Plantagenet

England

The second volume of Sir Arthur Bryant’s Story of Eng land is as meticulous and de tailed as all his writing. But it is not designed for light moments of relaxation for all that it comes within the category of ‘‘popular history”.

TT is 10 years since the first volume, . Makers of the Realm, was pub lished and it was originally the inten tion of the author to finish the rest of the history in two further volumes.

However, as The Age of Chivalry, which makes up volume two, covers only a comparatively brief period in English history—the 125 years be tween the time of Edward Ts acces sion to the throne and when Richard 11 was forced to abdicate—three fur ther volumes will now be necessary. v, .^ rt^ur 65 it is obvious mat it will be necessary to shorten

the intervals between volumes if he hopes to accomplish the task in his lifetime.

The period covered in the present volume was one of transition for the English. At its beginning, England still ruled large tracts of Europe, her governing class spoke French and she was linked strongly to the rest of Latin Christendom and its preoccupa tion with freeing the Holy Land.

When Edward returned to England in 1274, he had been away four years on a Crusade and for two of those years he had been King.

At the end of the period, England had lost her possessions in Europe, had subdued the Welsh (but not the Scots), had weathered the Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt and had become what she has been, for most of the time, ever since—a par liamentary monarchy. This recon ciliation of what appeared to be two irreconcilable political forces has been an important contribution to the evolution and civilisation of man

kind.-

JT.

(THE AGE OP CHIVALRY-The Story of England. Published by Collins. 47/6.)

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