To the names of
HENRY HALLAM and FRANCIS PALGRAVE
friends and fellow-labourers in English history
for forty years,
who, differing often in judgment,
were at one throughout life in devoted love of
justice, truth, and England,
in affectionate and reverent remembrance
this book is inscribed and dedicated
As the scheme which the Author has here endeavoured to execute has not, so far as he knows, the advantage of any direct precedent in any literature, he hopes that a few explanatory words may be offered without incurring censure for egotism.
Our history is so eminently rich and varied, and at the same time, by the fact of our insular position, so stamped with unity, that from days very remote it has supplied matter for song. To judge by the still surviving fragments, single events, which moved men of English or Celtic blood deeply, were the earliest subjects thus dealt with; and the true instincts of spontaneous art guided the poets to a lyrical treatment. The Norman conquest of England, and the English conquest of Wales, slackened or broke up these primitive efforts; and when we reach the gradual settlement of the island into the forms which it has since substantially retained, awakening national self-consciousness, we find, was followed by a series of endeavours to render our history in consecutive annalistic verse. We have very few lyrics, even if we here include the ballad in its genuine form, and those rarely of value, upon which single incidents or heroes, during the long period between that Layamon of [p. xiii]
Prelude 1
The First and Last Land 8
The Dream of Maxen Wledig 10
Garianonum 20
Paulinus and Edwin 26
Alfred the Great 29
A Danish Barrow 32
Hastings 34
Death in the Forest 42
Edith of England 42
Le Chateau Gaillard 49
A Crusader's Tomb 53
A Ballad of Evesham 57
The Dirge of Llywelyn 60
The Rejoicing of the Land 63
Crecy 74
The Black Death 77
The Pilgrim and the Ploughman 82
Jeanne D'Arc 90
Towton Field 93
Grocyn at Oxford 96
Margaret Tudor 104
London Bridge 107
A Ballad of Queen Catharine 113
At Fountains 116
Sir Hugh Willoughby 119
Lady Catherine's Lament 124
Crossing Solway 127
Sidney at Zutphen 133
Elizabeth at Tilbury 139
El Dorado 142
Prince Charles at the Louvre 154
At Bemerton 157
Princess Anne 160
After Chalgrove Fight 167
A Church at Oxfordshire 171
Marston Moor 179
The Fugitive King 182
The Captive Child 185
The Mourning Muses 189
The Wreck of the Admiral 193
Dunnottar Castle 196
The Return of Law 199
The Poet's Euthanasia 215
Whitehall Gallery 217
The Ballad of King Monmouth 220
Willelmus Van Nassau 224
A Dirge of Repentance 227
The Childless Mother 233
Blenheim 237
At Hursley in Marden 243
The Tower of Doom 247
Wolfe at Quebec 250
Johnson and Those About Him 254
Charles Edward at Rome 259
Simplicity 267
Trafalgar 271
The Death of Sir John Moore 277
Torres Vedras 281
Art and Nature 286
The Valley of Death 289
The Soldiers' Battle 295
After Cawnpore 300
Mount Vernon 305
Sandringham 310
A Dorset idyl 314
Things Visible and Invisible 320
A Summer Sunset 327
A Home in the Palace 329
England Once More 335
Appendix 339