PROFESSOR RANSOME'S "HISTORY OF ENGLAND."*
THIS is a really valuable book. In one volume of quite con- venient size, though containing rather over a thousand pages, we have the story of our national life and institutions, from the earliest times down to the resignation of Lord Rosebery, told by a man who evidently has all the newer knowledge at his command, and whose individuality is throughout pleasantly and helpfully present. In his preface Professor Ransome says that the present work has been mainly designed to meet the wants of four classes of readers,—(l) those either at school or college who, having mastered the elements of English history in such a book as his Elementary History of England, and what are known as the outlines in such a book as his Short History, are preparing to study in greater detail such a period as 1485-1603 or 1714-1815 ; (2) of teachers who, while taking a class in the " elements " or "outlines," wish to have in their own hands a fuller and more developed treatment of events ; (3) of University students who require a fuller treatment of the whole course of events than is given in the author's Short History ; and (4) of those of the general public who wish to have in their hands a handy but fairly full history to which they may turn for ready information on the historical points that crop up day by day in politics or conversation. Subject to a reservation, to which reference will presently be made, the author, as it seems to us, has succeeded to a remarkable degree in realising not only the objects above specified, but another of perhaps equal worth with any of them. That is the pre- sentation within manageable compass of a clear and con- secutive view of the leading events of English history as established by modern investigation, together with an intel- ligible estimate formed by a single well-informed, eminently fair, and, when possible, sympathetic critic both of the characters, aims, and achievements of the leading personages who have moved in imposing procession across its stage, and of the main currents of public opinion and sentiment at successive periods. In the present age of specialisation it is easy enough for the reader of history—his attention con- centrated on one period—" not to see the wood for the trees ; " or even where he escapes that misfortune, to come to regard English history as a series of periods of great individual interest no doubt, but with very vague links of connection between them. No slight service, therefore, is performed by the historian, who, surveying the whole course of events from the beginning, helps the ordinary reader to realise that,— " Through the ages one increasing purpose runs."
And in our judgment such aid may be given by a historian of that older school to which Professor Ransome belongs not less really than by the method adopted by the brilliant and philosophic artist in history whose premature death we all still lament. However that may be, there is no doubt that Professor Ransome is very well qualified for the kind of historical work which he has undertaken. Alike in his • An Advanced History of England from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Cyril Ransoms,. Professor of Modern History and English Literature in the York shire College, Victoria ITniversity. With Maps and Plans. London Rivington, Percival, and Co.
treatment of the ecclesiastical and civil aides of our national development, he affords judicious indications of the true bearing of events. TLa appears early, as when, touching on the benefits accruing to England from the reorganisation of the English Church on the Roman plan, carried out by Archbishop Theodore, who was appointed by Pope Vitalism to the See of Canterbury in A.D. 667, Professor Ransome says
Founded probably in imitation of the political system of the Roman Empire, the Roman Church sought its ideal in the regular succession of powers,—the parish, the diocese, the pro- vince, and the papacy. Every official of the Church worked in a well-defined sphere ; no one was to intrude upon the province of another. The introduction of such a system into England was the very best thing that could have happened in the interest of national unity Theodore's national synods, and the en- forcement of one ecclesiastical system for the whole island, without regard to minor political distinctions, were exactly what was wanted to counteract the element of discord supplied by the unceasing struggles between rival kingdoms."
And the opposite experience of Ireland is effectively con- trasted. Similarly, in his narrative of the Norman Conquest and of the policy pursued by the Conqueror and his early successors, Professor Ransome brings very clearly into view the manner in which, as compared with the course of events on the Continent, things worked out, even through cruel wrong and suffering, for the greater happiness of the greater number. Of the Conqueror he writes
He arrived at a critical moment of history, when the great earls were developing a system of local independence which in all probability would have run the same course as a like movement did in France and in Germany, and produced the same weakness in the Crown, the same oppression for the people. From this fate William saved England ; and by making the Crown powerful, and relying on the English and the clergy against the barons, and enforcing one law and one allegiance, he took a great step to- wards making her a strong and united Kingdom."
Again, after describing the various functions—consultative, judicial, and fiscal—exercised by the Curia Regis under the early Norman Kings, especially as they were developed under Henry I., our author observes, in a weighty sentence, that it was mainly through the working of that Court " that a super- structure of Norman centralisation was placed over the strong groundwork of English local government, which is the great constitutional achievement of the family of the Conqueror."
On the other hand, among things that did not go well, Professor Ransome points out very tersely the wide-reaching and lasting consequences to King and realm of the sanguinary blunder, not less than crime, committed in the supposed interests of Henry II. on the altar-steps of Canterbury Cathedral, and forcibly adds that "it was only by very slow degrees that the State recovered the hold over the clergy and the Church which was lost by the fatal impatience of the murderers of Thomas Becket."
When the ecclesiastical questions which but for that " fatal impatience " might possibly have been settled, at least in part, under Henry II., and which were partly dealt with by the Provisors and Prmmunire Statutes under Edward III., began to come up for final settlement under Henry VIII., Professor Ransome is clearly of opinion that public sentiment was on the whole decidedly favourable to the independence of the Church of England, but not to any material change in her ritual or doctrine.
"The strong point," he says, "of Henry VIII., like that of all men who have successfully led the English nation, was that at any given time his ideas represented the exact length to which the average Englishman was prepared to go. In the reform of church discipline, in the separation from Rome, and in the dis- solution of the monasteries, he was certainly not in advance of the wishes of his time. In securing a translation of the Bible, he was supplying a demand which persecution had hardly been able to keep in check ; on the other hand, when in fear of the spread of heresy he agreed to the Six Articles and the restriction of the use of the Bible, he accurately represented English fear of reck- lessly leaving the old paths."
We are inclined to believe that, on the whole, this is the most probable view, at any rate as regards England south of Trent, but in the northern counties, as the "Pilgrimage of Grace" showed, and as Professor Ransome acknowledges,
something very like treachery, as well as violence, on the part of the Government was necessary to break the popular resist- ance to any breach whatever with the old order, and especially to the dissolution of the monasteries. The popular disinclina- tion towards ritual and doctrinal changes which Professor Ransome believes to have prevailed, even, though perhaps in a modified form, after the atrocities of the Marian persecution, was strikingly shown by the extensive and resolute outbreak
in the West in 1549 against the use of Edward VL's first Prayer-book,—an outbreak which was, not without difficulty, suppressed by the aid of German mercenaries.
Alike.through his account of the Reformation period, and in his narrative of the disputes between Charles L and the Parliament, the Civil War, and the Commonwealth, Mr. Ransome is not only remarkably fair, but obviously anxious to place on the aims and actions of contending parties the most favourable construction reasonably possible. He is par- ticularly successful, we think, in supporting his contention that the chief governing line of division in the troubles of the seventeenth century related to religious rather than to political differences, insomuch that persons were found fighting on opposite sides who practically agreed on the constitutional questions at issue, but differed as to the form which the ecclesiastical settlement of the country ought to take. Even- handed justice again marks Professor Ransome's treatment of the disputes which led to the loss of the American Colonies, and it is a matter for congratulation that in a book sure to be widely used for educational purposes it should be so clearly shown that stupid and disastrous as were the blunders com- mitted by the British Monarch and statesmen, and supported by British public opinion, there was no desire here to make any really inequitable demands on the Colonies. In his account of the unfortunate war with the United States in 1812, Professor Ransome does not seem to us to take sufficient notice of the remarkable success of the Canadian militia in holding their own, with their British comrades, against very heavy odds ; and it is right to remember that, as Colonel Denison points out in the current number of the Westminster Review, the deplorable destruction of the Government build- ings at Washington by the British troops, which our author justly reprobates as an act of vandalism, might be regarded as a retaliation for the destruction of the public buildings of the capital of Upper Canada.
We must, before concluding this notice, express regret that, owing to whatever exigencies of space, Professor Ransome has refrained from making more than the briefest and most incidental references to Elizabethan and subsequent literature, except where political issues are involved. Mr. J. R. Green, it may be remembered, drew the line in regard to literature at 1660, having to finish in eight hundred pages, or there- abouts, and thinking science and industry more important than literature after that date. Mr. Ransome's defence is still less satisfactory. Up to the Elizabethan period, he thinks literature and national history cannot be separated; but thenceforward not only do considerations of space become more exacting, but also the class of readers he has in view, he tells us, "are in the habit of studying literature in a different text-book." That really will not do. Mr. Ransome deserves to have many readers who are not getting up history for any examination, and they are entitled to some appreciations, let us say, of the influence wielded and position held by Shake- speare in an age of advancing Puritanism, from a historian who is also a Professor of English Literature. The maps and the plans of battlefields are very helpful, and Professor Ransome is very clear and effective in his accounts of battles ; but we should prefer, if it must be so, even twenty lines about Addison and the Spectator to a plan of Ramillies. These points, we should hope, can be set right at a future day, when also, it may be suggested, Professor Ransome's sketch of the recent history of the Irish question should be enlarged so as to embrace some allusion on the one hand to the boycotting methods of the Land League, and, on the other hand, to the very unsatisfactory tone adopted by some Conservative Ministers in 1885 with regard to Lord Spencer's courageous administration of Irish affairs,—a tone which in our judgment had much to do with the troubles that have followed. But this history, as a whole, is excellent--a well-arranged, clear, temperate, just, and patriotic book—and it deserves a wide and hearty welcome.
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