the nation, and by other causes. Lewis the twelfth and Francis the firft, but efpecially Francis, meddled deep in the affairs of Europe: and though the fuperiour genius of Ferdinand called the Catholic, and the star of Charles the fifth prevailed against them, yet the efforts they made shew fufficiently how the strength and importance of this monarchy were increased in their time. From whence we may date likewife the rivalship of the house of France, for we may reckon that of Valois and that of Bourbon as one upon this occafion, and the houfe of Auftria; that continues at this day, and that has coft fo much blood and fo much treasure in the course of it.

II. IN ENGLAND.

Tho' the power and influence of the nobility funk in the great change that began under Henry the feventh in England, as they did in that which began under Lewis the eleventh in France; yet the new conftitutions that thefe changes produced were very different. In France the Lords alone loft, the king alone gained; the clergy held their poffeffions and their immunities, and the people remained in a state of mitigated flavery. But in England the people gained as well as the crown. The commons had already a fhare in the legislature; fo that the power and influence of the lords being broke by Henry the feventh, and the property of the commons increafing by the fale that his fon made of churchlands, the

power

power of the latter increafed of courfe by this change in a conftitution, the forms whereof were favourable to them. The union of the rofes put an end to the civil wars of York and Lancaster, that had fucceeded those we commonly call the Barons wars, and the humour of warring in France, that had lasted near four hundred years under the Normans and Plantagenets, for plunder as well as conqueft, was fpent. Our temple of Janus was fhut by Henry the feventh. We neither laid waste our own nor other countries any longer and wife laws and a wife government changed infenfibly the manners, and gave a new turn to the fpirit, of our people. We were no longer the free-booters we had been. Our nation maintained her reputation in arms whenever the public intereft or the public authority required it; but war ceafed to be, what it had been, our principle and almoft our fole profeffion. arts of peace prevailed among us. bandmen, manufacturers, and merchants, and we emulated neighbouring nations in literature. It is from this time that we ought to ftudy the hiftory of our country, my Lord, with the utmoft application. We are not much concerned to know with critical accuracy what were the ancient forms of our parliaments, concerning which, however, there is little room for difpute from the reign of Henry the third at least; nor in fhort the whole fyftem of our civil conftitution before Henry the feventh, and of our ecclefiaftical conftitution before Henry the eighth. But he who has not ftudied and acquired a thorough knowledge of them both, from thefe periods down. to the prefent time, in all the variety of events by VOL. I. which

L

The

We became huf

which they have been affected, will be very unfit to judge or to take care of either. Juft as little are we concerned to know, in any nice detail, what the conduct of our princes, relatively to their neighbours on the continent, was before this period, and at a time when the partition of power and a multitude of other circumftances rendered the whole political system of Europe fo vaftly different from that which has exifted fince. But he who has not traced this conduct from the period we fix, down to the prefent age, wants a principal part of the knowledge that every English minister of ftate fhould have. Ignorance in the refpects here spoken of is the lefs pardonable because we have more, and more authentic means of information concerning this, than concerning any other period. Anecdotes enow to glut the curiofity of fome perfons, and to filence all the captious cavils of others, will never be furnished by any portion of history; nor indeed can they according to the nature and course of human affairs: but he who is content to read and obferve, like a fena-` tor and a statesman, will find in our own and in foreign historians as much information as he wants, concerning the affairs of our island, her fortune at home and her conduct abroad, from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. I refer to foreign hiftorians, as well as to our own, for this feries of our own hiftory; not only because it is reasonable to fee in what manner the hiftorians of other countries have related the tranfactions wherein we have been concerned, and what judgement they have made of our conduct, domestic and foreign, but for another reafon likewife. Our nation has furnished as ample

and

:

and as important matter, good and bad, for history as any nation under the fun and yet we must yield. the palm in writing history moft certainly to the Italians and to the French, and, I fear, even to the Germans. The only two pieces of history we have in any respect to be compared with the antient, are, the reign of Henry the feventh by my Lord Bacon, and the hiftory of our civil wars in the laft century by your noble ancestor my Lord chancellor Clarendon.

But we have no general history to be compa red with fome of other countries: neither have we, which I lament much more, particular hiftories, except the twol have mentioned, nor writers of memorials, nor collectors of monuments and anecdotes, to vie in number or in merit with thofe that foreign nations can boaft; from Commines, Guicciardin, Dus Bellay, Paolo, Davila, Thuanus, and a multitude of others, down through the whole period that I propofe to your Lordship. But although this be true, to our shame; yet it is true likewife that we want no neceffary means of information. They lie. open to our industry and our difcernment. Foreign writers are for the most part fcarce worth reading when they speak of our domeftic affairs; nor are our English writers for the moft part of greater value when they fpeak of foreign affairs. In this mutual defect, the writers of other countries are, I think, more excufable than ours: for the nature of our government, the political principles in which we are bred, our distinct intereft as iflanders, and the complicated various intereft and humours of our parties, all thefe are fo peculiar to ourfelves, and lo different from the notions, manners, and habits of other

L 2

other nations, that it is not wonderful they fhould be puzzled, or fhould fall into errour, when they undertake to give relations of events that refult from all these, or to país any judgement upon them. But as thefe hiftorians are mutually defective, fo they mutually fupply each other's defects.. We must compare them therefore, make ufe of our difcernment, and draw our conclufions from both. If we proceed in this manner, we have an ample fund of history in our power, from whence to collect fufficient authentic information; and we muft proceed in this manner, even with our own hiftorians of different religions, fects, and parties, or run the rifque of being misled by domestic ignorance and prejudice. in this cafe, as well as by foreign ignorance and prejudice in the other.

III. In SPAIN and the EMPIRE.

Spain figured little in Europe till the latter part of the fifteenth century; till Caftile and Arragen were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Ifa. bella; till the total expulfion of the Moors, and till. the difcovery of the Weft-Indies. After this, not only Spain took a new form, and grew into immense power; but, the heir of Ferdinand and Ifabella being heir likewife of the houses of Burgundy and Auftria, fuch an extent of dominion accrued to him by all thefe fucceffions, and fuch an addition of rank and authority by his election to the empire, as no prince had been master of in Europe from the days of Charles the great. It is proper to obferve here, how the