History 105

History of England
Documents Workbook
4th Edition
Edited by Lisa M. Lane
Assignment #1: British Pre-history ...............................................................................1
Tacitus, The Germania........................................................................................1
Assignment #2 -- Anglo-Saxon Britain........................................................................4
Bede -- The Ecclesiastical History (7th c.)........................................................4
St. Boniface's Martyrdom..................................................................................5
Alfred the Great's Laws (9th c.).........................................................................6
Trial by Ordeal (c. 900)......................................................................................6
The Song of Maldon (991) ...............................................................................7
Peasant Dues (1050) and Feudal Contract (c. 1000) ....................................8
Assignment #3 -- Norman England..............................................................................9
St. Anselm (1077-78) .......................................................................................9
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1087) ........................................................................10
John of Salisbury on Tyranny (12th c.) ............................................................10
Geoffrey of Monmouth on King Arthur (1136)................................................11
Pope Innocent III to King John (1214).............................................................13
Magna Carta (1215) ..........................................................................................13
Assignment #4 -- High and Late Middle Ages...........................................................16
London (1173) ...................................................................................................16
Mill Dispute (12th c.) ..........................................................................................18
Ipswich Town Charter (1200) ...........................................................................18
Southampton Merchant Guild Charter (13th c.)...............................................19
Adelard of Bath -- Natural Questions (12th c.).................................................20
A Monastic Manor (1326) .................................................................................21
Readings -- Late Medieval Crisis.................................................................................23
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (14th c.)...............................................................23
Piers Plowman (14th c.).....................................................................................25
Margaret Paston -- Letters (1440s)..................................................................26
English Peasant Revolt (1381).........................................................................27
Assignment #5 -- Reformation and Elizabethan England ..........................................29
Sir Thomas More -- Utopia (1516) ..................................................................29
The Act of Supremacy (1534)..........................................................................31
Cranmer's Letter to Mary I (1550s)..................................................................31
Elizabeth's Armada Speech (1588); ...............................................................33
Shakespeare -- Hamlet (1604) ........................................................................33
Witches of Huntingdon (1646)..........................................................................34
Assignment #6 -- Civil War and Glorious Revolution ................................................36
James I on Kingship (1598)..............................................................................36
The Petition of Right (1628)..............................................................................37
Charles I and His Sentence (1649)..................................................................38
Hobbes -- Leviathan (early 17th c.).................................................................40
The Levellers at Putney (1647)........................................................................41
Locke's Second Treatise on Government (1690)..........................................43
English Bill of Rights (1689)..............................................................................44
Reading -- Science and Enlightenment ........................................................................46
Francis Bacon -- Empirical Method (1620) ......................................................46
Newton's Principia (1687) .................................................................................47
Pope on Nature (1734).....................................................................................48
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776).........................................................49
Hume on Miracles (ca. 1779)............................................................................49
Assignment #7 -- The Eighteenth Century..................................................................51
Burke and Paine on French Revolution (1790s) .............................................51
Wordsworth on the French Revolution (1805)................................................53
Mary Wollstonecraft on Women (1792)..........................................................54
Malthus on Population (1789)...........................................................................55
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) ......................................................56
Assignment #8 -- Industrialization .................................................................................59
Sanford on Women (1833) ..............................................................................59
The Sadler Report -- Industrial Conditions ......................................................60
Ure on Factory Work (1835).............................................................................62
Engels on the Working Class (1845)...............................................................64
John Stuart Mill on Liberty (1859)....................................................................65
Booth -- Darkest England (1890) .....................................................................66
Assignment #9 -- Victorianism and New Imperialism.................................................68
Rhodes' Confession of Faith (1877)................................................................68
Chamberlain on Imperialism (1890s)...............................................................69
Kipling -- The White Man's Burden (1899) .....................................................70
Pearson on Social Darwinism (1900)...............................................................71
Hobson on Imperialism (1902) ........................................................................72
Pankhurst on Militancy (1913) ...........................................................................73
Assignment #10 -- The Great War, Twenties, and Depression ...............................76
Women in the Factories (1917)........................................................................76
Keynes on the Peace (1919) ...........................................................................77
P.G. Wodehouse -- Right Ho, Jeeves (1922) ..............................................78
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932); ..................................................80
Orwell on the Dole (1937).................................................................................81
Hughes -- London Between the Wars ............................................................83
Assignment #11 -- World War II -- Prelude and Engagement..................................86
Chamberlain on Appeasement (1938)...........................................................86
Churchill on Appeasement (1938)...................................................................87
Marchant's Description of the Blitz (1941) .......................................................89
Assignment #12 -- Post-War and Cold War ..............................................................92
Churchill on the....................................................................................................92
Len Deighton -- Berlin Game (1983)...............................................................93
Assignment #13 -- 1960s to Now...............................................................................96
Sillitoe's Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1959).............................96
Harold Pinter's The Homecoming (1965)........................................................97
Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1967)...............98
Arnold Toynbee (1972)....................................................................................103
Thatcher on Conservatism (1975)..........................................................................104
Amnesty International (1989)...........................................................................106
Lord Butler, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq
(2004)..................................................................................................................108
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Documents for
Assignment #1: British Pre-history
TAClTUS, FROM THE GERMANIA (AD 55-115)
Tacitus was a Roman historian.
Training of youth.
[The Germans] transact no public or private business without being armed. It is not,
however, usual for any one to wear arms till the state has recognized his power to use
them. Then in the presence of the council one of the chiefs, or the young man's father, or
some kinsman, equips him with a shield and a spear. These arms are what the "toga" is with
us, the first honour with which youth is invested. Up to this time he is regarded as a member
of a household, afterwards as a member of the common weaIth...
Warlike ardour of the people.
When they go into battle, it is a disgrace for the chief to be surpassed in valour, a
disgrace for his folIowers not to equal the valour of the chief. And it is an infamy and a
reproach for life to have survived the chief, and returned from the field. To defend, to protect
him, to ascribe one's own brave deed to his renown, is the height of loyalty. The chief fights
for victory; his men fight for their chief. If their native state sinks into the sloth of prolonged
peace and repose, many of its noble youths voIuntarily seek those tribes which are waging
some war, both because inaction is odious to their race, and because they win renown
more readily in the midst of peril, and cannot maintain a numerous following except by
violence and war...
Habits in time of peace.
Whenever they are not fighting. They pass much of their time in the chase, and still
more in idleness, giving themselves up to sleep and to feasting, the bravest and the most
warlike doing nothing, and surrendering the management of the household, of the home,
and of the land, to the women, the old men, and all the weakest members of the family...
Arrangement of their towns. Subterranean dwellings.
It is well known that the nations of Germany have no cities, and that they do not even
tolerate closely contiguous dwellings. They live scattered and apart, just as a spring, a
meadow, or a wood has attracted them. Their villages they do not arrange in our fashion,
with the buildings connected and joined together, but every person surrounds his dwelling
with an open space, either as a precaution against the disasters of fire, or because they do
not know how to build. No use is made by them of stone or tile; they employ timber for all
purposes, rude masses without ornament or attractiveness...
Dress.
They all wrap themselves in a cloak which is fastened with a clasp or, if this is not
forthcoming, with a thorn, leaving the rest of their person bare. They pass whole days on
the hearth by the fire. The wealthiest are distinguished by a dress which is not flowing, like
that of the Sarmatae and Parthi, but is tight, and exhibits each limb. They also wear the skins
of wild beasts; the tribes on the Rhine and Danube in a careless fashion, those of the interior
with more elegance, as not obtaining other clothing by commerce. These select certain
animals, the hides of which they strip off and vary them with the spotted skins of beasts, the
produce of the outer ocean, and of seas unknown to us. The women have the same dress
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as the men, except that they generally wrap themselves in linen garments, which they
embroider with purple, and do not lengthen out the upper part of their clothing into sleeves.
The upper and lower arm is thus bare, and the nearest part of the bosom is also exposed.
Marriage laws.
Their marriage code, however, is strict, and indeed no part of their manners is more
praiseworthy. Almost alone among barbarians they are content with one wife, except a
very few among them, and these not from sensuality, but because their noble birth
procures for them many offers of alliance. The wife does not bring a dower to the husband,
but the husband to the wife...Lest the woman should think herself to stand apart from
aspirations after noble deeds and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony
which inaugurates marriage that she is her husband's partner in toil and danger, destined to
suffer and to dare with him alike both in peace and in war. The yoked oxen, the harnessed
steed, the gift of arms, proclaim this fact. She must live and die with the feeling that she is
receiving what she must hand down to her children neither tarnished nor depreciated, what
future daughters-in-law may receive, and may be so passed on to her grandchildren.
Thus with their virtue protected they live uncorrupted by the allurements of public
shows or the provocations of feasts. Clandestine correspondence is equally unknown to
men and women. Very rare for so numerous a population is adultery, the punishment for
which is prompt, and in the husbands power. Having cut off the hair of the adulteress and
stripped her naked, he expels her from the house in the presence of her kinsfolk, and then
flogs her through the whole village. The loss of chastity meets with no indulgence; neither
beauty, age, nor wealth will procure the culprit a husband. No one in Germany laughs at
vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted. Still better is the condition
of those states in which only maidens are given in marriage, and where the hopes and
expectations of a bride are then finally terminated. They receive one husband, as having
one body and one life, that they may have no thoughts beyond, no further-reaching
desires, that they may love not so much the husband as the married state. To limit the
number of their children or to destroy any of their subsequent offspring is accounted
infamous, and good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere.
Their children. Laws of succession.
In every household the children, naked and filthy, grow up with those stout frames
and limbs which we so much admire. Every mother suckles her own offspring, and never
entrusts it to servants and nurses. The master is not distinguished from the sIave by being
brought up with greater delicacy. Both live amid the same flocks and lie on the same ground
till the freeborn are distinguished by age and recognized by merit. The young men marry
late, and their vigour is thus unimpaired. Nor are the maidens hurried into marriage; the
same age and a similar stature is required; well-matched and vigorous they wed, and the
offspring reproduce the strength of the parents. . . .
Hereditary feuds. Fines for homicide. Hospitality.
It is a duty, among them to adopt the feuds as well as the friendships of a father or a
kinsman. These feuds are not implacable; even homicide is expiated by the payment of a
certain number of cattle and of sheep and the satisfaction is accepted by the entire family,
greatly to the advantage of the state since feuds are dangerous in proportion to a peoples
freedom.
No nation indulges more profusely in entertainments and hospitality. To exclude any
human being from their roof is thought impious; every German, according to his means,
receives his guest with a welI-furnished table. When his supplies are exhausted, he who
was but now the host becomes the guide and companion to further hospitality, and without
invitation they go to the next house...
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Habits of life.
On waking from sleep, which they generally proIong to a late hour of the day, they
take a bath, oftenest of warm water, which suits a country where winter is the longest of the
seasons. After their bath they take their meal, each having a separate seat and table of his
own. Then they go armed to business, or no less often to their festaI meetings. To pass
an entire day and night in drinking disgraces no one. Their quarrels, as might be expected
with intoxicated people, are seldom fought out with mere abuse, but commonIy with
wounds and bloodshed...
4
Documents for
Assignment #2: Anglo-Saxon Britain
BEDE: THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY (7th c.)
Bede was a Northumbrian Christian scholar.
At this time, a great and frequent controversy happened about the observance of
Easter; those that came from Kent or France affirming, that the Scots [Celtic Christians] kept
Easter Sunday contrary to the custom of the universal church.
... Queen Eanfleda [of Northumbria] and her followers also observed the same as
she had seen practised in Kent, having with her a Kentish priest that followed the Catholic
mode, whose name was Romanus. Thus it is said to have happened in those times that
Easter was twice kept in one year, and that when the king [Oswy of Northumbria, a Celtic
Christian] having ended the time of fasting, kept his [Celtic] Easter, the queen and her
followers were still fasting, and celebrating Palm Sunday...
... it was agreed, that a synod should be held in the monastery of Streaneshalch,
which signifies the Bay of the Lighthouse, where the Abbess Hilda, a woman devoted to
God, then presided; and that there this controversy should be decided. The kings, both
father and son, came thither, Bishop Colman with his Scottish clerks, and Agilbert with the
priests Agatho and Wilfrid, James and Romanus were on their side; but the Abbess Hilda
and her followers were for the Scots, as was also the venerable Bishop Cedd, long before
ordained by the Scots, as has been said above, and he was in that council a most careful
interpreter for both parties.
King Oswy first observed, that it behooved those who served one God observe
the same rule of life; and as they all expected the same kingdom in heaven, so they ought
not to differ in the celebration of the divine mysteries; but rather to inquire which was the
truest tradition, that the same might lie followed by all; he then commanded his bishop,
Colman, first to declare what the custom was which he observed, and whence it derived its
origin. Then Colman said, "The Easter which I keep, I received from my elders, who sent
me bishop hither; all our forefathers, men beloved of God, are known to have kept it after
the same manner; and that the same may not seem to any contemptible or worthy to be
rejected, it is the same which St. John the Evangelist, the disciple beloved of our Lord, with
all the churches over which he presided, is recorded to have observed."
Then Wilfrid, being ordered by the king to speak, delivered himself thus:
''The Easter, which we observe, we saw celebrated by all at Rome, where the
blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, lived, taught, suffered, and were buried...
To this Colman rejoined: Did Anatolius, a holy man, and much commended in church
history, act contrary to the law and Gospel, when he wrote, that Easter was to be
celebrated from the fourteenth to the twentieth? Is it to be believed that our most reverend
Father Columba and his successors, men beloved by God, who kept Easter after the
same manner, thought or acted contrary to the divine writings? ...
[Wilfrid replied, If] that Columba of yours (and, I may say, of ours, if he was Christs
servant), was a holy man and powerful in miracles, yet could he be preferred before the
most blessed prince of the apostles, to whom our Lord said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and to thee I will
give the keys of the kingdom of heaven?
When Wilfred had spoken thus, the king said "Is it true, Colman, that these words
were spoken to Peter by our Lord? He answered, It is true, O king!'' Then says he,
Can you show any such power given to your Columba? Colman answered, "None.
Then added the king, Do you both agree that these words were principally directed to
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Peter, and that the keys of heaven were given to him by our Lord? They both answered,
We do.
Then the king concluded, "And I also say unto you, that he is the doorkeeper, whom
I will not contradict, but will, as far as I know and am able, in all things obey his decrees, lest,
when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to open them,
he being my adversary who is proved to have the keys." The king having said this, all
present, both great and small, gave their assent, and renouncing the more imperfect
institution, resolved to conform to that which they found to be better.
ST. BONIFACES MARTYRDOM (754)
Traveling therefore through all Friesland [Netherlands], he [Boniface] earnestly
preached the word of God, overthrowing the pagan worship and destroying the erroneous
rites of heathenism; and when he had broken the power of the temples, he built churches
with great zeal. And he baptized many thousands of persons, men, women and children...
Therefore, after the splendour of the faith shone through Friesland, as we have said,
and the happy end of this saints life drew near, he now pitched his tents by the bank of a
river... Since he had announced to the people, now scattered far and wide, a solemn day
for the confirmation of the neophyte, and for the laying on of hands by the bishop and the
confirmation of those lately baptized, everyone had returned to his own house, that they
might all present themselves on the day fixed for their confirmation according to the express
command of the holy bishop.
But when the aforesaid day grew light, and, the sun having arisen, the dawn broke
forth, there arrived, on the contrary, enemies in place of friends, and, in fact, new
executioners in place of fresh practitioners of the faith; and an immense crowd of enemies,
with glittering weapons, armed with spears and shields, rushed on the camp. Then
suddenly his young followers sprang from the camp against them and rushed to arms on
both sides, longing to defend the saints -- the martyrs to be -- against the insensate host of
the raging people. But immediately the man of God heard the assault of the storming
crowd, he summoned to him his band of clerics, took the relics of saints which he was wont
to have constantly with him, and came out of the tent. And he hastily reproved the young
men and forbade them to do battle, saying: Cease, boys, from fighting and leave off
strife, for we are truly taught by the testimony of the Scriptures not to render evil for evil, but
even good for evil. For now approaches the day long hoped for, and the desired time of
our dissolution is at hand. Be strengthened therefore in the Lord, and bear gladly what his
grace allows; hope in him, and he will set free your souls." And to those standing by,
priests and also deacons, and men in lower orders as well, given up to the service of God,
he said, admonishing them with fatherly words: Men and brothers, be of good courage,
and fear not them that kill the body, since they cannot kill the soul which remains for ever; but
rejoice in the Lord and fix the anchor of your hope on God, for he will straightway give you
the reward of eternal salvation and will grant you a seat in the celestial hall with the angelic
hosts of the heavenly city. Do not give yourselves up to the vain delight of this world, do
not take joy in the fleeting adulation of the gentiles; but undergo with constancy the sudden
moment of death here, that you may reign with Christ for ever." And while he was urging on
his disciples to the crown of martyrdom with such encouragement and teaching, suddenly a
mob of pagans raging over them attacked with swords and all martial equipment, and
covered in blood the bodies of the saints by a happy death.
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ALFRED THE GREATS LAWS (9th c.)
Also we enjoin, that a man who knows his adversary to be residing at home, shall not
have recourse to violence before demanding justice of him.
1. If he has power enough to surround his adversary and besiege him in his house,
he shall keep him therein seven days, but he shall not fight against him if he (his adversary)
will consent to remain inside (his residence). And if, after seven days, he will submit and
hand over his weapons, he shall keep them unscathed for thirty days, and send formal
notice of his position to his kinsmen and friends.
2. If, however, he flees to a church, the privileges of the church shall be respected, as
we have declared above.
3. If, however, he has not power enough to besiege him in his house, he shall ride to
the ealdorman [officer of the shire] and ask him for help. If he will not help him, he shall ride
to the king before having recourse to violence.
4. And further, if anyone chances on his enemy, not having known him to be at home,
and if he will give up his weapons, he shall be detained for thirty days, and his friends shall
be informed (of his position). If he is not willing to give up his weapons, then violence may
be used against him. If he is willing to surrender and hand over his weapons, and anyone
after that uses violence against him (the pursued), he shall pay any sum which he incurs,
whether wergeld [money paid in recompense for injury or death] or compensation for
wounds, as well as a fine, and his kinsman shall forfeit his claim to protection as a result of his
action.
5. We further declare that a man may fight on behalf of his lord, if his lord is attacked,
without becoming liable to vendetta [family vengeance or blood revenge]. Under similar
conditions a lord may fight on behalf of his man.
6. In the same way a man may fight on behalf of one who is related to him by blood,
if he is attacked unjustly, except it be against his lord. This we do not permit.
7. A man may fight, without becoming liable to vendetta, if he finds another (man)
with his wedded wife, within closed doors or under the same blanket; or (if he finds another
man) with his legitimate daughter (or sister); or with his mother, if she has been given in
lawful wedlock to his father.
TRIAL BY ORDEAL (c. 900)
From Anglo-Saxon Records and Chancells
And with regard to the ordeal, according to the commands of God and of the
archbishop and of all the bishops, we order that, as soon as the fire has been brought to
heat the iron or Water for the ordeal, no one shall come into the church except the priest and
the man to be tried. And if the ordeal is by iron, nine feet, according to the feet of the man to
be tried, shall be measured from the starting post to the final mark. If, on the other hand, it is
to be ordeal by water, that shall be heated until it becomes boiling hot, whether the kettle is
of iron or of brass, or of lead, or of clay. And if the process is "single" the hand shall be
plunged in for the stone up to the wrist; if it is "threefold," up to the elbow. And when the
water for the ordeal is ready, two men from each party shall go in and they shall agree that it
is as hot as we have ordered.
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Then an equal number of men from both parties shall go in and stand along the
church on each side of the ordeal, and all of them shall be fasting and shall have held
themselves from their wives during the previous night. And the priest shall sprinkle them all
with holy water; and he shall give them the Book to kiss and make over them the sign of
Christ's cross.
... then shall the iron be laid on the starting post. And nothing else shall be said
inside the church except prayer to God Almighty that He disclose the fullness of truth. And
after the man has undergone the ordeal, his hand shall be bound up and sealed; and after
the third day it shall be inspected to see whether, within the sealed wrapping, it is foul or
clean. And if any one breaks these provisions, the ordeal shall be counted a failure for him,
and lie shall pay a fine of 120s to the King.
"THE SONG OF MALDON" (991)
The section of this poem describes the death of Ealdorman Brihtnoth of Essex, a lord who
fought bravely against the renewal of the Danish invasions in the later 10th century.
Then Brihtnoth began to array his men; he rode and gave counsel and taught his
warriors how they should stand and keep their ground, bade them hold their shields aright,
firm with their hands and fear not at all. When he had meetly arrayed his host, he alighted
among the people where it pleased him best, where he knew his bodyguard to be most
loyal.
Then the messenger of the Vikings stood on the bank, he called sternly, uttered
words, boastfully speaking the seafarers' message to the earl, as he stood on the shore.
Bold seamen have sent me to you, and bade me say, that it is for you to send treasure
quickly in return for peace, and it will be better for you all that you buy off an attack with
tribute, rather than that men so fierce as we should give you battle..."
Brihtnoth lifted up his voice, grasped his shield and shook his supple spear, gave
forth words, angry and resolute, and made him answer: "Hear you, sea-rover, what this folk
says? For tribute they will give you spears, poisoned point and ancient sword, such war
gear as will profit you little in the battle. Messenger of the seamen, take back a message,
say to your people a far less pleasing tale, how that there stands. Then one of the warriors
let a dart fly from his hand, so that it pierced all too deeply Ethelreds noble thegn [thane, or
lord]. By his side stood a warrior not yet full grown, a boy in war. Right boldly he drew
from the warrior the bloody spear, Wulfstan's son, Wulfmaer the young, and let the
weapon, wondrous strong, speed back again; the point drove in so that he who had so
cruelly pierced his lord lay dead on the ground. Then a man, all armed, approached the earl,
with intent to bear off the warriors treasure, his raiment and his rings and his well-decked
sword. Then Brihtnoth drew his blade, broad and of burnished edge, and smote upon his
mail. All too quickly one of the seamen checked his hand, crippling the arm of the earl. Then
his golden-hilted sword fell to the earth; he could not use his hard blade nor wield a weapon.
Yet still the white-haired warrior spoke as before, emboldened his men and bade the
heroes press on. He could not longer now stand firm on his feet. The earl looked up to
heaven and cried aloud: I thank thee, Ruler of Nations, for all the joys that I have met with in
this world. Now I have most need, gracious Creator, that thou grant my spirit grace, that my
soul may fare to thee, into thy keeping, Lord of Angels, and pass in peace. It is my prayer
to thee that fiends of hell may not entreat it shamefully.
Then the heathen wretches cut him down and both the warriors who stood near by,
Ailfnoth and Wulfmaer, lay overthrown; they yielded their lives at their lords side...
Now was fallen the peoples chief, Ethelreds earl. All the retainers saw how their
lord lay dead. Then the proud thegns pressed on, hastened eagerly, those undaunted
men. All desired one of two things, to lose their lives or to avenge the one they loved...
8
PEASANT DUES (1050) AND FEUDAL CONTRACT (c. 1000)
Survey of Peasant Dues
Here are recorded the dues which the peasants must render at Hurstbourne. First from
every hide [about 120 acres] they must render 40 pence at the autumnal equinox, and 6
church mittan of ale and 3 sesters of wheat for bread, and they must plough 3 acres in their
own time, and sow them with their own seed, and bring it to the barn in their own time, and
give 3 pounds of barley as rent, and mow half an acre of meadow as rent in their own time,
and make it into a rick, and supply 4 fothers of split wood as rent, made into a stack in their
own time, and supply 16 poles of fencing as rent likewise in their own time, and at Easter
they shall give 2 ewes with 2 lambs -- and we reckon 2 young sheep to a full-grown
sheep -- and they must wash the sheep and shear them in their own time, and work as they
are bidden every week except three -- one at midwinter, the second at Easter, the third at
the Rogation Days.
Feudal Contract
Form of a Feudal Contract Concerning Land and Services
To my great lord, (lord's name), I, (vassal's name):
Since, as was well-known, I had not wherewith to feed and clothe myself, I came unto
you and told you my wish, to commend myself to you and to put myself under your
protection. I have now done so, on the condition that you shall supply me with food and
clothing as far as I shall merit by my services, and that as long as I live I shall perform such
services for you as are becoming to a freeman, and never have the right to withdraw from
your power and protection, but shall remain under them all the days of my life. It is agreed
that if either of us shall try to break this contract he shall pay (a specified amount), and the
compact shall still hold. It is also agreed that two copies of this letter shall be made and
signed by us, which also has been done.
9
Documents for
Assignment #3: Norman England
ST. ANSELMS ONTOLOGICAL PROOF OF GOD (1077-78)
"Truly there is a God, although the fool has said in his heart, There is no God."
And so, Lord, do you, who gives understanding to faith, give me, so far as you know
it to be profitable, to understand that you are as we believe... And indeed, we believe that
you are a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature
[being], since the fool has said in his heart, there is no God? [Psalms 14:1] But, at any rate,
this very fool, when he hears of this being than which I speak -- a being than which nothing
greater can be conceived -- understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his
mind; although he does not understand it exists.
For it is one thing for an object to be in the mind, and another to understand that the
object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will later perform, he has it in his
mind, but he does not yet consider it to exist, because he has not yet performed it. But
after he has made the painting, he both has it in his mind, and understands that it exists,
because he has made it.
Hence, even the fool is convinced that something than which nothing greater can be
conceived, at least exists in the mind. For, when he hears of this he understands it. And
whatever is understood, exists in the mind. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater
can be conceived, cannot exist in the mind alone. For, suppose it exists in the mind alone;
then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.
Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived can be conceived, it
[which exists only in the mind] cannot be greater than that which is [or exists in reality] the
very being than which nothing greater can be conceived [i.e., God]. But obviously this is
impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater
can be conceived, and it exists both in the mind and in reality.
"God cannot be conceived not to exist. God is that, than which nothing greater
can be conceived. That which can be conceived not to exist is not God."
And this being assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For,
it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that,
than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that,
than which nothing greater can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There
is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot
even be conceived not to exist; and this being you are, O Lord, our God.
So truly, therefore, do you exist, O Lord, my God, that you cannot be conceived not
to exist; and rightly. For, if a mind could conceive of a being better than you, the creature
would rise above the creator; and this is most absurd. And, indeed, except for you alone,
whatever else there is can be conceived not to exist. You alone, therefore, exist more truly
than all other beings, and hence to a higher degree than all other. For, whatever else exists
does not exist so truly, and hence exists to a lesser degree. Why then, has the fool said in
his heart, there is no God... since it is so evident, to a rational mind, that you do exist in the
highest degree of all? Why, except that he is dull and a fool?
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ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE (1087)
The Rule and Way of William the Conqueror in England
If any person desires to know what kind of man he was, or what worship he had, or of how
many lands he was lord, then will we write about him so as we understood him, who have often
looked upon him, and at another time sojourned in his court. The King William about whom we
speak was a very wise man, and very powerful, more dignified and strong than any of his
predecessors were. He was mild to the good men who loved God, and over all measure severe
to the men that gainsayed his will. On that same stead where God granted him that he might
subdue England, he reared a noble monastery, and there placed monks, and well endowed it. In
his days was the noble monastery in Canterbury built, and also very many others over all
England. This land was also plentifully supplied with monks, and they lived their lives after the rule
of St. Benedict...
So also was he a very rigid and cruel man, so that no one durst do anything against his will.
He had earls in his bonds, who had acted against his will; bishops he cast from their bishoprics, and
abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison; and at last he spared not his own brother
Odo...
Amongst other things is not to be forgotten the good peace that he made in this land; so
that a man who had any confidence in himself might go over his realm, with his bosom full of gold
unhurt. Nor durst any man slay another man, had he done ever so great evil to the other. And if
any common man lay with a woman against her will, he forthwith lost the members that he had
sinned with. He truly reigned over England, and by his capacity so thoroughly surveyed it, that
there was not a hide of land within England that he knew not who had it, or what it was worth, and
afterwards set it down in his Writ...
Certainly in his time men had great hardship, and very many injuries. Castles caused he to
be made, poor men to be greatly oppressed. The king was so very rigid, and took from his
subjects many a mark of gold, and more hundred pounds of silver, which he took by right and with
great unright from his people, for little need. He had fallen into covetousness, and altogether loved
greediness... Alas! that any man should be so proud, to so raise himself up, and account himself
above all men. May the Al-mighty God show mercy to his soul, and grant him forgiveness of his
sins! These things we have written concerning him, both
good and evil, that good men may imitate their goodness, and wholly flee from the evil, and go in
the way that leads us to the kingdom of heaven.
JOHN OF SALISBURY ON TYRANNY (12th c.)
Wherein the prince differs from the tyrant has already been set forth above...
Wherefore it will be easier to make known here, and in fewer words, the opposite
characteristics of the tyrant. A tyrant, then, as the philosophers have described him, is one
who oppresses the people by rulership based upon force, while he who rules in
accordance with the laws is a prince. Law is the gift of god, the model of equity, a standard
of justice, a likeness of the divine will, the guardian of well being a bond of union and
solidarity between peoples, a rule defining duties, a barrier against the vices and the
destroyer thereof, a punishment of violence and all wrong-doing. The law is assailed by
force or by fraud, and, as it were, either wrecked by the fury of the lion or undermined by
the wiles of the serpent. In whatever way this comes to pass, it is plain that it is the grace of
God which is being assailed, and that it is God himself who in a sense is challenged to
battle. The prince fights for the laws and the liberty of the people; the tyrant thinks nothing
done unless he brings the laws to nought and reduces the people to slavery. Hence the
prince is a kind of likeness of divinity; and the tyrant, on the contrary, a likeness of the
boldness of the Adversary, even of the wickedness of Lucifer, imitating him that sought to
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build his throne to the north and make himself like unto the Most High, with the exception of
his goodness. For had he desired to be like unto Him in goodness, he would never have
striven to tear from Him the glory of His power and wisdom. What he more likely did aspire
to was to be equal with him in authority to dispense rewards. The prince, as the likeness of
the Deity, is to be loved, worshipped and cherished; the tyrant, the likeness of wickedness,
is generally to be even killed. The origin of tyranny is iniquity, and springing from a
poisonous root, it is a tree which grows and sprouts into a baleful pestilent growth, and to
which the axe must by all means be laid. For if iniquity and injustice, banishing charity, had
not brought about tyranny, firm concord and perpetual peace would have possessed the
peoples of the earth forever, and no one would think of enlarging his boundaries. Then
kingdoms would be as friendly and peaceful, according to the authority of the great father
Augustine, and would enjoy as undisturbed repose, as the separate families in a well-
ordered state, or as different persons in the same family; or perhaps, which is even more
credible, there would be no kingdoms of all, since it is clear from the ancient historians that in
the beginning these were founded by iniquity as presumptuous encroachments against the
Lord, or else were extorted from Him.
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH ON ARTHUR (1136)
After the death of Utherpendragon, the leaders of the Britons assembled from their
various provinces in the town of Silchester and there suggested to Dubricius, the
Archbishop of the City of the Legions, that as their King he should crown Arthur, the son of
Uther. Necessity urged them on, for as soon as the Saxons heard of the death of King
Uther, they invited their own countrymen over from Germany, appointed CoIgrin as their
leader and began to do their utmost to exterminate the Britons. They had already over-run
all that section of the island which stretches from the River Humber to the sea named
Caithness.
Dubricius lamented the sad state of his country. He called the other bishops to him
and bestowed the crown of the kingdom upon Arthur. Arthur was a young man only fifteen
years old; but he was of outstanding courage and generosity, and his inborn goodness
gave him such grace that he was loved by almost all the people... In Arthur courage was
closely linked with generosity, and he made up his mind to harry the Saxons, so that with
their wealth he might reward the retainers who served his own household. The justness of
his cause encouraged him, for he had a claim by rightful inheritance to the kingship of the
whole island. He therefore called together all the young men whom I have just mentioned
and marched on York.
As soon as this was announced to CoIgrin, he assembled the Saxons, Scots and
Picts, and came to meet Arthur with a vast multitude. Once contact was made between the
two armies, beside the River Douglas, both sides stood in grave danger for their lives.
Arthur, however, was victorious. Colgrin fled, and Arthur pursued him; then Colgrin entered
York and Arthur besieged him there.
Arthur pursued the Saxons relentlessly until they reached Caledon Wood. There
they re-formed after their flight and made an effort to resist Arthur. The Saxons joined battle
once more and killed a number of the Britons, for the former defended themselves man-
fully. They used the shelter of the trees to protect themselves from the Britons' weapons.
As soon as Arthur saw this, he ordered the trees round that part of the wood to be cut down
and their trunks to be placed in a circle, so that every way out was barred to the enemy.
Arthur's plan was to hem them in and then besiege them, so that in the end they should die
of hunger. When this had been done, he ordered his squadrons to surround the wood and
there he remained for three days. The Saxons had nothing at all to eat. To prevent
themselves dying of sheer hunger, they asked permission to come out, on the
understanding that, if they left behind all their gold and silver, they might be permitted to
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return to Germany with nothing but their boats. What is more, they promised that they
would send Arthur tribute from Germany and that hostages should be handed over. Arthur
took counsel and then agreed to their petition. He retained all their treasure, and took
hostages to ensure that the tribute should be paid. All that he conceded to the Saxons was
permission to leave.
As the Saxons sailed away across the sea on their way home, they repented of the
bargain which they had made. They reversed their sails, turned back to Britain and landed
on the coast near Totnes. They took possession of the land, and depopulated the
countryside as far as the Severn Sea, killing off a great number of the peasantry. Then they
proceeded by a forced march to the neighbourhood of Bath and besieged the town. When
this was announced to King Arthur, he was greatly astonished at their extraordinary duplicity.
He ordered summary justice to be inflicted upon their hostages, who were all hanged
without more ado. He put off the foray with which he had begun to harass the Scots and the
Picts, and he hastened to break up the siege... He finally reached the county of Somerset
and approached the siege. 'Although the Saxons, whose very name is an insult to heaven
and detested by all men, have not kept faith with me,' he said, 'I myself will keep faith with
my God. This very day I will do my utmost to take vengeance on them for the blood of my
fellow countrymen. Arm yourselves, men, and attack these traitors with all your strength!
With Christ's help we shall conquer them, without any possible doubt!'
As Arthur said this, the saintly Dubricius, Archbishop of the City of the Legions,
climbed to the top of a hill and cried out in a loud voice: 'You who have been marked with
the cross of the Christian faith, be mindful of the loyalty you owe to your father-land and to
your fellow countrymen! If they are slaughtered as a result of this treacherous behaviour by
the pagans, they will be an everlasting reproach to you, unless in the meanwhile you do
your utmost to defend them! Fight for your fatherland, and if you are killed suffer death
willingly for your country's sake. That in itself is victory and a cleansing of the soul. Whoever
suffers death for the sake of his brothers offers himself as a living sacrifice to God and
follows with firm footsteps behind Christ Himself, who did not disdain to lay down His life for
His brothers. It follows that if any one of you shall suffer death in this war, that death shall be
to him as a penance and an absolution for all his sins, given always that he goes to meet it
unflinchingly.'
Without a moment's delay each man present, inspired by the benediction given by
this holy man, rushed off to put on his armour and to obey Dubricius' orders. Arthur himself
put on a leather jerkin worthy of so great a king. On his head he placed a golden helmet,
with a crest carved in the shape of a dragon; and across his shoulders a circular shield called
Pridwen, on which there was painted a likeness of the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, which
forced him to be thinking perpetually of her. He girded on his peerless sword, called
Caliburn, which was forged in the Isle of Avalon. A spear called Ron graced his right hand;
long, broad in the blade and thirsty for slaughter. Arthur drew up his men in companies and
then bravely attacked the Saxons, who as usual were arrayed in wedges. All that day they
resisted the Britons bravely, although the latter launched attack upon attack. Finally, towards
sunset, the Saxons occupied a neighbouring hill, on which they proposed to camp. Relying
on their vast numbers, they considered that the hill in itself offered sufficient protection.
However, when the next day dawned, Arthur climbed to the top of the peak with his army,
losing many of his men on the way. Naturally enough, the Saxons, rushing down from their
high position, could inflict wounds more easily, for the impetus of their descent gave them
more speed than the others, who were toiling up. For all that, the Britons reached the
summit by a superlative effort and immediately engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand
conflict. The Saxons stood shoulder to shoulder and strove their utmost to resist.
When the greater part of the day had passed in this way, Arthur went berserk, for he
realized that things were still going well for the enemy and that victory for his own side was
not yet in sight. He drew his sword Caliburn, called upon the name of the Blessed Virgin,
and rushed forward at full speed into the thickest ranks of the enemy. Every man whom he
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struck, calling upon God as he did so, he killed at a single blow. He did not slacken his
onslaught until he had dispatched four hundred and seventy men with his sword Caliburn.
POPE INNOCENT Ill TO KING JOHN, 1214
Innocent, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his well-beloved son in Christ,
John illustrious king of the English, and to his legitimate freeborn heirs for ever.
The King of kings and lord of lords, Jesus Christ, a priest for ever after the order of
Melchisedech, has so established in the Church his kingdom and His priesthood that the
one is a kingdom of priests and the other a royal priesthood, as is testified by Moses in the
law and by Peter in his Epistle; and over all He has set one whom he has appointed as His
Vicar on earth, so that, as every knee is bowed to Jesus, of things in heaven, and things in
earth, and things under the earth, so all men should obey this Vicar and strive that there may
be one fold and one shepherd. All secular kings for the sake of God so venerate this Vicar,
that unless they seek to serve him devotedly they doubt if they are reigning properly. To
this, dearly beloved son, you have paid wise attention; and by the merciful inspiration of
him in whose hand are the hearts of kings which he turns whithersoever He wills, you have
decided to submit in a temporal sense yourself and your kingdom to him to whom you
knew them to be spiritually subject, so that kingdom and priesthood, like body and soul, for
the great good and profit of each, might be united in the single person of Christ's Vicar. He
has deigned to work this wonder, who being alpha and omega has caused the end to fulfill
the beginning and the beginning to anticipate the end, so that those provinces which from of
old have had the Holy Roman Church as their proper teacher in spiritual matters should now
in temporal things also have her as their peculiar sovereign. You, whom God has chosen
as a suitable minister to effect this, by a devout and spontaneous act of will and on the
general advice of your barons have offered and yielded, in the form of an annual payment
of a thousand marks, yourself and your kingdoms of England and Ireland, with all their rights
and appearances, to God and to SS Peter and Paul His apostles and to the Holy Roman
Church and to us and our successors, to be our right and our property.
MAGNA CARTA, 1215
John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and
Aquitaine, count of Anjou, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars,
foresters, sheriffs, reeves, servants and all bailiffs and his faithful people greeting. Know
that by the suggestion of God and for the good of our soul and those of all our
predecessors and of our heirs, to the honor of God and the exaltation of holy church, and
the improvement of our kingdom, by the advice of our venerable fathers Stephen,
archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and cardinal of the holy Roman church,
[and other churchmen] ... and of the noblemen William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, [and
others]...
In the first place we have granted to God, and by this our present charter confirmed,
for us and our heirs forever, that the English church shall be free, and shall hold its rights
entire and its liberties uninjured; and we will that it thus be observed; which is shown by this,
that the freedom of elections, which is considered to be most important and especially
necessary to the English church, we, of our pure and spontaneous will, granted, and by our
charter confirmed, before the contest between us and our barons had arisen; and obtained
a confirmation of it by the lord Pope Innocent III; which we will observe and which we will
shall be observed in good faith by our heirs forever.
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We have granted moreover to all free men of our kingdom for us and our heirs forever
all the liberties written below, to be had and holden by themselves and their heirs from us
and our heirs.
If any of our earls or barons, or others holding from us in chief by military service shall
have died, and when he has died his heir shall be of full age and owe relief, he shall have
his inheritance by the ancient relief; that is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl for the whole
barony of an earl a hundred pounds; the heir or heirs of a baron for a whole barony a
hundred pounds; the heir or heirs of a knight, for a whole knight's fee, a hundred shillings at
most; and who owes less let him give less according to the ancient custom of fiefs.
If moreover the heir of any one of such shall be under age, and shall be wardship,
when he comes of age he shall have his inheritance without relief and without a fine...
No widow shall be compelled to marry so long as she prefers to live without a
husband, provided she gives security that she will not marry without our consent, if she
holds from us, or without the consent of her lord from whom she holds, if she holds from
another...
No scutage [payment instead of military service] or aid shall be imposed in our
kingdom except by the common council of our kingdom, except for the ransoming of our
body, for the making of our oldest son a knight, and for once marrying our oldest daughter,
and for these purposes it shall be only a reasonable aid; in the same way it shall be done
concerning the aids of the city of London.
And the city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and free customs, as well by
land as by water. Moreover, we will and grant that all other cities and boroughs and villages
and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs.
And for holding a common council of the kingdom concerning the assessment of an
aid otherwise than in the three cases mentioned above, or concerning the assessment of a
scutage we shall cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and
greater barons by our letters under seal; and besides we shall cause to be summoned
generally, by our sheriffs and bailiffs all those who hold from us in chief, for a certain day, that
is at the end of forty days at least, and for a certain place; and in all the letters of that
summons, we will express the cause of the summons, and when the summons has thus
been given the business shall proceed on the appointed day, on the advice of those who
shall be present, even if not all of those who were summoned have come...
No one shall be compelled to perform any greater service for a knight's fee, or for
any other free tenement than is owed from it...
No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take anyone's grain or other chattels, without
immediately paying for them in money, unless he is able to obtain a postponement at the
good-will of the seller.
No constable shall require any knight to give money in place of his ward of a castle if
he is willing to furnish that ward in his own person or through another honest man, if he
himself is not able to do it for a reasonable cause; and if we shall lead or send him into the
army he shall be free from ward in proportion to the amount of time by which he has been
in the army through us.
No sheriff or bailiff of ours or any one else shall take horses or wagons of any free
man for carrying purposes except on the permission of that free man.
Neither we nor our bailiffs will take the wood of another man for castles, or for
anything else which we are doing, except by the permission of him to whom the wood
belongs.
No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed, or outlawed, or
banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except
by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny, or delay right or justice.
All merchants shall be safe and secure in going out from England and coming into
England and in remaining and going through England, as well by land as by water, for
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buying and selling, free from all evil tolls, by the ancient and rightful customs, except in time
of war...
All forests which have been afforested [i.e. made into royal forests] in our time shall
be disafforested immediately; and so it shall be concerning river banks which in our time
have been fenced in...
And immediately after the re-establishment of peace we will remove from the
kingdom all foreign-born soldiers, cross-bow men, servants, and mercenaries who have
come with horses and arms for the injury of the realm.
If anyone shall have been dispossessed or removed by us without legal judgment of
his peers, from his lands, castles, franchises, or his right we will restore them to him
immediately...
All fines which have been imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, and all
penalties imposed unjustly and against the law of the land are altogether excused, or will be
on the judgment of the twenty-five barons of whom mention is made below in connection
with the security of the peace, or on the judgment of the majority of them, along with the
aforesaid Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury...
Since, moreover, for the sake of God, and for the improvement of kingdom, and for
the better quieting of the hostility sprung up lately between us and our barons, we have
made all these concessions; wishing them to enjoy these in a complete and firm stability
forever, we make and concede to them the security described below; that is to say, that
they shall elect twenty-five barons of the kingdom, whom they will, who ought with all their
power to observe, hold, and cause to be observed, the peace and liberties which we
have conceded to them...
Wherefore we will and firmly command that the Church of England shall be free, and
that the men in our kingdom shall have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights and
concessions, well and peacefully, freely and quietly, fully and completely, for themselves
and their heirs, from us and our heirs, in all things and places, forever, as before said. It has
been sworn, moreover, as well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all these things
spoken of above shall be observed in good faith and without any evil intent. Witness the
above named and many others. Given by our hand in the meadow which is called
Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, in the
seventeenth year of our reign.
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Documents for
Assignment #4: High and Late Middle Ages
LONDON (1173)
A description by William Fitz-Stephen
Of the Site Thereof
Among the noble cities of the world that Fame celebrates the City of London of the
Kingdom of the English, is the one seat that pours out its fame more widely, sends to farther
lands its wealth and trade, lifts its head higher than the rest. It is happy in the healthiness of
its air, in the Christian religion in the strength of its defences, the nature of its site, the honour
of its citizens, the modesty of its matrons; pleasant in sports; fruitful of noble men.
Of Religion
There is in the church there the Episcopal Seat of St. Paul; once it was Metropolitan,
and it is thought will again become so if the citizens return into the island, unless perhaps the
archiepiscopal title of Saint Thomas the Martyr [Thomas Becket], and his bodily presence,
preserve to Canterbury where it is now, a perpetual dignity. But as Saint Thomas has
made both cities illustrious, London by his rising, Canterbury by his setting, in regard of that
saint, with admitted justice, each can claim advantage of the other. There are also, as
regards the cultivation of the Christian faith, in London and the suburbs, thirteen larger
conventual churches, besides lesser parish churches one hundred and twenty-six.
Of the Strength of the City
It has on the east the Palatine Castle, very great and strong, of which the ground plan
and the walls rise from a very deep foundation, fixed with a mortar tempered by the blood
of animals. On the west are two towers very strongly fortified, with the high and great wall of
the city having seven double gates, and towered to the north at intervals. London was
walled and towered in like manner on the south, but the great fishbearing Thames river
which there glides, with ebb and flow from the sea, by course of time has washed against,
loosened, and thrown down those walls. Also upwards to the west the royal palace is
conspicuous above the same river, an incomparable building with ramparts and bulwarks,
two miles from the city, joined to it by a populous suburb.
Of Gardens
Everywhere outside the houses of those living in the suburbs are joined to them,
planted with trees, the spacious and beautiful gardens of the citizens.
Of Pasture and Tilth
Also there are, on the north side, pastures and a pleasant meadow land, through with
flow rivers streams, where the turning wheels of mills are put in motion with a cheerful sound.
Very near lies a great forest, with woodland pastures, coverts of wild animals, stags, fallow
deer, boats and wild bulls. The tilled lands of the city are not of barren gravel but fat plains
of Asia that make crops luxuriant, and fill their tillers barns with Ceres sheaves.
Of Springs
There are also about London, on the north side excellent suburban springs, with
sweet, wholesome, and clear water that flows rippling over the bright stones; among which
Holy Well, Clerken WelI, and Saint Clements are frequented by greater numbers, and
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visited more by scholars and youth of the city when they go out for fresh air on summer
evenings. It is a good city indeed when it has a good master.
Of Honour of the Citizens
That city is honoured by her men, adorned by her arms, populous with many
inhabitants, so that in the time of sIaughter of war under King Stephen, of those going out to
muster twenty thousand horsemen and sixty thousand men on foot were estimated to be fit
for war. Above all other citizens, everywhere, the citizens of London are regarded is
conspicuous and noteworthy for handsomeness of manners and of dress, at table and in
way of speaking...
Of Schools
In London three principal churches have by privilege and ancient dignity, famous
schools; yet very often by support of some personage, or of some teachers who are
considered notable and famous in philosophy, there are also other schools by favour and
permission. On feast days the masters have festival meetings in the churches. Their
scholars dispute, some by demonstration, others by dialectics; some recite enthymemes,
others do better in using perfect syllogisms. Some are exercised in disputation for display,
as wrestling with opponents; others for truth, which is the grace of perfectness. Sophists
who feign are judged happy in their heap and flood of words. Others paralogize. Some
orators, now and then, say in their rhetorical speeches something apt for persuasion, careful
to observe rules of their art, and to omit none of the contingents. Boys of different schools
strive against one another in verses, and contend about the principles of grammar.
Of the Ordering of the City
Those engaged in the several kinds of business, sellers of several things, contractors
for several kinds of work, are distributed every morning into their several localities and
shops. Besides, there is in London on the river bank, among the wines in ships and cellars
sold by the vintners, a public cook shop; there eatables are to be found every day,
according to the season, dishes of meat, roast, fried and boiled, great and small fish, coarser
meats for the poor, more delicate for the rich, of game, fowls, and small birds.
Outside one of the gates there, immediately in the suburb, is a certain field, smooth
(Smith) field in fact and name. Every Friday, unless it be a higher day of appointed
solemnity, there is in it a famous show of noble horses for sale. Earls, barons, knights, and
many citizens who are in town, come to see or buy. In another part of the field stand by
themselves the goods proper to rustics, implements of husbandry, swine with long flanks,
cows with full udders, oxen of hulk immense, and woolly flocks.
To this city from every nation under heaven merchants delight to bring their trade...
This city ... is divided into wards, has annual sheriffs for its consuls, has senatorial and lower
magistrates, sewers and aqueducts in its streets, its proper places and separate courts for
cases of each kind, deliberative, demonstrative, judicial; has assemblies on appointed
days. I do not think there is a city with more commendable customs of church attendance,
honour to God's ordinances, keeping sacred festivals, almsgiving, hospitality, confirming
betrothals, contracting marriages, celebration of nuptials, preparing feasts, cheering the
guests, and also in care for funerals and the interment of the dead. The only pests of
London are the immoderate drinking of fools and the frequency of fires. To this may be
added that nearly all the bishops, abbots, and magnates of England are, as it were, citizens
and freemen of London; having there their own splendid houses, to which they resort,
where they spend largely when summoned to great councils by the king or by their
metropolitan, or drawn thither by their own private affairs.
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MILL DISPUTE (12th c.)
This passage from Jocelin of Brokelands chronicle demonstrates the lord's monopoly over
the building and use of mills.
Herbert the Dean [a monk in charge of an abbeys manors] set up a windmill on
Habardun; and when the Abbot heard this, he grew so hot with anger that he would
scarcely eat or speak a single word. On the morrow, after hearing mass, he ordered the
Sacrist [person responsible for altars and vessels of the church] to send his carpenters
thither without delay, pull everything down, and place the timber under safe custody.
Hearing this, the Dean came and said that he had the right to do this on his free fief, and that
free benefit of the wind ought not to be denied to any man; he said he also wished to grind
his own corn [cereal grain] there and not the corn of others, lest perchance he might be
thought to do this to the detriment of neighboring mills. To this the Abbot, still angry, made
answer, "I thank you as I should thank you if you had cut off both my feet. By God's face, I
will never eat bread till that building be thrown down. You are an old man, and you ought to
know that neither the King nor his Justiciar [a royal officer] can change or set up anything
within the liberties of this town without the assent of the Abbot and the Convent. Why have
you then presumed to do such a thing? Nor is this thing done without detriment to my mills,
as you assert. For the burgesses [townsmen] will throng to your mill and grind their corn to
their hearts' content, nor should I have the lawful right to punish them, since they are free
men. I would not even allow the Cellarer's [monk in charge of provisions] mill which was built
of late, to stand, had it not been built before I was Abbot. Go away," he said, "go away;
before you reach your house, you shall hear what will be done with your mill." But the Dean
shrinking in fear from before the face of the Abbot by the advice of his son Master
Stephen, anticipated the servants of the Abbot and caused the mill which he had built to be
pulled down by his own servants without delay, so that, when the servants of the Sacrist
came, they found nothing left to demolish.
IPSWICH TOWN CHARTER (1200)
John, by the grace of God king, etc. Know that we have granted and by our present
charter have confirmed to our burgesses of Ipswich our borough of Ipswich, with all
appurtenances and with all its liberties and free customs, to be held of us and our heirs by
them and their heirs in hereditary right, paying to our exchequer every year at Michaelmas
term, by the hand of the reeve of Ipswich, the just and accustomed farm [annual fee set by
the citizens] and, at the same time, the increment of 100s. sterling by tale [Exchequer tally]
that they used to pay. We have also granted that all burgesses of Ipswich are to be quit of
toll, stallage, lastage, pontage [taxes for having a stall, attending markets, and using a
bridge], and all other customs throughout all our land and throughout the ports of the sea.
We have granted to them that, with the exception of our officials, none of them shall be
impleaded in any plea outside the borough of lpswich, save only in pleas concerning
foreign tenures; and that they shall have their gild merchant; that no one shall be lodged or
shall take anything by force within the borough of Ipswich; that they shall justly have their
lands and their pledges and all their debts, by whomsoever owed; that, with regard to their
lands and tenures inside the borough of Ipswich, justice shall be assured them according to
the custom of the borough of Ipswich and of our free boroughs; that, with regard to their
debts established at Ipswich and their pledges made in the same place, the pleas shall be
held at Ipswich; and that none of them shall be adjudged in mercy with respect to his
chattels except according to the law of our free boroughs. We also forbid any one in all our
land, on pain of 10 forfeiture to us, to exact toll, stallage, or any other custom from the men
of Ipswich. Wherefore we will and straitly command that the aforesaid burgesses shall have
and hold the aforesaid liberties and free customs well and in peace, as they have been and
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are best and most freely enjoyed by the other burgesses of our free boroughs in England
saving in all things to our citizens of London their liberties and free customs.
Furthermore, we will and grant that our said burgesses, by the common counsel of their
town, shall elect two of the more lawful and discreet men of their town and present them to our chief
justice at our exchequer; which men shall well and faithfully keep the reeveship of our aforesaid
borough of Ipswich. And so long as they well conduct themselves in that office, they shall not be
removed except by the common counsel of the aforesaid burgesses. We also will that in the
same borough, by the common council of the aforesaid burgesses, four of the more lawful and
discreet men of the borough shall be elected to keep the pleas of the crown and other matters that
pertain to us and to our crown in the same borough, and to see that the reeves of that borough
justly treat both rich and poor.
SOUTHAMPTON MERCHANT GUILD CHARTER (13th c.)
In the first place, there shall be elected from the guild merchants and established an
alderman, a steward, a chaplain, four skevins [stewards of a guild] and an usher. And it is to
be known that whosoever shall be alderman shall receive from each one entering into the
guild fourpence; the steward, twopence; the chaplain, twopence; and the usher, one penny.
And the guild shall meet twice a year: that is to say, on the Sunday next after St. John the
Baptist's day, and on the Sunday next after St. Mary's day.
And when the guild shall sit, the alderman is to have, each night so long as the guild
sits, two gallons of wine and two candles, and the steward the same; and the four skevins
and the chaplain, each of them one gallon of wine and one candle, and the usher one gallon
of wine.
And when the guild shall sit, the lepers of La Madeleine shall have of the alms of the
guild, two sesters [approximately eight gallons] of ale, and the sick of God's House and of
St. Julian shall have two sesters of ale. And the Friars Minors shall have two sesters of ale
and one sester of wine. And four sesters of ale shall be given to the poor wherever the
guild shall meet.
And when a guildsman dies, all those who are of the guild and are in the city shall
attend the service of the dead, and the guildsmen shall bear the body and bring it to the
place of burial. And whoever will not do this shall pay according to his oath, two pence, to
be given to the poor. And those of the ward where the dead man shall be ought to find a
man to watch over the body the night that the dead shall lie in his house. And so long as
the service of the dead shall last, that is to say the vigil and the mass, there ought to burn
four candles of the guild, each candle of two pounds weight or more, until the body is
buried. And these four candles shall remain in the keeping of the steward of the guild.
And when a guildsman dies, his eldest son or his next heir shall have the seat of his
father, or of his uncle, if his father was not a guildsman, and of no other one; and he shall give
nothing for his seat. No husband can have a seat in the guild by right of his wife, nor
demand a seat by right of his wife's ancestors.
And no one of the city of Southampton shall buy anything to sell again in the same
city, unless he is of the guild merchant or of the franchise. And if anyone shall do so and is
convicted of it, all which he has so bought shall be forfeited to the king; and no one shall be
quit of custom unless he proves that he is in the guild or in the franchise, and this from year
to year.
And no one shall buy honey, fat, salt herrings, or any kind of oil, or millstones, or fresh
hides, or any kind of fresh skins, unless he is a guildsman: nor keep a tavern for wine nor sell
cloth at retail, except in market or fair days; nor keep grain in his granary beyond five
quarters, to sell at retail, if he is not a guildsman; and whoever shall do this and be convicted,
shall forfeit to the king.
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If any guildsman falls into poverty and has not the wherewithal to live, and is not able
to work or to provide for himself, he shall have one mark from the guild to relieve his
condition when the guild shall sit. No one of the guild nor of the franchise shall avow
another's goods for his by which the custom of the city shall be injured. And if any one does
so and is convicted, he shall lose the guild and the franchise; and the merchandise so
avowed shall be forfeited to the king.
And no private man nor stranger shall bargain for or buy any kind of merchandise
coming into the city before a burgess of the guild merchant, so long as the guildsman is
present and wishes to bargain for and buy this merchandise; and if anyone does so and is
convicted, that which he buys shall be forfeited to the king.
No one shall go out to meet a ship bringing wine or other merchandise coming to the
town, in order to buy anything, before the ship be arrived and come to anchor for unloading;
and if any one does so and is convicted, the merchandise which he shall have bought shall
be forfeited to the king.
ADELARD OF BATH: NATURAL QUESTIONS (12th c.)
ADELARD: I take nothing away from God, for whatever exists is from Him and
because of Him. But the natural order does not exist confusedly and without rational
arrangement, and human reason should be listened to concerning those things it treats of.
But when it completely fails, then the matter should be referred to God. Therefore, since
we have not yet completely lost the use of our minds, let us return to reason...
... It is difficult for me to talk with you about animals, for I have learned one thing,
under the guidance of reason, from Arabic teachers; but you, captivated by a show of
authority, are led around by a halter. For what should we call authority but a halter? Indeed,
just as brute animals are led about by a halter wherever you please, and are not told where
or why, but see the rope by which they are held and follow it alone, thus the authority of
writers leads many of you, caught and bound by animal-like credulity, into danger. Whence
some men, usurping the name of authority for themselves, have employed great license in
writing, to such an extent that they do not hesitate to present the false as true to such animal-
like men. For why not fill up sheets of paper, and why not write on the back too, when you
usually have such readers today who require no rational explanation and put their trust only
in the ancient name of a title? For they do not understand that reason has been given to
each person so that he might discern the true from the false, using reason as the chief judge.
For if reason were not the universal judge, it would have been given to each of us in vain. It
would be sufficient that it were given to one (or a few at most), and the rest would be
content with their authority and decisions. Further, those very people who are called
authorities only secured the trust of their successors because they followed reason; and
whoever is ignorant of reason or ignores it is deservedly considered to be blind. I will cut
short this discussion of the fact that in my judgment authority should be avoided. But I do
assert this, that first we ought to seek the reason for anything, and then if we find an authority
it may be added. Authority alone cannot make a philosopher believe anything, nor should it
be adduced for this purpose...
... I believe that man is dearer to the Creator than all the other animals. Nevertheless
it does not happen that he is born with natural weapons or is suited for swift flight. But he
has something which is much better and more worthy, reason I mean, by which he so far
excels the brutes that by means of it he can tame them, put bits in their mouths, and train
them to perform various tasks. You see, therefore, by how much the gift of reason excels
bodily defenses...
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NEPHEW: Since we have been discussing things having to do with the brain, explain, if
you can, how the philosophers determined the physical location of imagination, reason and
memory. For both Aristotle in the Physics (an erroneous reference) and other philosophers
in other works, have been able to determine that the operations of imagination are carried
on in the front part of the brain, reason in the middle, and memory in the back, and so they
have given these three areas the names imagination, rational and memorial. But by what
skill were they able to determine the site of each operation of the mind and to assign to
each small area of the brain its proper function, since these operations cannot be perceived
by any sense?
ADELARD: To one who does not understand, everything seems impossible: but
when things are understood, everything becomes clear. I would guess that whoever first
undertook this task learned something about it from sense experience. Probably, someone
who had formerly had a very active imagination suffered an injury to the front of his head and
afterwards no longer possessed the imagination faculty, although his reason and memory
remained unaffected. And when this happened it was noticed by the philosopher. And
similarly injuries to other parts of the head impeded other functions of the mind so that it
could be established with certainty which areas of the brain controlled which mental functions,
especially since in some men these areas are marked by very fine lines. Therefore, from
evidence of this sort, which could be perceived by the senses, an insensible and intellectual
operation of the mind has been made clear.
A MONASTIC MANOR: DARNHALL (1326)
Here begin the customs of the bond-tenants of the manor of Dernale [Darnhall].
One is that they ought to [appear in] court at the will of the lord, [in this case, the
abbot of the monastery] or of his bailiff [agent] upon being summoned only, even during
the night, and they ought all to come the next day.
And whereas some of them have been accustomed to give part of their land to their
sons, so that it came about that after their death their sons have by the carelessness of the
bailiffs of the place been received as holding those same lands without doing to the lord
anything for their seisin [possession of property] in their father's time; those sons who hold
land ought to do suit of court, or obtain the lord's grace to redeem the suit at the will of the
lord, on account of the great loss which has by this means been suffered by the lord.
Also they all [must use] the mill under pain of forfeiture of their grain, if they at any
time withdraw suit; and every year they owe pannage [fee for the right to pasture in forest
areas] for their pigs.
Also they ought to make redemption of their daughters, if they wish to marry out of
the manor, at the will of the lord.
They will also give leyrwithe [a fine for a female serf found guilty of fornication] for
their daughters, if they fall into carnal sin.
Also, when any one of them dieth, the lord shall have all the pigs of the deceased, all
his goats, all his mares at grass, and his horse also, if he had one for his personal use, all his
bees, all his bacon-pigs, all his cloth of wool and flax, and whatsoever can be found of gold
and silver. The lord also shall have all his brass pots or pot, if he have one (but who of
these bond-tenants will have a brass pot for cooking his food in?), because at their death
the lord ought to have all things of metal...
Also the lord shall have the best ox for a "hereghett" [recompense for property lent
by the lord] and holy Church another. After this the rest of the animals ought to be divided
thus, if the deceased has children, to wit, into three parts -- one for the lord, one for the wife,
one for the children; and if he leaves no children, they shall be divided into two parts -one
for the lord and one for the wife of the deceased, equally...
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Also it is not lawful for the bond-tenant to make a will, or bequeath anything, without
licence of the lord of the manor.
And as to the sheep, let them be divided like all the other goods of the deceased
which ought to be divided. But this is inserted in this place by itself, because, when the
convent first came to Darnhale, the bond-tenants said that no division ought to be made of
the sheep, but that all the sheep ought to remain wholly to the wife of the deceased. Which
is quite false, because they always used to divide them without gainsaying it at all, until
Warm le Grantuenour was bailiff of Darnhale; and while he was bailiff he was corrupted with
presents, and did not exact the lord's share of all things in his time; and afterwards the bond
tenants endeavoured to make this a precedent and custom, which they by no means ought
to do, because they have been accustomed so to do according to the customs of this
manor in the times of former lords...
Also, if the lord wishes to buy corn or oats, or anything else, and they have such things to
sell, it shall not be lawful to them to sell anything elsewhere, except with the lord's licence
[permission] if the lord is willing to pay them a reasonable price.
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Documents for
Readings: Late Medieval Crisis
CHAUCERS CANTERBURY TALES (14th c.)
When the sweet showers of April fall and
Down through the drought of March to pierce
Then people long to go on pilgrimages
And palmers [pilgrims carry palm leaves] long to seek the stranger strands
of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And specially, from every shire's end
In England, down to Canterbury they wend
To seek the holy blissful martyr [Thomas Becket], quick
In giving help to them when they were sick.
It happened in that season that one day
In Southwark, at The Tabard as I lay
Ready to go on pilgrimage and start
For Canterbury, most devout at heart,
At night there came into that hostelry
Some nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry folk happening then to fall
In fellowship, and they were pilgrims all
That towards Canterbury meant to ride...
By speaking to them all upon the trip
I was admitted to their fellowship
And promised to rise early and take the way
To Canterbury, as you heard me say.
But none the less, while I have time and space,
Before my story takes a further pace,
It seems a reasonable thing to say
What their condition was, the full array
Of each of them, as it appeared me,
According to profession and degree,
And what apparel they were riding in...
There was a Monk, a leader of the fashions;
Inspecting farms and hunting were his passions,
A manly man, to be an abbot able,
Many [were] the dainty horses in his stable...
The Rule of good St. Benet [Benedict] or St. Maur
As old and strict he tended to ignore;
He let go by the things of yesterday
And followed the new world's more spacious way.
He did not rate that text at a plucked hen
Which says that hunters are not holy men
And that a monk uncloistered [i.e. without a monastery] is a mere
Fish out of water, flapping on the pier,
That is to say a monk out of his cloister.
That was a text he held not worth an oyster;
And I said I agreed with his opinion;
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What! Study until reason lost dominion
Poring on books in cloisters? Must he toil
As Austin bade and till the very soil?
Was he to leave the world upon the shelf?
Let Austin have his labor to himself.
This Monk was therefore a good man to horse;
Greyhounds he had, as swift as birds, to course.
Hunting a hare or riding at a fence
Was all his fun, he spared for no expense...
A holy-minded man of good renown
There was, and poor, the Parson to a town,
Yet he was rich in holy thought and work.
He also was a learned man, a clerk,
Who truly knew Christ's gospel and would preach it
Devoutly to parishioners, and teach it.
Benign and wonderfully diligent,
And patient when adversity was sent
(For so he proved in great adversity)
He much disliked extorting tithe or fee
Nay rather he preferred beyond a doubt
Giving to poor parishioners round about
From his own goods and Easter offerings.
He found sufficiency in little things.
Wide was his parish, with houses far asunder,
Yet he neglected not in rain or thunder,
In sickness or in grief, to pay a call
On the remotest whether great or small
Upon his feet, and in his hand a stave.
This noble example to his sheep he gave,
First following the word before he taught it,
And it was from the gospel he had caught it...
He did not set his benefice to hire
And leave his sheep encumbered in the mire
Or run to London to earn easy bread
By singing masses for the wealthy dead,
Or find some brotherhood and get enrolled.
He stayed at home and watched over his fold
So that no wolf should make the sheep miscarry.
He was a shepherd and no mercenary.
Holy and virtuous he was, but then
Never contemptuous of sinful men,
Never disdainful, never too proud for fine,
But was discreet in teaching and benign.
His business was to show a fair behavior
And to draw men thus to Heaven and their Savior,
Unless indeed a man were obstinate;
And such, whether of high or low estate,
He put to sharp rebuke to say the least.
I think there never was a better priest.
He sought no pomp or glory in his dealings,
No scrupulosity had spiced his feelings.
Christ and His Twelve Apostles and their lore
He taught, but followed it himself before.
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PIERS PLOWMAN, BY WILLIAM LANGLAND (14th century)
''Sir-ill-mannered Age.'' I said, woe be with you!
How long has your way been upon the heads of the people?
If you had acted courteously you would have asked permission.
Yes, dear sluggard! he said and struck me harder.
He hit me under the ear so that I am hard of hearing.
He buffeted me about the mouth and beat out my teeth.
He gyved me in gouts; I could not walk freely.
And this woe that I was in moved my wife also.
She wished heartily that I were already in heaven.
The limb that she loved was no longer able.
Age and she had enfeebled it together.
As I sat in this sorrow I saw Nature passing
And Death drawing near; dread seized me.
I cried Nature of his courtesy to give my care an ending.
Lo, Age the hoar has beset me sorely!
Avenge me, if it be your will; for I would go hence.
If you will be avenged walk into Unity
And hold yourself there always till I send for you.
And look that you get in some craft before you come thence.
Counsel me, Nature, quoth I, what craft is best to study.
Learn to love, said Nature, and leave all others.
How shall I come by goods to clothe and feed me?
If you love loyally, he said, you will lack never
For meat or worldly wearing while life is with you.
Then at counsel of Conscience I commenced to travel
through Contrition and Confession, till I came to Unity.
There Conscience was constable to save Christian lives.
they were sadly besieged by seven great giants,
Who held hard with Antichrist against Conscience.
Sloth assaulted it with his sling and made a sorry passage;
A thousand proud priests passed in with him,
With cut suits and piked shoes and soldiers daggers;
All came against Conscience, Covetousness led them.
By Mary, cried a cursed priest from the coast of Ireland,
I count no more of Conscience if I catch the silver
Than I do when I drink a draught of good ale.
So said sixty others from the same country.
They shot at him and shot again a sheaf-full of curses,
Broad hooked arrows, Gods wounds and nails,
And almost had Unity and Holiness at mercy.
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MARGARET PASTON: LETTERS (1441-1448)
Paston and her husband were landowners; her letters are some of the few surviving
personal letters dating before the 16th century.
December, 1441
Right reverend and worshipful husband, I commend myself to you, desiring heartily to hear
of your welfare, thanking you for the token that you sent me by Edmund Perys. Please let
me tell you that my mother sent to my father in London for some grey woollen gown cloth,
to make me a gown, and he told my mother and me when he came home that he had
instructed you to buy it after you left London. If it is not yet bought, please be so kind as to
buy it and send it home as Soon as you can, for I have no gown to wear this winter except
my black and green one with tapes, and that is so cumbersome that I am tired of wearing it.
As to the girdle that my father promised me, I spoke to him about it a little while
before he last went to London, and he said to me that it was your fault, because you would
not think about having it made: but I expect that it is not so -- he said it just as an excuse. I
ask you, if you dare take it upon you, to be so good as to have it made in time for your
return home, for I never needed it more than I do now, for I have grown so fat that no belt or
girdle that I have will go round me.
Elisabeth Peverel has lain sick for fifteen or sixteen weeks with sciatica, but she sent
my mother word by Kate that she would come here when God sent time, even if she had
to be wheeled in a barrow.
John Damme was here, and my mother revealed my secret to him and he said by
his troth that he was not so pleased by anything he had heard for the last twelve months as
he was by that news. I can no longer live by Cunning; my secret is revealed to everyone
who sees me. I sent you word of all the other things that you desired me to send word of in
a letter I wrote on Our Lady's day last [8 December].
The Holy Trinity have you in their keeping. Written at Oxhead in very great haste on
the Thursday before St Thomas' day.
Please wear the ring with the image of St. Margaret that I sent you as a keepsake
until you come home. You have left me such a keepsake as makes me think of you both
day and night when I want to sleep.
Yours, M.P.
1448
Right worshipful husband , I commend myself to you and ask you to get some crossbows,
and windlasses to wind them with, and crossbow bolts, for your houses here are so low that
no one can shoot out of them with a longbow, however much we needed to. I expect you
can get such things from Sir John Fastolf if you were to send to him. And I would also like
you to get two or three short pole-axes to keep indoors, and as many leatherjackets, if you
can.
Partridge [the bailiff of Paston's neighboring noble, with whom the Paston's were
disputing] and his companions are very much afraid that you will try to reclaim possession
from them, and have made great defences within the house, so I am told. They
have made bars to bar the doors crosswise, and loopholes at every corner of the house
out of which to shoot, both with bows and handguns; and the holes that have been made
for hand-guns are barely knee high from the floor; and five such holes have been made. No
one could shoot out from them with hand bows...
Please be so kind as to buy me a pound of almonds, a pound of sugar, and buy
some frieze-cloth to make gowns for your children. You will get the cheapest and the best
choice from Hay's wife, I am told.
Please buy a yard of black broadcloth for a hood for me, at 3s 8d or 4s a yard, for
there is neither good cloth nor frieze in this town. As for the children's gowns, if I have cloth I
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will have them made. The Trinity have you in their keeping and send you good fortune in all
your affairs.
ENGLISH PEASANT REVOLT (1381)
From Jean Froissarts Chronicles of England
Ah, ye good people, the matter goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do so till
everything be [held in] common, and that there be no villains (common men) nor
gentlemen, but that we may be all united together, and that the lords be no greater masters
than we be. What have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in serfdom? We all
come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or show that
they be greater lords than we be, saving that they cause us to labor and win for what they
spend? They are clothed in velvet and camlet [a fine woolen cloth] furred with grise [costly
gray fur], and we be vestured in poor cloth; they have their wines, spices and good bread,
and we have the drawing out of the chaff and drink water; they dwell in fair houses and we
have the pain and travail, rain and wind in the fields; and by what cometh of our labors they
keep and maintain their estates; we be called their bondsmen and unless we readily do
them service, we be beaten...
In the year 1381... on Wednesday... that impious band began to assemble from
Kent, from Surrey, and from many other surrounding places. Apprentices also, leaving their
masters, rushed to join them. And so they gathered on Blackheath, where, forgetting
themselves in their multitude, and neither contented with their former cause nor appeased
by smaller crimes, they unmercifully planned greater and worse evils and determined not to
desist from their wicked undertaking until they should have entirely extirpated the nobles
and great men of the kingdom.
So at first they directed their course of iniquity to a certain town of the archbishop of
Canterbury called Maidstone, in which there was a jail of the said archbishop, and in the said
jail was a certain John Ball... On the Wednesday... they came into Surrey to the jail... where
they broke into the jail without delay, forcing all imprisoned within to come with them to help
them, and whomsoever they met, whether pilgrims or others of whatever condition, they
forced to go with them.
On Friday... they came over the bridge to London; here no one resisted them,
although, as was said, the citizens of London knew of their coming a long time before; and
so they directed their way to the Tower where the King was surrounded by a great throng
of knights, esquires, and others.
The people had determined to kill the archbishop and others... The King, however,
desired to free the archbishop and his friends from the jaws of wolves; so he sent to the
people a command to assemble outside the city, at a place called Mile End, in order to
speak with the King and to treat with him concerning their designs.
But the King advanced to the assigned place, while many of the wicked mob kept
following him... More, however, remained where they were. When the others had come to
the King they complained that they had been seriously oppressed by many hardships and
that their condition of servitude was unbearable, and that they neither could nor would
endure it longer. The King, for the sake of peace, and on account of the violence of the
times, granted to them a charter with the great seal, to the effect that all men in the kingdom
of England should be free and of free condition, and should remain both for themselves and
for their heirs free of all kinds of servitude and villeinage forever. This charter was rejected
and decided to be null and void by the King and the great men of the realm in the
Parliament held at Westminster in the same year...
While these things were going on, behold those degenerate sons, who still
remained, summoned their father the archbishop with his above-mentioned friends without
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any force or attack, without sword or arrow, or any other form of compulsion, but only with
force of threats... inviting those men to death. But they did not cry out against it nor resist...
but as sheep before the shearers, going forth barefooted with uncovered heads, they
offered themselves freely to an undeserved death... And so, alas! before the King
returned, seven were killed at Tower Hill, two of them lights of the kingdom...
On the following day, which was Saturday, they gathered in Smithfield, where there
came to them in the morning the King, who, although only a youth in years yet was in
wisdom already well-versed. Their leader, whose name was Wat Tyler, approached him...
He kept close to the King, addressing him for the rest. He carried in his hand an unsheathed
weapon which they call a dagger in order that he might, if the King should refuse his
requests, strike the King suddenly (as was commonly believed); and from this thing the
greatest fear arose among those about the King as to what might be the outcome.
They begged from the King that all the warrens [game preserves where only the
aristocracy could hunt] should be common to all, so that a poor man as well as a rich [one]
should be able to hunt animals freely everywhere in the kingdom... When the King
hesitated about granting this concession Wat Tyler came nearer, and, speaking threatening
words, seized with his hand the bridle of the horse of the King very daringly. When John de
Walworth, a citizen of London, saw this, thinking that death threatened the King, he seized a
sword and pierced Wat Tyler in the neck. Seeing this, another soldier... pierced his side
with another sword. He sank back, letting go with his hands and feet, and then died. A great
cry and much mourning arose: "Our leader is slain!" When this dead man had been meanly
dragged along by the hands and feet to the church of St. Bartholomew, which was near by,
many withdrew from the band, and, vanishing, betook themselves to flight, to the number it
is believed of ten thousand...
After these things had happened and quiet had been restored, the time came when
the King caused the offenders to be punished. So Lord Robert Tresillian, one of the
judges, was sent by order of the King to inquire into the uprisings and to punish the guilty.
Wherever he came he spared no one, but caused great slaughter... For whoever was
accused before him in this said cause, whether justly or as a matter of spite, he immediately
passed upon him the sentence of death: some to be beheaded, others to be hanged, still
others to be dragged through the city and hanged in four different parts thereof; others to be
disemboweled, and the entrails to be burned before them while they were still alive, and
afterwards to be decapitated, quartered and hanged in four parts of the city according to the
greatness of the crimes and its desert. John Ball was captured at Coventry and led to St.
Alban's, where, by order of the King, he was drawn and hanged, then quartered, and his
quarters sent to four different places.
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Documents for
Assignment #5: Reformation and Elizabethan England
SIR THOMAS MORE: UTOPIA (1516)
..."But as a matter of fact, my dear More, to tell you what I really think, as long as you
have private property, and as long as cash money is the measure of all things, it is really not
possible for a nation to be governed justly or happily. For justice cannot exist where all the
best things in life are held by the worst citizens; nor can anyone be happy where property
is limited to a few, since those few are always uneasy and the many are utterly wretched.
"So I reflect on the wonderfully wise and sacred institutions of the Utopians who are
so well governed with so few laws. Among them virtue has its reward, yet everything is
shared equally, and all men live in plenty. I contrast them with the many other nations which
are constantly passing new ordinances and yet can never order their affairs satisfactorily. In
these other nations, whatever a man can get he calls his own private property; but all the
mass of laws old and new don't enable him to secure his own, or defend it, or even
distinguish it from someone else's property. Different men lay claim, successively or all at
once, to the same property; and thus arise innumerable and interminable lawsuits -- fresh
ones every day... However abundant goods may be, when every man tries to get as
much as he can for his own exclusive use, a handful of men end up sharing the whole thing,
and the rest are left in poverty. The result generally is two sorts of people whose fortunes
ought to lie interchanged: the rich are rapacious, wicked, and useless, while the poor are
unassuming, modest men who work hard, more for the benefit of the public than of
themselves.
"Thus I am wholly convinced that unless private property is entirely done away with,
there can be no fair or just distribution of goods, nor can mankind be happily governed. As
long as private property remains, by far the largest and the best part of mankind will be
oppressed by a heavy and inescapable burden of cares and anxieties..."
"As for the relative ages of governments...you might judge more accurately if you
had read their histories. If we believe these records, they had cities before there were
even human inhabitants here. What ingenuity has discovered or chance hit upon could
have turned up just as well in one place as the other. As a matter of fact, I believe we
surpass them in natural intelligence, but they leave us far behind in their diligence and zeal to
learn.
"According to their chronicles, they had heard nothing of men-from-beyond-the-
equator (that's their name for us) until we arrived, except that once, some twelve hundred
years ago, a ship which a storm had blown toward Utopia was wrecked on their island.
Some Romans and Egyptians were cast ashore, and never departed. Now note how the
Utopians profited, through their diligence, from this one chance event. They learned every
single useful art of the Roman civilization either directly from their guests, or indirectly from
hints and surmises on which they based their own investigations. What benefits from the
mere fact that on a single occasion some Europeans landed there! If a similar accident has
hitherto brought any men here from their land, the incident has been completely forgotten,
as it will be forgotten in time to come that I was ever in their country. From one such accident
they made themselves masters of all our useful inventions, but I suspect it will be a long
time before we accept any of their institutions which are better than ours. This willingness to
learn, I think, is the really important reason for their being better governed and living more
happily than we do, though we are not inferior to them in brains or resources." ...
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Their Occupations
Agriculture is the one occupation at which everyone works, men and women alike,
with no exceptions. They are trained in it from childhood, partly in the schools where they
learn theory, and partly through field trips to nearby farms, which make something like a
game of practical instruction. On these trips they not only watch the work being done, but
frequently pitch in and get a workout by doing the jobs themselves.
Besides farm work (which, as I said, everybody performs), each person is taught a
particular trade of his own, such as wool-working, linen-making, masonry, metal-work, or
carpentry. There is no other craft that is practiced by any considerable number of them.
Throughout the island people wear, and down through the centuries they have always
worn, the same style of clothing, except for the distinction between the sexes, and
between married and unmarried persons. Their clothing is attractive, does not hamper
bodily movement, and serves for warm as well as cold weather; what is more, each
household can make its own.
Every person (and this includes women as weIl as men) learns a second trade,
besides agriculture. As the weaker sex, women practice the lighter crafts, such as working in
wool or linen; the heavier crafts are assigned to the men...
But in all this, you may get a wrong impression, if we don't go back and consider one
point more carefully. Because they allot only six hours to work, you might think the
necessities of life would be in scant supply. This is far from the case. Their working hours are
ample to provide not only enough but more than enough of the necessities and even the
conveniences of life. You will easily appreciate this if you consider how large a part of the
population in other countries exists without doing any work at all. In the first place, hardly any
of the women, who are a full half of the population, work; or, if they do, then as a rule their
husbands lie snoring in the bed. Then there is a great lazy gang of priests and so-called
religious men. Add to them all the rich, especially the landlords, who are commonly called
gentlemen and nobility. Include with them their retainers, that mob of swaggering bullies.
Finally, reckon in with these the sturdy and lusty beggars, who go about feigning some
disease as an excuse for their idleness. You will certainly find that the things which satisfy our
needs are produced by far fewer hands than you had supposed.
Their Gold and Silver
...they never do use money among themselves, but keep it only for a contingency
which may or may not actually arise. So in the meanwhile they take care that no one shall
over-value gold and silver, of which money is made, beyond what the metals themselves
deserve. Anyone can see, for example, that iron is far superior to either; men could not live
without iron, by heaven, any more than without fire or water. But gold and silver have, by
nature, no function that we cannot easily dispense with. Human folly has made them
precious because they are rare. Like a most wise and generous mother, nature has placed
the best things everywhere and in the open, like
air, water, and the earth itself; but she has hidden away in remote places all vain and
unprofitable things...
Slaves
The Utopians enslave prisoners of war only if they are captured in wars fought by the
Utopians themselves. The children of slaves are not automatically enslaved, nor are any
men who were enslaved in a foreign country. Most of the slaves are either their own former
citizens, enslaved for some heinous offense, or else men of other nations who were
condemned to death in their own land... The Utopians deal with their own people more
harshly than with others, feeling that their crimes are worse and deserve stricter punishment
because, as it is argued, they had an excellent education and the best of moral training, yet
still couldn't be restrained from wrongdoing.
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THE ACT OF SUPREMACY (1534)
Albeit the King's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the Supreme Head
of the Church of England, and so is recognized by the clergy of this realm in their
convocations, yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for the
increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of England, and to repress and
extirpate all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same,
be it enacted, by the authority of this present Parliament, that the King, our sovereign lord,
his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only
Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicana Ecclesia [the Anglican
Church]; and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm,
as well as the title and style thereof, as all honors, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions,
privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of the
Supreme Head of the same church belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign
lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from
time to time to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such
errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be, which
by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed,
repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of
Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the
peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm; any usage, foreign law, foreign authority,
prescription, or any thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.
CRANMERS LETTER TO MARY I (1553-1558)
It may please your majesty to pardon my presumption, that I dare be so bold to
write to your highness; but very necessity constraineth me, that your majesty may know my
mind rather by mine own writing, than by other men's reports. So it is that upon Saturday,
being the seventh day of this month, I was cited to appear at Rome the eightieth day after,
there to make answer to such matters as should be objected against me upon the behalf of
the king and your most excellent majesty which matters the Thursday following were
objected against me by Dr. Martin and Dr. Storie, your majesty's proctors, before the
bishop of Gloucester, sitting in judgment by commission from Rome.
But forasmuch as in the time of the prince of most famous memory, king Henry the
Eighth, your grace's father, I was sworn never to consent that the bishop of Rome should
have or exercise any authority or jurisdiction in this realm of England; therefore, lest I should
allow his authority contrary to mine oath, I refused to make answer to the bishop of
Gloucester, sitting here in judgment by the pope's authority, lest I should run into perjury...
Another cause why I refused the pope's authority is this, that his authority, as he
claimeth it, repugneth to the crown imperial of this realm, and to the laws of the same, which
every true subject is bounden to defend. First, for that the pope saith, that all manner of
power, as well temporal as spiritual, is given first to him of God; and that the temporal
power he giveth unto emperors and kings, to use it under him, but so as it be always at his
commandment and beck. But contrary to this claim, the imperial crown and jurisdiction
temporal of this realm is taken immediately from God, to be used under him only, and is
subject unto none but to God alone.
Moreover, the imperial laws and customs of this realm, the king in his coronation, and
all justices when they receive their offices, be sworn, and all the whole realm is bounden, to
defend and maintain. But contrary hereunto, the pope by his authority maketh void, and
commandeth to blot out of our books all laws and customs, being repugnant to his laws;
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and declareth accursed all rulers and governors, all the makers, writers, and executors if such
laws or customs: as it appeareth by many of the pope's laws, whereof one or two I shall
rehearse. In the Decrees, Dist. 10. is written thus, ... The constitutions or statutes enacted
against the canons and decrees of the bishops of Rome or their good customs are of none
effect. ...
Now by these laws, if the bishop of Rome's authority, which he claimeth by God be
lawful, all your grace's laws and customs of your realm, being contrary to the pope's laws,
be naught: and as well your majesty, as your judges, justices, and all other executors of the
same, stand accursed among heretics; which God forbid! And yet this curse can never be
avoided, if the pope have such power as he claimeth, until such times as the laws and
customs of this realm, being contrary to his laws, be taken away and blotted out of the law-
books. And although there be many laws of this realm contrary to the laws of Rome, yet I
named but a few; as to convict a clerk before any temporal judge of this realm for debt,
felony, murder, or for any other crime; which clerks by the pope's laws be so exempt from
the king's laws, that they can be no where sued but before their ordinary.
Also the pope by his laws may give all bishopricks and benefices spiritual, which by
the laws of this realm can be given but only by the king and other patrons of the same,
except they fall into the lapse. ...
Another cause I alleged, why I could not allow the authority of the pope ... [is] that
whereas by God's laws all christian people be bounden diligently to learn his word, that
they may know how to believe and live accordingly, for that purpose he ordained holy
days, when they ought, leaving apart all other business, to give themselves wholly to know
and serve God. Therefore God's will and commandment is, that when the people be
gathered together, ministers should use such language as the people may understand and
take profit thereby, or else hold their peace...
And again I said, whereas our Saviour Christ ordained the sacrament of his most
precious body and blood to be received of all christian people under the forms of both
bread and wine, and said of the cup. ''Drink ye all of this;'' the pope giveth a clean contrary
commandment, that no lay-man shall drink of the cup of their salvation; as though the cup of
salvation by the blood if Christ pertained not to lay-men... So that if I should obey the
pope in these things, I must need disobey my Saviour Christ...
Moreover, as the pope taketh upon him to give the temporal sword, or royal and
imperial power to kings and princes; so doth he likewise take upon him to depose them
from their imperial states, if they be disobedient to him, and commandeth the subjects to
disobey their princes, assoiling the subjects as well of their obedience as of their lawful
oaths made unto their true kings and princes, directly contrary to God's commandment, who
commandeth all subjects to obey their kings, or their ruler under them...
The bishop of Rome exalteth himself not only above all bishops, but also above all
kings and emperors, and above all the whole world, taking upon him to give and take away,
to set up and put down, as he shall think good... to such as will fall down and worship him
and kiss his feet...
Wherefore, seeing the pope thus (to overthrow both God's laws and man's laws)
taketh upon him to make emperors and kings to be vassals and subjects unto him, and
specially the crown of this realm, with the laws and customs of the same; I see no mean
how I may consent to admit his usurped power within this realm, contrary to mine oath, mine
obedience to God's law, mine allegiance and duty to your majesty, and my love and
affection to this realm.
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ELIZABETH'S ARMADA SPEECH (1588)
My loving People,--
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how
we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not
desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.
Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself, that, under God, I have placed my
chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects, and
therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and
disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you
all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdoms, and for my people, my honour and my
blood, even in the dust.
I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and
stomach of a king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or
any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than
any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general,
judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.
I know already for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we
do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the meantime my
lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble
or worthy subject; no doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in
the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those
enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people.
SHAKESPEARE'S HAMLET (1604)
HAMLET: To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep --
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consumation
Devoutly to he wished -- to die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause -- there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
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Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. . . .
THE WITCHES OF HUNTINGDON (1646)
The Examination of Frances Moore, taken before Nicholas Pedley Esquire; one of His
Majesty's Justices of Peace for this county , the ninth day of April, 1646.
This examinate says that about eight years since she received a little black puppy
from one Margaret Simson of great Catworth, which dog the said Margaret had in her bed
with her, and took it thence when she gave it to the examinate. The examinate further says,
that the said Margaret told her, that she must keep that dog all her lifetime; and if she cursed
any cattle and set the same dog upon them, they should presently die, and the said
Margaret told her that she had named it already. His name was Pretty.
And the said examinate further says, that about the same time one goodwife Weed
gave her a white cat, telling her, that if she would deny God, and affirm the same by her
blood, then whomsoever she cursed and sent that cat unto, they should die shortly after.
Whereupon this said examinate says that she did deny God, and in affirmation thereof she
pricked her finger with a thorn, whence issued blood which the cat presently licked; and the
said goodwife Weed named the cat Tissy. And the said examinate further said, that one
William Foster, about sixteen years since, would have hanged two of her children for
offering to take a piece of bread, and for that cause about six years since she cursed the
said William Foster, whereupon the white cat went to him and he immediately fell sick, and
lying in great pain for the space of seven or eight days, and then died. But being
demanded what the cat did to him, or what she bid it do, she says she remembers not.
And she further says that about five years since, she keeping cows in the field, a cow of
Edward Hulls went into the grain, she cursed her, and set Pretty on her and she swelled and
died shortly after; and after that a cow of one Peter Browne went into the corn and she
likewise cursed her, and set Pretty on her and she died within two or three days after. And
she further says that she killed the said dog and cat about a year since; and yet after that the
like dog and cat haunted her familiarly: and when she was apprehended, they crept under
her clothes, and tortured her so that she could not speak to confess freely, and more she
said not.
The Information of Thomas Becke of Biythorn in County Hunt. yeoman, against Anne
Desborough, taken upon oath before Nicholas Pedley Esquire, one of His Majesty's
Justices of Peace for the said county, the 9th day of April, 1646.
This informant says, that Anne Desborough, widow of Bythorn aforesaid, being
apprehended upon suspicion of being a witch, on the eighth day of this present April, he in
the presence of Master Coyst and others, heard the said Anne Desborough (in answer to
questions asked her) freely confess, that about thirty years since, there appeared unto her a
thing somewhat bigger than a mouse, of a brown color, when she lived at Titsmarsh in the
county of Northampton, she being in bed and asleep, which nipped her on the breast and
awakened her, then it told her that it must have part of her soul: she prayed then to God,
and it left her at that time, and the said informant heard the said Anne further say, that about
five or six days after, the same mouse appeared again to her with another much like the
former, it being a little less than the former, and had a white belly. Then the mouse that came
first said, we must abide with you and suck your blood. She said that they should. About
35
three days after both the mice came to her again, and told her that she must forsake God
and Christ: and when she died, they must have her soul, to all which she yielded: this
informant says further, that he heard the said Anne confess that she named one of the mice
Tib, which promised her to hurt men, and she named the other Fone, which promised her to
hurt cattle when she wished it: and after the third time they kept not away from her above
twenty-four hours together, but did frequent her, and familiarly such on her body, until she
was apprehended.
The lnformation of John Browne of Raunce in the county of Northamptom, tailor, taken upon
oath the second day of May, 1646, before me John Castell, Esquire, one of His Majesty's
Justices of the Peace for the county of Hunt.
Who says, that upon the Sabbath day last was seven-night, he (this informant),
coming from Higham-Ferris to Raunce in the county of Northampton aforesaid, where he
quarters, and sitting down by Stanwick Town end, saw one coming from Artlebroward; who
when he came near to this informant, this informant said, I have stayed for you a long time;
but he answered, I saw you not all the way I came. Then this informant said to him, from
whence came you? who answered, that he came from his uncle's at Artlebroward. Then this
informant asked him who was his uncle? And he said one Clarke: this informant asked him, if
he were not Clarke son of Keiston, he answered, he was. And then this informant asked
him, what haste was he in? who said he was in haste; for his father and mother were
accused for witches, and that himself had been searched; and this informant answered and
so have I. Then Clarke asked this informant, whether anything were found about him, or
not? He (this informant) answered, that they said there were marks: Clarke said again, had
you no more wit but to have your marks found? I cut off mine three days before I was
searched. And then after some further communication past concerning who searched them,
Clarke said to this informant, I do not believe you are a witch, for I never saw you at our
meetings: who answered, that perhaps their meetings were at several places, and so fell
out and parted.
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Documents for
Assignment #6: Civil War and Glorious Revolution
KING JAMES I ON KINGSHIP (1598)
Kings are called gods by the prophetical King David, because they sit upon. . .
[God's] throne in the earth, and have the count of their administration to give unto Him. Their
office is, "To minister justice and give judgment to the people," as this same David saith;
"To advance the good, and punish the evil." As he likewise saith: "To establish good laws
to his people and procure obedience to the same, as diverse good Kings of Judah did:
"To procure the peace of the people," as the same David saith: "To decide all controversy
that can arise among them," as Solomon did: "To be the minister of God for the weal of
them that do well, as the minister of God, to take vengeance upon them that do evil," as St.
Paul saith...
By the law of nature the king becomes a natural father to all his lieges at his
coronation: and as the father of his fatherly duty is bound to care for the nourishing,
education, and virtuous government of his children; even so is the king bound to care for all
his subjects. As all the toil and pain that the father can take for his children, will be thought
light and well bestowed by him, so that the effect thereof rebound to their profit and weal;
so ought the prince to do towards his people. As the kindly father ought to foresee all
inconvenience and dangers that may arise toward his children, and though with the hazard of
his own person press to prevent the same; so ought the king to-wards his people...
And according to these fundamental laws already alleged, we daily see that in the
Parliament (which is nothing else but the head court of the king and his vassals) the laws are
but craved by his subjects, and only made by him at their rogation, and with their advice: for
albeit the king make daily statutes and ordinances, enjoying such pains thereto as he thinks
meet, without any advice of Parliament or estates; yet it lies in the power of no Parliament,
to make any kind of law or statute without his scepter be to it, for giving it the force of a law...
And as ye see manifest, that the king is over-lord of the whole land: so is he master over
every person that inhabiteth the same, having power over the life and death of every one
of them: for although a just prince will not take the life of any one of his subjects without a
clear law; yet the same laws whereby he taketh them, are made by himself or his
predecessors; and so the power flows always from himself; as by daily experience we
see, good and just princes will from time to time make new laws and statutes, adjoining the
penalties to the breakers thereof, which before the law was made, had been no crime to the
subject to have committed. Not that I deny the old definition of a king and of a law; which
makes the king to be a speaking law, and the law a dumb king; for certainly a king that
governs not by his law, can neither be countable to God for his administration, nor have a
happy and established reign. For albeit true that I have at length proved, that the king is
above the law, as both the author and giver of strength thereunto; yet a good king will not
only delight to rule his subjects by the law, but even will conform himself in his own actions
thereunto, always keeping that ground, that the health of the commonwealth be his chief law.
And where he sees the law doubtsome or rigorous, he may interpret or mitigate the same...
And therefore general laws, made publicly in Parliament, may upon known respects to the
king by his authority be mitigated, and suspended upon causes only known to him.
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THE PETITION OF RIGHT (1628)
The petition exhibited to his majesty by the lords spiritual and temporal, and
commons in this present parliament assembled, concerning divers rights and liberties of the
subjects, with the king's majesty's royal answer thereunto in full parliament.
To the king's most excellent majesty: Humbly show unto our sovereign lord the king
the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in parliament assembled, that, whereas it is
declared and enacted by a statute made in the time of the reign of King Edward the First,
commonly called Statutum de Tallagio non Concedendo, that no tallage or aid should be
laid or levied by the king or his heirs in this realm without the goodwill and assent of the
archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other the freemen of the
commonalty of this realm; and, by authority of parliament holden in the five-and-twentieth
year of the reign of King Edward III, it is declared and enacted that from thenceforth no
person should be compelled to make any loans to the king against his will, because such
loans were against reason and the franchise of the land; and by other laws of this realm it is
provided that none should be charged by any charge or imposition, called a benevolence,
or by such like charge; by which the statutes before mentioned, and other the good laws
and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be
compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge not set by common
consent in parliament: yet, nevertheless, of late divers commissions directed to sundry
commissioners in several counties with instructions have issued, by means whereof your
people have been in divers places assembled and required to lend certain sums of money
unto your majesty; and many of them, upon their refusal so to do, have had an oath
administered unto them, not warrantable by the laws or statutes of this realm, and have
been constrained to become bound to make appearance and give attendance before your
privy council and in other places; and others of them have been therefore imprisoned,
confined, and sundry other ways molested and disquieted; and divers other charges have
been laid and levied upon your people in several counties by lord lieutenants, deputy
lieutenants, commissioners for musters, justices of peace, and others, by command or
direction from your majesty or your privy council, against the laws and free customs of the
realm.
And where also, by the statute called the Great Charter of the Liberties of England, it
is declared and enacted that no freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his
freehold or liberties or his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled or in any manner
destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land; and in the
eight-and-twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III it was declared and enacted by
authority of parliament that no man, of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out
of his land or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disherited, nor put to death, without
being brought to answer by due process of law: nevertheless, against the tenor of the said
statutes and other the good laws and statutes of your realm to that end provided, divers of
your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed; and when for their
deliverance they were brought before your justices by your majesty's writs of habeas
corpus, there to undergo and receive as the court should order, and their keepers
commanded to certify the causes of their detainer, no cause was certified, but that they were
detained by your majesty's special command, signified by the lords of your privy council;
and yet were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with anything to which
they might make answer according to the law.
And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed
into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled
to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and
customs of this realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people: and whereas
also, by authority of parliament in the five-and-twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III,
it is declared and enacted that no man should be forejudged of life or limb against the form
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of the Great Charter and the law of the land; and, by the said Great Charter and other the
laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to death but by the laws
established in this your realm, either by the customs of the same realm or by acts of
parliament; and whereas no offender of what kind soever is exempted from the
proceedings to be used, and punishments to be inflicted by the laws and statutes of this
your realm: nevertheless of late divers commissions under your majestys great seal have
issued forth, by which certain persons have been assigned and appointed commissioners,
with power and authority to proceed within the land according to the justice of marshal law...,
to proceed to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be
executed and put to death according to the law martial...
They do therefore humbly pray your most excellent majesty that no man hereafter
be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge without
common consent by act of parliament; and that none be called to make answer, or take such
oath, or to give attendance, or be confined, or otherwise molested or disquieted concerning
the same, or for refusal thereof; and that no freeman, in any such manner as is before
mentioned, be imprisoned or detained; and that your majesty would be pleased to
remove the said soldiers and mariners; and that your people may not be so burdened in
time to come...
CHARLES I AND HIS SENTENCE (1649)
Charles I Protesting Arraignment Before the High Court of Justice
Having already made my protestations, not only against the illegality of this
pretended Court, but also, that no earthly power can justly call me (who am your King) in
question as a delinquent, I would not any more open my mouth upon this occasion, more
than to refer myself to what I have spoken, were I in this case alone concerned: but the duty
I owe to God in the preservation of the true liberty of my people will not suffer me at this
time to be silent: for, how can any free-born subject of England call life or anything he
possesseth his own, if power without right daily make new, and abrogate the old
fundamental laws of the land which I now take to be the present case! ...
There is no proceeding just against any man, but what is warranted, either by God's
laws or the municipal laws of the country where he lives. Now I am most confident this day's
proceeding cannot be warranted by God's laws; for, on the contrary, the authority of
obedience unto Kings is clearly warranted, and strictly commanded in both the Old and New
Testament, which, if denied, I am ready instantly to prove.
And for the question now in hand, there it is said, that where the word of a King is,
there is power; and who may say unto him, what dost thou? (Eccles. viii. 4.) Then for the
law of this land, I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment
can lie against the King, they all going in his name; and one of their maxims is, that the King
can do no wrong. Besides, the law upon which you ground your proceedings, must either
be old or new: if old, show it; if new, tell what authority, warranted by the fundamental laws
of the land, hath made it, and when. But how the House of Commons can erect a Court of
Judicature, which was never one itself (as is well known to all lawyers) I leave to God and
the world to judge. And it were full as strange, that they should pretend to make laws
without King or Lords' House, to any that have heard speak of the laws of England.
And admitting, but not granting, that the people of England's commission could grant
your pretended power, I see nothing you can show for that; nor can you pretend any colour
for this your pretended commission, without the consent at least of the major part of every
man in England of whatsoever quality or condition, which I am sure you never went about to
seek, so far are you from having it. Thus you see that I speak not for my own right alone, as
I am your King, but also for the true liberty of all my subjects, which consists not in the
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power of government, but in living under such laws, such a government, as may give
themselves the best assurance of their lives, and property of their goods; nor in this must or
do I forget the privileges of both Houses of Parliament, which this day's proceedings do not
only violate, but likewise occasion the greatest breach of their public faith that (I believe)
ever was heard of... I am against my will brought hither, where since I am come, I cannot but
to my power defend the ancient laws and liberties of this kingdom, together with my own
just right. Then for anything I can see, the higher House is totally excluded; and for the
House of Commons, it is too well known that the major part of them are detained or
deterred from sitting; so as if I had no other, this were sufficient for me to protest against the
lawfulness of your pretended Court. Besides all this, the peace of the kingdom is not the
least in my thoughts; and what hope of settlement is there, so long as power reigns without
rule or law, changing the whole frame of that government under which this kingdom hath
flourished for many hundred years? (nor will I say what will fall out in case this lawless, unjust
proceeding against me do go on) and believe it, the Commons of England will not thank
you for this change; for they will remember how happy they have been of late years under
the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, the King my father, and myself, until the beginning of these
unhappy troubles, and will have cause to doubt, that they shall never be so happy under
any new: and by this time it will be too sensibly evident, that the arms I took up were only
to defend the fundamental laws of this kingdom against those who have supposed my
power hath totally changed the ancient government.
Thus, having showed you briefly the reasons why I cannot submit to your
pretended authority, without violating the trust which I have from God for the welfare and
liberty of my people, I expect from you either clear reasons to convince my judgment,
showing me that I am in an error (and then truly I will answer) or that you will withdraw your
proceedings.
This I intended to speak in Westminster Hall, on Monday, January 22, but against
reason was hindered to show my reasons.
Sentence of the High Court of Justice
Whereas the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament, have authorised and
constituted us an High Court of Justice for the trying and judging of the said Charles Stuart ...
a charge of high treason and other high crimes was, in the behalf of the people of England,
exhibited against him, and read openly unto him, wherein he was charged, that he, the said
Charles Stuart, being admitted King of England, and therein trusted with a limited power to
govern by, and according to the law of the land, and not otherwise; and by his trust, oath,
and office, being obliged to use the power committed to him for the good and benefit of
the people, and for the preservation of their rights and liberties; yet, nevertheless, out of a
wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule
according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people, and to take
away and make void the foundations thereof, and of all redress and remedy of
misgovernment, which by the fundamental constitutions of this kingdom were reserved on
the people's behalf in the right and power of frequent and successive Parliaments, or
national meetings in Council; he, the said Charles Stuart, for accomplishment of such his
designs, and for the protecting of himself and his adherents in his and their wicked practices,
to the same end hath traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament,
and people therein represented, as with the circumstances of time and place is in the said
charge more particularly set forth; and that he hath thereby caused and procured many
thousands of the free people of this nation to be slain; ... and that by the said cruel and
unnatural war so levied, continued and renewed, much innocent blood of the free people of
this nation hath been split, many families undone, the public treasure wasted, trade
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obstructed and miserably decayed, vast expense and damage to the nation incurred, and
many parts of the land spoiled, some of them even to desolation; ...
Now, therefore, upon serious and mature deliberation of the premises, and
consideration had of the notoriety of the matters of fact charged upon him as aforesaid, this
Court is in judgment and conscience satisfied that he, the said Charles Stuart, is guilty of
levying war against the said Parliament and people, and maintaining and continuing the
same; for which in the said charge he stands accused, and by the general course of his
government, counsels, and practices, before and since this Parliament began (which have
been and are notorious and public, and the effects whereof remain abundantly upon record)
this Court is fully satisfied in their judgments and consciences, that he has been and is guilty
of the wicked design and endeavours in the said charge set forth; and that the said war hath
been levied, maintained, and continued by him as aforesaid, in prosecution, and for
accomplishment of the said designs; and that he hath been and is the occasioner, author,
and continuer of the said unnatural, cruel, and bloody wars, and therein guilty of high treason,
and of the murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, damage, and mischief to this
nation acted and committed in the said war, and occasioned thereby. For all which treasons
and crimes this Court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor,
murderer, and the public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by
the severing of his head from his body.
HOBBES: LEVIATHAN (early 17th c.)
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are
in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man, against every man.
Whatever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is without other
security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them. In such
condition, there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and
consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be
imported by sea, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea,
no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require
much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no
society, and worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man,
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short...
It may perhaps be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this;
and I believe it was never generally so over all the world: but there are many places, where
they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, ... have no
government at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner. . .
In such a condition, every man has a right to every thing, even to one anothers
body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endures, there
can be no security to any man (however strong or wise he be,) of living out the time which
nature ordinarily allows men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of
reason, that every man ought to strive for peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and
when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps, and advantages of War. The
first branch of this rule, contain the first, and fundamental law of nature; which is, to seek
Peace, and follow It. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we
can, to defend ourselves.
From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavour
peace, is derived this second law; that a man be willing, when others are too, as far as for
peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things:
and be contented with as much liberty against other men as he would allow other men
against himself. For as long as every man holds this right of doing anything he likes, so long
are all men in the condition of War. ... A commonwealth is said to be instituted, when a
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multitude of men agree, and covenant, every one, with every one, that to whatever man, or
assembly of men, shall be given by the major part the right ... to be their representative,
every one, as well he that voted for it as he that voted against it, shall authorise all the
actions and judgments of that man or assembly of men, in the same manner as if they were
his own, to the end of living peaceably amongst themselves, and being protected against
other men.
From this institution of a commonwealth are derived all the rights, and faculties of
him, or them, on whom the sovereign power is conferred by the consent of the people
assembled.
Because the right of bearing the person of them all is given to him they make
sovereign by covenant only of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there can
happen no breach of covenant on the part of the sovereign; and consequently none of his
subjects, by any pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection...
The sovereignty [possesses] the whole power of prescribing the rules, whereby
every man may know what goods he may enjoy and what actions he may do without being
molested by any of his fellow subjects...
The sovereignty [possesses] the right of judicature; that is to say, of hearing and
deciding all controversies which may arise concerning law, either civil or natural, or concerning
fact. For without the decision of controversies there is no protection of one subject, against
the injuries of another...
And as the power, so also the honour of the sovereign ought to be greater than that
of any or all the subjects. For in the sovereignty is the fountain of honour. The dignities of
lord, earl, duke, and prince are his creatures. As in the presence of the master the servants
are equal and without any honour at all, so are the subjects, in the presence of the
sovereign. And though they shine some more, some less when they are out of his sight,
yet in his presence they shine no more than the stars in the presence of the sun.
LEVELLERS: THE PUTNEY DEBATE (1647)
At Putney, the officers of the Parliamentary army debated the Levellers, who proposed that all
men of England should have the right to vote. General Ireton represents the Parliamentary Army
view.
General Ireton: The exception that lies [in the Leveller proposal to extend voting rights] is
this. It is said, they [seats in Parliament] are to be distributed according to the number of the
inhabitants; "The people of England" etc. And this doth make me think that the meaning is, that
every man that is an inhabitant is to be equally considered, and to have an equal voice in the
election of those representers.
Leveller Petty: We judge that all inhabitants that have not lost their birthright should have an
equal voice in elections.
Leveller Rainborough: I desired... that every man that is to live under that government
ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest
man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not a voice to put
himself under...
Ireton: Give me leave to tell you, that if you make this the rule I think you must fly for refuge
to an absolute natural right, and you must deny all civil right; and I am sure it will come to that in the
consequence... For my part, I think it is no right at all. I think that no person hath a right to an interest
or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom and in determining or choosing those that shall
determine what laws we shall be ruled by here -- no person hath a right to this that hath not a
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permanent fixed interest [i.e. landed property] in this kingdom, and those persons together are
properly the represented in this kingdom, and consequently are to make up the representers of
this kingdom, who taken together do comprehend whatsoever is of real or permanent interest in
the kingdom... We talk of birthright. Truly [by] birthright there is thus much claim. Men may justly
have by birthright, by their very being born in England, that we should not seclude them out of
England, that we should not refuse to give them air and place and ground, and the freedom of the
highways and other things, to live amongst us -- not any man that is born here, though by his birth
there come nothing at all (that is part of the permanent interest of this kingdom) to him. That I think is
due to a man by birth. But that by a man being born here he shall have a share in that power that
shall dispose of lands here, and of all things here, I do not think it a sufficient ground...
Rainborough: Truly, sir, I am of the same opinion I was, and am resolved to keep it till I
know reason why I should not... I do hear nothing at all that can convince me, why any man that is
born in England ought not to have his voice in election of burgesses... I do not find anything in the
law of God, that a lord shall choose twenty burgesses, and a gentleman but two, or a poor man
shall choose none; I find no such thing in the law of nature, nor in the law of nations. But I do find that
all Englishmen must be subject to English laws, and I do verily believe that there is no man but will
say that the foundation of all law lies in the people...
Ireton: All the main thing that I speak for, is because I would have an eye to property. I
hope we do not come to contend for victory - but let every man consider with himself that he does
not go that way to take away all property. For here is the case of the most fundamental part of the
constitution of the kingdom, which if you take away, you take all away by that. Here men of this and
this quality are determined to be the electors of men to the parliament, and they are all those who
have any permanent interest in the kingdom, and who, taken together, do comprehend the whole
interest of the kingdom. I mean by permanent and local, that [it] is not [able to be removed]
anywhere else. As for instance, he that hath a freehold, and that freehold cannot be removed out of
the kingdom; and so there's a corporation, a place which hath the privilege of a market and trading,
which if you should allow to all places equally, I do not see how you could preserve any peace in
the kingdom, and that is the reason why in the constitution we have but some few market towns...
He that is here today, and gone tomorrow, I do not see that he hath such a permanent interest.
Since you cannot plead to it by anything but the law of nature, [or for anything] but for the end of
better being, and [since] the better being is not certain, and [what is] more, destructive to another;
upon these grounds, if you do, paramount [to] all constitutions, hold up this law of nature, I would
fain have any man show me their bounds, where you will end, and [why you should not] take away
all property.
Rainborough: To the thing itself -- property. I would fain know how it comes to be the
property [of some men and not of others]... I deny that it is a property, to a lord, to a gentleman, to
any man more than to another in the kingdom of England... And I would fain know what we have
fought for. [For our laws and liberties?] And this is the old law of England -- that which enslaves the
people of England -- that they should be bound by laws in which they have no voice at all!...
Ireton: If you admit any man that hath a breath and being, I did show you how this will
destroy property. It may come to destroy property thus. You may have such men chosen, or at
least the major part of them, [as have no local and permanent interest]. Why may not those men
vote against all property? You may admit strangers by this rule, if you admit them once to inhabit,
and those that have interest in the land may be voted out of their land...
Leveller Wildman: Our case is to be considered thus, that we have been under slavery.
That's acknowledged by all. Our very laws were made by our conquerors... We are now engaged
for our freedom. That's the end of Parliaments: not to constitute what is already [established, but to
act] according to the just rules of government... I conceive that's the undeniable maxim of
government; that all government is in the free consent of the people. If [so] then upon that account
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there is no person that is under a just government -- or hath justly his own, unless he by his own
free consent be put under that government... And therefore I should humbly move, that if the
question be stated -- which would soonest bring things to an issue -- it might be thus: whether any
person can justly be bound by law, who doth not give his consent that such persons shall make
laws for him?
Ireton: Let the question be so: whether a man can be bound to any law that he doth not
consent to? And I shall tell you, that he may and ought to be [bound to a law] that he doth not give
a consent to, nor doth not choose any [to consent to] and I will make it clear. If a foreigner come
within this kingdom, if that stranger will have liberty [to dwell here]... It is a piece of hospitality, of
humanity to receive that man amongst us. But if that man be received to a being amongst us, I
think that man may very well be content to submit himself to a law of the land; that is, the law that is
made by those people who have a property, a fixed property, in the land. I think, if any man will
receive protection from this people though [neither] he nor his ancestors, not any betwixt him and
Adam, did ever give concurrence to this constitution, I think this man ought to be subject to those
laws, and to be bound by those laws, so long as he continues amongst them. That is my opinion...
Rainborough: For my part, I think we cannot engage one way or the other in the Army if we
do not think of the people's liberties. If we can agree where the liberty and freedom of the people
lies, that will do all.
LOCKE: SECOND TREATISE ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT (1690)
To understand Political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider
what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their
actions and dispose of their Possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of
the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one
having more than another.
But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence; though man in that
state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not
liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his Possession, but where some
nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of Nature has a law of Nature to
govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who
will but consult it that being all equal and independent no one ought to harm another in his
life, health, liberty or Possessions...
And that all men may be restrained from invading others' rights, and from doing hurt
to one another, and the law of Nature be observed, which wills the peace and preservation
of all mankind, the execution of the law Nature is in that state put into every man's hands,
whereby every one has right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as
may hinder its violation...
This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they
are left as they were, in the liberty of the state of Nature. When any number of men have
so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently
incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and
conclude the rest.
For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a
community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one
body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. ... In assemblies
empowered to act by positive laws, ... the act of the majority passes for the act of the
whole, and of course determines as having, by the law of Nature and reason, the power of
the whole.
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And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one
government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the
determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact,
whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no
compact if he be left free and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of
Nature...
If man in the state of Nature be so free as has been said, if he be absolute lord of his
own person and possessions, equal to the greatest and subject to nobody, why will he
part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any
other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of Nature he has
such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain and constantly exposed to the invasion
of others; for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no
strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is
very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing to quit this condition which, however free,
is full of fears and continual dangers; and it is not without reason that he seeks out and is
willing to join in society with others who are already united, or have a mind to unite for the
mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name --
property.
The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting
themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of
Nature there are many things wanting...
The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that
the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers
should be sometimes liable to be opposed when they grow exorbitant in the use of their
power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the properties of their
people?...
To conclude. The power that every individual gave the society when he entered into
it can never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always
remain in the community; because without this there can be no community -- no
commonwealth, which is contrary to the original agreement; so also when the society hath
placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to continue in them and their successors, with
direction and authority for providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the
people whilst that government lasts; because, having provided a legislative with power to
continue for ever, they have given up their political power to the legislative and cannot
resume it. But if they have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this
supreme power in any person or assembly only temporary; or else when, by the
miscarriages of those in authority, it is forfeited; upon the forfeiture of their rulers, or at the
determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as
supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves or place it in a new form, or new hands,
as they think good.
THE ENGLISH BILL OF RIGHTS (1689)
The... lords spiritual and temporal and commons, ... being now assembled in a full
and free representative of this nation, ...declare that the pretended power of suspending of
laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of parliament is illegal; that
the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority, as
it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal; ... that levying money for or to the use
of the crown by pretence of prerogative without grant of parliament, for longer time or in
other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal; that it is the right of the subjects
to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal; that
the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with
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consent of parliament, is against the law; that the subjects which are Protestants may have
arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law; that election of
members of parliament ought to be free; that the freedom of speech and debates or
proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place
out of parliament; that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted; that jurors ought to be duly
impanelled and turned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought be
freeholders; that all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before
conviction are illegal and void; and that, for redress of grievances and for the amending,
strengthening, and preserving of the law parliaments ought to be held frequently.
And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises as their
undoubted rights and liberties, and that no declarations, judgments, doings, or proceedings
to the prejudice of the people in any of the said premises ought in any wise to be drawn
hereafter into consequence example. To which demand of their rights they are particularly
encouraged by the declaration of his highness the prince of Orange, as being the only
means for obtaining a full redress and remedy therein. Having therefore entire confidence
that his said highness the prince of Orange will perfect the deliverance so far advanced by
him and will still preserve them from the violation of their rights which they have here
asserted and from all other attempts upon their religion, rights, and liberties, the said lords
spiritual and temporal and commons assembled at Westminster do resolve that William
and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, be and be declared king and queen of England.
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Documents for
Reading: Science and Enlightenment
SIR FRANCIS BACON: EMPIRICAL METHOD (1620)
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one
flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles,
the truth of which it takes for settled and immoveable, proceeds to judgment and to the
discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from
the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the
most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.
Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of
dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use: the reasoners
resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a
middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but
transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of
philosophy [science]; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor
does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and
lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the understanding altered and
digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the
experimental and the rational [i.e. the medieval scholastic ideas of nature], (such as has
never yet been made) much may be hoped...
No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel
himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding,
thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of the particulars. Thus it happens that
human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of
much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed...
Now for grounds of experience -- since to experience we must come -- we have as
yet had either none or very weak ones; no search has been made to collect a store of
particular observations sufficient either in number, or in kind, or in certainty, to inform the
understanding, or in any way adequate. On the contrary, men of learning, but easy withal
and idle, have taken for the construction or for the confirmation of their philosophy certain
rumours and vague fames or airs of experience, and allowed to these the weight of lawful
evidence. And just as if some kingdom or state were to direct its counsels and affairs, not by
letters and reports from ambassadors and trustworthy messengers, but by the gossip of
the streets; such exactly is the system of management introduced into philosophy with
relation to experience. Nothing duly investigated, nothing verified, nothing counted,
weighed, or measured, is to be found in natural history: and what in observation is loose
and vague, is in information deceptive and treacherous...
Again, even in the great plenty of mechanical experiments, there is yet a greater
scarcity of those which are of the most use for the information of the understanding. For the
mechanic [or skilled artisan], not troubling himself with the investigation of the truth, confines
his attention to those things which bear upon his particular work, and will not either raise his
mind or stretch out his hand for anything else. But then only will there be good ground of
hope for the further advance of knowledge, when there shall be received and gathered
together into natural history a variety of experiments, which are of no use in themselves, but
simply serve to discover causes and axioms...
Now experiments of this kind have one admirable property and condition; they
never miss or fail. For since they are applied, not for the purpose of producing any particular
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effect, but only of discovering the natural cause of some effect, they answer the end equally
well whichever way they turn out; for they settle the question.
But not only is a greater abundance of experiments to be sought for and procured,
and that too of a different kind from those hitherto tried; an entirely different method, order,
and process for carrying on and advancing experience must also be introduced. For
experience, when it wanders in its own track, is, as I have already remarked, mere groping
in the dark, and confounds men rather than instructs them. But when it shall proceed in
accordance with a fixed law, in regular order, and without interruption, then may better things
be hoped of knowledge...
In establishing axioms, another form of induction must be devised than has hitherto
been employed; and it must be used for proving and discovering not first principles (as
they are called) only, but also the lesser axioms, and the middle, and indeed all... And this
induction must be used not only to discover axioms, but also in the formation of notions.
And it is in this induction that our chief hope lies.
NEWTON: PRINCIPIA (1687)
Preface
We offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of
philosophy seems to consist in this -- from the phenomena of motions to investigate the
forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena; and to
this end the general propositions in the first and second book are directed. In the third book
we give an example of this in the explication of the System of the World; for by the
propositions mathematically demonstrated in the former books, we in the third derive from
the celestial phenomena the forces of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and the
several planets. Then from these forces, by other propositions which are also mathematical,
we deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea...
Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy
Rule I. We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true
and sufficient to explain their appearances.
To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is
in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp
of superfluous causes.
Rule II. Therefore to the same natural effects we must as far as possible assign the
same causes.
As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in
America; the light of our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in
the planets.
Rule III. The qualities of bodies which admit neither intension nor remission of
degrees and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments are
to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to
hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments and such as are not liable to
diminution can never be quite taken away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of
experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising...
The Laws of Motion
Law I: Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a right line;
unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
Projectiles continue in their motions, so far as they are not retarded by the resistance
of the air, or impelled downwards by the force of gravity. A top, whose parts by their
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cohesion are continually drawn aside from rectilinear motions, does not cease its rotation,
otherwise than as it is retarded by the air. The greater bodies of the planets and comets,
meeting with less resistance in freer spaces, preserve their motions both progressive and
circular for a much longer time.
Law II: The change of motion is Proportional to the motive force impressed; and is
made in the direction of the straight line in which that force is impressed.
If any force generates a motion, a double force will generate double the motion, a
triple force triple the motion, whether that force be impressed altogether and at once or
gradually and successively. And this motion (being always directed the same way with the
generating force), if the body moved before, is added to or subtracted from the former
motion, according as they directly conspire with or are directly contrary to each other; or
obliquely joined, when they are oblique, so as to produce a new motion compounded from
the determination of both.
Law III. To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or, the mutual
actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and directed to contrary parts.
Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that other. If
you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone. If a horse draws
a stone tied to a rope, the horse (if I may say so) will be equally drawn back towards the
stone; for the distended rope, by the same endeavor to relax or unbend itself, will draw the
horse as much towards the stone as it does the stone towards the horse, and will obstruct
the progress of the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a body impinges upon
another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the
equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, towards the
contrary part. The changes made by these actions are equal, not in the velocities but in the
motions of the bodies; that is to say, if the bodies are not hindered by any other
impediments. For, because the motions are equally changed, the changes of the velocities
made toward contrary parts are inversely proportional to the bodies.
POPE ON NATURE (1734)
From Alexander Popes Essay on Man
I. Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man, what see we but his station here.
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
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ADAM SMITH: THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (1776)
Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous
employment fit whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not
that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage, naturally, or
rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the
society...
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his
capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may
be of the greatest value, every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue
of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the
public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of
domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that
industry in such a manner as its product may be of the greatest value, he intends only his
own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an
end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was
no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more
effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done
by those who affected to trade for the public good...
It is thus that every system which endeavours, either by extraordinary
encouragements to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the
capital of the society than would naturally go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints, force from a
particular species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be
employed in it, is in reality subversive to the great purpose which it means to promote. It
retards, instead of accelerating, the progress of the society towards real wealth and
greatness; and diminishes, instead of increasing, the real value of the annual produce of its
land and labour.
All systems either of preference or restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken
away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord.
Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue
his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with
those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a
duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable
delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could
ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing
it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society.
HUME ON MIRACLES (ca. 1779)
I flatter myself that I have discovered an argument..., which, if just, will, with the wise
and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently
will be useful as long as the world endures; for so long, I presume, will the accounts of
miracles and prodigies be found in all history, sacred and profane...
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence...
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience
has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as
entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined... Nothing is esteemed
a miracle, if it ever happens in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man,
seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden; because such a kind of death, though
more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a
miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any
age or country. There must, therefore, be an uniform experience against every miraculous
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event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience
amounts to a proof; there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against
the existence of any miracle...
(Further) there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient
number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us
against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all
suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of
mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood...
Secondly, We may observe in human nature a principle which, if strictly examined,
will be found to diminish extremely the assurance, which we might, from human testimony,
have in any kind of prodigy... The passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles,
being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events
from which it is derived...
The many instances of forged miracles and prophecies and supernatural events,
which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect
themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the
extraordinary and marvelous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all
relations of this kind...
Thirdly, It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous
relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations;
or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found
to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with
that inviolable sanction and authority which always attend received opinions...
Upon the whole, then, it appears, that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever
amounted to a probability, much less to a proof...
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Documents for
Assignment #7: The Eighteenth Century
BURKE AND PAINE ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
...You [revolutionaries] chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil
society, and had every thing to begin anew. You began ill, because you began by
despising every thing that belonged to you... If the last generations of your country
appeared without much lustre in your eyes, you might have passed them by, and derived
your claims from a more early race of ancestors. Under a pious predilection for those
ancestors, your imaginations would have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom,
beyond the vulgar practice of the hour: and you would have risen with the example to
whose imitation you aspired. Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to
respect yourselves. You would not have chosen to consider the French as a people of
yesterday, as a nation of low-born servile wretches, until the emancipating year of 1789...
By following wise examples you would have given new examples of wisdom to the
world. You would have rendered the cause of liberty venerable in the eyes of every
worthy mind in every nation. You would have had a free constitution; a potent monarchy; a
disciplined army, a reformed and venerated clergy; a mitigated but spirited nobility, to lead
your virtue...
Compute your gains: see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous
speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their
contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became
truly despicable. By following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities
at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessings! ... France,
when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the licence, of a ferocious
dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices; and has
extended through all ranks of life... all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease
of wealth and power. This is one of the new principles of equality in France.
...[I]t is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice
which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or
on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his
eyes...
When ancient opinions of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be
estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us; nor can we know
distinctly to what port we steer...
We [the English] are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock
of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals
would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.
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Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791-92)
It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive that although
laws made in one generation often continue in force through succeeding
generations, yet they continue to derive their force from the consent of the
living. A law not repealed continues in force, not because it cannot be
repealed, but because it is not repealed; and the non-repealing passes for
consent...
We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr. Burke's book has the
appearance of being written as instruction to the French nation; but if I may permit myself
the use of an extravagant metaphor, suited to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness
attempting to illuminate light...
"We have seen," says Mr. Burke, "the French rebel against a mild and lawful
monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than any people has been known to rise
against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary tyrant." This is one among a
thousand other instances, in which Mr. Burke shows that he is ignorant of the springs and
principles of the French Revolution.
It was not against Louis XVI, but against the despotic principles of the Government,
that the nation revolted. These principles had not their origin
in him, but in the original establishment, many centuries back: and they
were become too deeply rooted to be removed, and the Augean stables of
parasites and plunderers too abominably filthy to be cleansed by anything
short of a complete and universal Revolution. When it becomes necessary to do anything,
the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not
attempt it. That crisis was then arrived, and there remained no choice but
to act with determined vigor, or not to act at all...
The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the
rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole
way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and
produce what was then done, as a rule for the present day. This is no authority at all...
Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws on the capital as a matter of right.
From these premises two or three certain conclusions will follow:
First, that every civil right grows out of a natural right; or, in other
words, is a natural right exchanged.
Secondly, that civil power properly considered as such is made up of the aggregate
of that class of the natural rights of man, which becomes defective in the individual in point of
power, and answers not his purpose, but when collected to a focus becomes competent to
the Purpose of every one.
Thirdly, that the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in
power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural rights which are retained in
the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself...
In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy to distinguish the
governments which have arisen out of society, or out of the social compact, from those
which have not; but to place this in a clearer light than what a single glance may afford, it will
be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen and
on which they have been founded.
They may be all comprehended under three heads.
First, Superstition.
Secondly, Power.
Thirdly, the common interest of society and the common rights of man.
The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the third of
reason...
It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of
Freedom to say that Government is a compact between those who govern and those who
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are governed; but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for
as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time
when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no
governors to form such a compact with.
The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal
and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and
this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on
which they have a right to exist...
Mr. Burke will not, I presume, deny the position I have already advanced -- namely,
that governments arise either out of the people or over the people. The English
Government is one of those which arose out of a conquest, and not out of society, and
consequently it arose over the people; and though it has been much modified from the
opportunity of circumstances since the time of William the Conqueror, the country has never
yet regenerated itself, and is therefore without a constitution...
All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown, or an heritable
throne, or by what other fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant
explanation than that mankind are heritable property. To inherit a government, is to inherit
the people, as if they were flocks and herds...
Do we need a stronger evidence of the absurdity of hereditary government than is
seen in the descendants of those men, in any line of life, who once were famous? Is there
scarcely an instance in which there is not a total reverse of the character? It appears as if the
tide of mental faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its
course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system, which establishes
channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow!
By continuing this absurdity, man is perpetually in contradiction with himself; he
accepts, for a king, or a chief magistrate, or a legislator, a person whom he would not elect
for a constable.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1805)
From The Prelude, about the French Revolution.
But from these bitter truths I must return
To my own History. It hath been told
That I was led to take an eager part
In arguments of civil polity
Abruptly, and indeed before my time:
I had approach'd, like other Youth, the Shield
Of human nature from the golden side
And would have fought, even to the death, to attest
The quality of the metal which I saw.
What there is best in individual Man,
Of wise in passion, and sublime in power,
What there is strong and pure in household love,
Benevolent in small societies,
And great in large ones also, when call'd forth
By great occasions, these were things of which
I something knew, yet even these themselves,
Felt deeply, were not thoroughly understood
By Reason; nay, far from it, they were yet,
As cause was given me afterwards to learn,
Not proof against the injuries of the day,
Lodged only at the Sanctuary's door,
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Not safe within its bosom. Thus prepared,
And with such general insight into evil,
And of the bounds which sever it from good,
As books and common intercourse with life
Must needs have given; to the noviciate mind,
When the world travels in a beaten road,
Guide faithful as is needed, I began
To think with fervour upon management
Of Nations, what it is and ought to be,
And how their worth depended on their Laws
And on the Constitution of the State.
O pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For great were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love;
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven; O times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute took at once
The attraction of a Country in Romance;
When Reason seem'd the most to assert her rights
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchanter to assist the work,
Which then was going forwards in her name,
Not favour'd spots alone, but the whole earth...
An active partisan, I thus convoked
From every object pleasant circumstance
To suit my ends; I moved among mankind
With genial feelings still predominant;
When erring, erring on the better part,
And in the kinder spirit; placable,
Indulgent oft-times to the worst desires
As on one side not uninform'd that men
See as it hath been taught them, and that time
Gives rights to error; on the other hand
That throwing off oppression must be work
As well of license as of liberty...
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT ON WOMEN (1792)
from A Vindication of the Rights of Women
There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that whoever the devil
finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idleness can hereditary wealth and titles
produce? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by
exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity of some kind, first set the
wheels in motion. Virtue likewise can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties;
but the importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is cajoled
out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants. There must be more equality established
in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly
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even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for
they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride.
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are, in some degree, independent of
men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection, which would make them good
wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be
cunning, mean, and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the fawning fondness of
spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy, for love is not to be bought, in any sense of
the words, its silken wings are instantly shriveled up when any thing beside a return in kind is
sought. Yet whilst wealth enervates men; and women live, as it were, by their personal
charms, how can we expect them to discharge those ennobling duties which equally require
exertion and self-denial...
I mean, therefore, to infer that the society is not properly organized which does not
compel men and women to discharge their respective duties...
The being who discharges the duties of its station is independent; and, speaking of
women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next, in point of
importance, as citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother. The rank in life which
dispenses with their fulfilling this duty, necessarily degrades them by making them mere
dolls. Or, should they turn to something more important than merely fitting drapery upon a
smooth block, their minds are only occupied by some soft platonic attachment; or actual
management of an intrigue may keep their thoughts in motion; for when they neglect
domestic duties, they have it not in their power to take the field and march and countermarch
like soldiers, or wrangle in the senate to keep their faculties from rusting...
But, to render her really virtuous and useful, she must not, if she discharge her civil
duties, want, individually, the protection of civil laws; she must not be dependent on her
husband's bounty for her subsistence during his life, or support after his deathfor how can
a being be generous who has nothing of its own? or, virtuous, who is not free? The wife, in
the present state of things, who is faithful to her husband, and neither suckles nor educates
her children, scarcely deserves the name of a wife, and has no right to that of a citizen. But
take away natural rights, and duties become null.
Women then must be considered as only the wanton solace of men, when they
become so weak in mind and body, that they cannot exert themselves, unless to pursue
some frothy pleasure, or to invent some frivolous fashion. What can be a more melancholy
sight to a thinking mind, than to look into the numerous carriages that drive helter-skelter
about this metropolis in a morning full of pale-faced creatures who are flying from
themselves...
But, as the whole system of representation is now, in this country, only a convenient
handle for despotism, they [women] need not complain, for they are as well represented as
a numerous class of hard working mechanics, who pay for the support of royalty when they
can scarcely stop their children's mouths with bread...
MALTHUS ON POPULATION (1798)
I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and of society with great
pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with the enchanting picture which they hold
forth. I ardently wish for such happy improvements. But I see great and, to my
understanding, unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is my
present purpose to state, declaring, at the same time, that so far from exulting in them, as a
cause of triumphing over the friends of innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure
than to see them completely removed...
[These difficulties are]
First, that food is necessary to the existence of man.
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Secondly, that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in
its present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear to
have been fixed laws of our nature; and as we have not hitherto seen any alteration in them,
we have no right to conclude that they will ever cease to be what they are now, without an
immediate act of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and for
the advantage of His creatures, still executes, according to fixed laws, all its various
operations...
Assuming, then, my postulate as granted, I say that the power of population is
indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only
increases in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity
of the first power in comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects
of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty
of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by
a large portion of mankind...
This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production in the earth,
and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their efforts equal, form the great
difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way to perfectibility of society.
Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive against the
perfectibility of the mass of mankind.
JANE AUSTEN (1813)
Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering
a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is
considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that
Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about
it."
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.
"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."
This was invitation enough.
"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a
young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a
chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr.
Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his
servants are to be in the house by the end of next week."
"What is his name?"
"Bingley."
"Is he married or single?"
"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand
a-year. What a fine thing for our girls!"
"How so? How can it affect them?"
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"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You must
know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them."
"Is that his design in settling here?"
"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love
with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes."
"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by
themselves, which perhaps will be still better; for as you are as handsome as any of them,
Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party."
"My dear; you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not
pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters,
she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."
"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of."
"But, my dear; you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the
neighbourhood." ...
"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield," said Mrs.
Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish
for."...
In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit [Bennet had visited him first, as
his wife had advised], and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained
hopes of being admitted to the sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard
much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had
the advantage of ascertaining from an upper window that he wore a blue coat, and rode a
black horse...
[At the party given by Mrs. Bennet] Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted
with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every
dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at
Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between
him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley,
declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking
about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided.
He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he
would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet,
whose dislike of his general behavior was sharpened into particular resentment by his
having slighted one of her daughters.
Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for
two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her
to overhear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a
few minutes, to press his friend to join it.
"Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about
by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance."
"I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with
my partner. At such an assembly as this it would be insupportable. Your sisters are
engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment
to me to stand up with."
"I would not be so fastidious as you are," cried Bingley, "for a kingdom! Upon my
honour; I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there
are several of them you see uncommonly pretty."
"You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room," said Mr. Darcy, looking at
the eldest Miss Bennet.
"Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters
sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. So let me
ask my partner to introduce you."
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"Which do you mean?" and turning round he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till
catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, "She is tolerable, but not handsome
enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young
ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her
smiles, for you are wasting your time with me."
Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with
no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story, however; with great spirit among
her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.
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Documents for
Assignment #8: Industrialization
SANFORD ON WOMEN (1833)
From Elizabeth Poole Sanford's Woman in her Social and Domestic Character
Domestic comfort is the chief source of her influence, and the greatest debt society owes
her; for happiness is almost an element of virtue, and nothing conduces more to improve
the character of men than domestic peace. A woman may make a man's home delightful,
and may thus increase his motives for virtuous exertion. She may refine and tranquillise his
mind, -- may turn away his anger or allay his grief. Her smile may be the happy influence to
gladden his heart, and to disperse the cloud that gathers on his brow. And she will be loved
in proportion as she makes those around her happy, -- as she studies their tastes, and
sympathises in their feelings. In social relations adaptation is therefore the true secret of her
influence.
Domestic life is a woman's sphere, and it is there that she is most usefully as well as
most appropriately employed. But society, too, feels her influence, and owes to her, in
great measure, its balance and its tone. She may be here a corrective of what is wrong, a
moderator of what is unruly, a restraint on what is indecorous. Her presence may be a
pledge against impropriety and excess, a check on vice, and a protection to virtue.
And it is her delicacy which will secure to her such an influence, and enable her to
maintain it. It is the policy of licentiousness to undermine where it cannot openly attack, and
to weaken by stratagem what it may not rudely assail. But a delicate woman will be as much
upon her guard against the insidious as against the direct assault, and will no more tolerate
the innuendo than the avowal. She will shrink from the licentiousness which is couched in
ambiguous phrase or veiled in covert allusion, and from the immorality which, though it may
not offend the ear, is meant to corrupt the heart. And though a depraved taste may relish
the condiments of vice, or an unscrupulous palate receive them without detection, her virtue
will be too sensitive not to reject the poison, and to recoil spontaneously from the touch.
Delicacy is, indeed, the point of honor in woman. And her purity of manner will
ensure to her deference, and repress, more effectually than any other influence, impropriety
of every kind. A delicate woman, too, will be more loved, as well as more respected, than
any other; for affection can scarcely be excited, and certainly cannot long subsist, unless it is
founded on esteem.
Yet such delicacy is neither prudish nor insipid. Conversation, for instance, is one
great source of a woman's influence; and it is her province, and her peculiar talent, to give
zest to it. She is, and ought to be, the enlivener of society: if she restrains impropriety, she
may promote cheerfulness; and it is not because her conversation is innocent that it need
therefore be dull. The sentiment of woman contributes much to social interest: her feeling
imparts life, and her gentleness a polish.
Again, to be agreeable, a woman must avoid egotism. It is no matter how superior
she is, she will never be liked, if she talks chiefly of herself. The impression of her own
importance can convey no pleasure to others: on the contrary, as a desire for distinction is
always mutual, a sense of inferiority must be depressing.
If we would converse pleasingly, we must endeavor to set others at ease; and it is
not by flattery that we can succeed in doing so, but by a courteous and kind address, which
delicately avoids all needless irritation, and endeavors to infuse that good humor of which it
is itself the result.
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In woman this is a Christian duty. How often should they suppress their own claims
rather than interfere with those of others! How often should they employ their talent in
developing that of their associates, and not for its own display! How invariably should they
discard pretension, and shun even the appearance of conceit; and seek to imbibe the spirit
of that lovely religion, of which sympathy is the characteristic feature, and humility the pre-
eminent grace!
It is seldom, indeed, that women are great proficients. The chefs-d'uvre of the
sculptress need the polish of the master chisel; and the female pencil has never yet limned
the immortal forms of beauty. The mind of woman is, perhaps, incapable of the originality
and strength requisite for the sublime. Even Saint Cecilia exists only in an elegant legend,
and the poetry of music, if often felt and expressed, has seldom been conceived by a
female adept. But the practical talents of women are far from contemptible; and they may
be both the encouragers and the imitators of genius. They should not grasp at too much,
nor be content with superficial attainment; they should not merely daub a few flowers, or
hammer out a few tunes, or trifle away their time in inept efforts, which at best claim only
indulgence; but they should do well what they do attempt, and do it without affectation or
display.
THE SADLER REPORT (1832)
Mr. Matthew Crabtree, called in; and examined.
What age are you? -- Twenty-two.
What is your occupation? -- A blanket manufacturer.
Have you ever been employed in a factory? -- Yes.
At what age did you first go to work in one? -- Eight.
How long did you continue in that occupation? -- Four years.
Will you state the hours of labour at the period when you first went to the factory, in
ordinary times? -- From 6 in the morning to 8 at night.
Fourteen hours? -- Yes.
With what intervals for refreshment and rest? -- An hour at noon.
Then you had no resting time allowed in which to take your breakfast, or what is in
Yorkshire called your "drinking"? -- No.
When trade was brisk what were your hours? -- From 5 in the morning to 9 in the
evening.
Sixteen hours? -- Yes.
With what intervals at dinner? -- An hour.
How far did you live from the mill? -- About two miles.
Was there any time allowed for you to get your breakfast in the mill? -- No.
Did you take it before you left your home? -- Generally.
During those long hours of labour could you be punctual; how did you awake? -- I
seldom did awake spontaneously; I was most generally awoke or lifted out of bed,
sometimes asleep, by my parents.
Were you always on time? -- No.
What was the consequence if you had been too late? -- I was most commonly
beaten.
Severely? -- Very severely, I thought.
In whose factory was this? -- Mssrs. Hague & Cook's, of Dewsbury.
Will you state the effect that those long hours had upon the state of your health and
feelings? -- I was, when working those long hours, commonly very much fatigued at night,
when I left my work; so much so that I sometimes should have slept as I walked if I had not
stumbled and started awake again; and so sick often that I could not eat, and what I did eat I
vomited.
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Did this labour destroy your appetite? -- It did.
In what situation were you in that mill? -- I was a piecener.
Will you state to this Committee whether piecening is a very laborious employment
for children or not? -- It is a very laborious employment. Pieceners are continually running to
and fro, and on their feet the whole day.
The duty of the piecener is to take the cardings from one part of the machinery, and
to place them on another? -- Yes.
So that the labour is not only continual, but it is unabated to the last? -- It is unabated
to the last.
Do you not think, from your own experience, that the speed of the machinery is so
calculated as to demand the utmost exertions of a child supposing the hours were
moderate? -- It is as much as they could do at the best; they are always upon the stretch,
and it is commonly very difficult to keep up with their work.
State the conditions of the children toward the latter part of the day, who have thus to
keep up with the machinery. -- It is as much as they can do when they are not very much
fatigued to keep up with their work, and toward the close of the day, when they come to be
more fatigued, they cannot keep up with it very well, and the consequence is that they are
beaten to spur them on.
Were you beaten under those circumstances? -- Yes.
Frequently? -- Very frequently.
And principally at the latter end of the day? -- Yes.
And is it your belief that if you had not been so beaten, you should not have got
through the work? -- I should not if I had not been kept up to it by some means.
Does beating then principally occur at the latter end of the day, when the children are
exceedingly fatigued? -- It does at the latter end if the day and in the morning sometimes,
when they are very drowsy, and have not got rid of the fatigue of the day before.
What were you beaten with principally? -- A strap.
Anything else? -- Yes, a stick sometimes; and there is a kind of roller which runs on
the top of the machine called a billy, perhaps two or three yards in length, and perhaps an
inch and a half, or more diameter; the circumference would be four or five inches; I cannot
speak exactly.
Were you beaten with that instrument? -- Yes.
Have you yourself been beaten, and have you seen other children struck severely
with that roller? -- I have been struck very severely with it myself, so much so as to knock
me down, and I have seen other children have their heads broken with it.
You think that it is a general practice to beat the children with the roller? -- It is.
You do not think then that you were worse treated than other children in the mill? --
No, I was not, perhaps not so bad as some were.
In those mills is chastisement towards the latter part of the day going on perpetually?
-- Perpetually.
So that you can hardly be in a mill without hearing constant crying? -- Never an hour, I
believe.
Do you think that if the overlooker were naturally a humane person it would be still
found necessary for him to beat the children in order to keep up their attention and vigilance
at the termination of those extraordinary days of labour? -- Yes, the machine turns off a
regular quantity of cardings, and of course they must keep as regularly to their work the
whole of the day; they must keep with the machine, and therefore however humane the
slubber may be, as he must keep up with the machine or be found fault with, he spurs the
children to keep up also by various means but that which he commonly resorts to is to strap
them when they become drowsy.
At the time when you were beaten for not keeping up with your work, were you
anxious to have done it if you possibly could? --Yes; the dread of being beaten if we could
not keep up with our work was a sufficient impulse to keep us to it if we could.
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When you got home at night after this labour, did you feel much fatigued? -- Very
much so.
Had you any time to be with your parents, and to receive instruction from them? --
No.
What did you do? -- All that we did when we got home was to get the little bit of
supper that was provided for us and go to bed immediately. If the supper had not been
ready directly, we should have gone to sleep while it was preparing.
Did you not, as a child, feel it a very grievous hardship to be roused so soon in the
morning? -- I did.
Were the rest of the children similarly circumstanced? -- Yes, all of them; but they
were not all of them so far from their work as I was.
And if you had been too late you were under the apprehension of being cruelly
beaten? -- I generally was beaten when I happened to be too late; and when I got up in
the morning the apprehension of that was so great, that I used to run, and cry all the way as I
went to the mill.
That was the way by which your punctual attendance was secured? -- Yes.
And you do not think it could have been secured by any other means? -- No.
Then it is your impression from what you have seen, and from your own experience,
that those long hours of labour have the effect of rendering young persons who are subject
to them exceedingly unhappy? -- Yes.
You have already said it had a considerable effect upon your health? -- Yes.
Do you conceive that it diminished your growth? -- I did not pay much attention to
that, but I have been examined by some persons who said they thought I was rather
stunted, and that I should have been taller if I had not worked at the mill.
What were your wages at that time? -- Three shillings (per week).
And how much a day had you for overwork when you were worked so exceedingly
long? -- A halfpenny a day.
Did you frequently forfeit that if you were not always there to a moment? -- Yes; I
most frequently forfeited what was allowed for those long hours.
You took your food to the mill; was it in your mill, as is the case in cotton mills, much
spoiled by being laid aside? -- It was very frequently covered by flues from the wool, and
in that case they had to be blown off with the mouth, and picked off with the fingers before it
could be eaten.
So that not giving you a little leisure for eating your food, but obliging you to take it at
the mill, spoiled your food when you did get it? -- Yes, very commonly...
What is the effect of this piecening upon the hands? -- It makes them bleed; the skin
is completely rubbed off, and in that case they bleed in perhaps a dozen parts.
The prominent parts of the hand? -- Yes, all the prominent parts of the hand are
rubbed down till they bleed; every day they are rubbed in that way.
All the time you continue at work? -- All the time we are working. The hands never
can be hardened in that work, for the grease keeps them soft in the first instance, and long
and continual rubbing is always wearing them down, so that if they were hard they would be
sure to bleed.
It is attended with much pain? -- Very much.
Do they allow you to make use of the back of the hand? -- No; the work cannot be
so well done with the back of the hand, or I should have make use of that.
ANDREW URE ON FACTORY WORK: PHILOSOPHY OF
MANUFACTURES (1835)
Of all the common prejudices that exist with regard to factory labour, there is none
more unfounded than that which ascribes to it excessive tedium and irksomeness above
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other occupations, owing to its being carried on in conjunction with the "unceasing motion of
the steam-engine." In an establishment for spinning or weaving cotton, all the hard work is
performed by the steam-engine which leaves for the attendant no hard labour at all, and
literally nothing to do in general; but at intervals to perform some delicate operation, such as
joining the threads that break, taking the cops off the spindles, &C. And it is so far from
being true that the work in a factory is incessant, because the motion of the steam-engine is
incessant, that the fact is, that the labour is not incessant on that very account, because it is
performed in conjunction with the steam-engine. Of all manufacturing employments, those
are by far the most irksome and incessant in which steam-engines are not employed, as in
lace-running and stocking-weaving; and the way to prevent an employment from being
incessant, is to introduce a steam-engine into it. These remarks certainly apply more
especially to the labour of children in factories. Three-fourths of the children so employed
are engaged in piecing at the mules [moving fibers from one piece of machinery to another
for twisting]. "When the carriages of these have receded a foot and a half or two feet from
the rollers," says Mr. Tufnell, "nothing is to be done, not even attention is required from
either spinner or piecer." Both of them stand idle for a time, and in fine spinning particularly,
for three-quarters of a minute, or more. Consequently, if a child remains at this business
twelve hours daily, he has nine hours of inaction. And though he attends two mules, he has
still six hours of non-exertion. Spinners sometimes dedicate these intervals to the perusal
of books. The scavengers [children collecting loose cotton from the floor or under the
machines], who in Mr. Sadler's report have been described as being "constantly in a state
of grief, always in terror, and every moment they have to spare stretched all their length
upon the floor in a state of perspiration," may be observed in cotton-factories idle for four
minutes at a time, or moving about in a sportive mood, utterly unconscious of the tragical
scenes in which they were dramatized.
Occupations which are assisted by steam-engines require for the most part a higher,
or at least a steadier species of labour, than those which are not; the exercise of the mind
being then partially substituted for that of the muscles, constituting skilled labour, which is
always paid more highly than unskilled. On this principle we can readily account for the
comparatively high wages which the inmates of a factory, whether children or adults, obtain...
What I have myself witnessed at several times, both on Sundays and working-
days, has convinced me that the population of Belper is, in reference to health, domestic
comfort, and religious culture, in a truly enviable state, compared with the average of our
agricultural villages. The factory rooms are well aired, and as clean as any gentleman's
parlour. The children are well-complexioned, and work with cheerful dexterity at their
respective occupations.
At Quarry Bank, near Wilmslow, in Cheshire, is situated the oldest of the five
establishments belonging to the great firm of Messrs. Greg and Sons, of Manchester, who
work up the one-hundredth part of all the cotton consumed in Great Britain. It is driven by an
elegant water-wheel, 32 feet in diameter, and 24 feet broad, equivalent in power to 120
horses. The country road is beautiful, and presents a succession of picturesque wooded
dells interspersed with richly cultivated fields. At a little distance from the factory, on a sunny
slope, stands a handsome house, two stories high, built for the accommodation of the
female apprentices. Here are well fed, clothed, educated, and lodged, under kind
superintendence, sixty young girls, who by their deportment at the mill, as well as in
Wilmslow Church on Sunday, where I saw them assembled, evince a degree of comfort
most creditable to the humane and intelligent proprietors.
Sufficient evidence has been adduced to convince the candid mind, that factories,
more especially cotton-mills, are so organized as to afford as easy and comfortable
occupation as anywhere can fall to the lot of the labouring classes.
What a pity it is that the party who lately declaimed so loudly about the inmates of factories
being universally victims of oppression, misery, and vice, did not, from their rural or civic
retreats, examine first of all into the relative condition of their own rustic operatives, and
dispassionately see how the balance stood betwixt them! ... It is, in fact, in the factory
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districts alone that the demoralizing agency of pauperism has been effectually resisted, and
a noble spirit of industry, enterprise, and intelligence, called forth. What a contrast is there at
this day, between the torpor and brutality which pervade very many of the farming
parishes, as delineated in the official reports, and the beneficent activity which animates all
the cotton factory towns, villages, and hamlets!
The regularity required in mills is such as to render persons who are in the habit of
getting intoxicated unfit to be employed there, and all respectable manufacturers object to
employ persons guilty of that vice; and thus mill-work tends to check drunkenness. Mr.
Marshall, M.P. [Member of Parliament] of Leeds, thinks that the health of persons
employed in mills is better from the regularity of their habits, than of those employed at
home in weaving.
FRIEDRICH ENGELS ON THE WORKING CLASS (1845)
From The Condition of the Working Class in England
That a class which lives under the conditions already sketched and is so ill-provided
with the most necessary means of subsistence, cannot be healthy and can reach no
advanced age, is self-evident. Let us review the circumstances once more with especial
reference to the health of the workers. The centralisation of population in great cities
exercises of itself an unfavourable influence; the atmosphere of London can never be so
pure, so rich in oxygen, as the air of the country; two and a half-million pairs of lungs, two
hundred and fifty thousand fires, crowded upon an area three to four miles square, consume
an enormous amount of oxygen, which is replaced with difficulty, because the method of
building cities in itself impedes ventilation. The carbonic acid gas, engendered by
respiration and fire, remains in the streets by reason of its specific gravity, and the chief air
current passes over the roofs of the city. The lungs of the inhabitants fail to receive the due
supply of oxygen, and the consequence is mental and physical lassitude and low vitality.
For this reason, the dwellers in cities are far less exposed to acute, and especially to
inflammatory, affections than rural populations, who live in a free, normal atmosphere; but
they suffer the more from chronic afflictions. And if life in large cities is, in itself, injurious to
health, how great must be the harmful influence of an abnormal atmosphere in the working-
people's quarters, where, as we have seen, everything combines to poison the air. In the
country, it may, perhaps, be comparatively innoxious to keep a dung-heap adjoining one's
dwelling, because the air has free ingress from all sides; but in the midst of a large town,
among closely built lanes and courts that shut out all movement of the atmosphere, the case
is different. All putrefying vegetable and animal substances give off gases decidedly
injurious to health, and if these gases have no free way of escape, they inevitably poison
the atmosphere...
How is it possible, under such conditions, for the lower class to be healthy and long
lived? ...
The employment of the wife dissolves the family utterly and of necessity, and this
dissolution, in our present society, which is based upon the family, brings the most
demoralizing consequences for parents as well as children. A mother who has no time to
trouble herself about her child, to perform the most ordinary loving services for it during its
first year, who scarcely indeed sees it, can be no real mother to the child, must inevitably
grow indifferent to it, treat it unlovingly like a stranger. The children who grow up under such
conditions are utterly ruined for later family life, can never feel at home in the family which
they themselves found, because they have always been accustomed to isolation, and they
contribute therefore to the already general undermining of the family in the working-class. A
similar dissolution of the family is brought about by the employment of the children. When
they get on far enough to earn more than they cost their parents from week to week, they
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begin to pay the parents a fixed sum for board and lodging, and keep the rest for
themselves. This often happens from the fourteenth or fifteenth year. In a word, the children
emancipate themselves, and regard the paternal dwelling as a lodging-house, which they
often exchange for another; as suits them.
In many cases the family is not wholly dissolved by the employment of the wife, but
turned upside down. The wife supports the family, the husband sits at home, tends the
children, sweeps the room and cooks. This case happens very frequently; in Manchester
alone, many hundred such men could be cited, condemned to domestic occupations. It is
easy to imagine the wrath aroused among the working-men by this reversal of all relations
within the family, while the other social conditions remain unchanged.
... [T]his condition, which unsexes the man and takes from the woman all
womanliness without being able to bestow upon the man true womanliness, or the woman
true manliness -- this condition which degrades, in the most shameful way, both sexes, and,
through them, Humanity, is the last result of our much-praised civilization, the final
achievement of all the efforts and struggles of hundreds of generations to improve their own
situation and that of their posterity. We must either despair of mankind, and its aims and
efforts, when we see all our labour and toil result
in such a mockery, or we must admit that human society has hitherto sought salvation in a
false direction; we must admit that so total a reversal of the position of the sexes can have
come to pass only because the sexes have been placed in a false position from the
beginning. If the reign of the wife over the husband, as inevitably brought about by the
factory system, is inhuman, the pristine rule of the husband over the wife must have been
inhuman too. If the wife can now base her supremacy upon the fact that she supplies the
greater part, nay, the whole of the common possession, the necessary inference is that this
community of possession is no true and rational one, since one member of the family
boasts offensively of contributing the greater share. If the family of our present society is
being thus dissolved, this dissolution merely shows that, at bottom, the binding tie of this
family was not family affection, but private interest lurking under the cloak of a pretended
community of possessions.
JOHN STUART MILL ON LIBERTY (1859)
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern
absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control,
whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral
coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are
warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their
number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully
exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully
be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will
make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even
right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or
persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in
case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must
be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for
which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely
concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body
and mind, the individual is sovereign.
* * *
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... It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish
indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct
in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of
one another, unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, there is need of
a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others. But disinterested
benevolence can find other instruments to persuade people to their good than whips and
scourges, either of the literal or the metaphorical sort. I am the last person to undervalue the
self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, if even second, to the social. It is
equally the business of education to cultivate both. But even education works by conviction
and persuasion as well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the period
of education is passed, the self-regarding virtues should be inculcated. Human beings owe
to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose
the former and avoid the latter. They should be forever stimulating each other to increased
exercise of their higher faculties, and increased direction of their feelings and aims towards
wise instead of foolish, elevating instead of degrading, objects and contemplations. But
neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human
creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to
do with it...
WILLIAM BOOTH: DARKEST ENGLAND (1890)
WHY "DARKEST ENGLAND"?
This summer the attention of the civilised world has been arrested by the story which
Mr. Stanley has told of "Darkest Africa" and his journeyings across the heart of the Lost
Continent.
It is a terrible picture, and one that has engraved itself deep on the heart of
civilisation. But while brooding over the awful presentation of life as it exists in the vast
African forest, it seemed to me only too vivid a picture of many parts of our own land. As
there is a darkest Africa is there not also a darkest England? Civilisation, which can breed its
own barbarians, does it not also breed its own pygmies? May we not find a parallel at our
own doors, and discover within a stone's throw of our cathedrals and palaces similar horrors
to those which Stanley has found existing in the great Equatorial forest? ...
Often and often, when I have seen the young and the poor and the helpless go down
before my eyes into the morass, trampled underfoot by beasts of prey in human shape
that haunt these regions, it seemed as if God were no longer in His world, but that in His
stead reigned a fiend, merciless as Hell, ruthless as the grave. Hard it is, no doubt, to read in
Stanley's pages of the slave-traders coldly arranging for the surprise of a village, the
capture of the inhabitants, the massacre of those who resist, and the violation of all the
women; but the stony streets of London, if they could but speak, would tell of tragedies as
awful, of ruin as complete, of ravishments as horrible, as if we were in Central Africa; only
the ghastly devastation is covered, corpse-like, with the artificialities and hypocrisies of
modern civilisation.
The lot of a negress in the Equatorial Forest is not, perhaps, a very happy one, but
is it so very much worse than that of many a pretty orphan girl in our Christian capital? ... A
young penniless girl, if she be pretty, is often hunted from pillar to post by her employers,
confronted always by the alternative - Starve or Sin. And when once the poor girl has
consented to buy the right to earn her living by the sacrifice of her virtue, then she is treated
as a slave and an outcast by the very men who have ruined her... [A]nd she is swept
downward...
The blood boils with impotent rage at the sight of these enormities, callously inflicted,
and silently borne by these miserable victims. Nor is it only women who are the victims,
although their fate is the most tragic. Those firms which reduce sweating to a fine art [i.e.
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sweatshops], who systematically and deliberately defraud the workman of his pay, who
grind the faces of the poor, and who rob the widow and the orphan, and who for a pretence
make great professions of public-spirit and philanthropy, those men nowadays are sent to
Parliament to make laws for the people. The old prophets sent them to Hell -- but we have
changed all that. They send their victims to Hell, and are rewarded by all that wealth can do
to make their lives comfortable. Read the House of Lords' Report on the Sweating
System, and ask if any African slave system, making due allowance for the superior
civilisation, and therefore sensitiveness, of the victims, reveals more misery.
Darkest England, like Darkest Africa, reeks with malaria. The foul and fetid breath of
our slums is almost as poisonous as that of the African swamp. Fever is almost as chronic
there as on the Equator. Every year thousands of children are killed off by what is called
defects of our sanitary system. They are in reality starved and poisoned, and all that can be
said is that, in many cases, it is better for them that they were taken away from the trouble to
come...
...[T]he grimmest social problems of our time should be sternly faced, not with a
view to the generation of profitless emotion, but with a view to its solution...
What, then, is Darkest England? For whom do we claim that "urgency" which gives
their case priority over that of all other sections of their countrymen and countrywomen?
The [people] in Darkest England, for whom I appeal, are (1) those who, having no
capital or income of their own, would in a month be dead from sheer starvation were they
exclusively dependent upon the money earned by their own work; and (2) those who by
their utmost exertions are unable to attain the regulation allowance of food which the law
prescribes as indispensable even for the worst criminals in our gaols.
I sorrowfully admit that it would be Utopian in our present social arrangements to
dream of attaining for every honest Englishman a gaol standard of all the necessaries of life.
Some time, perhaps, we may venture to hope that every honest worker on English soil will
always be as warmly clad, as healthily housed, and as regularly fed as our criminal convicts -
- but that is not yet.
Neither is it possible to hope for many years to come that human beings generally
will be as well cared for as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago remarked that the four-footed
worker has already got all that this two-handed one is cIamouring for...
What, then, is the standard towards which we may venture to aim with some
prospect of realisation in our time? It is a very humble one, but if realised it would solve the
worst problems of modern Society.
It is the standard of the London Cab Horse...
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Documents for
Assignment #9: Victorianism and New Imperialism
CECIL RHODES: CONFESSION OF FAITH (1877)
It often strikes a man to inquire what is the chief good in life; to one the thought comes
that it is a happy marriage, to another great wealth, and as each seizes on his idea, for that
he more or less works for the rest of his existence. To myself thinking over the same
question the wish came to render myself useful to my country. I then asked myself how
could I and after reviewing the various methods I have felt that at the present day we are
actually limiting our children and perhaps bringing into the world half the human beings we
might owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit that if we had retained America there
would at this moment be millions more of English living. I contend that we are the finest race
in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just
fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of
human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon
influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives.
I contend that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the
English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this the
absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all
wars...
The idea gleaming and dancing before ones eyes like a will-of-the-wisp at last
frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the
furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British
rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one
Empire. What a dream, but yet it is probable, it is possible. I once heard it argued by a
fellow in my own college, I am sorry to own it by an Englishman, that it was a good thing for
us that we have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can be no
arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but even from an American's point of
view just picture what they have lost, look at their government, are not the frauds that yearly
come before the public view a disgrace to any country and especially theirs which is the
finest in the world. Would they have occurred had they remained under English rule great as
they have become how infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and
elevating influences of English rule, think of those countless 1000's [thousands] of
Englishmen that during the last 100 years would have crossed the Atlantic and settled and
populated the United States. Would they have not made without any prejudice a finer
country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants? All this we have lost and that
country loses owing to whom? Owing to two or three ignorant pig-headed statesmen of the
last century, at their door lies the blame. Do you ever feel mad? Do you ever feel
murderous. I think I do with those men...
...Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every
opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our
eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the
most human, most honourable race the world possesses...
I contend that there are at the present moment numbers of the ablest men in the
world who would devote their whole lives to it...
(In every Colonial legislature the [secret] Society should attempt to have its
members prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England
and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance of our
Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press for the press rules
69
the mind of the people. The Society should always be searching for members who might
by their position in the world by their energies or character forward the object but the ballot
and test for admittance should be severe)...
JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN ON IMPERIALISM (1894-97)
Excerpts from the speeches of imperialist Joseph Chamberlain, made both in Parliament
and before political groups.
(June 10, 1896)
...The Empire, to parody a celebrated expression, is commerce. It was created by
commerce, it is founded on commerce, and it could not exist a day without commerce.
(Cheers)...
The fact is history teaches us that no nation has ever achieved real greatness without
the aid of commerce, and the greatness of no nation has survived the decay of its trade.
Well, then, gentlemen, we have reason to be proud of our commerce and to be resolved
to guard it from attack. (Cheers.)...
(March 31, 1897)
... We have suffered much in this country from depression of trade. We know how
many of our fellow-subjects are at this moment unemployed. Is there any man in his senses
who believes that the crowded population of these islands could exist for a single day if we
were to cut adrift from us the great dependencies which now look to us for protection and
assistance, and which are the natural markets for our trade? (Cheers.) The area of the United
Kingdom is only 120,000 miles; the area of the British Empire is over 9,000,000 square
miles, of which nearly 500,000 are to be found in the portion of Africa with which we have
been dealing. If tomorrow it were possible, as some people apparently desire, to reduce
by a stroke of the pen the British Empire to the dimensions of the United Kingdom, half at
least of our population would be starved (cheers)...
(January 22, 1894)
We must look this matter in the face, and must recognise that in order that we may
have more employment to give we must create more demand. (Hear, hear.) Give me the
demand for more goods and then I will undertake to give plenty of employment in making
the goods; and the only thing, in my opinion, that the Government can do in order to meet
this great difficulty that we are considering, is so to arrange its policy that every inducement
shall be given to the demand; that new markets shall be created, and that old markets shall
be effectually developed. (Cheers.) ... I am convinced that it is a necessity as well as a duty
for us to uphold the dominion and empire which we now possess. (Loud cheers.) ... I would
never lose the hold which we now have over our great Indian dependency -- (hear, hear) --
by far the greatest and most valuable of all the customers we have or ever shall have in this
country. For the same reasons I approve of the continued occupation of Egypt; and for the
same reasons I have urged upon this Government, and upon previous Governments, the
necessity for using every legitimate opportunity to extend our influence and control in that
great African continent which is now being opened up to civilisation and to commerce; and,
lastly, it is for the same reasons that I hold that our navy should be strengthened -- (loud
cheers) -- until its supremacy is so assured that we cannot be shaken in any of the
possessions which we hold or may hold hereafter...
(March 31, 1897)
... We feel now that our rule over these territories can only be justified if we can show
that it adds to the happiness and prosperity of the people (cheers) and I maintain that our
70
rule does, and has, brought security and peace and comparative prosperity to countries that
never knew these blessings before. (Cheers.)
In carrying out this work of civilisation we are fulfilling what I believe to be our national
mission, and we are finding scope for the exercise of those faculties and qualities which
have made of us a great governing race. (Cheers.) I do not say that our success has been
perfect in every case, I do not say that all our methods have been beyond reproach; but I
do say that in almost every instance in which the rule of the Queen has been established
and the great Pax Britannica has been enforced, there has come with it greater security to
life and property, and a material improvement in the condition of the bulk of the population.
(Cheers.) No doubt, in the first instance, when these conquests have been made, there has
been bloodshed, there has been loss of life among the native populations, loss of still
more precious lives among those who have been sent out to bring these countries into
some kind of disciplined order, but it must be remembered that this is the condition of the
mission we have to fulfill.
You cannot have omelets without breaking eggs; you cannot destroy the practices
of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have desolated the interior of
Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price
which we are bound to pay for it, I think you may well rejoice in the result of such
expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success...
KIPLING: THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN (1899)
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
71
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter;
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better;
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
"Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper;
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy; ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
KARL PEARSON: SOCIAL DARWINISM (1900)
Pearson was a British professor of mathematics; this is from his lecture, "National Life from
the Standpoint of Science".
What I have said about bad stock seems to me to hold for the lower races of man. How
many centuries, how many thousands of years, have the Kaffir [a tribe in southern Africa] or
the negro held large districts in Africa undisturbed by the white man? Yet their intertribal
struggles have not yet produced a civilization in the least comparable with the Aryan
[western European]. Educate and nurture them as you will, I do not believe that you will
succeed in modifying the stock. History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a
high state of civilization has been introduced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the
survival of the physically and mentally fitter race.
Let us suppose we could prevent the white man, if we liked, from going to lands of
which the agricultural and mineral resources are not worked to the full; then I should say a
thousand times better for him that he should not go than that he should settle down and live
alongside the inferior race. The only healthy alternative is that he should go and completely
drive out the inferior race. That is practically what the white man has done in North America...
But I venture to say that no man calmly judging will wish either that the whites had never
gone to America, or would desire that whites and Red Indians were today living alongside
72
each other as negro and white in the Southern States, as Kaffir and European in South
Africa, still less that they had mixed their blood as Spaniard and Indian in South America... I
venture to assert, then, that the struggle for existence between white and red man, painful
and even terrible as it was in its details, has given us a good far outbalancing its immediate
evil. In place of the red man contributing practically nothing to the work and thought of the
world, we have a great nation, mistress of many arts, and able, with its youthful imagination
and fresh, untrammelled impulses, to contribute much to the common stock of civilized
man...
The ... great function of science in national life ... is to show us what national life
means, and how the nation is a vast organism subject to the great forces of evolution...
There is a struggle of race against race and of nation against nation. In the early days of that
struggle it was a blind, unconscious struggle of barbaric tribes. At the present day, in the
case of the civilized white man, it has become more and more the conscious, carefully
directed attempt of the nation to fit itself to a continuously changing environment...
You will see that my view -- and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation
-- is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that
its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of
external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races, and with equal races
by the struggle for trade-routes and for the sources of raw material and of food supply. This
is the natural history view of mankind, and I do not think you can in its main features subvert
it...
HOBSON ON IMPERIALISM (1902)
From social reformer and economist John Atkinson Hobson's book Imperialism.
...The decades of Imperialism have been prolific in wars; most of these wars have
been directly motivated by aggression of white races upon "lower races," and have issued
in the forcible seizure of territory. Every one of the steps of expansion in Africa, Asia, and
the Pacific has been accompanied by bloodshed; each imperialist Power keeps an
increasing army available for foreign service; rectification of frontiers, punitive expeditions,
and other euphemisms for war are in incessant progress. The pax Britannia, always an
impudent falsehood, has become in recent years a grotesque monster of hypocrisy; along
our Indian frontiers, in West Africa, in the Soudan, in Uganda, in Rhodesia fighting has been
well-nigh incessant...
Our economic analysis has disclosed the fact that it is only the interests of competing
cliques of business men -- investors, contractors, export manufacturers, and certain
professional classes -- that are antagonistic; that these cliques, usurping the authority and
voice of the people, use the public resources to push their private businesses, and spend
the blood and money of the people in this vast and disastrous military game, feigning
national antagonisms which have no basis in reality. It is not to the interest of the British
people, either as producers of wealth or as tax-payers, to risk a war with Russia and France
in order to join Japan in preventing Russia from seizing Korea; but it may serve the interests
of a group of commercial politicians to promote this dangerous policy. The South African
war [Boer War], openly fomented by gold speculators for their private purposes, will rank in
history as a leading case of this usurpation of nationalism...
... So long as this competitive expansion for territory and foreign markets is
permitted to misrepresent itself as "national policy'' the antagonism of interests seems real,
and the peopIes must sweat and bleed and toil to keep up an ever more expensive
machinery of war...
... The industrial and financial forces of Imperialism, operating through the party, the
press, the church, the school, mould public opinion and public policy by the false
idealisation of those primitive lusts of struggle, domination, and acquisitiveness which have
73
survived throughout the eras of peaceful industrial order and whose stimulation is needed
once again for the work of imperial aggression, expansion, and the forceful exploitation of
lower races. For these business politicians biology and sociology weave thin convenient
theories of a race struggle for the subjugation of the inferior peoples, in order that we, the
Anglo-Saxon, may take their lands and live upon their labours; while economics buttresses
the argument by representing our work in conquering and ruling them as our share in the
division of labour among nations, and history devises reasons why the lessons of past
empire do not apply to ours, while social ethics paints the motive of "Imperialism" as the
desire to bear the "burden" of educating and elevating races of "children." Thus are the
"cultured" or semi-cultured classes indoctrinated with the intellectual and moral grandeur of
Imperialism. For the masses there is a cruder appeal to hero-worship and sensational
glory, adventure and the sporting spirit: current history falsified in coarse flaring colours, for
the direct stimulation of the combative instincts...
The presence of a scattering of white officials, missionaries, traders, mining or
plantation overseers, a dominant male caste with little knowledge of or sympathy for the
institutions of the people, is ill-calculated to give to these lower races even such gains as
Western civilisation might he capable of giving...
This failure to justify by results the forcible rule over alien peoples is attributable to
no special defect of the British or other modern European nations. It is inherent in the nature
of such domination...
EMMELINE PANKHURST ON MILITANCY (1913)
I know that in your minds there are questions like these; you are saying, "Woman Suffrage
is sure to come; the emancipation of humanity is an evolutionary process, and how is it that
some women, instead of trusting to that evolution, instead of educating the masses of
people of their country, instead of educating their own sex to prepare them for citizenship,
how is it that these militant women are using violence and upsetting the business
arrangements of the country in their undue impatience to attain their end?"
Let me try to explain to you the situation.
The extensions of the franchise to the men of my country have been preceded by
very great violence, by something like a revolution, by something like civil war. In 1832...it
was after the practice of arson on so large a scale that half the city of Bristol was burned
down in a single night, it was because more and greater violence and arson were feared that
the Reform Bill of 1832 [which gave the vote to middle class men] was allowed to pass into
law. In 1867, ... [r]ioting went on all over the country, and as the result of that rioting, as the
result of that unrest, ... as a result of the fear of more rioting and violence the Reform Act of
1867 [which gave working men the vote] was put upon the statute books.
In 1884 ... [r]ioting was threatened and feared, and so the agricultural labourers got
the vote.
Meanwhile, during the 80's, women, like men, were asking for the franchise.
Appeals, larger and more numerous than for any other reform, were presented in support
of Woman's Suffrage... and yet the women did not get it. Men got the vote because they
were and would be violent. The women did not get it because they were constitutional and
law-abiding...
I believed, as many women still in England believe, that women could get their way
in some mysterious manner, by purely peaceful methods. We have been so accustomed,
we women, to accept one standard for men and another standard for women, that we have
even applied that variation of standard to the injury of our political welfare.
Having had better opportunities of education, and having had some training in
politics, having in political life come so near to the "superior" being as to see that he was not
altogether such a fount of wisdom as they had supposed, that he had his human
74
weaknesses as we had, the twentieth century women began to say to themselves, "Is it
not time, since our methods have failed and the men's have succeeded, that we should take
a leaf out of their political book?" ...
Well, we in Great Britain, on the eve of the General Election of 1905, a mere handful
of us -- why, you could almost count us on the fingers of both hands -- set out on the
wonderful adventure of forcing the strongest Government of modern times to give the
women the vote...
I want to say here and now that the only justification for violence, the only justification
for damage to property, the only justification for risk to the comfort of other human beings is
the fact that you have tried all other available means and have failed to secure justice, and as
a law-abiding person -- and I am by nature a law-abiding person, as one hating violence,
hating disorder -- I want to say that from the moment we began our militant agitation to this
day I have felt absolutely guiltless in this matter.
I tell you that in Great Britain there is no other way...
Ladies and gentlemen, there are women in my country who have spent long and
useful lives trying to get reforms, and because of their voteless condition, they are unable
even to get the ear of Members of Parliament, much less are they able to secure those
reforms.
Our marriage and divorce laws are a disgrace to civilisation. I sometimes wonder,
looking back from the serenity of past middle age, at the courage of women. I wonder that
women have the courage to take upon themselves the responsibilities of marriage and
motherhood when I see how little protection the law of my country affords them. I wonder
that a woman will face the ordeal of childbirth with the knowledge that after she has risked her
life to bring a child into the world she has absolutely no parental rights over the future of that
child... [H]ave men's wages for a hard day's work ever been so low and inadequate as are
women's wages today? Have men ever had to suffer from the laws, more injustice than
women suffer? Is there a single reason which men have had for demanding liberty that
does not also apply to women?
... There is not a man in this meeting who has not felt sympathy with the uprising of
the men of other lands when suffering from intolerable tyranny, when deprived of all
representative rights. You are full of sympathy with men in Russia. You are full of sympathy
with nations that rise against the domination of the Turk. You are full of sympathy with all
struggling people striving for independence. How is it, then, that some of you have nothing
but ridicule and contempt and [condemnation] for women who are fighting for exactly the
same thing?
All my life I have tried to understand why it is that men who value their citizenship as
their dearest possession seem to think citizenship ridiculous when it is to be applied to the
women of their race. And I find an explanation, and it is the only one I can think of. It came to
me when I was in a prison cell... that to men women are not human beings like themselves.
Some men think we are superhuman; they put us on pedestals; they revere us; they think
we are too fine and too delicate to come down into the hurly-burly of life. Other men think us
sub-human; they think we are a strange species unfortunately having to exist for the
perpetuation of the race. They think that we are fit for drudgery, but that in some strange
way out minds are not like theirs, our love for great things is not like theirs, and so we are a
sort of sub-human species.
We are neither superhuman nor are we sub-human. We are just human beings like
yourselves.
Our hearts burn within us when we read the great mottoes which celebrate the liberty
of your country; when we go to France and we read the words, liberty, fraternity and
equality, don't you think that we appreciate the meaning of those words?...
You know perfectly well that there never was a thing worth having that was not worth
fighting for. You know perfectly well that if the situation were reversed, if you had no
constitutional rights and we had all of them, if you had the duty of paying and obeying and
trying to look as pleasant, and we were the proud citizens who could decide our fate and
75
yours, because we knew what was good for you better than you knew yourselves, you
know perfectly well that you wouldn't stand it for a single day, and you would be perfectly
justified in rebelling against such intolerable conditions.
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Documents for
Assignment #10: The Great War, Twenties, and Depression
WOMEN IN THE FACTORIES (1917)
Naomi Loughnan
We little thought when we first put on our overalls and caps and enlisted in the
Munition Army how much more inspiring our life was to be than we had dared to hope.
Though we munition workers sacrifice our ease we gain a life worth living. Our long days are
filled with interest, and with the zest of doing work for our country in the grand cause of
Freedom. As we handle the weapons of war we are learning great lessons of life. In the
busy, noisy workshops we come face to face with every kind of class, and each one of
these classes has something to learn from the others. Our muscles may be aching, and the
brightness fading a little from our eyes, but our minds are expanding, our very souls are
growing stronger. And excellent, too, is the discipline for our bodies, though we do not
always recognize this...
The day is long, the atmosphere is breathed and rebreathed, and the oil smells. Our
hands are black with warm, thick oozings from the machines, which coat the work and,
incidentally, the workers. We regard our horrible, be-grimed members [limbs] with disgust
and secret pride.
The genteel among us wear gloves. We vie with each other in finding the most up-
to-date grease-removers, just as we used to vie about hats. Our hands are not alone in
suffering from dirt... [D]ust-clouds, filled with unwelcome life, find a resting-place in our lungs
and noses.
The work is hard. It may be, perhaps, from sheer lifting and carrying and weighing, or
merely because of those long dragging hours that keep us sitting on little stools in front of
whirring, clattering machines that are all too easy to work. We wish sometimes they were not
quite so "fool-proof," for monotony is painful.
Engineering mankind is possessed of the unshakable opinion that no woman can
have the mechanical sense. If one of us asks humbly why such and such an alteration is not
made to prevent this or that drawback to a machine, she is told, with a superior smile, that a
man has worked her machine before her for years, and that therefore if there were any
improvement possible it would have been made. As long as we do exactly what we are
told and do not attempt to use our brains, we give entire satisfaction, and are treated as
nice, good children. Any swerving from the easy path prepared for us by our males
arouses the most scathing contempt in their manly bosoms. The exceptions are as
delightful to meet as they are rare. Women have, however, proved that their entry into the
munition world has increased the output. Employers who forget things personal in their
patriotic desire for large results are enthusiastic over the success of women in the shops.
But their workmen have to be handled with the utmost tenderness and caution lest they
should actually imagine it was being suggested that women could do their work equally well,
given equal conditions of training -- at least where muscle is not the driving force. This
undercurrent of jealousy rises to the surface rather often, but as a general rule the men
behave with much kindness, and are ready to help with muscle and advice whenever called
upon. If eyes are very bright and hair inclined to curl, the muscle and advice do not even
wait for a call...
Whatever sacrifice we make of wearied bodies, brains dulled by interminable night-
shifts, of roughened hands, and faces robbed of their soft curves, it is, after all, so small a
thing. We live in safety, we have shelter, and food whenever necessary, and we are even
earning quite a lot of money. What is ours beside the great sacrifice? Men in their prime, on
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the verge of ambition realized, surrounded by the benefits won by their earlier struggles,
are offering up their very lives. And those boys with Life, all glorious and untried, spread
before them at their feet, are turning a smiling face to Death.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES ON THE PEACE (1919)
In England the outward aspect of life does not yet teach us to feel or realize in the
least that an age is over. We are busy picking up the threads of our life where we dropped
them, with this difference only, that many of us seem a good deal richer than we were
before. Where we spent millions before the war, we have now learnt that we can spend
hundreds of millions and apparently not suffer for it... [But] the vast expenditures of the war,
the inflation of prices, and the depreciation of currency, leading up to a complete instability of
the unit of value, have made us lose all sense of number and magnitude in matters of
finance...
There are no precedents for the indemnity imposed on Germany under the present
Treaty; for the money exactions which formed part of the settlement after previous wars
have differed in two fundamental respects from this one. The sum demanded has been
determinate and has been measured in a lump sum of money; and so long as the defeated
party was meeting the annual installments of cash no consequential interference was
necessary.
But for reasons already elucidated, the exactions in this case are not yet determinate,
and the sum when fixed will prove in excess of what can be paid in cash and in excess also
of what can be paid at all...
...The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the
lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be
abhorrent and detestable,-- abhorrent and detestable, even if it were possible, even if it
enriched ourselves, even if it did not sow the decay of the whole civilized life of Europe.
Some preach it in the name of Justice. In the great events of man's history, in the unwinding
of the complex fates of nations Justice is not so simple. And if it were, nations are not
authorized, by religion or by natural morals, to visit on the children of their enemies the
misdoings of parents or of rulers.
The essential facts of the situation, as I see them, are expressed simply. Europe
consists of the densest aggregation of population in the history of the world. This population
is accustomed to a relatively high standard of life, in which, even now, some sections of it
anticipate improvement rather than deterioration. In relation to other continents Europe is not
self-sufficient; in particular it cannot feed itself. Internally the population is not evenly
distributed, but much of it is crowded into a relatively small number of dense industrial
centers. This population secured for itself a livelihood before the war, without much margin
of surplus, by means of a delicate and immensely complicated organization, of which the
foundations were supported by coal, iron, transport, and an unbroken supply of imported
food and raw materials from other continents. By the destruction of this organization and the
interruption of the stream of supplies, a part of this population is deprived of its means of
livelihood... The danger confronting us, therefore, is the rapid depression of the standard of
life of the European populations to a point which will mean actual starvation for some (a
point already reached in Russia and approximately reached in Austria). Men will not always
die quietly. For starvation, which brings to some lethargy and a helpless despair, drives
other temperaments to the nervous instability of hysteria and to a mad despair. And these
in their distress may overturn the remnants of organization, and submerge civilization itself in
their attempts to satisfy desperately the overwhelming needs of the individual. This is the
danger against which all our resources and courage and idealism must now co-operate.
Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System
was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can
78
confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this
method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process
impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of
riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of
wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even
beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers" who are the object of the hatred
of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished -- not less than of the
proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from
month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the
ultimate foundation of capitalism -- become so utterly disordered as to be almost
meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the
existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden
forces of economic law on the side of destruction...
We are thus faced in Europe with the spectacle of an extraordinary weakness on the
part of the great capitalist class, which has emerged from the industrial triumphs of the
nineteenth century, and seemed a very few years ago our all-powerful master. The terror
and personal timidity of the individuals of this class is now so great, their confidence in their
place in society and in their necessity to the social organism so diminished, that they are the
easy victims of intimidation. This was not so in England twenty-five years ago any more
than it is now in the United States. Then the capitalists believed in themselves, in their value
to society, in the propriety of their continued existence in the full enjoyment of their riches
and the unlimited exercise of their power. How they tremble before every insult; -- call them
pro-Germans, international financiers, or profiteers, and they will give you any ransom you
choose to ask not to speak of them so harshly. They allow themselves to be ruined and
altogether undone by their own instruments, governments of their own making, and a press
of which they are the proprietors. Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever
perishes save by its own hand.
P.G. WODEHOUSE: RIGHT HO, JEEVES (1922)
I went to Cannes -- leaving Jeeves behind, he having intimated that he did not wish
to miss Ascot -- round about the beginning of June. With me traveled my Aunt Dahlia and
her daughter Angela. Tuppy Glossop, Angela's betrothed, was to have been of the party,
but at the last moment couldn't get away. Uncle Tom, Aunt Dahlia's husband, remained at
home, because he can't stick the South of France at any price.
So there you have the layout -- Aunt Dahlia, Cousin Angela and self off to Cannes
round about the beginning of June.
All pretty clear so far, what?
We stayed at Cannes about two months, and except for the fact that Aunt Dahlia
lost her shirt at baccarat and Angela nearly got inhaled by a shark while aquaplaning, a
pleasant time was had by all.
On July the twenty-fifth, looking bronzed and fit, I accompanied aunt and child back to
London. At seven p.m. on July the twenty-sixth we alighted at Victoria. And at seven-
twenty or thereabouts we parted with mutual expressions of esteem -- they to shove off in
Aunt Dahlia's car to Brinkley Court, her place in Worcestershire, where they were expecting
to entertain Tuppy in a day or two; I to go to the flat, drop my luggage, clean up a bit, and
put on the soup and fish preparatory to pushing round to the Drones for a bite of dinner.
And it was while I was at the flat, toweling the torso after a much-needed rinse, that
Jeeves, as we chatted of this and that -- picking up the threads, as it were -- suddenly
brought the name of Gussie Fink-Nottle into the conversation.
As I recall it, the dialogue ran something as follows:
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SELF: Well, Jeeves, here we are, what?
JEEVES: Yes, sir.
SELF: I mean to say, home again.
JEEVES: Precisely, sir.
SELF: Seems ages since I went away.
JEEVES: Yes, sir.
SELF: Have a good time at Ascot?
JEEVES: Most agreeable, sir.
SELF: Win anything?
JEEVES: Quite a satisfactory sum, thank you, sir.
SELF: Good. Well, Jeeves, what news on the Rialto? Anybody been
phoning or calling or anything during my abs.?
JEEVES: Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir, has been a frequent caller.
I stared. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that I gaped.
"Mr. Fink-Nottle?"
"Yes, sir."
"You don't mean Mr. Fink-Nottle?"
"Yes, sir."
"But Mr. Fink-Nottle's not in London?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I'm blowed."
And I'll tell you why I was blowed. I found it scarcely possible to give credence to
his statement. This Fink-Nottle, you see, was one of those freaks you come across from
time to time during life's journey who can't stand London. He lived year in and year out,
covered with moss, in a remote village down in Lincolnshire, never coming up even for the
Eton and Harrow match. And when I asked him once if he didn't find the time hang a bit
heavy on his hands, he said, no, because he had a pond in his garden and studied the
habits of newts.
I couldn't imagine what could have brought the chap up to the great city. I would
have been prepared to bet that as long as the supply of newts didn't give out, nothing
could have shifted him from that village of his.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir."
"You got the name correctly? Fink-Nottle?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, it's the most extraordinary thing. It must be five years since he was in London.
He makes no secret of the fact that the place gives him the pip. Until now, he has always
stayed glued to the country, completely surrounded by newts."
"Sir?"
"Newts, Jeeves. Mr. Fink-Nottle has a strong newt complex. You must have heard
of newts. Those little sort of lizard things that charge about in ponds."
"Oh, yes, sir. The aquatic members of the family Salamandridae which constitute the
genus Molge."
"That's right. Well, Gussie has always been a slave to them. He used to keep them
at school."
"I believe young gentlemen frequently do, sir.
"He kept them in his study in a kind of glass-tank arrangement, and pretty niffy the
whole thing was, I recall. I suppose one ought to have been able to see what the end
would be even then, but you know what boys are. Careless, heedless, busy about our
own affairs. We scarcely gave this kink in Gussie's character a thought. We may have
exchanged an occasional remark about it taking all sorts to make a world, but nothing more.
You can guess the sequel. The trouble spread."
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ALDOUS HUXLEY: BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932)
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), a critic, poet and essayist, wrote this novel, a fantasy of the future.
A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words,
CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield,
the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY...
Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director advanced into the room. He had a long
chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly
curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five. It was hard to say. And anyhow the
question didn't arise; in this year of stability, A. F. 632, it didn't occur to you to ask it.
"I shall begin at the beginning," said the D.H.c2. and the more zealous students
recorded his intention in their notebooks: Begin at the beginning. "These," he waved his
hand, "are the incubators." And opening an insulated door he showed them racks upon
racks of numbered test-tubes "The week's supply of ova. Kept," he explained, "at blood
heat; whereas the male gametes," and here he opened another door, "they have to be
kept at thirty-five instead of thirty-seven full blood heat sterilizes." Rams wrapped in
theremogene beget no lambs.
Still leaning against the incubators he gave them, while the pencils scurried illegibly
across the pages, a brief description of the modern fertilizing process; spoke first, of course,
of its surgical introduction"the operation undergone voluntarily for the good of society, not
to mention the fact that it carries a bonus amounting to six months' salary"; continued with
some account of the technique for preserving the excised ovary alive and actively
developing; passed on to a consideration of optimum temperature salinity, viscosity;
referred to the liquor in which the detached and ripened eggs were kept; and, leading his
charges to the work tables, actually showed them how this liquor was drawn off from the
test-tubes; how it was let out drop by drop onto the specially warmed slides of the
microscopes; how the eggs which it contained were inspected for abnormalities, counted
and transferred to a porous receptacle; how (and he now took them to watch the operation)
this receptacle was immersed in a warm bullion containing free-swimming spermatozoa -- at
a minimum concentration of one hundred thousand per cubic centimetre, he insisted; and
how, after ten minutes, the container was lifted out of the liquor and its contents re-examined;
how, if any of the eggs remained unfertilized, it was again immersed, and, if necessary, yet
again; how the fertilized ova went back to the incubators; where the Alphas and Betas
remained until definitely bottled; while the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons were brought out
again, after only thirty-six hours, to undergo Bokanovsky's Process.
"Bokanovsky's Process," repeated the Director, and the students underlined the
words in their little notebooks.
One egg, one embryo, one adultnormality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will
proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a
perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six
human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress.
"Essentially," the D.H.C. concluded, "bokanovskification consists of a series of
arrests of development. We check the normal growth and, paradoxically enough, the egg
responds by budding.''
Responds by budding. The pencils were busy.
He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a rackfull of test-tubes was entering a
large metal box, another, rackfull was emerging. Machinery faintly purred. It took eight
minutes for the tubes to go through, he told them. Eight minutes of hard X-rays being about
as much as an egg can stand. A few died; of the rest, the least susceptible divided into two;
most put out four buds; some eight; all were returned to the incubators, where the buds
began to develop; then, after two days, were suddenly chilled, chilled and checked. Two,
four, eight, the buds in their turn budded; and having budded were dosed almost to death
81
with alcohol; consequently burgeoned again and having buddedbud out of bud out of
budwere thereafterfurther arrest being generally fatalleft to develop in peace. By
which time the original egg was in a fair way to becoming anything from eight to ninety-six
embryos a prodigious improvement, you will agree, on nature. Identical twinsbut not in
piddling twos and threes as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes
accidentally divide; actually by dozens, by scores at a time.
"Scores," the Director repeated and flung out his arms, as though he were distributing
largesse. "Scores."
But one of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage lay.
"My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply round on him. "Can't you see? Can't
you see?" He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. "Bokanovsky's Process is one of
the major instruments of social stability!"
Major instruments of social stability.
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed
with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.
"Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The voice was
almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you are. For the first time in
history." He quoted the planetary motto. "Community, Identity, Stability." Grand words. "If
we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved."
Source: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Harper and Row, 1946), pp. 1-4.
GEORGE ORWELL ON THE DOLE (1937)
From The Road to Wigan Pier
When you see the unemployment figures quoted at two millions, it is fatally easy to
take this as meaning that two million people are out of work and the rest of the population is
comparatively comfortable...
This is an enormous under-estimate, because in the first place, the only people
shown on unemployment figures are those actually drawing the dole -- that is, in general,
heads of families. An unemployed man's dependents do not figure on the list unless they
too are drawing a separate allowance... [I]n addition there are great numbers of people who
are in work but who, from a financial point of view, might equally well be unemployed,
because they are not drawing anything that can be described as a living wage. Allow for
these and their dependents, throw in as before the old-age pensioners, the destitute and
other nondescripts, and you get an underfed population of well over ten millions...
Nevertheless, in spite of the frightful extent of unemployment, it is a fact that poverty
-- extreme poverty -- is less in evidence in the industrial North than it is in London.
Everything is poorer and shabbier, there are fewer motor-cars and fewer well-dressed
people; but also there are fewer people who are obviously destitute. Even in a town the
size of Liverpool or Manchester you are struck by the fewness of the beggars. London is a
sort of whirlpool which draws derelict people towards it, and it is so vast that life there is
solitary and anonymous. Until you break the law nobody will take any notice of you, and
you can go to pieces as you could not possibly do in a place where you had neighbours
who knew you. But in the industrial towns the old communal way of life has not yet broken
up, tradition is still strong and almost everyone has a family -- potentially, therefore, a
home...
But there is no doubt about the deadening, debilitating effect of unemployment
upon everybody, married or single, and upon men more than upon women...
Take a miner, for instance, who has worked in the pit since childhood and has been
trained to be a miner and nothing else. How the devil is he to fill up the empty days? It is
82
absurd to say that he ought to be looking for work. There is no work to look for, and
everybody knows it. You can't go on looking for work every day for seven years...
I first became aware of the unemployment problem in 1928... [A]t that time nobody
cared to admit that unemployment was inevitable, because this meant admitting that it
would probably continue. The middle classes were still talking about "lazy idle loafers on the
dole" and saying that "these men could all find work if they wanted to," and naturally these
opinions percolated to the working class themselves. I remember the shock of
astonishment it gave me, when I first mingled with tramps and beggars, to find that a fair
proportion, perhaps a quarter, of these beings whom I had been taught to regard as cynical
parasites, were decent young miners and cotton-workers gazing at their destiny with the
same sort of dumb amazement as an animal in a trap. They simply could not understand
what was happening to them. They had been brought up to work, and behold! it seemed
as if they were never going to have the chance of working again. In their circumstances it was
inevitable, at first, that they should be haunted by a feeling of personal degradation. That
was the attitude towards unemployment in those days: it was a disaster which happened to
you as an individual and for which you were to blame.
When people live on the dole for years at a time they grow used to it, and drawing
the dole, though it remains unpleasant, ceases to be shameful...The people have at any
rate grasped that unemployment is a thing they cannot help. It is not only Alf Smith who is
out of work now; Bert Jones is out of work as well, and both of them have been "out" for
years. It makes a great deal of difference when things are the same for everybody...
But they don't necessarily lower their standards by cutting out luxuries and
concentrating on necessities; more often it is the other way about -- the more natural way, if
you come to think of it. Hence the fact that in a decade of unparalleled depression, the
consumption of all cheap luxuries has increased. The two things that have probably made
the greatest difference of all are the movies and the mass-production of cheap smart clothes
since the war. The youth who leaves school at fourteen and gets a blind-alley job is out of
work at twenty, probably for life; but for two pounds ten on the hire-purchase system he
can buy himself a suit which, for a little while and at a little distance, looks as though it had
been tailored in Savile Row. The girl can look like a fashion plate at an even lower price.
You may have three halfpence in your pocket and not a prospect in the world, and only the
corner of a leaky bedroom to go home to; but in your new clothes you can stand on the
street corner, indulging in a private daydream of yourself as Clark Gable or Greta Garbo,
which compensates you for a great deal. And even at home there is generally a cup of tea
going -- a "nice cup of tea"...
Trade since the war has had to adjust itself to meet the demands of underpaid,
underfed people, with the result that a luxury is nowadays almost always cheaper than a
necessity. One pair of plain solid shoes costs as much as two ultra-smart pairs. For the price
of one square meal you can get two pounds of cheap sweets. You can't get much meat for
threepence, but you can get a lot of fish-and-chips. Milk costs threepence a pint and even
"mild" beer costs fourpence, but aspirins are seven a penny and you can Wring forty cups
of tea out of a quarter-pound packet. And above all there is gambling, the cheapest of all
luxuries. Even people on the verge of starvation can buy a few days' hope ("Something to
live for," as they call it) by having a penny on a sweepstake...
Of course the post-war development of cheap luxuries has been a very fortunate
thing for our rulers. It is quite likely that fish and chips, art-silk stockings, tinned salmon, cut-
price chocolate (five two-ounce bars for sixpence), the movies, the radio, strong tea and the
Football Pools have between them averted revolution. Therefore we are sometimes told
that the whole thing is an astute manoeuvre by the governing class -- a sort of "bread and
circuses" business -- to hold the unemployed down. What I have seen of our governing
class does not convince me that they have that much intelligence. The thing has happened,
but by an unconscious process -- the quite natural interaction between the manufacturer's
need for a market and the need of half-starved people for cheap palliatives.
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Source: From The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. Copyright 1958 by the Estate of Sonia B.
Orwell. Selection from James M. Brophy et al, Perspectives from the Past vol. 2, (NY: WW Norton,
1998) pp. 504-507.
MOLLY HUGHES: LONDON BETWEEN THE WARS
In spite of all the new building, traffic regulations, and neon lights, London never
seems to change its heart. Today, as ever, like Dr. Johnson, we can "take a walk down Fleet
Street" and capture the same spirit. But while Barnholt [her son] was away there had been
an astonishing thing happening in London. One Saturday afternoon an Oxford friend of
Barnholt's was having tea with Arthur and me at the Thistle in the Haymarket when we heard
cries of "Paper! Paper! Starnewsstandard! Paper!" more vociferous than usual. Looking
down into the street we saw on the placards, "General Strike Monday." [this was 1926]
England acts like a fruit-tree with a branch injured. The whole tree pours its sap (or
whatever it is) into the branch so that it bears more fruit than the other branches. It was a
never-to-be-forgotten effort that the country made to live through that strike. The first thought
was to bring milk for the children, and ample supplies were brought by private cars and
stored in Hyde Park. Trains, managed by unskilled hands, were few, very jerky, and far
between. But private cars! The roads were long processions of them. Papers had to be
produced by volunteers, and were treasured as priceless by those who managed to get
them. I have kept several as curiosities. Our Sunday Observer was typewritten.
The strikers tried to interfere with bus-drivers, and I remember one bus that had a
notice written up: "The driver of this bus is a Guy's Hospital student. The conductor is a
Guy's student. Anyone who throws a brick will soon be a Guy's patient." For bricks were
freely thrown by the strikers at anyone and anything. One notice ran, "Keep your bricks. All
windows broken." And one bus so afflicted announced itself as "The Aerated Bus
Company."...
I thought myself fortunate to have no work away from home, except an examiners'
meeting in the south of London, which would of course be postponed. But I had an urgent
message that I must come at all costs, and the costs would be theirs. So off I started "brave
and early," and by means of hitch-hiking, with a few train and tram rides thrown in, contrived
to be in time for the meeting. One experience is vivid in my memory. For some absurd
reason I found myself walking down Edgeware Road. Seeing a young man in a two-seater,
I held up my hand. "Where to?" said he as he drew up. "As near to Victoria Station as you
happen to be going," said I. Often have I been down Park Lane, but never in such a royal
way as that. At Victoria I managed to get a train of sorts, but no food had I achieved. How
glad I was of the good tea served round to the examiners, and to hear the experiences that
each had endured. One of them gave me a lift on the return journey, and I got a train that
crawled as far as Winchmore Hill, to find myself one of a crowd of dwellers farther north,
eyeing the road for a lift in a private car. It seemed ages before I saw a Cuffleyite with room
for one, but it came at last, and I reached home very tired and hungry. And yet somehow
exhilarated at having seen the faces of Londoners, usually set and serious, suddenly
become by misfortune full of gaiety and bonhomie. A revolution, I thought, will never
succeed in England -- the victims will be giving lifts to their executioners...
Another addition to the amenities of Cuffley at this time was the gramophone. I had
been distressed by early specimens of this invention, and hoped never to hear another
record. But of course, as in the case of the wireless, a really good gramophone was a
revelation. When we had one of our own I scented a curious drawback to it. I have never
mentioned it to people, because it sounds silly, but I wonder whether anyone else feels
the same. I am fond, say, of a certain piece of music, and its performance by a master is a
moving experience. With a gramophone I can have it for the mere putting on. My dread is
that I may do this once too often, and thus deprive myself of that experience. I keep off it,
84
as a drunkard would keep off the bottle. A visitor dropping in is welcome to put on
whatever he likes and no harm done; it is one's own personal control of the thing that seems
to me disastrous, when one lives alone.
Yet another modern convenience reached Cuffley at this time. An old typewriter was
passed on to me by a friend, and I fancy it was the first one to reach the neighbourhood. It
was a Yost, large and loaded with strange devices, but Arthur [another son] very quickly
taught me how to use it. Where he had learnt himself I never inquired. It came in most
opportunely, because the publishers of the Latin book had asked me to concoct a book
about England for foreigners -- just to give them some idea of what we were like as a
nation. It was intended to be a kind of guide as to how to behave in a restaurant, how to
buy a pair of shoes, and such banalities. I agreed to do it, of course, but I had no sooner
started than the whole thing ran away with me. Anyone with his head screwed on can point
to a pair of shoes, or an item on a menu; he can go to the Tower, the Abbey, Madame
Tussaud's, and all the other sights, under good direction. But I wanted a foreigner to know
something of an Englishman's love of the sea, and of the horse and of grumbling; to be
able to see the beauties of an out-of-the-way village, an old inn, a Roman road; to know
which newspaper to rely on, which to be amused with; to comprehend, if possible, what an
Englishman thinks funny...
The publisher demurred, but said he would risk it, and it turned out a success and still
sells after fifteen years. Barnholt said it was badly written, pointing out usefully where and
how, and I could but agree with him. On the whole the family was a bit ashamed of me.
Barnholt had not been long at home when he said that we ought to be on the
telephone. Both he and Vivian were trying for posts, and they knew that being on the
phone would make them readily accessible when anyone was wanted in an emergency. It
saved the bother of a letter and the delay of waiting for a reply, and gave one a chance,
Barnholt added, of impressing an employer by one's manner and readiness. Several of our
neighbours had held out against this innovation, feeling sure that their wives would be using
it recklessly, or be always calling them up at the office. So we were among the earliest in
Cuffley to have it installed. Arthur and I were alone when we were rung up for the first time.
How we both made a mad rush to the lobby, falling over one another in our eagerness not
to keep our friend waiting! As the boys predicted, it has been a great help in endless ways
of business matters, and to be without it now would seem like losing one of the senses.
The countless messages I have received have cancelled one another in my memory -- all
but three which can never be forgotten. But these came a little later...
And now for one of my three ever-memorable calls on the phone:
"Speaking from Cambridge. Can I have word with Mr. Arthur Hughes?"
"Sorry, he is not at home. Will you leave a message?"
"Kindly tell him that he has been elected to a major scholarship at Trinity Hall."
I needed this bit of cheer. When my husband died I figured to myself that I had
strength for ten years' work, and if I could launch the three boys into independence by that
time I should feel satisfied. But as it turned out things were not so simple. Vivian had not
been able to do more than just keep himself. Barnholt was at home after his illness in Africa,
anxious to take any work that offered, so as to relieve the privy purse, as he called the
home maintenance. Teaching he loathed. What he wanted was work on a newspaper, and
there's nothing like knowing exactly what you want. Weary weeks went by in answering
advertisements and visiting the offices of local papers, with no result...
A row of shops has sprung up, as well as an imposing telephone exchange building,
a grand hotel, as well as two or three cafs, and a red car has taken the place of the
postman's bicycle. Moreover, sites have been bought for a bank and a Free Evangelical
church; we hope that it will be some time yet before they materialize. A few street lamps
have been put up, gravel paths are provided along the built-up areas, and a speed limit
board or two erected (to which, by the way, no motorist pays the slightest attention). Now
and again we have the steam-roller, and our road has risen to the dignity of B 157. This last
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is no empty honour, for it has always been difficult to direct a visitor coming to see us by car.
It is only recently indeed that the word Cuffley appeared on any sign-post...
And then, naturally, a Women's Institute has sprung up, making gallant efforts at
culture and craft, with visiting lecturers, competitions, and teas. I hear that there is also a
League of Health and Beauty. When I add that there is a district nurse, that one man at least
has a television set, and that a telephone booth has been installed near the Plough, I think I
have exhausted the amenities of Cuffley up to date...
All Cuffley's activities of a social and elevating kind were frozen stiff that morning in
September '39, when the voice of Mr. Chamberlain on the wireless announced sadly: "We
are at war with Germany." No one has the least idea what the outcome will be, and I am
inclined to wonder whether this little community, created by a German air fighter, will be
destroyed by another. Meanwhile, we can enjoy its present life while it lasts. Still there is
the fresh, bracing air, still there is the green belt between us and the town, still there are all
the birds.
Source: M.V. Hughes, A London Family between the Wars (1979), Oxford University Press. [Excerpt
from Western Societies: Primary Sources in Social History , Richard Golden and Thomas Keuhn, eds. (NY:
St. Martin's Press, 1993) pp. 319, 320, 320-21, 321, 324-5].
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Documents for
Assignment #11: World War II: Prelude and Engagement
CHAMBERLAIN ON APPEASEMENT (1938)
Speech of September 27, 1938
First of all I must say something to those who have written to my wife or myself in
these last weeks to tell us of their gratitude for my efforts and to assure us of their prayers
for my success. Most of these letters have come from women -- mothers or sisters of our
own countrymen. But there are countless others besides -- from France, from Belgium, from
Italy, even from Germany, and it has been heartbreaking to read of the growing anxiety
they reveal and their intense relief when they thought, too soon, that the danger of war was
past.
If I felt my responsibility heavy before, to read such letters has made it seem almost
overwhelming. How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches
and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people
of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already
been settled in principle should be the subject of war.
I can well understand the reasons why the Czech Government have felt unable to
accept the terms which have been put before them in the German memorandum. Yet I
believe after my talks with Herr Hitler that, if only time were allowed, it ought to be possible
for the arrangements for transferring the territory that the Czech Government has agreed to
give to Germany to be settled by agreement under conditions which would assure fair
treatment to the population concerned.
However much we may sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and
powerful neighbour, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British
Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.
I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a
nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate
the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination
life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living; but war is a fearful thing, and
we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at
stake, and that the call to risk everything in their defence, when all the consequences are
weighed, is irresistible.
. . . As long as war has not begun, there is always hope that it may be prevented --
and you know that I am going to work for peace to the last moment. Good night.
From October 6, 1938 speech to the House of Commons
Since I first went to Berchtesgaden [to confer with Hitler in Germany] more than
20,000 letters and telegrams have come to No. 10, Downing Street [British prime minister's
residence]. Of course, I have only been able to look at a tiny fraction of them, but I have
seen enough to know that the people who wrote did not feel that they had such a cause for
which to fight, if they were asked to go to war in order that the Sudeten Germans might not
join the Reich. That is how they are feeling. That is my answer to those who say that we
should have told Germany weeks ago that, if her army crossed the border of
Czechoslovakia, we should be at war with her. We had no treaty obligations and no legal
obligations to Czechoslovakia and if we had said that, we feel that we should have received
no support from the people of this country.
87
When we were convinced, as we became convinced, that nothing any longer would
keep the Sudetenland within the Czechoslovakian State, we urged the Czech Government
as strongly as we could to agree to the cession of territory, and to agree promptly. The
Czech Government, through the wisdom and courage of President Benes, accepted the
advice of the French Government and ourselves. It was a hard decision for anyone who
loved his country to take, but to accuse us of having by that advice betrayed the
Czechoslovakian State is simply preposterous. What we did was to save her from
annihilation and give her a chance of new life as a new State...
Therefore, I think the Government deserve the approval of this House for their conduct of
affairs in this recent crisis which has saved Czechoslovakia from destruction and Europe from
Armageddon.
Does the experience of the Great War and of the years that followed it give us
reasonable hope that, if some new war started, that would end war any more than the last
one did?...
One good thing, at any rate, has come out of this emergency through which we have
passed. It has thrown a vivid light upon our preparations for defence, on their strength and
on their weakness. I should not think we were doing our duty if we had not already ordered
that a prompt and thorough inquiry should be made to cover the whole of our preparations,
military and civil, in order to see, in the light of what has happened during these hectic days,
what further steps may be necessary to make good our deficiencies in the shortest
possible time.
Source: Neville Chamberlain, In Search of Peace (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1939), pp. 173-74,
175, 214, 215, 217.
CHURCHILL ON APPEASEMENT (1938)
From October 5, 1938, speech in the House of Commons.
...I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which
must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated
defeat, and that France has suffered even more than we have...
And I will say this, that I believe the Czechs, left to themselves and told they were
going to get no help from the Western Powers, would have been able to make better
terms than they have got -- they could hardly have worse -- after all this tremendous
perturbation...
... I have always held the view that the maintenance of peace depends upon the
accumulation of deterrents against the aggressor, coupled with a sincere effort to redress
grievances... After [Hitler's] seizure of Austria in March... I ventured to appeal to the
Government... to give a pledge that in conjunction with France and other Powers they would
guarantee the security of Czechoslovakia while the Sudeten-Deutsch question was being
examined either by a League of Nations Commission or some other impartial body, and I
still believe that if that course had been followed events would not have fallen into this
disastrous state...
France and Great Britain together, especially if they had maintained a close contact
with Russia, which certainly was not done, would have been able in those days in the
summer, when they had the prestige, to influence many of the smaller States of Europe,
and I believe they could have determined the attitude of Poland. Such a combination,
prepared at a time when the German dictator was not deeply and irrevocably committed to
his new adventure, would, I believe, have given strength to all those forces in Germany
which resisted this departure, this new design. They were varying forces, those of a military
character which declared that Germany was not ready to undertake a world war, and all that
mass of moderate opinion and popular opinion which dreaded war, and some elements of
88
which still have some influence upon the German Government. Such action would have
given strength to all that intense desire for peace which the helpless German masses share
with their British and French fellow men...
... I do not think it is fair to charge those who wished to see this course followed, and
followed consistently and resolutely, with having wished for an immediate war. Between
submission and immediate war there was this third alternative, which gave a hope not only
of peace but of justice. It is quite true that such a policy in order to succeed demanded that
Britain should declare straight out and a long time beforehand that she would, with others,
join to defend Czechoslovakia against an unprovoked aggression. His Majesty's
Government refused to give that guarantee when it would have saved the situation...
All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the
darkness. She has suffered in every respect by her association with the Western
democracies and with the League of Nations, of which she has always been an obedient
servant. She has suffered in particular from her association with France, under whose
guidance and policy she has been actuated for so long...
What is the remaining position of Czechoslovakia? Not only are they politically
mutilated, but, economically and financially, they are in complete confusion. Their banking,
their railway arrangements, are severed and broken, their industries are curtailed, and the
movement of their population is most cruel. The Sudeten miners, who are all Czechs and
whose families have lived in that area for centuries, must now flee into an area where there
are hardly any mines left for them to work. It is a tragedy which has occurred...
I venture to think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an
independent entity. You will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years,
but may be measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi
regime. Perhaps they may join it in despair or in revenge. At any rate, that story is over and
told. But we cannot consider the abandonment and ruin of Czechoslovakia in the light only
of what happened only last month. It is the most grievous consequence which we have yet
experienced of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years -
- five years of futile good intention, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance,
five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years of neglect of our air defences.
Those are the features which I stand here to declare and which marked an improvident
stewardship for which Great Britain and France have dearly to pay. We have been reduced
in those five years from a position of security so overwhelming and so unchallengeable that
we never cared to think about it. We have been reduced from a position where the very
word "war" was considered one which would be used only by persons qualifying for a
lunatic asylum. We have been reduced from a position of safety and power -- power to do
good, power to be generous to a beaten foe, power to make terms with Germany, power
to give her proper redress for her grievances, power to stop her arming if we chose, power
to take any step in strength or mercy or justice which we thought right -- reduced in five
years from a position safe and unchallenged to where we stand now.
When I think of the fair hopes of a long peace which still lay before Europe at the
beginning of 1933 when Herr Hitler first obtained power, and of all the opportunities of
arresting the growth of the Nazi power which have been thrown away, when I think of the
immense combinations and resources which have been neglected or squandered, I cannot
believe that a parallel exists in the whole course of history. So far as this country is
concerned the responsibility must rest with those who have the undisputed control of our
political affairs. They neither prevented Germany from rearming, nor did they rearm
ourselves in time... They neglected to make alliances and combinations which might have
repaired previous errors, and thus they left us in the hour of trial without adequate national
defence or effective international security...
We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great
Britain and France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the
countries of Central and Eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the
89
triumphant Nazi Power. The system of alliances in Central Europe upon which France has
relied for her safety has been swept away, and I can see no
means by which it can be reconstituted.
... If the Nazi dictator should choose to look westward, as he may, bitterly will France
and England regret the loss of that fine army of ancient Bohemia [Czechoslovakia] which
was estimated last week to require not fewer than 30 German divisions for its destruction.
... Many people, no doubt, honestly believe that they are only giving away the
interests of Czechoslovakia, whereas I fear we shall find that we have deeply
compromised, and perhaps fatally endangered, the safety and even the independence of
Great Britain and France...[T]here can never be friendship between the British democracy
and the Nazi Power, that Power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward
course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which
derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen,
with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That Power cannot ever be the trusted
friend of the British democracy...
... [O]ur loyal, brave people... should know the truth. They should know that there
has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have
sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our
road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the
whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the
time being been pronounced against the Western democracies:
Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.
And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.
This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by
year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and
take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.
Source: From Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (London: His Majestys Stationery Office,
1938) vol. 339, 12th vol. of session 1937-38, pp. 361-369, 373.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BLITZ (1941)
From Hilde Marchant's Women and Children Last: A Woman Reporter's Account of the
Battle of Britain
Mr. Smith is not a big man, not a handsome man, not a strong man. Mr. Smith is a
little man. He is rather narrow across the chest, his face is deflated of its youth, his hair is as
thin as the grass in a London park. First of all, Mr. Smith would describe himself as a
Cockney, and secondly he would describe himself as a Londoner. For his affection and civic
patriotism is for those tightly packed miles of wavering roof tops that make a shabby
border for the South side of the river Thames. He has lived there all his life and when he
goes West for a Saturday night treat with his wife he is like a provincial on the loose. And
Mr. Smith would tell you that he loved every one of those narrow, suppurating streets that
miraculously bulge with life. Though looking at the blackened mortar, and ruptured walls you
might wonder why.
So just before the war Mr. Smith decided to express his fervent love for these
homes and people who dwell there and became one of the war's new soldiers -- a warden
of Stepney. His uniform is a pair of blue overalls, a tin hat and a gasmask and he is a
veteran member of the civilian defence force that has defended and saved the citizens of
London. Mr. Smith would not regard himself as a particularly brave man, because in his
90
peace time life there was never any occasion to be brave. It was just a routine, unnoticed
fight, to survive such things as unemployment, rent and a fourth child.
At first Smith was very uncomfortable about his chosen job as nursemaid to the
streets. Khaki broke the everyday street scene and he had to take a lot of unpleasant
remarks about dodging the army and taking 3 5s 0d. for sitting by a telephone that never
rang and polishing a whistle that never played a tune. He was either a comedian or a
coward. Until one day in September when he fell flat on his face in a road. He was covered
with bricks and dust.
From that day it was Smith's war. From that day Mr. Smith was the hero of the
streets to everybody but Mr. Smith. He regards himself as a "trained officer of incidents" --
that delightful piece of under-statement that so fits his character. For an "incident" can mean
climbing into fires, burrowing under crushed homes, or comforting a broken spirit.
But perhaps the greatest battle of all in those early days was a personal one. Smith
had to adjust his warm, sentimental, domestic nature to the grim agonising sights of the night.
He loves humanity, in all its virtue and vice, and it was a shock for him to see the pain and
distortion of life around him. Yet he corseted his sentimentality with the months of training he
had had and became the handyman of the blitz.
Smith's post is in a basement on the corner of a street in Stepney. He was resting --
not sleeping -- when I met him. He can only sleep in the daytime now.
There were half a dozen other men at the post who, apart from their names, were no more
distinctive than Smith...
Smith began to tell me about that first night, the night he fell in the road and broke his
glasses. A bomb just a few yards from him had hit a block of buildings, and there were
eleven people trapped on the ground floor.
"It was a noisy night, but every time we bent low we could hear the groans of the
people underneath. I thought I'd be sick. I held a man's hand that was clear. It took us nine
hours to get him out. An hour later we got a Woman out. They were in a bad way. There
was dirt and blood caked on the woman's face. We wiped it off. She must have been
about thirty. They both died. We were all a bit quiet. It was the first we'd seen. We couldn't
have got them out quicker -- we'd torn our hands up dragging the stones away. But it was
awful seeing them take the last gasps as they lifted them into the ambulance."
Smith was quiet, even retelling the story, and one of the men said:
"It was the first, you see."
Then Smith told me about the next night -- the night when he was really "blooded".
Incendiaries had started a fire in one of the smaller streets and high explosives began to fall
into the fire. Smith approached the houses from the back and got through to the kitchen of
one of the houses.
"I fell over something. I picked it up and it was a leg. I stood there with it in my hand
wondering what I should do with it. I knew it was a woman's leg. I put it down and went to
look for the ambulance. They had got the fire out at the front. The ambulance men brought a
stretcher and I showed them the leg. Then we looked farther in and there were pieces all
over. All they said was they didn't need a stretcher."
As Smith sat thinking, his whole body seemed to pause
"Funny, I don't seem to remember what I thought that night. Surprising how you
forget things."
It would be slighting Smith's imagination to say that the sight in the kitchen did not
affect him. It did.
"You see, how we look at things now is like this. If they're alive you work like the
devil to keep 'em alive and get 'em out. We listen to their groans and know they have
breath in them. If they're dead there's nothing we can do. Getting upset hampers your
work."
So Smith learned not to over-indulge his sensitivity on seeing death, or torn limb and
flesh. His job was with the spark of life that survived.
91
The next day he took me round his streets in a baby car, showing me the damage.
Damage has been described over and over again, but I still like Smith's own description of
a house:
"Cut in two like a slice of cheese, showing all the little holes where the maggots
crawled in and out."
It has a touch of that high-flown philosophising that the Cockney is so fond of twisting
into his own flamboyant phrases.
The house was neatly cut. It was the usual scene -- the waxed flowers still on the
mantelpiece, the portrait of Grandma still hanging from the bedroom wall, the clock still ticking
on the wall. Yet in every house strange things remain intact. In this one there was a mirror
hanging in a shattered hall and the glass had not broken, china cups hanging over the kitchen
sink were still whole, the beer glasses on the sideboard were covered with plaster, but
unbroken. I pointed this out to Smith.
"Same as the 'umans. Some of the skinniest get through all right and some of the big
ones come off worst."
As we wandered through these broken streets people called out to Smith.
"Any more bombs?" or "When do we get the roof mended?" They all knew Mr.
Smith the Warden. He walked through the streets like the squire of a village, smiling and
chatting to the people standing at their doors.
A woman came out of the huddle round the canteen.
"We looked for you on Wednesday and couldn't find you. My husband wants to
say thank you and buy you a pint," she said.
Smith told me that story as we went back to his post They had discovered a D.A.
bomb in a garden. They knew there were people in the house, so they went round
knocking at the door, telling them to get out. At the end of the street a small high explosive
had broken one house. They thought the house was empty until they were moving the
others. Then one of the men said he had heard a sound from the back of the garden. With
the delayed action bomb only a few yards away, the wardens began to investigate. They
found that a huge piece of the wall had locked a man and wife in the Anderson. For two
hours they worked, wondering all the time if the delayed action was going up. They got the
man and wife out and then ran down the street. And an hour later the bomb exploded.
"Lucky to be alive," said Smith casually. Smith is a little man but only in his size.
We had a cup of tea at the post and Smith went over to a box marked "Biscuits".
He shook it. There was no sound, so he cursed.
"If there's one thing I like it's a chocolate biscuit with my tea."
Source: Hilde Marchant, Women and Children Last: A Woman Reporter's Account of the Battle of Britain,
(V. Gollancz, 1941), pp. 115-119, 123-24, 125-26, 126-27.
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Documents for
Assignment #12: Post-war and Cold War
CHURCHILL ON THE "IRON CURTAIN" (1946)
Speech delivered at Fulton, Missouri, after Churchill was out of office.
The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn
moment for the American democracy. With primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring
accountability to the future. As you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of
duty done but also feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is
here now, clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will
bring upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime...
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody
knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the
immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing
tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my
wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is sympathy and good will in Britain -- and I doubt
not here also -- toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through
many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the
Russians' need to be secure on her western frontiers from all renewal of German
aggression. We welcome her to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world.
Above all we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian
people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty, however, to place
before you certain facts about the present position in Europe -- I am sure I do not wish to,
but it is my duty, I feel, to present them to you.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Triest in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across
the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern
Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all
these famous cities and the populations around them lie in the Soviet sphere and all are
subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and increasing
measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone, with its immortal glories, is free to decide its
future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-
dominated Polish government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful
inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous
and undreamed of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in
all these eastern states of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far
beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police
governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia,
there is no true democracy. Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at
the claims which are made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow
government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-
Communist party in their zone of occupied Germany by showing special favors to groups
of Left-Wing German leaders... Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts --
and facts they are --this is certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it
one which contains the essentials of permanent peace...
What we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent
prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly
as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our
eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will
93
they be relieved by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement and the
longer this is delayed the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.
From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that
there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have
less respect than for military weakness... If the western democracies stand together in strict
adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter, their influence for furthering these
principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. If, however, they become
divided or falter in their duty, and if these all-important years are allowed to slip away, then
indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.
Source: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchil , ed and with an introduction by
David Cannadine (Houghton Mifflin, 1989), pages 296-97, 303-4, 306-7.
LEN DEIGHTON: BERLIN GAME (1983)
"How long have we been sitting here?" I said. I picked up the field glasses and
studied the bored young American soldier in his glass-sided box.
"Nearly a quarter of a century," said Werner Volkmann. His arms were resting on the
steering wheel and his head was slumped on them. "That G.I. wasn't even born when we
first sat here waiting for the dogs to bark."
Barking dogs, in their compound behind the remains of the Hotel Adlon, were
usually the first sign of something happening on the other side. The dogs sensed any
unusual activity long before the handlers came to get them...
"That American soldier wasn't born, the spy thriller he's reading wasn't written, and
we both thought the Wall would he demolished within a few days. We were stupid kids but
it was better then, wasn't it, Bernie?"
"It's always better when you're young, Werner," I said. This side of Checkpoint
Charlie had not changed. There never was much there: just one small hut and some signs
warning you about leaving the Western Sector. But the East German side had grown far
more elaborate. Walls and fences, gates and barriers, endless white lines to mark out the
traffic lanes. Most recently they'd built a huge walled compound where the tourist buses
were searched and tapped and scrutinized by gloomy men who pushed wheeled mirrors
under every vehicle lest one of their fellow-countrymen was clinging there.
The checkpoint is never silent. The great concentration of lights that illuminate the East
German side produces a steady hum like a field of insects on a hot summer's day. Werner
raised his head from his arms and shifted his weight. We both had sponge-rubber
cushions under us; that was one thing we'd learned in a quarter of a century. That and taping
the door switch so the interior light didn't come on every time the car door opened. "I wish I
knew how long Zena will stay in Munich," said Werner.
"Can't stand Munich," I told him. "Can't stand those bloody Bavarians, to tell you the
truth."
"I was only there once," said Werner. "It was a rush job for the Americans. One of our
people was badly beaten and the local cops were no help at all." Even Werner's English
was spoken with the strong Berlin accent that I'd known since we were at school. Now he
was forty years old, thickset, with black bushy hair, black mustache, and sleepy eyes that
made it possible to mistake him for one of Berlin's Turkish population. He wiped a spyhole
of clear glass in the windscreen so that he could see into the glare of fluorescent lighting.
Beyond the silhouette of Checkpoint Charlie,
Friedrichstrasse in the East Sector shone as bright as day. "No," he said. "I don't like Munich
at all."
The night before, Werner after many drinks had confided to me the story of his wife
Zena running off with a man who drove a truck for the Coca-Cola company. For the
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previous three nights, he'd provided me with a place on a lumpy sofa in his smart
apartment in Dahlem, right on the edge of Grunewald. But sober we kept up the pretense
that his wife was visiting a relative. "There's something coming now," I said.
Werner did not bother to move his head from where it rested on the seatback. "It's a
tan-colored Ford. It will come through the checkpoint, park over there while the men inside
have a coffee and hot dog, then they'll go back into the East Sector just after midnight."
I watched. As he'd predicted, it was a tan-colored Ford, a panel truck, unmarked, with
West Berlin registration.
"We're in the place they usually park," said Werner. "They're Turks who have
girlfriends in the East. The regulations say you have to be out before midnight. They go
back there again after midnight."
"They must be some girls!" I said.
"A handful of Westmarks goes a long way over there," said Werner. "You know that,
Bernie." A police car with two cops in it cruised past very slowly. They recognized Werner's
Audi and one of the cops raised a hand in a weary salutation. After the police car moved
away, I used my field glasses to see right through the barrier to where an East German
border guard was stamping his feet to restore circulation. It was bitterly cold.
Werner said, "Are you sure he'll cross here, rather than at the Bornholmerstrasse or
Prinzenstrasse checkpoint?"
"You've asked me that four times, Werner."
"Remember when we first started working for intelligence. Your dad was in charge
then -- things were very different. Remember old Mr. Gaunt -- the fat old man who could
sing all those funny Berlin cabaret songs-betting me fifty marks it would never go up. . . the
Wall, I mean. I was only eighteen or nineteen, and fifty marks was a lot of money in those
days."
"Silas Gaunt, that was. He'd been reading too many of those 'guidance reports' from
London," I said. "For a time he convinced me you were wrong about everything, including
the Wall."
"But you didn't make any bets," said Werner. He poured some black coffee from his
thermos into a paper cup and passed it to me.
"But I volunteered to go over there that night they closed the sector boundaries. I
was no brighter than old Silas. It was just that I didn't have fifty marks to spare for betting."
"The cabdrivers were the first to know. About two o'clock in the morning, the radio
cabs were complaining about the way they were being stopped and questioned each time
they crossed. The dispatcher in the downtown taxi office told his drivers not to take anyone
else across to the East Sector, and then he phoned me to tell me about it."
"And you stopped me from going," I said.
"Your dad told me not to take you."
"But you went over there, Werner. And old Silas went with you." So my father had
prevented my going over there the night they sealed off the sector. I didn't know it until
now.
"We went across about four-thirty that morning. There were Russian trucks, and lots
of soldiers dumping rolls of barbed wire outside the Charity Hospital. We came back quite
soon. Silas said the Americans would send in tanks and tear the wire down. Your dad said
the same thing, didn't he?"
"The people in Washington were too bloody frightened, Werner. The stupid
bastards at the top thought the Russkies were going to move this way and take over the
Western Sector of the city. They were relieved to see a wall going up."
"Maybe they know things we don't know," said Werner.
"You're right," I said. "They know that the service is run by idiots. But the word is
leaking out."
Werner permitted himself a slight smile. "And then, about six in the morning, you
heard the sound of the heavy trucks and construction cranes. Remember going on the back
of my motorcycle to see them stringing the barbed wire across Potsdamerplatz? I knew it
95
would happen eventually. It was the easiest fifty marks I ever earned. I can't think why Mr.
Gaunt took my bet."
"He was new to Berlin," I said. "He'd just finished a year at Oxford, lecturing on
political science and all that statistical bullshit the new kids start handing out the moment they
arrive."
"Maybe you should go and lecture there," said Werner with just a trace of sarcasm.
"You didn't go to university did you, Bernie?" It was a rhetorical question. "Neither did I. But
you've done well without it." I didn't answer, but Werner was in the mood to talk now. "Do
you ever see Mr. Gaunt? What beautiful German he spoke. Not like yours and mine --
Hochdeutsch, beautiful."
Source: Len Deighton, Berlin Game (New York: Ballantine Books 1983), pp. 1-5.
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Documents for
Assignment #13: 1960s to Now
ALAN SILLITOE: THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE
RUNNER (1959)
As soon as I got to Borstal they made me a long-distance cross-country runner. I
suppose they thought I was just the build for it because I was long and skinny for my age
(and still am) and in any case I didn't mind it much, to tell you the truth, because running had
always been made much of in our family, especially running away from the police. I've
always been a good runner, quick and with a big stride as well, the only trouble being that
no matter how fast I run, and I did a very fair lick even though I do say so myself, it didn't
stop me getting caught by the cops after that bakery job.
You might think it a bit rare, having long-distance cross-country runners in Borstal,
thinking that the first thing a long-distance runner would do when they set him loose at them
fields and woods would be to run as far away from the place as he could get on a bellyful of
Borstal slumgullion -- but you're wrong, and I'll tell you why. The first thing is that them
bastards over us aren't as daft as they most of the time look, and for another thing I am not
so daft as I would look if I tried to make a break for it on my long-distance running, because
to abscond and then get caught is nothing but a mug's game, and I'm not falling for it.
Cunning is what counts in this life, and even that you've got to use in the slyest way you
can; I'm telling you straight: they're cunning, and I'm cunning. If only 'them' and 'us' had the
same ideas we'd get on like a house on fire, but they don't see eye to eye with us and we
don't see eye to eye with them, so that's how it stands and how it will always stand. The
one fact is that all of us are cunning, and because of this there's no love lost between us. So
the thing is that they know I won't try to get away from them: they sit there like spiders in that
crumbly manor house, perched like jumped-up jackdaws on the roof, watching out over the
drives and fields like German generals from the tops of tanks. And even when I jog-trot on
behind a wood and they can't see me anymore they know my sweeping-brush head will
bob along that hedge top in an hour's time and that I'll report to the bloke on the gate.
Because when on a raw and frosty morning I get up at five o'clock and stand shivering my
belly off on the stone floor and all the rest still have another hour to snooze before the bells
go, I slink downstairs through all the corridors to the big outside door with a permit running-
card in my fist, I feel like the first and last man on the world, both at once, if you can believe
what I'm trying to say. I feel like the first man because I've hardly got a stitch on and am sent
against the frozen fields in a shimmy and shorts -- even the first poor bastard dropped on
to the earth in midwinter knew how to make a suit of leaves, or how to skin a pterodactyl for
a topcoat. But there I am, frozen stiff, with nothing to get me warm except a couple of hours'
long-distance running before breakfast, not even a slice of bread-and-sheep dip. They're
training me up fine for the big sports day when all the pig-faced snotty-nosed dukes and
ladies -- who can't add two and two together and would mess themselves like loonies if
they didn't have slavies to beck-and-call --come and make speeches to us about sports
being just the thing to get us leading an honest life and keep our itching finger-ends off them
shop locks and safe handles and hairgrips to open gas meters. They give us a bit of blue
ribbon and a cup for a prize after we've shagged ourselves out running or jumping, like race
horses, only we don't get so well looked-after as race horses, that's the only thing.
So there I am, standing in the doorway in shimmy and shorts, not even a dry crust in
my guts, looking out at frosty flowers on the ground. I suppose you think this is enough to
make me cry? Not likely. Just because I feel like the first bloke in the world wouldn't make
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me bawl. It makes me feel fifty times better than when I'm cooed up in that dormitory with
three hundred others. No, it's sometimes when I stand there feeling like the last man in the
world that I don't feel so good. I feel like the last man in the world because I think that all
those three hundred sleepers behind me are dead. They sleep so well I think that every
scruffy head's kicked the bucket in the night and I'm the only one left, and when I look out into
the bushes and frozen ponds I have the feeling that it's going to get colder and colder until
everything I can see... is going to be covered with a thousand miles of ice, all the earth, right
up to the sky and over every bit of land and sea. So I try to kick this feeling out and act like
I'm the first man on earth. And that makes me feel good, so as soon as I'm steamed up
enough to get this feeling in me, I take a flying leap out of the doorway, and off I trot...
It's a good life, I'm saying to myself, if you don't give in to coppers and Borstal-
bosses and the rest of them bastard-faced In-laws. Trot-trot-trot. Puff-puff-puff. Slap-slap-
slap go my feet on the hard soil. Swish-swish-swish as my arms and side catch the bare
branches of a bush. For I'm seventeen now, and when they let me out of this -- if I don't
make a break and see that things turn out otherwise -- they'll try to get me in the army, and
what's the difference between the army and this place I'm in now? They can't kid me, the
bastards. I've seen the barracks near where I live, and if there weren't swaddies on guard
outside with rifles you wouldn't know the difference between their high walls and the place
I'm in now. Even though the swaddies come out at odd times a week for a pint of ale, so
what? Don't I come out three mornings a week on my long-distance running, which is fifty
times better than boozing. When they first said that I was to do my long-distance running
without a guard pedaling beside me on a bike I couldn't believe it; but they called it a
progressive and modern place, though they can't kid me because I know it's just like any
other Borstal, going by the stories I've heard, except that they let me trot about like this.
Borstal's Borstal no matter what they do; but anyway I moaned about it being a bit thick
sending me out so early to run five miles on an empty stomach, until they talked me round
to thinking it wasn't so bad -- which I knew all the time -- until they called me a good sport
and patted me on the back when I said I'd do it and that I'd try to win them the Borstal Blue
Ribbon Prize Cup For Long-Distance Cross-Country Running (All England).
Source: Alan Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1959), pp. 7-11.
HAROLD PINTER: THE HOMECOMING (1965)
LENNY. Where's my cheese-roll?
Pause.
Someone's taken my cheese-roll. I left it there. (To SAM.) You been thieving?
TEDDY. I took your cheese-roll, Lenny.
Silence.
SAM looks at them, picks up his hat and goes out of the front door.
Silence.
LENNY. You took my cheese-roll?
TEDDY. Yes.
LENNY. I made that roll myself. I cut it and put the butter on.
I sliced a piece of cheese and put it in between. I put it on a plate and I put it in the
sideboard. I did all that before I went out. Now I come back and you've eaten it.
TEDDY. Well, what are you going to do about it?
LENNY. I'm waiting for you to apologize.
TEDDY. But I took it deliberately, Lenny.
Pause.
LENNY. You mean you didn't stumble on it by mistake?
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TEDDY. No, I saw you put it there. I was hungry, so I ate it.
Pause.
LENNY. Barefaced audacity.
Pause.
What led you to be so... vindictive against your own brother? I'm bowled over.
Pause.
Well, Ted, I would say this is something approaching the naked truth, isn't it? It's a real cards
on the table stunt. I mean, we're in the land of no holds barred now. Well, how else can you
interpret it? To pinch your younger brother's specially made cheese-roll when he's out
doing a spot of work, that's not equivocal, it's unequivocal.
Pause.
Mind you, I will say you do seem to have grown a bit sulky during the last six years. A bit
sulky. A bit inner. A bit less forthcoming. It's funny, because I'd have thought that in the
United States of America, I mean with the sun and all that, the open spaces, on the old
campus, in your position, lecturing, in the centre of all, the intellectual life out there, on the old
campus, all the social whirl, all the stimulation of it all, all your kids and all that, to have fun with,
down by the pool, the Greyhound buses and all that, tons of iced water, all the comfort of
those Bermuda shorts and all that, on the old campus, no time of the day or night you can't
get a cup of coffee or a Dutch gin, I'd have thought you'd have grown more forthcoming, not
less. Because I want you to know that you set a standard for us, Teddy. Your family looks
up to you, boy, and you know what it does? It does its best to follow the example you set.
Because you're great source of pride to us. That's why we were so glad to see you come
back, to welcome you back to your birthplace...
Pause.
No, listen, Ted, there's no question that we live a less rich life here than you do over there.
We live a closer life. We're busy, of course. Joey's busy with his boxing, I'm busy with my
occupation, Dad still plays a good game of poker, and he does the cooking as well, well up
to his old standard, and Uncle Sam's the best chauffeur in the firm. But nevertheless we do
make up a unit, Teddy, and you're an integral part of it. When we all sit round the backyard
having a quiet gander at the night sky, there's always an empty chair standing in the circle,
which is in fact yours. And so when you at length return to us, we do expect a bit of grace, a
bit of je ne sais quoi, a bit of generosity of mind, a bit of liberality of spirit, to reassure us.
We do expect that. But do we get it? Have we got it? Is that what you've given us?
Pause.
TEDDY. Yes.
Source: Harold Pinter, The Homecoming (New York: Grove Press, 1965) pp. 63-65.
TOM STOPPARD: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE
DEAD (1967)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet, courtiers
used as a foil for Hamlet's feigned madness. In this scene, the person they're referring to is
Hamlet himself, who has recently walked across the stage.
ROSENCRANTZ: Who was that?
GUlLDENSTERN: Didn't you know him?
ROS: He didn't know me.
99
GUlL: He didn't see you.
ROS: I didn't see him.
GUlL: We shall see. I hardly knew him, he's changed.
ROS: You could see that?
GUlL: Transformed.
ROS: How do you know?
GUlL: Inside and out.
ROS: I see.
GUlL: He's not himself.
ROS: He's changed.
GUlL: I could see that.
Beat.
Glean what afflicts him.
ROS: Me?
GUlL: Him.
ROS: How?
GUlL: Question and answer. Old ways are the best ways.
ROS: He's afflicted.
GUlL: You question, I'll answer.
ROS: He's not himself, you know.
GUlL: I'm him, you see.
Beat.
ROS: Who am I then?
GUlL: You're yourself.
ROS: And he's you?
GUlL: Not a bit of it.
ROS: Are you afflicted?
GUlL: That's the idea. Are you ready?
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ROS: Let's go back a bit.
GUlL: I'm afflicted.
ROS: I see.
GUlL: Glean what afflicts me.
ROS: Right.
GUlL: Question and answer.
ROS: How should I begin?
GUlL: Address me.
ROS: My dear Guildenstern!
GUlL (quietly): You've forgotten -- haven't you?
ROS: My dear Rosencrantz!
GUlL (great control): I don't think you quite understand. What we are attempting is a
hypothesis in which I answer for him, while you ask me questions.
ROS: Ah! Ready?
GUlL: You know what to do?
ROS: What?
GUlL: Are you stupid? ...
Pause.
ROS (starts up. Snaps fingers): Oh! You mean-you pretend to be him, and I ask you
questions!
GUlL (dry): Very good.
ROS: You had me confused.
GUlL: I could see I had.
ROS: How should I begin?
GUlL: Address me.
They stand and face each other, posing.
ROS: My honoured Lord!
GUlL: My dear Rosencrantz!
101
Pause.
ROS: Am I pretending to be you, then?
GUlL: Certainly not. If you like. Shall we continue?
ROS: Question and answer.
GUlL: Right.
ROS: Right. My honoured lord!
GUlL: My dear fellow!
ROS:How are you?
GUlL: Afflicted!
ROS:Really? In what way?
GUlL: Transformed.
ROS:Inside or out?
GUlL: Both.
ROS:I see. (Pause.) Not much new there.
GUlL: Go into details. Delve. Probe the background, establish the situation.
ROS: So -- so your uncle is the king of Denmark?!
GUlL: And my father before him.
ROS: His father before him?
GUlL: No, my father before him. . . .
ROS: Let me get it straight. Your father was king. You were his only son. Your father dies.
You are of age. Your uncle becomes king.
GUlL: Yes.
ROS: Unorthodox.
GUlL: Undid me.
ROS: Undeniable. Where were you?
GUlL: In Germany.
ROS: Usurpation, then.
GUlL: He slipped in.
102
ROS: Which reminds me.
GUlL: Well, it would.
ROS: I don't want to be personal.
GUlL: It's common knowledge.
ROS: Your mother's marriage.
GUlL: He slipped in.
Beat.
ROS (lugubriously): His body was still warm.
GUlL: So was hers.
ROS: Extraordinary.
GUlL: Indecent.
ROS: Hasty.
GUlL: Suspicious.
ROS: It makes you think.
GUlL: Don't think I haven't thought of it.
ROS: And with her husband's brother.
GUlL: They were close.
ROS: She went to him--
GUlL: --Too close--
ROS: --for comfort.
GUlL: It looks bad.
ROS: It adds up.
GUlL: Incest to adultery.
ROS: Would you go so far?
GUlL: Never.
ROS: To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies, you are his heir, you come back to
find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother popped onto his throne and
into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now why exactly are you
behaving in this extraordinary manner?
103
GUlL: I can't imagine!
Source: Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (New York: Grove Press, 1967) pp. 46-
51.
ARNOLD TOYNBEE (1972)
The present human threats to mankind's survival are notorious. The three principal
current man-made menaces are nuclear weapons, the pollution of mankind's habitat on this
planet, together with the using up of the planet's irreplaceable natural resources, and the
population explosion produced by a reduction in the death rate without a simultaneous
corresponding reduction in the birth-rate.
Taken together, these man-made menaces threaten mankind with extinction,
because they threaten to make the surface of our planet uninhabitable, and this limited area
is the only habitat we have or are likely ever to have...
It is surely clear that the first business on mankind's agenda ought now to be securing
its own survival by making sure that its habitat on Earth, which is mankind's sole patrimony,
should continue to be habitable by human beings. It is also surely clear that, since the whole
habitable and traversable and exploitable and pollutable part of the Earth's crust and air-
envelope has been knit together, for technological purposes, into a global unity, the
necessary effort to conserve it for human use must be a united and concerted effort by the
whole human race. The menaces of nuclear armaments, pollution, prodigality, and
overcrowding threaten us on a global scale. They cannot be dealt with effectively by a
cooperative human effort of less than global comprehensiveness...
The technological unification of our habitat is now an accomplished fact. Its economic
unification is hardly less complete, and even its social and cultural unification has been
accomplished at some levels...On the political plane, on the other hand, there has so far
been little discernible progress toward unification.
Indeed, there has been a quite marked accentuation of political disunity, both in fact
and in feeling. This increasing disharmony between politics and other human activities has
now reached a degree at which it is manifestly threatening mankind with catastrophe. Why
are we exposing ourselves to this fearful risk? Why, in our political life, are we so allergic to
the unifying tendency which has prevailed in other fields? It is important to try to identify and
understand the causes of this political misfit. To lay bare the causes is the most promising
first step toward finding a cure.
The most obvious cause is the persistent disunity of the Western civilization, since it
is the Western peoples who, within the last five hundred years, have initiated the global
unification of mankind on a number of non-political planes...
This political division of the modern Westerners into a number of mutually hostile
nation-states has now been imitated by the non-Western majority of mankind. During the
two centuries and a half that ended in the two world wars, the West was manifestly
dominant in the world. Consequently, Western institutions acquired prestige. Non-Western
peoples who revolted against Western domination adopted the Western political ideology
of nationalism because they believed this had been the source of the West's strength. The
dissolution of the West European national states' colonial empires during and since the
Second World War has resulted in a doubling of the number of the world's local sovereign
independent states. Each formerly subject territory that has recovered its political
independence has set itself up as a national state in imitation of the Western national state
whose rule it has shaken off.
104
The tendency to increase the number and to reduce the average size of local
sovereign states has been stimulated, both in the West and elsewhere, by the nineteenth-
century Western political doctrine of self-determination...
Nationalism is the most potent of the causes of the political disunity of the present-
day world. Another cause is a revulsion from the impersonalness of modern life. Today,
human beings feel that they are being dehumanized; they are being reduced to ciphers, to
serial numbers, or to clusters of holes punched in cards made for "processing" through a
computer. People recognize that this dehumanization is a consequence of the increase in
the number of persons and things, e.g., in the size of the populations of states. They know
by experience that personal relations between human beings are more satisfactory than
impersonal relations. They infer that life would become more human in a state in which it was
possible for all the citizens to be acquainted with each other personally, and they argue from
this premise that the breakup of states into smaller and smaller pieces is to be welcomed.
The premise is correct, but the conclusion drawn from it is fallacious because the
objective is unattainable. A sovereign independent state small enough to become a family
affair would not be viable. No state -- not even a non-sovereign component of a federation
-- has ever been as small as that. In the smallest of the historical city-states, the political
relations between the citizens have always been impersonal. They are inevitably
impersonal in a population of, say, as many as 10,000 men, women, and children all told;
when once this figure is reached, it makes no difference if it is increased to one million or to
ten million or to five hundred million. Present-day Scottish and Welsh nationalists dream that
they would find life more cosy in a separate Scottish or Welsh sovereign national state. In
truth, they would find themselves no less depersonalized in a state of this smaller scale than
they find themselves today as citizens of the United Kingdom...
It has been noted already that since 1945 -- the year in which the Second World
War culminated and ended in the invention and use of atomic weaponry -- some of the
sovereign national states of Western Europe have taken the radically new departure of
entering into a voluntary association in the E.E.C. This is a good augury, considering how
deeply ingrained is nationalism in the tradition of Western European peoples and how often
one or other of them has tried to subjugate the rest by force. If the Western European
peoples can unite with each other voluntarily, as they are now demonstrating they can, a
voluntary union of all man-kind, on a global scale, is not a utopian objective.
Source: Arnold Toynbee, "For the First Time in 30,000 Years", Worldview , 15, March 1972, pp. 5-9.
MARGARET THATCHER ON CONSERVATISM (1975)
From Speech to the Conservative Party Conference
Our Leaders have been different men with different qualities and different Styles, but
they all had one thing in common: each met the challenge of his time.
Now, what is the challenge of our time? I believe there are two: to overcome the
country's economic and financial problems, and to regain our confidence in Britain and
ourselves...
Whatever could I say about Britain that is half as damaging as what this Labour
Government has done to our country? Let us look at the record. It is the Labour
Government that has caused prices to rise at a record rate of 26 per cent a year. They told
us the Social Contract would solve everything, but now everyone can see that the so-
called Contract was a fraud -- a fraud for which the people of this country have had to pay a
very high price. It is the Labour Government whose past policies are forcing
unemployment higher than it need ever have been. Thousands more men and women are
losing their jobs every day, and there are going to be men and women, many of them
105
youngsters straight out of school, who will be without a job this winter because Socialist
Ministers spent last year attacking us instead of attacking inflation.
It is the Labour Government that brought the level of production below that of the
three-day week in 1974. We have really got a three-day week now, only it takes five days
to do it. It is the Labour Government that has brought us record peace-time taxation. They
have the usual Socialist disease: they have run out of other people's money. It is the
Labour Government that has pushed public spending to record levels. How have they
done it? By borrowing and borrowing. Never in the field of human credit has so much been
owed...
I sometimes think the Labour Party is like a pub where the mild is running out. If
someone does not do something soon all that is left will be bitter, and all that is bitter will be
Left.
Whenever I visit Communist countries their politicians never hesitate to boast about
their achievements. They know them all by heart; they reel off the facts and figures, claiming
this is the rich harvest of the Communist system. Yet they are not prosperous as we in the
West are prosperous, and they are not free as we in the West are free.
Our capitalist system produces a far higher standard of prosperity and happiness
because it believes in incentive and opportunity, and because it is founded on human
dignity and freedom. Even the Russians have to go to a capitalist country -- America -- to
buy enough wheat to feed their people -- and that after more than fifty years of a State-
controlled economy. Yet they boast incessantly, while we, who have so much more to
boast about, for ever criticize and decry. Is it not time we spoke up for our way of life? After
all, no Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in.
So let us have no truck with those who say the free enterprise system has failed.
What we face today is not a crisis of capitalism but of Socialism. No country can flourish if its
economic and social life is dominated by nationalization and State control...
We export more of what we produce than either West Germany, France, Japan or
the United States, and well over 90 per cent of these exports come from private
enterprise. It is a triumph for the private sector and all who work in it, and let us say so loud
and clear.
With achievements like that who can doubt that Britain can have a great future, and
what our friends abroad want to know is whether that future is going to happen.
Well, how can we Conservatives make it happen? Many of the details have already
been dealt with in the Conference debates. But policies and programmes should not just
be a list of unrelated items. They are part of a total vision of the kind of life we want for our
country and our children. Let me give you my vision: a man's right to work as he will, to
spend what he earns, to own property, to have the State as servant and not as master-
these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free country and on that freedom
all our other freedoms depend.
But we want a free economy, not only because it guarantees our liberties, but also
because it is the best way of creating wealth and prosperity for the whole country, and it is
this prosperity alone which can give us the resources for better services for the community,
better services for those in need.
By their attack on private enterprise, this Labour Government has made certain that
there will be next to nothing available for improvements in our social services over the next
few years. We must get private enterprise back on the road to recovery, not merely to
give people more of their own money to spend as they choose, but to have more money
to help the old and the sick and the handicapped. And the way to recovery is through
profits, good profits today leading to high investment, leading to well-paid jobs, leading to a
better standard of living tomorrow... The trouble here is that for years the Labour Party has
made people feel that profits are guilty unless proved innocent...
There is one part of this country where, tragically, defiance of the law is costing life
day after day. In Northern Ireland our troops have the dangerous and thankless task of trying
to keep the peace and hold a balance. We are proud of the way they have discharged their
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duty. This party is pledged to support the unity of the United Kingdom, to preserve that
unity and to protect the people, Catholic and Protestant alike. We believe our Armed
Forces must remain until a genuine peace is made. Our thoughts are with them and our
pride is with them, too.
I have spoken of the challenges which face us here in Britain -- the challenge to
recover economically and the challenge to recover our belief in ourselves -- and I have
shown our potential for recovery. I have dealt with some aspects of our strength and
approach and I have tried to tell you something of my personal vision and my belief in the
standards on which this nation was greatly built, on which it greatly thrived and from which in
recent years it has greatly fallen away. I believe we are coming to yet another turning point
in our long history. We can go on as we have been going and continue down, or we can
stop and with a decisive act of will say 'Enough'.
Let all of us here today, and others far beyond this hall who believe in our cause,
make that act of will. Let us proclaim our faith in a new and better future for our party and our
people; let us resolve to heal the wounds of a divided nation, and let that act of healing be
the prelude to a lasting victory.
Source: From The Revival of Britain: Speeches on Home and European Affairs, 1975-1988, Margaret
Thatcher, ed by Alistair Cooke, Aurum, 1989.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (1989)
From Amnesty International Report
Tens of thousands of people were deliberately killed in 1988 by government agents acting
beyond the limits of the law. They were victims of executions that evaded the judicial
process.
Killing grounds were many and varied. Some alleged opponents of governments, or
people targeted because of their religion, ethnic group,
language or political beliefs were killed in full public view; others in secret cells and remote
camps. Some victims were shot down near battlefields, others in mosques and churches,
hospital beds, public squares and busy city streets. Prison cells and courtyards, police
stations, military barracks and government offices were all sites of political killing by agents
of the state. Many people were killed in their own homes, some in front of their families.
Victims were assassinated by snipers, blown up by explosive devices or gunned
down in groups by assailants using automatic weapons. Others were stabbed, strangled,
drowned, hacked to death or poisoned. Many were tortured to death. In Colombia,
Guatemala, El Salvador, Syria and the Philippines victims were often severely mutilated
before they were killed. Their bodies were burned or slashed, ears and noses were
severed and limbs amputated.
A state of armed conflict was frequently the pretext, as well as the context, for
government campaigns of extrajudicial execution against those they considered
undesirable. Warfare makes it easier to evade accountability: not only is access by
independent observers limited but the dead can be characterized as combatants killed in
encounters or as the unavoidable civilian casualties of war. In Afghanistan forces of the
Afghan Government and the USSR summarily killed civilians and captive guerrillas. In one
incident a mosque was demolished, killing nine of the 12 captured guerrillas held within. In
Ethiopia troops combating guerrilla movements in Eritrea and Tigray carried out mass
executions of civilians accused of supporting the guerrillas. On one occasion hundreds of
people were reportedly forced into a shallow ditch and then crushed by army tanks. In
Burma measures to control the people in areas of insurgency included instant, illegal
executions of those found outside their communities or in possession of quantities of food
or other goods. In Peru massacres and summary executions largely replaced imprisonment
and trial by the courts in counter-insurgency zones under the control of the military...
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In many countries prisoners died as a consequence of torture...
Some prisoners died as a result of deliberate neglect -- by being denied medical
attention, by exposure, or from starvation...
Not all victims of extrajudicial execution were formally in custody when they were
killed, although all were under the state's control...
Governments sometimes targeted domestic human rights defenders for liquidation --
setting out to kill the people who most effectively monitor, report on and combat human
rights abuse. The victims have included leaders of local and national human rights
commissions, human rights lawyers and members of religious orders who have worked
actively for human rights and have helped dismantle the walls of silence, fear and lies
concealing gross human rights abuse. Some have been killed outright -- in El Salvador,
Guatemala, Colombia, and the Philippines. Others have been the object of persistent
death threats or have survived assassination attempts in public places.
Government denials and measures to muzzle or eliminate local witnesses were
often combined with efforts to exclude outsiders. In Burundi the authorities denied reports of
a pogrom of the Hutu majority and refused to allow an international commission of inquiry to
investigate how thousands of civilians had died. The Government of Iraq refused a request
by the United Nations Secretary-General to permit on-site investigation of the reported
killings of members of the Kurdish population...
Assessing whether killings carried out in the context of crowd control and against
violent opposition groups are lawful may depend on whether official policies on the use of
lethal force comply with international legal standards. Orders issued to security personnel
were in question in many countries in which unarmed civilians were shot dead during
demonstrations in 1988. They included Israel and the Occupied Territories, where over 300
Palestinian civilians were killed; Algeria, where at least 176 demonstrators died; Tibet,
where armed Chinese police killed dozens of pro-independence demonstrators; Burma,
where troops normally assigned to counter-insurgency operations killed hundreds of
demonstrators calling for an end to military rule...
International awareness of extrajudicial executions as a major human rights issue has
grown dramatically in the 1980s. The strengthening of human rights monitoring at a local
level in many countries and concerted efforts by international human rights organizations --
both governmental and nongovernmental -- have helped turn this awareness into action...
The 1980s have been marked by an extraordinary level of mass killings and
individual assassinations by government forces and by a significant change in the way they
are viewed by international public opinion. The international community receives more and
better information and is readier to cut through the fog of secrecy and deceit that cloaks illicit
government actions.
It is common practice for governments to attribute state-sponsored killings to
independent "death squads," vigilantes or uncontrollable intercommunal violence but it is
increasingly obvious that this may merely be a device to deflect public criticism from those
in authority.
Killings continue but the fact that reports of extrajudicial executions now rapidly
become known around the world is a new element in international relations. In the 1990s the
impact of public opinion and the remedial action of the international community should make
it more difficult for governments that aim to carry out killings which are murder by any other
name.
Source: Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report, 1989, pp. 9-15. (AI Index:
POL 10/02/89). Permission from Amnesty International, International Secretariat.
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LORD BUTLER: REVIEW OF INTELLIGENCE ON WEAPONS OF
MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ (2004)
PRESS CONFERENCE: OPENING STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN, THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD BUTLER OF BROCKWELL WEDNESDAY, 14
JULY 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. Thank you for coming to this press conference on the Report of the Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction which I have chaired and which the
Government has published today. May I introduce my colleagues
2. We were appointed as a Committee of Privy Counselors on 3 February and were
asked to report by the Parliamentary Summer Recess which we have managed to do. This
is a period of just under 6 months. We were asked to follow, in terms of procedures, the
precedent of the Falkland Islands Review under Lord Franks in 1982. That Review was
completed in an almost identical period...
15. Now Iraq. We have two chapters on Iraq one dealing with the role of intelligence in the
period leading up to the Iraq war and the second with specific issues which have been the
subject of public attention.
16. In the general chapter on Iraq we start from the end of the first Gulf war and look at
intelligence between then and the departure of the UN inspectors in 1998. We do so in
order to examine how that intelligence influenced the assessments in the later period and
our conclusions are set out in paras 207-9.
17. On the period up to 1998 we draw four main conclusions first of effective work carried
out by IAEA and UNSCOM, which was however not complete because of inability to
account for all Iraqs previously estimated stocks. Secondly, a progressive reduction in JIC
[Joint Intelligence Committee] estimates of Iraqs capabilities up to 1994/95. Thirdly,
following the defection of Saddam Husseins son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, which prompted
Iraqi declarations of programmes previously concealed, growing suspicions between 1995
and 1998 of what Iraq might be continuing to conceal. And fourthly more assured JIC
assessments of Iraqs nuclear capabilities than of its chemical and biological capabilities. The
latter are, of course, easier to conceal.
18. In the period 1998-2002, the weapons inspectors were no longer in Iraq and
intelligence sources were sparse, particularly on Iraqs chemical and biological weapons
programmes. Following the inspectors departure, some of Iraqs suspected remaining
facilities were attacked through the bombing operation, Desert Fox. The policy was one of
containment of Saddam, against a background of continuing suspicion and fears on the part
of the Government that the international will to retain sanctions was weakening [paras 213-
217].
19. There was limited intelligence suggesting Iraqi attempts to expand its missile
programme, to lay the foundations of a revived nuclear programme, and to develop
facilities which could be used for chemical and biological programmes...
20. Then 9/11 happened, followed by coalition action in Afghanistan, President Bushs axis
of evil speech, and growing evidence of United States focus on Iraq. This led to
reassessment of the British Governments policy towards Iraq in early 2002 and to the
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conclusion that stronger action (not necessarily military action) needed to be taken to enforce
Iraqi disarmament [paras 259-269].
21. This conclusion was not based on any new development in the intelligence picture on
Iraq [paras 284-285]. At that stage there was no recent intelligence that by itself would have
given rise to a conclusion that Iraq was of more immediate concern than the activities of
some other countries. The British Government, as well as being influenced by the concerns
of the US Government, saw a need for immediate action on Iraq because of the wider
historical and international context, especially Iraqs perceived continuing challenge to the
authority of the United Nations. The breach of UN Resolutions also provided a basis for
action but, if it were to take the form of offensive military action, it was recognised, first, that
the United Nations Security Council would need to be convinced that Iraq was in breach of
its obligations; second, that such proof would need to be incontrovertible and of large-scale
activity; and, third, that the intelligence then available was insufficiently robust to meet that
criterion. This was in March 2002...
32. The Report then covers a number of specific issues in relation to intelligence on Iraq on
which our conclusions can be summed up as follows:
-The JIC found no evidence of co-operation between the Iraqi regime and
Al Qaida [para 484].
-Assessments that Iraq sought uranium from Africa were well-founded on
intelligence [para 503].
-The report that Saddam could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes,
in the form in which it appeared in the JIC assessment and then in the Government dossier,
was unclear and the JIC should not have included it in this form. Since the war the validity of
the reporting chain which produced this report has become doubtful [para 511].
-Mobile laboratories have been found in Iraq but do not match the ones in the intelligence
reports which were relied on for evidence of Iraqs production of biological agent. Moreover,
we now know the one described by the source would not have been capable of producing
stocks of such agent [para 530].
-The aluminum tubes which Iraq sought to acquire were almost certainly intended for rockets
rather than evidence of an attempt to re-constitute a nuclear programme. Nevertheless, the
JIC were right to take seriously the possibility of their nuclear use [para 545].
-The JIC retained in its assessments for longer than the current evidence justified references
to Iraqs possible possession of plague agent [paras 562-565].
-The specific concerns raised by Dr Brian Jones and his staff about the September 2002
dossier were justified and the intelligence report on which his seniors relied in overruling
them should have been shown to the experts [paras 570, 572, 576-577].
-We found no evidence that a motive of the British Government in initiating military action
was security of oil supplies [para 579]...