R 942 HARVARD First Edition, May 1884. Reprinted June 1885, 1889, Revised 1896, Revised 1897. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. AT Ta time when the systematic study of English history is every day attracting the interest of an ever-widening circle of readers, it is somewhat remarkable that there should be no convenient handbook to the whole subject. The present publication is an attempt to supply this deficiency, so far as it can be supplied by a work which is intended to be useful rather than exhaustive. It is scarcely possible that everything relating directly or indirectly to a subject so vast and so ill-defined as the history of a great people and a great empire could be included within the compass of eleven hundred moderate-sized pages. The compilers of a concise historical dictionary must be content to make a selection from the materials at their command. The present work is not an encyclopædia, and the editors are aware that many things are omitted from it which might have been included, had its limits been wider, and its aim more ambitious. But they hope that the general reader, as well as the special student of the history of the British Empire, will find this volume a convenient auxiliary to his studies; and they are sanguine enough to anticipate that it will fill a gap on his bookshelves not at present occupied by any single book of reference. Dictionaries of biography already exist in abundance; handbooks of dates and chronology are common and familiar things; manuals of English history, political and constitutional, of all sizes and all degrees of merit, are at the easy command of the reading public; and it is possible, by diligent search, to discover works on English bibliography, and even on the bibliography of English history. But if a great book is a great evil, a great many books are assuredly a greater. The most earnest student cannot be expected to read his history with a dozen manuals and works of reference at his elbow, in case he should be in doubt as to a fact, or should require to verify a date, to gain some information on a constitutional point, to satisfy himself as to the sequence of events at one of the epochs of our annals, or to find out the authorities for a particular period. To produce a book which should give, as concisely as possible, just the information, biographical, bibliographical, chronological, and constitutional, that the reader of English history is likely to want, is what is here attempted. In deciding what should or should not find a place in these pages, the Editors have tried to keep in view the probable needs of modern readers. Practical convenience has guided them in the somewhat arbitrary selection they have been compelled to make; and with a view to this end they have not hesitated to make some slight changes of plan which suggested themselves in the course of the work. In the biographical department names of purely personal and literary interest have been omitted, and the biographies have been written throughout from the historical standpoint. No attempt is made to supplant other Dictionaries devoted solely to biography; but the reader will, it is hoped, find sufficient information about every prominent personage to be of use to him in his historical studies, while the references to authorities which accompany all the more important articles will show him where to go if he desires to pursue his inquiries further. In the older "Helps to English History," such as that of Heylin, space equal to the whole of this work is devoted to genealogies and to the lists of the holders of public offices and dignities. In the present volume relatively 2357 little space is given to these subjects. The genealogies of the great families and the order of official succession are very fully worked out in many well-known and easily accessible works. A modern student is likely to have more occasion for the accounts of the growth of English institutions, and for the summaries of great epochs in our history, and of the relations of the country with foreign powers, which occupy a considerable portion of these pages. In these instances it is hoped also that the bibliographical notes, supplemented by the special article on AUTHORITIES ON ENGLISH HISTORY (page 105), will be found of considerable value, even by those who can lay claim to some historical scholarship. It is perhaps necessary to say that though "English" on the title-page of this work is to be understood in its widest and least exact sense: and though the doings of Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, and Welshmen at all places and periods nostri est farrago libelli, yet that very much more attention is devoted to the history of England than to that of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the Colonies. Selection being inevitable if the book were not to sacrifice its chief recommendation, that of practical utility, it is felt that the rule adopted, though illogical, is the one likely to promote the greatest convenience of the greatest number of readers. It has been thought advisable to bring the book down to our own day; but very recent events have been treated more briefly than those of more remote periods, and only those living and recently deceased statesmen have been included, concerning whom there can be no reasonable doubt that their names have a right to appear in a Dictionary of English History. For obvious reasons no articles on living historians have been given, though it is hoped that full justice is done to their works in the bibliographical notes. To save space, and to secure somewhat more adequate treatment, it has often been thought better to group the various divisions of a large subject into one article, rather than to discuss them separately in a number of short ones. Here, again, the rule followed is somewhat arbitrary. But a reference to the Index will generally show the reader where to look in case he does not find the title he is in search of in its proper place, or in the Appendix. Such merits as this volume may be found to possess are due in great measure to the able staff of contributors who have given it their invaluable aid. To all of them the Editors have to render their grateful thanks. For many useful suggestions and much kindly interest displayed in the progress of the work, they have to acknowledge their obligations to Dr. Mandell Creighton; Professor Rowley, University College, Bristol; Mr. Arthur L. Smith, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford; Mr. Lloyd Sanders, M.A.; Mr. W. J. Ashley, M.A. ; and Mr. T. A. Archer, B.A. Their special thanks are due to Mr. T. F. Tout, M.A., whose assistance throughout has been of the greatest value, and who has constantly and most kindly placed the benefits of his extensive knowledge of modern history at the service of the Editors. |