henry of monmouth's accession. — national rejoicings. — his profound sense of the awfulness of the charge devolved upon him. — coronation. — first parliament. — habits of business. — he removes the remains of richard to westminster. — redeems the son of hotspur, and restores him to his forfeited honours and estates. — generous conduct towards the earl of march. — parliament at... more...

CHAPTER I HENRY PLANTAGENET The history of the English people would have been a great and a noble history whatever king had ruled over the land seven hundred years ago. But the history as we know it, and the mode of government which has actually grown up among us is in fact due to the genius of the great king by whose will England was guided from 1154 to 1189. He was a foreign king who never spoke the... more...

CHAPTER I THE MINISTER'S SON "I wish we were not so terribly poor, Grant," said Mrs. Thornton, in a discouraged tone. "Is there anything new that makes you say so, mother?" answered the boy of fifteen, whom she addressed. "Nothing new, only the same old trouble. Here is a note from Mr.Tudor, the storekeeper." "Let me see it, mother." Grant took a yellow envelope... more...

It was four o'clock in the morning. Mrs. Walter Majendie still lay on the extreme edge of the bed, with her face turned to the dim line of sea discernible through the open window of the hotel bedroom. Since midnight, when she had gone to bed, she had lain in that uncomfortable position, motionless, irremediably awake. Mrs. Walter Majendie was thinking. At first the night had gone by her... more...

CHAPTER I It was the custom of the geographers of a period not remote to grapple somewhat jejune facts to the infant mind by means of fanciful comparison: thus, Italy was likened to a boot, France to a coffee-pot, and the European domain of the Sultan to a ruffling turkey. In this pleasant scheme the state of New York was made to figure as a couchant lion, his massy head thrust high in the North... more...

Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that was available in the Times morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all through the journey she'd studied her Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in spots, but it had facts in it, too. So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take wing on... more...

"It's not enough to have a nudist colony move in next door!" fumed Professor Paulsen. "No, indeed! That wouldn't disrupt things enough. Now, in addition, every ne'er-do-well in the county comes prowling over our farm in order to spy on the naked numbskulls!" Scowling ferociously, the gaunt scientist stamped violently back across the meadow's lush verdure toward the... more...

ACT FIRST. (A room at Ostrat. Through an open door in the back, the Banquet Hall is seen in faint moonlight, which shines fitfully through a deep bow-window in the opposite wall. To the right, an entrance- door; further forward, a curtained window. On the left, a door leading to the inner rooms; further forward a large, open fireplace, which casts a glow over the room. It is a stormy evening.) (BIORN... more...

PREFACE. Memoirs such as these of Henry of Monmouth might doubtless be made more attractive and entertaining were their Author to supply the deficiencies of authentic records by the inventions of his fancy, and adorn the result of careful inquiry into matters of fact by the descriptive imagery and colourings of fiction. To a writer, also, who could at once handle the pen of the biographer and of the... more...

CHAPTER I YOUTH "I shall always be so great a pedant as to call a man of no learning a man of no education."—Amelia. Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, on the 22nd of April 1707. His birth-room, a room known as the Harlequin Chamber, looked out over the roof of a building which once was the private chapel of the abbots of Glastonbury; for Sharpham Park possessed no... more...