: David Hume
: The History of England I B
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: 9783736410381
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The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius Cæsar To The End Of The Reign Of James The Second The History of England (1754-61) is David Hume's great work on the history of England, which he wrote in instalments while he was librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. It was published in six volumes in 1754, 1756, 1759, and 1761. The first publication of his History was greeted with outrage by all political factions, but it became a best-seller, finally giving him the financial independence he had long sought. Both the British Library and the Cambridge University Library, as well as Hume's own library, still list him as 'David Hume, the historian.'Hume's History spanned 'from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688' and went through over 100 editions. Many considered it the standard history of England in its day.

* Ypod. Neust. p. 464.

     ** Page 232. M. West (p. 216) ascribes this counsel to
     Peter, bishop of Winchester.

     *** M. Paris, p. 259.

     **** M. Paris, p. 259, 260, 261, 266. Chron. T. Wykes, p.
     41, 47 Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221. M. West, p. 291,
     301.

The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom, was Peter, bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been raised by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his arbitrary principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and abilities. This prelate had been left by King John justiciary and regent of the kingdom during an expedition which that prince made into France; and his illegal administration was one chief cause of that great combination among the barons, which finally extorted from the crown the charter of liberties, and laid the foundation of the English constitution. Henry, though incapable, from his character, of pursuing the same violent maxims which had governed his father, had imbibed the same arbitrary principles; and in prosecution of Peter's advice, he invited over a great number of Poictevins and other foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be trusted than the English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the great and independent power of the nobility.[*] Every office and command was bestowed on these strangers; they exhausted the revenues of the crown, already too much impoverished;[**] they invaded the rights of the people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power, drew on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom.[***]

1233.

The barons formed a combination against this odious ministry, and withdrew from parliament, on pretence of the danger to which they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins. When again summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should dismiss his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them out of the kingdom, and put the crown on another head, more worthy to wear it: [****] such was the style they used to their sovereign. They at last came to parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.

* M. Paris, p. 263

     ** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.

     *** M. Paris, p. 258

     **** M. Paris, p 265.

Peter des Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing dissension among them, and of bringing over to his party the earl of Cornwall, as well as t