PREFACE.
The volume entitled “The Greatest of the Plantagenets,” was correctly described in its title‐page, as “an Historical Sketch.” Nothing more than this was contemplated by the writer. The compilation was made among the manuscripts of the British Museum, in the leisure mornings of one spring and summer; and so soon as a fair copy had been taken, it was handed to the printer. The work was regarded as little else than a contribution towards an accurate review of what is both the most interesting and the most neglected period of our English history.
Its reception exceeded by far the author’s anticipations. Very naturally—it might be said, quite inevitably—many of those who admitted the general truth of the narrative, were ready to charge the writer with “partisanship,” and with taking a “one‐sided vie” of the question. It is not easy to see how this could have been avoided. A great literary authority has said, that the first requisite for a good biography is, that the writer should be possessed with an honest enthusiasm for his subject. And in the present case his chief object was to protest against what he deemed to be injustice. It was his sincere belief, that for about a century past an erroneous estimate of this great king’s character had been commonly presented to the English people. He endeavoured to show that this had been the case; to explain the causes, and to lead men’s minds to what he deemed to be the truth. Such a task could hardly be performed without giving large opportunity to an objector to exclaim, “You write in a partisan spirit.”
When a new view of any passage in history is presented, many fair and honourable men, while they yield to the force of evidence, cannot help feeling some reluctance—some dislike to the sudden change of belief which is asked of them. Such men will often be found to object to the manner in which their old opinion has been assailed, even while they admit that that opinion was erroneous, and can no longer be maintained.
So, in this case, even those who advanced this charge of partisanship were generally ready to concede, that an altered view of Edward’s character had been not only propounded, but in a great measure established. Thus the Dean of Chichester, Dr. Hook, while he “differs widely from some of the author’s conclusions,” admits that “his argument is always worthy of attention,” and describes the volume as one in which “everything that can be advanced in favour of Edward is powerfully stated.”[1] So, too, the Oxford Chichelean Professor of History (Mr. Montagu Burrows), speaks of the book as “a bold, and on the whole, successful attempt to reclaim for him; who is perhaps the only sovereign of England since the Conquest who has a right to the title of ‘Great,’—that position of which he has been deprived for more than a century.”[2] And Sir Edward Creasy calls it “an earnest, elaborate, and eloquent defence of Edward I. against all the imputations that have been made upon him;” and adds, “my frequent references to this volume will show how much I value it.”[3]
The success, then, of the author’s attempt to rectify a prevalent error, has been clear and indisputable. All that he proposed to do has been done—the estimate of this great king’s character which prevailed a dozen years ago, has been considerably elevated—the justice which the writer claimed for him is now almost universally conceded.
But a desire is expressed by most of these critics—and it is a natural and laudable desire—that, as a result of the whole, a history, in the ordinary sense, of this great sovereign, and of the remarkable period in which he lived, might be given to the British public. The writer has entirely sympathized with this desire, and he has waited several years in earnest expectation of the appearance of some such work. Nothing of the kind, however, has yet been given to the world; nor is there any announcement of such a purpose. It seems to him, therefore, that it is in some sort his duty to review his former work; to consider how far it is justly chargeable with “partisanship,” and to reduce it, so far as he is able, to the proper form and proportions of a permanent history.
He feels the more impelled to attempt this, from an increasing conviction that not the sovereign only, but the time in which he lived and reigned, alike present to the mind of the dispassionate student, a subject meriting and richly repaying a careful examination. The chief features of the period in which this prince was born, and in which he lived, are more remarkable than even that union of great qualities by which he himself was distinguished.
This fact—the unusual concurrence of many symptoms of advance and of excellence at that period—has already been noticed by more than one writer. Lord Macaulay said: “It was during the thirteenth century that the great English people was formed. Then first appeared with distinctness that Constitution which has ever since preserved its identity; then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet, held its first sittings; then it was that the Common Law rose to the dignity of a science; then, that our most ancient colleges and halls were founded; and then was formed a language, in force, in richness, and in aptitude inferior to the tongue of Greece alone.” Another writer adds, that “it was this age of all ages, to which every Englishman ought to look back with the deepest reverence. In this thirteenth century our Constitution, our laws, and our language, all assumed a form which left nothing for future ages to do, but to improve the detail.”