A summary of the principal events in English history

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Page 26 - Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
Page 70 - ... it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice.
Page 38 - India islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the Protestant interest. All the Reformed churches scattered over Roman Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian.
Page 61 - Afrite; commanding manufactures to arise, as the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert; affording the means of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man; and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of Xerxes himself.
Page 61 - We have said that Mr. Watt was the great Improver of the steamengine ; but, in truth, as to all that is admirable in its structure, or vast in its utility, he should rather be described as its Inventor. It was by his inventions that its action was so regulated as to make it capable of being applied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his admirable...
Page 76 - Board is composed of unpaid members who do nothing — the Lord President of the Council, all the Secretaries of State, the Lord Privy Seal and the Chancellor of the Exchequer— a most august and reverend body.
Page 38 - After half a century, during which England had been of scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West India islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais.
Page 61 - ... conduct of his numerous manufactories, from four in the morning until nine at night. At fifty years of age he set to work to learn English grammar, and improve himself in writing and orthography. When he travelled, to save time, he went at great speed, drawn by four horses. Be it for good or for evil, Arkwright was the founder in England of the modern factory system, a branch of industry which has unquestionably proved a source of immense wealth to individuals and to the nation.
Page 46 - ... that the nation should not be obliged to engage in war for the defence of any dominions not belonging to the crown of England...
Page 66 - ... present he found it expedient to abandon. The cause of humanity gained another victory during this session. Hitherto the law had required that persons convicted of murder should be executed the next day but one after their conviction, unless that day should happen to be a Sunday, in which case they would be executed on the Monday. In the interval between the sentence and its execution they were to be fed on bread and water, and no person was to have access to them except the gaoler, the chaplain,...

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