CHAPTER I SIR JOHN FOTERELL Who that has ever seen them can forget the ruins of Blossholme Abbey, set upon their mount between the great waters of the tidal estuary to the north, the rich lands and grazing marshes that, backed with woods, border it east and south, and to the west by the rolling uplands, merging at last into purple moor, and, far away, the sombre eternal hills! Probably the scene has... more...

The Houses of York and Lancaster. A real heroine. Margaret of Anjou was a heroine; not a heroine of romance and fiction, but of stern and terrible reality. Her life was a series of military exploits, attended with dangers, privations, sufferings, and wonderful vicissitudes of fortune, scarcely to be paralleled in the whole history of mankind. Two great quarrels. She was born and lived in a period... more...

The Verdurer’s Lodge. “Give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament, with that I will go buy me fortunes.” “Get you with him, you old dog.” As You Like It. The officials of the New Forest have ever since the days of the Conqueror enjoyed some of the pleasantest dwellings that southern England can boast. The home of the Birkenholt family was not one of the least delightful. It... more...

PREFACE The tract on the Personality of King Henry VI (as I may perhaps be allowed to call it), which is here reprinted, has hitherto been almost inaccessible to ordinary students. It is not known to exist at all in manuscript. We depend ultimately for our knowledge of it upon a printed edition issued by Robert Coplande of London, of which the date is said to be 1510. Of this there may be two copies in... more...

A little before the decease of George III., the heir apparent was in a state of health that made his chance of succession problematical—of long possession of the crown more doubtful still. He was attended by Sir William Knighton, who was in his chamber when intelligence arrived from Windsor of his venerable parent's demise; and we are assured that "The fatal tidings were received by the... more...

June 29th, 1833 I am going, if not too lazy, to note down the everyday nothings of my life, and see what it looks like. We dined yesterday at Greenwich, the dinner given by Sefton, who took the whole party in his omnibus, and his great open carriage; Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, Standish, Neumann, and the Molyneux family; dined in a room called ‘the Apollo’ at the Crown and Sceptre. I thought we... more...

Seventy-five years have passed since Lingard completed his History of England, which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that period historical study has made a great advance. Year after year the mass of materials for a new History of England has increased; new lights have been thrown on events and characters, and old errors have been corrected. Many notable works have been written on various... more...

1830. London, July 16th, 1830 I returned here on the 6th of this month, and have waited these ten days to look about me and see and hear what is passing. The present King and his proceedings occupy all attention, and nobody thinks any more of the late King than if he had been dead fifty years, unless it be to abuse him and to rake up all his vices and misdeeds. Never was elevation like that of King... more...

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR The Author of these Journals requested me, in January 1865, a few days before his death, to take charge of them with a view to publication at some future time. He left that time to my discretion, merely remarking that Memoirs of this kind ought not, in his opinion, to be locked up until they had lost their principal interest by the death of all those who had taken any part in the... more...

How I saw my Queen. Every story, whether wise or foolish, grave or gay, must needs have a beginning. How it comes to pass that my story begins on a certain day in May, in the year of our Lord 1585, I can never, although I am far on in life now, properly explain. For that was not the day on which I was born. That adventure had befallen me eighteen years before, at the parson’s little house in Felton... more...