The Project Gutenberg eBook of A History of England Principally in the
Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6), by Leopold von Ranke

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Title: A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6)

Author: Leopold von Ranke

Release Date: April 9, 2009 [eBook #28546]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ENGLAND PRINCIPALLY
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, VOLUME I (OF 6)***

E-text prepared by Paul Dring, Frank van Drogen, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

A HISTORY OF ENGLAND PRINCIPALLY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

by

LEOPOLD VON RANKE

VOLUME I

PREFACE.

Once more I come before the public with a work on the history of a
nation which is not mine by birth.

It is the ambition of all nations which enjoy a literary culture to
possess a harmonious and vivid narrative of their own past history. And
it is of inestimable value to any people to obtain such a narrative,
which shall comprehend all epochs, be true to fact and, while resting on
thorough research, yet be attractive to the reader; for only by this aid
can the nation attain to a perfect self-consciousness, and feeling the
pulsation of its life throughout the story, become fully acquainted with
its own origin and growth and character. But we may doubt whether up to
this time works of such an import and compass have ever been produced,
and even whether they can be produced. For who could apply critical
research, such as the progress of study now renders necessary, to the
mass of materials already collected, without being lost in its immensity?
Who again could possess the vivid susceptibility requisite for doing
justice to the several epochs, for appreciating the actions, the modes of
thought, and the moral standard of each of them, and for understanding
their relations to universal history? We must be content in this
department, as well as in others, if we can but approximate to the ideal
we set up. The best-written histories will be accounted the best.

When then an author undertakes to make the past life of a foreign