mber of the
public. The answer is that I know just enough to know one thing: that a
history from the standpoint of a member of the public has not been
written. What we call the popular histories should rather be called the
anti-popular histories. They are all, nearly without exception, written
against the people; and in them the populace is either ignored or
elaborately proved to have been wrong. It is true that Green called his
book "A Short History of the English People"; but he seems to have
thought it too short for the people to be properly mentioned. For
instance, he calls one very large part of his story "Puritan England."
But England never was Puritan. It would have been almost as unfair to
call the rise of Henry of Navarre "Puritan France." And some of our
extreme Whig historians would have been pretty nearly capable of calling
the campaign of Wexford and Drogheda "Puritan Ireland."
But it is especially in the matter of the Middle Ages that the popular
histories trample upon the popular traditions. In this respect there is
an almost comic contrast between the general information provided about
England in the last two or three centuries, in which its present
industrial system was being built up, and the general information given
about the preceding centuries, which we call broadly mediaeval. Of the
sort of waxwork history which is thought sufficient for the side-show of
the age of abbots and crusaders, a small instance will be sufficient. A
popular Encyclopaedia appeared some years ago, professing among other
things to teach English History to the masses; and in this I came upon a
series of pictures of the English kings. No one could expect them to be
all authentic; but the interest attached to those that were necessarily
imaginary. There is much vivid material in contemporary literature for
portraits of men like Henry II. or Edward I.; but this did not seem to
have been found, or even sought. And wandering to the image that stood
for Stephen of Blois, my eye was staggered by a gentleman with one of
those helmets with steel brims curved like a crescent, which went with
the age of ruffs and trunk-hose. I am tempted to suspect that the head
was that of a halberdier at some such scene as the execution of Mary
Queen of Scots. But he had a helmet; and helmets were mediaeval; and any
old helmet was good enough for Stephen.
Now suppose the readers of that work of reference had looked for the
portrait of Charles I. an
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