[Illustration: LANDING OF THE ROMANS 54 B.C.]
Bill Nye's
Comic History of England
HEREIN WILL BE FOUND A RECITAL OF THE MANY EVENTFUL EVENTS WHICH
TRANSPIRED IN ENGLAND FROM THE DRUIDS TO HENRY VIII. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT
FEEL IT INCUMBENT ON HIM TO PRESERVE MORE THAN THE DATES AND FACTS, AND
THESE ARE CORRECT, BUT THE LIGHTS AND SHADES OF THE VARIOUS PICTURES AND
THE ORNAMENTAL WORDS FURNISHED TO ADORN THE CHARACTERS AND EVENTS ARE
THE SOLE INVENTION OF THIS HISTORIAN.
[Illustration: KING RICHARD TRAVELING INCOG. THROUGH GERMANY.]
ILLUSTRATED BY
W.W. GOODES & A.M. RICHARDS
1896
PREFACE.
The readers of this volume will share our regret that the preface cannot
be written by Mr. Nye, who would have introduced his volume with a
characteristically appropriate and humorous foreword in perfect harmony
with the succeeding narrative.
We need only say that this work is in the author's best vein, and will
prove not only amusing, but instructive as well; for the events,
successions, dates, etc., are correct, and the trend of actual facts is
adhered to. Of course, these facts are "embellished," as Mr. Nye would
say, by his fancy, and the leading historical characters are made to
play in fantastic _rôles_. Underneath all, however, a shrewd knowledge
of human nature is betrayed, which unmasks motives and reveals the true
inwardness of men and events with a humorous fidelity.
The unfortunate illness to which Mr. Nye finally succumbed prevented the
completion of his history beyond the marriage of Henry VIII. to Anne
Boleyn.
[Illustration: LANDING OF WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, AT TORBAY
(1688).]
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INVASION OF CAESAR: THE DISCOVERY OF TIN AND CONSEQUENT ENLIGHTENMENT OF
BRITAIN
CHAPTER II.
THE VARIOUS ROMAN YOKES: THEIR GROWTH, DEGENERATION, AND FINAL
ELIMINATION
CHAPTER III.
THE ADVENT OF THE ANGLES: CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE REHABILITATION OF
BRITAIN ON NEW LINES
CHAPTER IV.
THE INFLUX OF THE DANES: FACTS SHOWING CONCLUSIVELY THEIR INFLUENCE ON
THE BRITON OF TO-DAY
CHAPTER V.
THE TROUBLOUS MIDDLE AGES: DEMONSTRATING A SHORT REIGN FOR THOSE WHO
TRAVEL AT A ROYAL GAIT
CHAPTER VI.
THE DANISH OLIGARCHY: DISAFFECTIONS ATTENDING CHRONIC USURPATION
PROCLIVITIES
CHAPTER VII.
OTHER DISAGREEABLE CLAIMANTS: FOREIGN FOIBLES INTRODUCED, ONLY TO BE
EXPUNGED WITH CHARACTERISTIC PUGNACITY
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST: COMPLEX COMMINGLING OF FACETIOUS ACCORD AND
IMPLACABLE DISCORD
CHAPTER IX.
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM: SUCCESSFUL INAUGURATION OF HOMOGENEAL METHODS FOR
RESTRICTING INCOMPATIBLE DEMAGOGUES
CHAPTER X.
THE AGE OF CHIVALRY: LIGHT DISSERTATION ON THE KNIGHTS-ERRANT, MAIDS,
FOOLS, PRELATES, AND OTHER NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS OF THAT PERIOD
CHAPTER XI
CONQUEST OF IRELAND: UNCOMFORTABLE EFFECTS FOLLOWING THE CULTIVATION OF
AN ACQUISITORIAL PROPENSITY
CHAPTER XII.
MAGNA CHARTA INTRODUCED: SLIGHT DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN OVERCOMING
AN UNPOPULAR AND UNREASONABLE PREJUDICE
CHAPTER XIII.
FURTHER DISAGREEMENTS RECORDED: ILLUSTRATING THE AMIABILITY OF THE JEW
AND THE PERVERSITY OF THE SCOT
CHAPTER XIV.
IRRITABILITY OF THE FRENCH: INTERMINABLE DISSENSION, ASSISTED BY THE
PLAGUE, CONTINUES REDUCING THE POPULATION
CHAPTER XV.
MORE SANGUINARY TRIUMPHS: ONWARD MARCH OF CIVILIZATION GRAPHICALLY
DELINEATED WITH THE HISTORIAN'S USUAL COMPLETENESS
CHAPTER XVI.
UNPLEASANT CAPRICES OF ROYALTY: INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING AS A SUBSIDIARY
AID IN THE PROGRESS OF EMANCIPATION
CHAPTER XVII.
BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD III.: BEING AN ALLEGORICAL PANEGYRIC OF THE
INCONTROVERTIBLE MACHINATIONS OF AN EGOTISTICAL USURPER
CHAPTER XVIII.
DISORDER STILL THE POPULAR FAD: GENERAL ADMIXTURE OF PRETENDERS,
RELIGION, POLITICS, AND DISGRUNTLED MONARCHS
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF MARY REVIVED THE HOPES OF THE
FRIENDS OF JAMES II., AND CONSPIRACIES WERE FORMED.]
[Illustration: DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.]
[Illustration: GEORGE FOX.]
[Illustration: GENERAL BANKRUPTCY AND RUIN FOLLOWED THE CLOSING OF THE
EXCHEQUER OR TREASURY BY CHARLES II. (1672).]
[Illustration: CHARLES II.]
[Illustration: DUKE OF MONMOUTH IMPLORING FORGIVENESS OF JAMES II.
(1685).]
CHAPTER I.
INVASION OF CAESAR: THE DISCOVERY OF TIN AND CONSEQUENT ENLIGHTENMENT OF
BRITAIN.
[Illustration: BUST OF CAESAR.]
From the glad whinny of the first unicorn down to the tip end of the
nineteenth century, the history of Great Britain has been dear to her
descendants in every land, 'neath every sky.
But to write a truthful and honest history of any country the historian
should, that he may avoid overpraise and silly and mawkish sentiment,
reside in a foreign country, or be so situated that he may put on a
false moustache and get away as soon as the advance copies have been
sent to the printers.
The writer of these pages, though of British descent, will, in what he
may say, guard carefully against permitting that fact to swerve him for
one swift moment from the right.
England even before Christ, as now, was a sort of money centre, and
thither came the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians for their tin.
[Illustration: THE DISCOVERY OF TIN IN BRITAIN.]
[Illustration: CAESAR CROSSING THE CHANNEL.]
These early Britons were suitable only to act as ancestors. Aside from
that, they had no good points. They dwelt in mud huts thatched with
straw. They had no currency and no ventilation,--no drafts, in other
words. Their boats were made of wicker-work plastered with clay. Their
swords were made of tin alloyed with copper, and after a brief skirmish,
the entire army had to fall back and straighten its blades.
They also had short spears made with a rawhide string attached, so that
the deadly weapon could be jerked back again. To spear an enemy with
one of these harpoons, and then, after playing him for half an hour or
so, to land him and finish him up with a tin sword, constituted one of
the most reliable boons peculiar to that strange people.
[Illustration: CAESAR TREATING WITH THE BRITONS.]
Caesar first came to Great Britain on account of a bilious attack. On
the way across the channel a violent storm came up. The great emperor
and pantata believed he was drowning, so that in an instant's time
everything throughout his whole lifetime recurred to him as he went
down,--especially his breakfast.
Purchasing a four-in-hand of docked unicorns, and much improved in
health, he returned to Rome.
Agriculture had a pretty hard start among these people, and where now
the glorious fields of splendid pale and billowy oatmeal may be seen
interspersed with every kind of domestic and imported fertilizer in
cunning little hillocks just bursting forth into fragrance by the
roadside, then the vast island was a quaking swamp or covered by
impervious forests of gigantic trees, up which with coarse and shameless
glee would scamper the nobility.
(Excuse the rhythm into which I may now and then drop as the plot
develops.--AUTHOR.)
Caesar later on made more invasions: one of them for the purpose of
returning his team and flogging a Druid with whom he had disagreed
religiously on a former trip. (He had also bought his team of the
Druid.)
The Druids were the sheriffs, priests, judges, chiefs of police,
plumbers, and justices of the peace.
[Illustration: PLOUGHING 51 B.C.]
They practically ran the place, and no one could be a Druid who could
not pass a civil service examination.
[Illustration: DRUID SACRIFICES.]
They believed in human sacrifice, and often of a bright spring morning
could have been seen going out behind the bush to sacrifice some one who
disagreed with them on some religious point or other.
The Druids largely lived in the woods in summer and in debt during the
winter. They worshipped almost everything that had been left out
overnight, and their motto was, "Never do anything unless you feel like
it very much indeed."
Caesar was a broad man from a religious point of view, and favored
bringing the Druids before the grand jury. For uttering such sentiments
as these the Druids declared his life to be forfeit, and set one of
their number to settle also with him after morning services the question
as to the matter of immersion and sound money.
Religious questions were even then as hotly discussed as in later times,
and Caesar could not enjoy society very much for five or six days.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OR ANCIENT SCARECROW.]
At Stonehenge there are still relics of a stone temple which the Druids
used as a place of idolatrous worship and assassination. On Giblet Day
people came for many miles to see the exercises and carry home a few
cutlets of intimate friends.
After this Rome sent over various great Federal appointees to soften and
refine the people. Among them came General Agricola with a new kind of
seed-corn and kindness in his heart.
[Illustration: AGRICOLA ENCOURAGES AGRICULTURE.]
He taught the barefooted Briton to go out to the pump every evening and
bathe his chapped and soil-kissed feet and wipe them on the grass before
retiring, thus introducing one of the refinements of Rome in this cold
and barbaric clime.
Along about the beginning of the Christian "Erie," says an elderly
Englishman, the Queen Boadicea got so disgusted with the Romans who
carried on there in England just as they had been in the habit of doing
at home,--cutting up like a hallowe'en party in its junior year,--that
she got her Britons together, had a steel dress made to fight in
comfortably and not tight under the arms, then she said, "Is there any
one here who hath a culverin with him?" One was soon found and fired.
This by the Romans was regarded as an opening of hostilities. Her fire
was returned with great eagerness, and victory was won in the city of
London over the Romans, who had taunted the queen several times with
being seven years behind the beginning of the Christian Era in the
matter of clothes.
[Illustration: ROMAN COAT OF ARMS.]
Boadicea won victories by the score, and it is said that under the besom
of her wrath seventy thousand Roman warriors kissed the dust. As she
waved her sceptre in token of victory the hat-pin came out of her crown,
and wildly throwing the "old hot thing" at the Roman general, she missed
him and unhorsed her own chaperon.
Disgusted with war and the cooking they were having at the time, she
burst into tears just on the eve of a general victory over the Romans
and poisoned herself.
[Illustration: DEATH OF BOADICEA.]
N.B.--Many thanks are due to the author, Mr. A. Barber, for the use of
his works entitled "Half-Hours with Crowned Heads" and "Thoughts on
Shaving Dead People on Whom One Has Never Called," cloth, gilt top.
I notice an error in the artist's work which will be apparent to any one
of moderate intelligence, and especially to the Englishman,--viz., that
the tin discovered by the Phoenicians is in the form of cans, etc.,
formerly having contained tinned meats, fruits, etc. This book, I fear,
will be sharply criticised in England if any inaccuracy be permitted to
creep in, even through the illustrations. It is disagreeable to fall out
thus early with one's artist, but the writer knows too well, and the
sting yet burns and rankles in his soul where pierced the poisoned dart
of an English clergyman two years ago. The writer had spoken of Julius
Caesar's invasion of Britain for the purpose of replenishing the Roman
stock of umbrellas, top-coats, and "loydies," when the clergyman said,
politely but very firmly, "that England then had no top-coats or
umbrellas." The writer would not have cared, had there not been others
present.