Chapter I--The English Conquest of Britain--449-577

Chapter II--The English Kingdoms--577-796

Chapter III--Wessex and the Northmen--796-947

Chapter IV--Feudalism and the Monarchy--954-1071

Book II--England under Foreign Kings--1071-1204

Authorities for Book II

Chapter I--The Conqueror--1071-1085

Chapter II--The Norman Kings--1085-1154

Chapter III--Henry the Second--1154-1189

Chapter IV--The Angevin Kings--1189-1204

Book III--The Charter--1204-1307

Authorities for Book III

Chapter I--John--1204-1216

LIST OF MAPS

Britain and the English Conquest (v1-map-1.png)

The English Kingdoms in A.D. 600 (v1-map-2.jpg)

England and the Danelaw (v1-map-3.jpg)

The Dominions of the Angevins (v1-map-4.jpg)

Ireland just before the English Invasion (v1-map-5.jpg)

VOLUME I

BOOK I
EARLY ENGLAND
449-1071

AUTHORITIES FOR BOOK I
449-1071

For the conquest of Britain by the English our authorities are scant and
imperfect. The only extant British account is the "Epistola" of Gildas, a
work written probably about A.D. 560. The style of Gildas is diffuse and
inflated, but his book is of great value in the light it throws on the
state of the island at that time, and above all as the one record of the
conquest which we have from the side of the conquered. The English
conquerors, on the other hand, have left jottings of their conquest of
Kent, Sussex, and Wessex in the curious annals which form the opening of
the compilation now known as the "English" or "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,"
annals which are undoubtedly historic, though with a slight mythical
intermixture. For the history of the English conquest of mid-Britain or
the Eastern Coast we possess no written materials from either side; and a
fragment of the Annals of Northumbria embodied in the later compilation
("Historia Britonum") which bears the name of Nennius alone throws light
on the conquest of the North.

From these inadequate materials however Dr. Guest has succeeded by a
wonderful combination of historical and archaeological knowledge in
constructing a narrative of the conquest of Southern and South-Western
Britain which must serve as the starting-point for all future enquirers.

This narrative, so far as it goes, has served as the basis of the account
given in my