A

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

FROM THE FIRST

INVASION BY THE ROMANS

TO THE

ACCESSION OF WILLIAM AND MARY,

IN 1688.

BY JOHN LINGARD, D. D.

FROM THE LAST REVISED LONDON EDITION.

IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

BOSTON:

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,

110 WASHINGTON STREET.

MDCCCLIII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, oy

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

PREFACE

TO THE NEW AMERICAN EDITION OF LINGARD'S

HISTORY.

THIS is the latest history of England, claiming original authority, so far as it is a record of the events of the first seventeen centuries of the Christian era. For that period, no other leading historian has made use of the great mass of materials recently thrown open to examination. For the whole time, therefore, previous to that treated by Mr. Macaulay, Dr. Lingard's history may fairly be considered a leading authority by the general reader.

Roman Catholics, especially, will always hold his work in esteem. But most critics have awarded to him the credit of attempting complete impartiality in his decisions of questions bearing on the history of the Roman church. His early studies as an ecclesiastic of that church predisposed him to use for it authorities in church history which had escaped the notice or the study of other authors. It cannot be supposed, of course, that, with such early studies, and with a conscientious attachment to that church, he should exhibit no bias towards it, or write such a history as a Protestant