Samuel Rawson Gardiner

“ Yet Wallenstein never allowed this luxury and splendour to stand in the way of higher objects. He was himself a strategist of no mean order. He had a keen eye for military capacity. He never troubled himself to inquire what a man's religion was if he thought he could render good service as a soldier. There were generals in his army whose ancestry was as illustrious as that of any sovereign in Europe, and generals who had no other title to eminence than their skill and valour. ”

“ To give herself a husband was to give herself a master, yet she dallied with the offers made to her, surely not from political craft alone. The thought of marriage, abhorrent to her brain, was pleasant to her heart, and she could not lightly speak the positive word of rejection. Even now, in the vain thought that she might rule a subject, even if she became his wife, she was toying with Lord Robert Dudley, the handsome and worthless son of the base Northumberland. ”

“ In their mouths, and still more in their lives, Christianity taught what the fierce English warrior most wanted to learn, the duty of restraining his evil passions, and above all his cruelty. Nowhere in all Europe did the missionaries appeal so exclusively as they did in England to higher and purer motives. Nowhere but in England were to be found kings like Oswald and Oswini, who bowed their souls to the lesson of the Cross, and learned that they were not their own, but were placed in power that they might use their strength in helping the poor and needy. ”

“ His claim to our reverence lies in the fact that his mind was as thoroughly saturated as Milton's was with the love of freedom as the nurse of high thought and high morality, while his gentle nature made him incapable of the harsh austerities of Milton's combative career. As an efficient statesman Falkland has little claim to notice. He knew what he did not want, but he had no clear conception of what he did want; no constructive imagination to become a founder of institutions in which his noble conceptions should be embodied. ”

“ Robert of Bellême, the strongest and wickedest of them all, rose in revolt. After capturing many of his castles, Henry laid siege to his great fortress at Bridgenorth. The barons who served under Henry urged him to spare a rebel who was one of their own class. The Englishmen and the inferior Norman knights thought otherwise. "Lord King Henry," they cried, "trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice.... Behold, we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. ”

“ In fact the theory of parliamentary government, like most theories after their truth has long been universally acknowledged, had become a superstition. Parliaments were held to be properly vested with authority, not because they adequately represented the national will, but simply because they were parliaments. There were thousands of people in England to whom it never occurred that there was any good reason why a British parliament should be allowed to levy a duty on tea in the London docks and should not be allowed to levy a duty on tea at the wharves of Boston. ”

“ Wolsey and the Renascence.—In scheming for the elevation of his own country by peace instead of by conquest, Wolsey reflected the higher aspirations of his time. No sooner had internal order been secured, than the best men began to crave for some object to which they could devote themselves, larger and nobler than that of their own preservation. Wolsey gave them the contemplation of the political importance of England on the Continent. ”

“ Wallenstein, the great calculator, saw that peace with Denmark was necessary. The Swedes and the Danes were beginning to act together, and resistance to one nation, if there must be resistance, would be easier than resistance to two. Much to his satisfaction he found Christian not unwilling to listen to the voice of his charming. Just as the eagle eye of Gustavus descried [Pg 118] the first feeble beams of light on the horizon, the King of Denmark, weary of misfortune and vexed at the prospect of having to crave help from his old competitor of Sweden, laid down his arms. ”

“ The apathy of the nation in all but the most exciting political questions, fostered by the calculated conservatism of Walpole, had thrown power into the hands of the great landowners. They maintained their authority by supporting a minister who was ready to make use of corruption, wherever corruption was likely to be useful, and who could veil over the baseness of the means which he employed by his talents in debate and in finance. To shake off a combination so strong would not have been easy. ”

“ The Thames was then the ‘silent highway’ of London, and the sight of a barge unloading before the back door of a house can have been no more surprising than the sight of a gondola moored to the steps of a palace on a canal in Venice. ”

“ The success of the English had been the success of a nation strong in the union of classes. The cessation of the war drove the thoughts of Englishmen back upon themselves. The old spiritual channels had been, to a great extent, choked up. Bishops were busy with the king's affairs; monks had long ceased to be specially an example to the world; and even the friars had fallen from their first estate, and had found out that, though they might personally possess nothing, their order might be wealthy. The men who won victories in France came home to spend their booty in show and luxury. ”

“ Every history, to be a history, must have a unity of its own, and here we have no unity of national life such as that which is reflected in the institutions of England and France, not even the unity of a great race of sovereigns handing down the traditions of government from one generation to another. The unity of the subject which I have chosen must be sought in the growth of the principle of religious toleration as it is adopted or repelled by the institutions under which Germany and France, the two principal nations with which we are concerned, are living. ”

“ The combination of Buckingham with the two houses and the heir-apparent was irresistible. Buckingham was not content with getting his way. He must signalise in the eye of the world the hopelessness of resistance. With this object he, supported by Charles, fixed on the lord treasurer, the Earl of Middlesex, who had all along been opposed to a war with Spain. They stirred up the commons to impeach him on charges of peculation, and, though James told them that they were preparing a rod for themselves, rejoiced when the lords sentenced him to dismissal from office and to a heavy fine. ”

“ In England itself the growth of London was an index to the general prosperity. In those days the City was the home of the merchants, who did not then leave the place where their business was done to spend the evening and night in the suburbs. Living side by side, they clung to one another, and their civic ardour created a strength which weighed heavily in the balance of parties. The opposition of the City to Charles I. had given the victory to Parliament in the civil war, and its dislike of military government had done much to bring about the Restoration. ”

“ Never before had it been useful for England that the king should be a child. As Henry had oppressed no one and had broken no oaths, those who dared not trust the father could rally to the son. The boy had two guardians, one of whom was Gualo, the legate of Pope Honorius III., a man gentler and less ambitious than Innocent III., whom he had just succeeded; the other was William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who had been constant to John, not because he loved his evil deeds, but because, like many of the older officials, he feared that the victory of the barons would be followed by anarchy. ”