1823.] 
which seem calculated to produce an 
important influence on many of our 
most useful astronomical calculations. 
Hartfield, East Grinstead ; 
Nov. 18, 1822. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
ELUCIDATIONS of PORTIONS of ENGLISH 
HISTORY, improperly REPRESENTED 
in our GENERAL HISTORIES. 
T is time that history should occupy 
itself with the mass of mankind ; 
that the sufferings of the many should 
occupy its sympathies, as well as the 
usurpations of the few; that the sor- 
rows of the oppressed should be re- 
corded as well as the triumphs of the 
oppressor ; that the unobtrusive virtue, 
the generous aspirations of those who 
haye sought no fame, and have seldom 
found a chronicler, should be dug out 
of that grave of oblivion, where they 
have reposed for ages. The people 
are entitled to an historian. ‘This task 
may perhaps be thankless,—for the 
people have little with which they can 
reward, nothing with which they can 
delude, or with which they can corrupt. 
He who celebrates them will not per- 
haps receive their eulogies: the reward 
of his labour will be the labour itself. 
Who would believe, after reading 
the modern historians of England, that 
the struggle between the Normans and 
the Saxons was continued for centu- 
ries; they represent the conquest as 
little more than a change of dynasty ; 
and pass from Harold to William the 
Conqueror as a trifling transition. 
They knew not, when they blended 
Normans and Saxons, conquerors and 
conquered, into one general mass, that 
the inhabitants of -Kngland were di- 
vided into two classes, as distinct as 
the Greeks (Heaven help them!) and 
the Turks of the Morea,—with differ- 
ent languages, customs, and affections. 
On one side scorn, insolence, tyranny, 
cruelty; on the other hatred, and mi- 
sery, and repressed revenge. The 
writer is proud to be of Saxon origin: 
he believes that almost every thing 
that is good in our institutions and our 
habits has been the legacy of our Eng- 
lish forefathers; and that all that de- 
grades us, all that has broken the 
bonds between man and man,—here- 
ditary aristocracy, factitious dignity, 
and their calamitous appendages,— 
are mainly due to those Norman ban- 
dits, who covered “our old England” 
with blood and tears, 
On this particular point of historical 
Elucidations of Portions of English History. 
487 
research, the way has been cleared by 
the admirable author of “ Tvanhoe.” 
He is the historian of the people: his 
vivid portraiture of Saxons and Nor- 
mans must have awakened sensibilities 
unknown till now. What he has done 
for a few isolated individuals,—admi- 
rable personifications of their separate 
races,—it is proposed to do for the 
great mass of society. The Anglo- 
Saxons did not submit like willing 
slaves and cowards to the Normans: 
they opposed resistance while they 
had the means of resistance; and, 
when they fell, they themselves che- 
rished, and they handed down to their 
children, that love of their country, 
and of their country’s independance, 
and that hatred of the foreign usurpers 
who possessed their soil, which, though 
gradually extinguished, as the progress 
of time blended the oppressed with 
the oppressors, served as a rallying 
point of union and of sympathy; and 
proved that, though unfortunate and 
trampled on, they were neither base 
nor worthless,—Jls étaient avilis, ils 
n étaient pas vils. 
History of the Invasion of England by 
the Normans in the Eleventh Century, 
and the Consequences of that Invasion 
down to the Thirteenth. 
Thus lo! won England the sole of Norman jie 
That among us wereth yet and shulleth evermo : 
Of Normans beth thys Leymen that beth in thislond 
And the lowe men of Saxons. 
Robert of Gloster’s Chronicle. 
; FIRST EXTRACT. 
While the citizens of London, with 
Edgar, their newly appointed king, 
some chiefs, and bishops, made them- 
selves ready,—perhaps with too little 
activity,—to march against the enemy, 
the latter crossed the Thames at Wal- 
lingford, in the county of Berks. Five 
hundred horsemen advanced in sight 
of the city of London, dispersed a 
body of Saxons, which opposed their 
progress, and burnt all the edifices on 
the northern bank of the Thames.* A 
yet more numerous band forced its 
way into the city, and covered the 
streets and public places with the dead 
bodies of the citizens.t 'The head- 
quarters of the conqueror were then 
at Berkhamstead. King Edgar, Ed- 
win and Morkar, his brothers, Elred 
archbishop of York, Stigand arch- 
* Cremantes quidquid wdificiorum citra 
flumen invenére (Ex Gest. Guill. Daw, 
f+ Civinm plurima funera. (Will, Ga- 
neticensis.) 
bishop 
