Stories from English History

E-text prepared by Al Haines


My dear Charlie,—
Yon are very fond of stories; and so, I think, are all the other little boys and girls that I have ever known, and most of the grown-up people too. When you grow older, if you still like them—and I think you will—you will find that there are stories everywhere if only you are able to see them.
In this little book they are not quite the same kind as those that your Auntie used to tell you. I think they are nicer, for they are about things that have really happened; and the boys and girls and grown-up people that you read about in them were real people.
Some of those stories were so interesting, and some of them so beautiful, that they were written down for other people to read; and that is how history-books came to be made.
I hope that you will like to read about the people who lived long ago, and that these little tales may show you that history is made up of stories about people just like ourselves.
HILDA T. SKAE.

There was a time, many years ago, when this England of ours was a savage country.
The oldest stories that we read about our island happened so long ago, that the English had not yet come to the land where we live. In those days, the country was not called England but Britain; and the people were the ancient Britons.