THE DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. EDITED BY Mark SIDNEY J LOW, B.A., LATE SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD; LECTURER ON MODERN HISTORY, PREFACE. A hen the systematic study of English history is every day attractpre aterest of an ever-widening circle of readers, it is somewhat ren hoe that there should be no convenient handbook to the whole subject. nt polication is an attempt to supply this deficiency, so far as it can by a work which is intended to be useful rather than exhaustive. ty possible that everything relating directly or indirectly to a subject vest and so ill-defined as the history of a great people and a great empire Einaled within the compass of eleven hundred moderate-sized pages. of a concise historical dictionary must be content to make a the materials at their command. The present work is not an o, nd the editors are aware that many things are omitted from it ive been included, had its limits been wider, and its aim more Pt they hope that the general reader, as well as the special student of the British Empire, will find this volume a convenient auxiliary , and they are sanguine enough to anticipate that it will fill a gap selves not at present occupied by any single book of reference. 119 are a biography already exist in abundance; handbooks of dates and common and familiar things; manuals of English history, ritesh end constitutional, of all sizes and all degrees of merit, are at the easy the reading public; and it is possible, by diligent search, to discover as on bush bibliography, and even on the bibliography of English history. A B: Page The earr ook is a great evil, a great many books are assuredly, a greater. t student cannot be expected to read his history with a dozen deworks of reference at his elbow, in case he should be in doubt as 19 a fact, 9. should require to verify a date, to gain some information on a ;oint, to satisfy himself as to the sequence of events at one of the annals, or to find out the authorities for a particular period. ok which should give, as concisely as possible, just the informa*10%, to_rajle al, bibliographical, chronological, and constitutional, that the h history is likely to want, is what is here attempted. what should or should not find a place in these pages, the Editors ep in view the probable needs of modern readers. Practical consided them in the somewhat arbitrary selection they have been set to make; and with a view to this end they have not hesitated to make anges of plan which suggested themselves in the course of the 1ch biographical department names of purely personal and literary been omitted, and the biographies have been written throughout torical standpoint. No attempt is made to supplant other Dictionares de 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 |