Little Arthur's history of England

by Lady Maria Callcott

In the first, I will write all the best things I remember; and in the second, all the bad. Some things that are middling will be at the end of the first, and some at the end of the second chapter.

It was a glad day for England when young Henry, the son of Maude, was made king. He was wise and learned, and brave and handsome, besides being the richest king of his time, and having the largest estates.

The first thing he did when he was king was to send away all Norman and French soldiers, who had been brought to England to fight either for Stephen or for Maude. He paid them their wages, and sent them to their own homes, along with their captains, because he thought English soldiers were best to defend England, and that foreign soldiers were not likely to be kind to the poor English people.

He next made the barons, whether Norman or English, pull down a great many of their castles, because robbers used to live in them, and, after they had robbed the farmers of their cattle or corn, they used to hide themselves in these castles, and the judges could not get at them to punish them.

Then King Henry built up the towns that had been burnt in the wars of Stephen, and sent judges to do justice all through the land, and the people began to feel safe, and to build their cottages, and plough the fields; and the country was once more fit to be called dear merry England.

Instead of fighting and quarrelling with one another, the young men used to make parties together, and ride out with their dogs, to hunt the foxes and deer in the forests, and sometimes the ladies went with them, to see a kind of sport that was very pretty, but it is not used now. Instead of dogs, to catch wild animals, they used a bird called a hawk to catch partridges and pigeons for them. It took a great deal of trouble to teach the hawks, and the man who taught them and took care of them was called a Falconer, because the best kind of hawk is the falcon.

When the ladies and gentlemen went hawking the falcons used to sit upon their left wrists while they held a little chain in their hands; and there was a hood over the falcon’s heads, that their eyes might be kept clear. As soon as the party got into the fields they took the hood off the birds’ eyes, and as soon as they saw any game they loosed the little chain they held in their hands, and then the falcons flew after the game; and the ladies and gentlemen rode up after them to receive the game when the falcon had caught it.

King Henry loved hunting very well, but he was too wise to hunt much. He spent most of his time in going about to see what wanted mending after the sad civil war we read of in the last chapter; and he employed the cleverest men he could find to put everything in order, and made the wisest men judges; and he got some learned men to seek out all the best laws that had ever been made in England; and, as the long wars had made the people forget the laws, he ordered the judges to go to all the towns by turns several times a year, and do justice among all the English.

King Henry was very fond of learning, and gave money to learned men and to those who made verses, or as we call them poets; and by and by I dare say you will read about one that Henry was kind to, named Wace, who wrote a poem about the ancient Britons, and another about the ancient Normans.

Before I can tell you of a thing that was partly good and partly bad for England in this King Henry’s reign, I must put you in mind that I have told you nothing yet about Ireland, the sister-island of Great Britain. It was never conquered by the Romans; and the people were as ignorant as the Britons before the Romans came, with just the same sort of houses and clothes. They might have been in the same state for many years if a very good man, whom the Irish called Saint Patrick, had not gone from Britain to Ireland and taught the people to be Christians; and he and some of his companions also taught them to read; and the Irish people began to be a little more like those in other parts of the world.