Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/328

Rh 310 ENGLAND [HISTORY, well versed in both sacred and profane learning. Iii Giraldus we see something higher still. He was vain, spiteful, and careless of truth. But, as we see in William of Malmesbury and William of Newburgh the beginnings of historical criticism, so in Giraldus we see the first approaches to something like scientific observation alike in language and in natural history. Transi- I n the history of art this age is one of the greatest turn- tion in ing-points. It is the time of transition between the round architec- anc j the pointed arch, between the Romanesque and the so- ture&amp;gt; called Gothic style. The richer and lighter Norman style of Roger of Salisbury was through the reign of Henry II. gradually getting still richer and still lighter. The pointed arch, first introduced in the vaults, then in the main arcades, gradually spread itself into every part of the building. The change in the form of the arch was at first unaccompanied by any change in detail ; the Romanesque ornaments con tinued in use. Gradually they were changed for a system of ornament which better suited the new constructive forms. By the first years of the thirteenth century, ths change was complete; a style all but peculiar to England, quite peculiar to England and Normandy, a style marked by the use of untraceried lancets as windows, combined with the use of purely Gothic detail, was fully developed. The stages of the change may perhaps be best studied in the churches of Canterbury and Lincoln. Along with the development of architecture, there was an even more remarkable develop ment of sculpture. The carvers of the eleventh century and of the first half of the twelfth could hardly represent the human figure ; and when they attempted foliage, as in capitals, it was rude and inartistic. The later years of the twelfth century produced capitals almost rivalling the old Corinthian types. The next generation struck out more original, but equally perfect, forms of beauty. The s^u^ - ture, strictly so called, of the thirteenth century, if it never shook itself free from a certain amount of conventional stiff ness, if its artists had neither the modern artist s anatomical science nor the old Greek s familiarity with the human figure, was at least a vast advance on works of the times immediately before them. English sculpture indeed leaped in the thirteenth century to a point of excellence which it found hard to keep. 1340. Period The next period in English history may be measured in 1217- different ways, according to the point of view from which that history is looked at. The English nation has now taken its later form. It has assimilated its Romance con querors, and in so dorng it has received a certain Romance infusion in language, laws, and manners. The connexion with Normandy has made England an European power. The separation from Normandy has made England again an English power. The nation has now to struggle against a new form of foreign invasion. Englishmen, of whichever race, have to hold their own against the Poitevin and the Savoyard. They have to wage the long struggle of the thirteenth century at once against the king at home and against the pope beyond sea. This time is marked by the reign of Henry III. But the time of struggle is also a time of constitutional progress, and under Edward I. the law and constitution of England put on the essence of their later form. Here then, in a purely constitutional view, is one of the landmarks of our history, a landmark to be placed alongside of the Conquest and the Great Charter. But our former landmarks, the Conquest, the accession of Henry II., the reign of John, were not merely constitutional landmarks, but landmarks in the history of England as an European power. This last the legislation of Edward I. can hardly be said to be. The next great European land mark is the beginning of the long wars between England and France. From the reign of John to the reign of Edward III., the foreign relations of England hold a secondary place as compared with her constitutional pro gress. There are frequent wars with France ; but they are rather the wars of the duke of Aquitaiue than of the king of England. Under Edward III. a wholly new state of foreign relations begins. The rivalry between England and France, which had grown out of the older rivalry between Normandy and France and which had survived the separa tion of Normandy from England and its union with France, now becomes, for a hundred years and more, the leading feature in English history, one of the leading features in European history. In this European aspect, the period which follows the claim of a French prince to the crown of England comes to its natural end when a king of England claims the crown of France. We take then our present start from the day when Lewis was driven out of England, and we next draw our breath when Edward III. invades France. The reign of Henry III. was, down almost to our own lieigi day, the longest in our annals. The first forty years of it Hem are, on the whole, the dreariest time in our history. No ^ time of so great a length has so few events which stand out as prominent landmarks. First conies the minority of Henry, the time when, notwithstanding the vigour of the great Earl Marshal, England was largely ruled by papal legates. The homage of John had, according to feudal principles, made the pope the guardian of his minor heir ; and it was not the policy of Rome to let that guardianship be a mere name. The Charter is confirmed over and over again ; but, as we have seen, with the loss of some of its most important clauses. In 1227 the king declares himself of age; presently he gets rid of his great minister Hubert of Burgh; he fills the land with Poitevins and other kindred of his mother ; he drives his nobles, his brother Earl Richard at their head, into discontent, and some of them into rebellion. The new struggle of Englishmen against strangers has begun. A new phase opens when help conies from the quarter from which it could least have been looked for, when Englishmen find a leader against strangers in one who was himself by birth a stranger. In 1238 Simon of Simo Montfort first appears ; he receives the king s sister in ilonl marriage, with the earldom of Leicester to which he had an hereditary claim. Suspected at first as a foreigner, the earl grows into the truest of Englishmen. A reformer from the beginning, he gradually widens his basis, till he becomes, above all msn, the leader of the people. Mean while the king s marriage with Eleanor of Provence brings a second shoal of strangers to feed on the good things of England. A border war is waged against France with small good luck. In 125S that war is ended by a treaty, by which Normandy is given up for ever, and the English king keeps nothing on the continent excepl part of the Aquitanian heritage of the elder Eleanor. Meanwhile, during part of this time, Aquitaiue is placed under the rule of Earl Simon, a ruler beloved of the cities and hated of the nobles. Meanwhile pope and king are draining the wealth of the nation ; but their very extortions help the growth of freedom. Parliament after parliament meets to make grants indeed, but in making grants to protect and to assert its powers. In 1256, in 1257, new entanglements, new forms of extortion arose, while Earl Richard, the one Englishman who was ever called to the throne of the Cajsars, passed into Germany to receive his almost nominal kingship. The crown of Sicily was offered by Alexander IV. to the king s younger son Edmund. More money is demanded, more money is granted ; but each grant leads to a fresh demand, and at last the spirit of nobles and people is thoroughly roused. Forty-two years after the accession of Henry, we reach the first great landmark of his reign, the famous Provisions of Oxford.