says his friend interrupting him with a smile we are not come to such straights as that Dick I've been hiding sir at a place where people never think of finding you at my own lodgings whether I am going to smoke a pipe now and drink a glass of sack will your honor come Harry Esmond come hither cries out Dick thou has heard me talk over and over again of my dearest Joe my guardian angel indeed says Mr. Esmond with a bow it is not from you only that I've learned to admire Mr. Addison we loved good poetry at Cambridge as well as that and I have some of yours by heart though I have put on a red coat Oakweed Canoro Orpheus Dukas Carmen shall I go on sir says Mr. Esmond who indeed had read and loved the charming Latin poems of Mr. Addison as every scholar of that time knew and admired them this is Captain Esmond who was at Blenheim says to you Lieutenant Esmond says the other with a low bow at Mr. Addison's service I've heard of you says Mr. Addison with a smile as indeed everybody about town had heard that unlucky story about Esmond's Dowager aunt and the Duchess we were going to the George to take a bottle before the play says to you without be one Joe Addison said his own lodgings were hard by where he was still rich enough to give a good bottle of wine to his friends and invited the two gentlemen to his apartment in the hay market with her we accordingly went I shall get credit with my landlady says he with a smile when she sees two such fine gentlemen as you come up my stair and he politely made his visitors welcome to his apartment which was indeed but a shabby one though no grandee of the land could receive his guests with a more perfect and courtly grace and this gentleman a frugal dinner consisting of a slice of meat and a penny loaf was awaiting the owner of the lodgings my wine is better than my meat says Mr. Addison my Lord Halifax sent me the burgundy and he said a bottle and glasses before the owner of the lodgings and ate his simple dinner in a very few minutes after which the three fell to and began to drink you see says Mr. Addison pointing to his writing table where on was a map of the action that hot and several other gazettes and pamphlets relating to the battle that I too am busy about your affairs captain I'm engaged as a truth and am writing a poem on the campaign so asman at the request of the host told him what he knew about the famous battle drew the river on the table a lique maro footnote with a little wine end of footnote and with the aid of some bits of tobacco pipe showed the advance of the left wing where he had been engaged a sheet or two of the verses lay already on the table beside our bottles and glasses and Dick having plentifully refreshed himself from that ladder took up the pages of manuscript read out with scarce a blot or correction in the author's slim neat handwriting and began to read there from with great emphasis and volubility at pauses of the verse the enthusiastic reader stopped and fired off a great salvo of applause asman smiled at the enthusiasm of Addison's friend you were like the German burgers says he and the princes on the moselle when our army came to a halt they always sent a deputation to compliment the chief and fire to salute with all their artillery from their walls and drunk the great chief's health afterward did not they says captain steel gaily filling up a bumper he never was tardy that sort of acknowledgement about friends' merits and the Duke since you will have me act his graces part says Mr. Addison with a smile and something of a blush pledged his friends in return most serene elector of Covent garden I drink to your highness's health and he filled himself a glass joseph requires there's more pressing than dick to that sort of that amusement but the wine never sold to fluster Mr. Addison's brains it only unloosed his tongue whereas captain steels head and speech were quite overcome by a single bottle no matter what the verses were and to say truth Mr. Esmond found some of them more than indifferent dicks enthusiasm for his chief never faltered and in every line from Addison's pen steel found a master stroke by the time dick had come to that part of the poem where in the bar describes as blandly as though he were recording a dance at the opera or harmless bout of Buchalic Cuddling at a village fair that bloody and ruthless part of our campaign with the remembrance where of every soldier who bore a part in it must sicken with shame when we were ordered to ravage and lay waste the elector's country and with fire and murder and crime a great part of his dominion was overrun when dick came to the lines in vengeance roused the soldier fills his hand with sword and fire and ravages the land in crackling flames a thousand harvests burn a thousand villages to ashes turn to the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat and mixed with bellowing herds confusedly bleat their trembling lords the common shade partake and cries of infants sound in every break the listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands loath to obey his leader's just commands the leader grieves by generous pity suede to see his just commands so well obeyed by this time wine and friendship bed brought poor dick to a perfectly modern state and he hiccuped out the last line with a tenderness that said one of his auditors a laughing I admire the license of your poets says asman to mr. adison dick after reading of the verses was feigned to go off insisting on kissing his two dear friends before his departure and reeling away with his periwig over his eyes I admire your art the murder of the campaign is done to military music like a battle at the opera and the virgins shriek and harmony as our victorious grenadiers march into their villages do you know what a scene it was by this time perhaps the wine had warmed mr. asman's head to what a triumph you are celebrating what scenes of shame and horror were enacted over which the commander's genius presided as calm as though he didn't belong to our sphere you talk of the listening soldier fixed in sorrow the leader's grief swayed by generous pity to my belief the leader cared no more for bleeding flocks than he did for infants cries and many of our ruffians butchered one or the other with equal alacrity I was ashamed of my trade when I saw those horrors perpetrated which came under every man's eyes you you out of your polished verses a stately image of smiling victory I tell you it is an uncouth distorted savage idol hideous bloody and barbarous the rites performed before it are shocking to think of you great poets should show it as it is ugly and horrible not beautiful and serene oh sir had you made the campaign believe me you would never have sung it so during this little outbreak Mr. Addison was listening smoking out of his long pipe and smiling very placidly what would you have says he in our polished days and according to the rules of art is impossible that the muses should depict tortures or begrime her hands of war these are indicated rather than described as in the Greek tragedies that I daresay you have read and sure there can be no more elegant specimens of composition Agamemnon is slain or Medea's children destroyed away from the scene the chorus occupying the stage and singing of the action to pathetic music something of this I attempt my dear sir in a humble way tis a panagyric I mean to write and not a satire were I to sing as you would have me the town would tear the poet in pieces and burn his book by the hands of the common hangman do you not use tobacco of all the weeds grown on earth sure the nicotine is the most soothing and salutary we must paint our great Duke Mr. Addison went on no doubt he is with weaknesses like the rest of us but as a hero does he not triumph not a battle that your humble servant is writing his sleek pegasus we college poets trot you know on very easy nags it had been time out of mind part of the poet's profession to celebrate the actions of heroes in verse and to sing the deeds which you men of war perform I must follow the rules of my art the composition of such a strain as this must be harmonious and majestic not familiar or to near the vulgar truth see parois licket footnote see parois licket componery magnus if it is allowable to compare small things with great end of footnote if Virgil could invoke the divine Augustus the humbler poet from the banks of the Isis may celebrate a victory and a conquer of our own nation in whose triumph every Britain has a share and whose glory and genius contributes to every citizen's individual honor when have there been since our Henry's and Edward's days such a great feat of arms has that from which you yourself have brought away marks of distinction if it is in my power to sing that song wordily I will do so and be thankful to my muse if I fail as a poet as a Briton at least I will show my loyalty and bring up my cap and hazzah for the conquer Reni Pakertor at history Amnus Den Hoek Uno Warius Discordia Kessit Orde Nibbous Laetitur Equus Plouded Quay Senator Wotakwe Patricchio Keretan Plabia Valwari There were as brave men on that field says Mr. Esmond who never could be made to love the Duke of Marl, Burl nor to forget those stories which he used to hear in his youth regarding that great chief's selfishness and treachery there were men at Blenheim as good as the leader whom neither knights nor senators applauded nor voices plebeian favored and who lie there forgotten under the clouds what poet is there to sing them to sing the gallant souls of heroes sent to Hades says Mr. Addison with a smile would you celebrate them all if I may venture to question anything in such an admirable work the catalogue of the ships in Homer hath always appeared to me as somewhat wearisome what had the poem been supposing or had chronicled the names of captains, lieutenants, rank and file one of the greatest of man's qualities is success it is the result of all the others there's a latent power in him which compels the favor of the gods and subjugates fortune of all his gifts I admire that one in that great moral burl to be brave every man is brave but in being victorious as he is I fancy there is something divine in presence of the occasion the great soul of the leader shines out and the god is confessed death itself respects him and passes by him to lay others low war and carnage flee before him to ravage other parts of the field as Hector from before the divine Achilles you say he hath no pity no more have the gods who are above it and superhuman the fainting battle gathers strength at his aspect and wherever he rides victory charges with him a couple of days after when Mr. Esmond revisited his poetic friend he found this thought struck out in the fervor of conversation improved and shaped into those famous lines which are in truth the noblest in the poem of the campaign as the two gentlemen sat engaged in talk Mr. Esmond solacing himself with his customary pipe the little maid servant that waited on his lodging came up preceding a gentleman in fine laced clothes that had evidently been figuring at court or a great man's the courtier coughed a little at the smoke of the pipe and looked around the room curiously which was shabby enough as was the owner in his worn snuff colored suit and plain magnum opus Mr. Addison says the court gentlemen on looking down at the papers that were on the table we were but now over it says Addison the greatest courtier in the land could not have had a more splendid politeness or greater dignity of manner here is the plan says he on the table Hock Ibbott Simoese footnote there flowed the Simoese into footnote ran the little river Nebel Hick Est Seguian Talis footnote here is the Seguian country and a footnote here are Taler's quarters at the bowl of this pipe at the attack of which captain Esmond was present I have the honor to introduce him to Mr. Boyle Mr. Esmond was but now depicting a liqueur mixed up mirror when you came in in truth the two gentlemen had been so engaged when the visitor arrived in Addison in his smiling way speaking of Mr. Webb Colonel of Esmond's regiment who commanded a brigade in the action and greatly distinguished himself there was lamenting that he could find never a suitable line for Webb otherwise the brigade should have had a place in the poets verses and for you are but a lieutenant says Addison and the muse can't occupy herself with any gentlemen under the rank of field officer Mr. Boyle was all impatient to hear saying that my lord treasurer and my lord Halifax were equally anxious and Addison blushing began reading of his verses and I suspect knew their weak parts as well as the most critical here when he came to the lines describing the angel that inspired and repulsed battalions to engage and taught the doubtful battle where to rage he read with great animation looking at Esmond as much as to say you know where that similarly came from from our talk and our bottle of burgundy the other day the poets two hearers were caught with enthusiasm and applauded the verses with all their might the gentlemen of the court sprang up in great delight there's not a word more my dear sir says he trusts me with the papers I'll defend them with my life let me read them over to my lord treasurer whom I am appointed to see in half an hour I venture to promise the verses shall lose nothing about my reading and then sir we shall see whether lord Halifax has a right to complain that his friend's pension is no longer paid and without more ado the courtier in lace sees the disengaged place them in his breast with his ruffled hand over his heart executed a most gracious wave of the hat with the disengaged hand and smiled and bowed out of the room leaving an odor of bone monder behind him does not the chamber look quite dark says Addison surveying it after the glorious appearance and disappearance of that gracious messenger why he illuminated the whole room your scarlet Mr. Esmond will bear any light but this red bear old coat of mine how very worn it looked under the glare of that splendor I wonder whether they will do anything for me he continued when I came out of Oxford into the world my patrons promised me great things and you see where their promises have landed me in a lodging up to pairs of stairs with a six penny dinner from the well well I suppose this promise will go after the others and fortune will jilt me as the jade has been doing anytime these seven years I puff the prostitute away says he smiling and blowing a cloud out of his pipe there is no hardship and poverty Esmond that is not bearable no hardship even in honest dependence that an honest man may not put up with I came out of the lap of Alma Mater popped up with her praises of me and thinking to make a figure in the world with the parts and learning which had got me no small name in our college the world is the ocean and Isis and Charwell are but little drops of which the sea takes no account my reputation ended a mile beyond Maudlin tower no one took note of me and I learned this at least to bear up against evil fortune with a cheerful heart friend Dick have made a figure in the world and has passed me in the race long ago what matters a little name or a little fortune there is no fortune that a philosopher cannot endure I've been not unknown as a scholar and yet forced to live by turning bear leader and teaching a boy to spell what then the life was not pleasant but possible the bear was bearable should this venture fail I will go back to Oxford and someday when you are a general you shall find me accurate in a cassock and bands and I shall welcome your honor to my cottage in the country and to a mug of penny ale does not poverty that's the hardest to bear or the least happy lot in life says Mr. Edison shaking the ash out of his pipe see my pipe is smoked out shall we have another bottle I have still in the cupboard and of the right sort no more let us go abroad and take a turn on the mall or look in at the theater and see Dick's comedy does not amassed a piece of it but Dick is a good fellow though he does not set the Thames on fire within a month after this day Mr. Edison's ticket had come up a prodigious prize in the lottery of life all the town was in an uproar of admiration of his poem the campaign which Dick Steele was spouting at every coffee house in Whitehall and Covent Garden the wits on the other side of Temple Bar saluted him at once as the greatest poet the world had seen for ages the people hazard for moral borough and for Edison and more than this the party in power provided for the meritorious poet and Mr. Edison got the appointment of commissioner of excise which was the famous Mr. Locke vacated and rose from this place to other dignities and honors his prosperity from henceforth to the end of his life being scarce even interrupted but I doubt whether he was not happier in his Garrett in the hay market than ever he was in his splendor palace at Kensington end of section 22 this recording is in the public domain section 23 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Colleen McMahon the world's story volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales edited by Eva March Tappan section 23 Sunday with Sir Roger by Joseph Addison the reign of Anne is known as the Augustan age of English literature then for the first time authorship became a recognized calling instead of an occasional occupation this was due partly to the increase of wealth and leisure and partly to governmental encouragement Pope was the greatest of the poets Addison, Swift, Steele and Ballingbrook stood first among the writers of prose the famous spectator was the production of Addison and Steele its entertaining essays and sketches professed to be written by a club of which Sir Roger DeCoverly was the chief character the editor my friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing he is likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth and railed in table at his own expense he is often told me that it is coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular and that in order to make them kneel and join in the responses he gave every one of them a hassic and a common prayer book and at the same time employed an itinerant singing master who goes about the country for that purpose to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms upon which they now very much value themselves and indeed out do most of the country churches that I have ever heard as Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation he keeps them in very good order and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at Sermon upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him and if he sees anybody else nodding either wakes them himself or sends his servants to them several other of the old knights particularities break out upon these occasions sometimes he will be lengthening out of verse in the singing Psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it sometimes when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion he pronounces amen three or four times to the same prayer and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their knees to count the congregation or see if any of his tenants are missing I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend in the midst of the service calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about and not disturb the congregation this John Matthews it seems is remarkable for being an idle fellow and at the time was kicking his heels for his diversion this authority of the knight though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life has a very good effect upon the parish who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his character make his friends observe these little singularities as foils that set off rather than blemish his good qualities as soon as the sermon is finished nobody presumes to star till Sir Roger is gone out of the church the knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants that stand bowing to him on each side and every now and then inquires how such in ones wife or mother or son or father do whom he does not see at church which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent the chaplain has often told me that upon a catechizing day when Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place and that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church service as promised upon the death of the present incumbent who is very old to bestow it according to merit the fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain and their mutual concurrence in doing good is the more remarkable because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that rise between the parson and the squire who live in a perpetual state of war the parson is always preaching at the squire and the squire to be revenged on the parson that never comes to church the squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithes stealers while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order and insinuates to them in almost every sermon that he is a better man than his patron in short matters are come to such an extremity that the squire has not said his prayers either in public or private this half year and that the parson threatens him if he does not mend his matters to him in the face of the whole congregation feuds of this nature though too frequent in the country are very fatal to the ordinary people who are so used to be dazzled with riches that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate as of a man of learning and are very hardly brought to regard any truth how important so ever it may be that is preached to them when they know there are several men of 500 a year who do not believe it end of section 23 this recording is in the public domain section 24 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales read for LibriVox.org by Erin Grassy England part 4 England under the first three Georges historical note Queen Anne died in 1713 having outlived all of her 17 children and was succeeded by George I Elector of Hanover and son of James I as King George was more interested in his German principality than in his newly acquired kingdom he gave his cabinet practically a free hand in England a policy that led to a gradual shifting of executive power from the king to the prime minister in 1720 a mania for stock speculation swept over England leaving ruin in its wake but under the long and peaceful administration of Sir Robert Walpole the country recovered its prosperity during the reign of George II 1727 to 1760 England was drawn into two wars with France the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War in the latter under the vigorous leadership of William Pitt England completely humbled her ancient rival and by seizing French possessions in Canada and India laid the foundations for a vast colonial empire George III 1760 to 1820 was determined to destroy the party system and restore royal authority the oppressive measures directed by his favorite minister Lord North against the American colonies resulted in the American revolution whereby England lost her most important overseas territory end of section 24 this recording is in the public domain section 25 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Fornier Marshall, Virginia, USA the world's story volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales edited by Eva March-Tappen section 25 the vicar of Bray author unknown it is said that a certain vicar of Bray named Simon Simmons changed his theology with each change of sovereign and that when reproached for inconsistency he declared that he was perfectly consistent for he had ever been true to a single aim and that was to remain vicar of Bray the editor writing Charles's golden days when loyalty no harm was meant a zealous high churchman was I and so I got preferment to teach my flock I never missed kings were by God appointed and lost are those that dare resist or touch the lords anointed and this is law that I'll maintain until my dying day sir that whatsoever king shall reign still I'll be the vicar of Bray sir when royal James possessed the crown and Popory grew in fashion the penal laws I hooded down and read the declaration the church of Rome I found would fit full well my constitution and I had been a Jesuit but for the revolution and this is law that I'll maintain until my dying day sir that whatsoever king shall reign still I'll be the vicar of Bray sir when William was our king declared to ease the nation's grievance with this new wind about I steered and swore to him allegiance old principles I did revoke set conscience at a distance passive obedience was a joke a jest was non-resistance and this is law that I'll maintain until my dying day sir that whatsoever king shall reign still I'll be the vicar of Bray sir when royal Anne became our queen the church of England's glory another face of things was seen and I became a Tory occasional conformists base I blamed their moderation and thought the church in danger was by such prevarication and this is law that I'll maintain until my dying day sir that whatsoever king shall reign still I'll be the vicar of Bray sir when George in putting time came or and moderated men looked big sir my principles I changed once more and so became a wig sir and thus preferment I procured from our new faiths defender and almost every day abjured the Pope and the tender and this is law that I'll maintain until my dying day sir that whatsoever king shall reign still I'll be the vicar of Bray sir the illustrious house of Hanover and Protestant succession to these I do allegiance swear while they can keep possession for in my faith and loyalty I never more will falter and George my lawful king shall be until the times do alter and this is law that I'll maintain until my dying day sir that whatsoever king shall reign still I'll be the vicar of Bray sir and the section 25 this recording is in the public domain section 26 of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Fornure Marshall, Virginia, USA the world's story volume 10 England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales edited by Eva March Tappan section 26 the bubbles of the reign of King George I, 1720 by Charles McKay the greatest and most calamitous of the bubbles was the South Sea Company with its scheme for paying off the national debt by trading in the South Sea the company set wild stories afloat of the enormous fortunes that might be made by this trade and at the office and exchange alley people strove with one another for an opportunity to purchase its stock a ballot of the day declares then stars and garters did appear among the meaner rabble to buy and sell to see and hear the Jews and Gentiles squabble the greatest ladies hither come and plied their chariots daily or pond their jewels for a sum to venture in the alley when the speculative mania was at its height the chairman and some of the chief directors sold out their interests at an enormous profit then came the crash and thousands of families were made beggars Parliament investigated and eventually the stockholders received nearly one third of the money which they had so foolishly invested the editor innumerable joint stock companies started up everywhere they soon received the name of bubbles the most appropriate that imagination could devise the populace are often most happy in the nicknames they employ none could be more apt than that of bubbles some of them last for a week or a fortnight and were no more heard of while others could not even live out that short span of existence every evening produced new schemes and every morning new projects the highest of the aristocracy were as eager in this hot pursuit of gain as the most plodding jobber in Cornhill the Prince of Wales became governor of one company and is said to have cleared 40,000 pounds by his speculations the Duke of Bridgewater started a scheme for the improvement of London and Westminster and the Duke of Chandos another there were nearly a hundred different projects each more extravagant and deceptive than the other to use the words of the political state they were quote set on foot and promoted by crafty naves then pursued by multitudes of covetous fools and at last appeared to be in effect what their vulgar appellation denoted them to be bubbles and mere cheats end quote it was computed that near one million and half sterling was won and lost by these unwarrantable practices to the impoverishment of many a fool and the enrichment of many a rogue some of these schemes were plausible enough and had they been undertaken at a time when the public mind was unexcited might have been pursued with advantage to all concerned but they were established merely with the view of raising the shares in the market the projectors took the first opportunity of a rise to sell out and next morning the scheme was at an end Maitland in his history of London gravely informs us that one of the projects which received great encouragement was for the establishment of a company to make deal boards out of sawdust this is no doubt intended as a joke but there is abundance of evidence to show that dozens of schemes hardly a wit more reasonable lived their little day ruining hundreds ere they fell one of them was for a wheel of perpetual motion capital one million another was for encouraging the breed of horses in England and improving of glee and church lands and repairing and rebuilding parsonage and vicarage houses why the clergy who were so mainly interested in the latter clause should have taken so much interest in the first is only to be explained on the supposition that the scheme was projected by a knot of the fox hunting parsons once so common in England the shares of this company were rapidly subscribed for but the most absurd and preposterous of all and which showed more completely than any other the utter madness of the people was one started by an unknown adventurer entitled a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage but nobody to know what it is were not the fact stated by scores of witnesses it would be impossible to believe that any person could have been duped by such a project the man of genius who assayed this bold and successful in-road upon public credulity merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million five thousand shares of one hundred pounds each deposit two pounds per share each subscriber paying his deposit would be entitled to one hundred pounds per annum per share how this immense profit was to be obtained he did not condescend to inform them at that time but promised that in a month full particulars should be duly announced and a call made for the remaining ninety-eight pounds of the subscription next morning at nine o'clock this great man opened an office in corn hill crowds of people beset his door and when he shut up at three o'clock he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for and the deposits paid he was thus in five hours the winner of two thousand pounds he was philosopher enough to be contented with this venture and set off one evening for the continent he was never heard of again well might swift exclaim comparing exchange alley to a gulf in the south sea subscribers here by thousands float and jostle one another down each paddling in his leaky boat and here they fish for gold and drown now buried in the depths below now mounted up to heaven again they reel and stagger to and fro at their wits end like drunken men mean time secure on garrow way cliffs a savage race by shipwrecks fed lie waiting for the foundered skiffs and strip the bodies of the dead another fraud that was very successful was that of the globe permits as they were called they were nothing more than square pieces of playing cards on which was the profession of a seal in wax bearing the sign of the globe tavern in the neighborhood of exchange alley with the inscription of sailcloth permits the possessors enjoyed no other advantage from them than permission to subscribe at some future time to a new sailcloth manufacturing projected by one who was then known to be a man of fortune but who was afterwards involved in the peculation and punishment of the south sea directors these permits sold for as much as sixty yinies in the alley persons of distinction of both sexes were deeply engaged in all these bubbles those of the male sex going to taverns and coffee houses to meet their brokers and the ladies resorting for the same purpose to the shops of milliners and haberdasher but it did not follow that all these people believed in the feasibility of the schemes to which they subscribed it was enough for their purpose that their shares would, by stock jobbing arts, be soon raised to a premium when they got rid of them with all expedition to the really credulous so great was the confusion of the crowd in the alley that shares in the same bubble were known to have been sold at the same instant ten percent higher at one end of the alley than at the other sensible men beheld the extraordinary infatuation of the people with sorrow and alarm there were some both in and out of parliament who foresaw clearly the ruin that was impending Mr. Walpole did not cease his gloomy forebodings his fears were shared by all the thinking few and impressed most forcibly upon the government on the 11th of June the day the parliament rose the king published a proclamation declaring that all these unlawful projects should be deemed public nuisances and prosecuted accordingly and forbidding any broker under a penalty of five hundred pounds from buying or selling any shares in them not withstanding this proclamation roguish speculators still carried them on and the deluded people still encouraged them on the 12th of July an order by the lord's justices assembled in privy council was published dismissing all the petitions that have been presented for patents and charters and dissolving all the bubble companies end of section 26 this recording is in the public domain cased in the jackboots for the period was a broad faced jolly looking and very corpulent cavalier but by the manner in which he urged his horse you might see that he was bold as well as a skillful rider indeed no man loved sport better and in the hunting fields of Norfolk no squire rode more boldly after the fox or cheered ringwood or sweet lips more lustily than he who now thundered over the Richmond road he speedily reached Richmond and asked to see the owner of the mansion the mistress of the house and her ladies to whom our friend was admitted said he could not be introduced to the master however pressing the business might be the master was asleep after his dinner he always slept after his dinner and woe be to the person who interrupted him nevertheless our stout friend of the jackboots put the affrighted ladies aside opened the forbidden door of the bedroom where in upon the bed lay a little gentleman and here the eager messenger knelt down in his jackboots he on the bed started up and with many oaths and a strong German accent asked who was there and who dared to disturb him I am Sir Robert Walpole said the messenger the waking sleeper hated Sir Robert Walpole I have the honour to announce to your majesty that your royal father King George I died at Osneberg on Saturday last the tenth instant that is one big lie roared out his sacred majesty King George II but Sir Robert Walpole stated the fact and from that day until three and thirty years after George the second of the name ruled England how the king made way with his father's will under the astonished nose of the archbishop of Canterbury how he was a cleric little sovereign how he shook fists in the face of his father's courtiers how he kicked his coat and wig about in his rages and called everybody thief, liar, rascal with whom he differed you will read in all the history books and how he speedily and surely reconciled himself with the bold minister whom he had hated during his father's life and by whom he was served during fifteen years of his own with admirable prudence, fidelity and success End to section 27 this recording is in the public domain