LLUSTRATED R00551 64037 DICTIONARY OF GENERAL EDITOR: ARTHUR MARWICK CONTRIBUTING EDITORS CHRISTOPHER HARVIE • CHARLES RIGHTLY- KEITH WRIGHTSON 372 2.000 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND OVER ENTRIES $19-95 THE ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OP British History GENERAL EDITOR: ARTHUR MARWICK Here is the most up-to-date and authoritative companion to the main events, themes and personalities of British history. The dictionary ranges in time from prehistory to the present day and in content from subjects that have fascinated people for generations (the kings and queens of England and Scotland) to those on which historians have brought new insights in recent decades (the history of the family). The organization is alphabetical, with entries of varying lengths related to the importance of the topics concerned: there are surveys of major events or historical figures; short factual statements and one-line cross-references; and also some 20 interpretative essays on such subjects as Parliament, Monarchy, the British Empire and Roman Britain. The latter are a distinctive feature of the dictionary, making possible the exploration of key influences on the course of British history that do not emerge from the more basic documentation of names and events. The result provides the complete A-Z of British history, with entries ranging from Abdication Crisis to Zulu War. Concepts are used as entry headings only where their familiarity makes them useful as an introduction to historical debate (e.g. Industrial Revolution). Practical considerations — that is, where the reader will look for information - have therefore formed the basis for the decision under which heading to cover a particular point. Political, social, diplomatic, religious, economic and administrative history all feature, but so too does ‘history on the ground’, with commentaries or discussion of castles, towns and other places the reader might visit, and also technical terms (such as ‘blue books’ and ‘wills’) that he might encounter. The documentary value of visual sources, whether paintings, photographs or other media, is fully developed in more than 350 illustrations. Under the General Editorship of Professor Arthur Marwick the entries have been compiled by three specialist contributors, who have concentrated on meeting the needs both of the student — who cannot carry every relevant fact and date in his mind - and of a much wider audience: all of us, in fact, seeking guidance in the face of the multitude of historical references in newspapers, in novels, in conversation and everyday life. The Illustrated Dictionary of British History will take its place as the standard reference * * I • work. With 372 illustrations The royal arms on the jacket are taken from a chart showing the routes and campaigns of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in Great Britain, published in 1746. ISBN cnT,-T) o THE ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BRITISH HISTORY THE ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BRITISH HISTORY GENERAL EDITOR: ARTHUR MARWICK Contributing Editors Christopher Harvie, Charles Kightly, Keith Wrightson with 372 illustrations THAMES AND HUDSON Publisher’s note Cross references from one entry to another are identified by words printed in small capitals; they have been used where they might reasonably guide the reader to further information rather than employed as an inflexible rule on every occasion. Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser. © 1980 Thames and Hudson Introduction © 1980 Arthur Marwick First published in the USA in 1980 by Thames and Hudson, Inc., New York, New York 10110 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-51903 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed and bound in England by Jarrold and Sons, Norwich. Introduction History is an important subject? indeed, I would go as far as to say that it is an essential subject. It is impossible to understand the world, the society, the community in which we live, without knowing something of past developments in that world, society and community. Each is the creation of past events, and past decisions, and of the activities, deliberate and unconscious, of multitudes of human beings in the past. History is to the community as memory is to the individual. A society without a knowledge ofits history is a society without memory and without identity. To him who asks: ‘ What is the use ofhistory?’, the best answer is: ‘Imagine what it would be like to live in a society in which there was no knowledge of history.’ We call upon history all the time in everyday conversation, as when we argue about events in Northern Ireland or discuss the decline in the influence of the family. To talk of such a decline implies a reference to a past time when the family had a different status. History is not a given series of facts. The evidence upon which the historian builds up his account of events has to be ascertained from often difficult, complicated, and sometimes conflicting evidence. A second, more mundane justification for the study ofhistory is that, being fundamentally concerned with the handling of all sorts of source material, it provides a specially valuable training in coping with the immense deluge of conflicting evidence presented in newspapers, on television, by ‘experts’ and by word of mouth, which assaults us all the time in everyday life. Many, however, would reject utilitarian justifications for the study ofhistory. That there is an enjoyment in the study ofhistory, a poetic fascination with the past, is amply demonstrated by the success of local historical societies and by the sales of popular historical works. Much of the work of G. M. Trevelyan has now been superseded, but one can still agree with him that there is a sense of wonder over ‘the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth . . . walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone like ghosts at cockcrow.’ The meticulous medieval scholar May McKissack suggested that there exists in the human imagination an ‘instinctive wish to break down the barriers of time and mortality and so to extend the limits of human consciousness beyond the span of a single life.’ That instinct, it has been said, is akin to that aroused on those autumnal days when there is wood smoke in the air and a strange disordered nostalgia pervades the mind; or to the emotions inspired by distant church bells on a calm Sunday morning. Do such poetic explanations of the appeal of history sound too remote from everyday experience? They should not, for history is above all a subject for everyman. History is all around us in buildings, place names, enduring traditions. History, though a complex art and a taxing science when practised by its leading 5 figures, needs no baffling equations and conjures up no erudite jargon. History is important to everyone, and can be accessible to everyone. Historical study is not about individual ‘facts’, but about the relationships between facts. However, there can be no study at all of the important relationships without a knowledge of the basic raw material, people, events, and a broad knowledge of the order in which these occurred or appeared. This dictionary sets out to provide, among many other things, some of this basic raw material. Historical works, even those consciously aimed at the general reader, necessarily take facts and persons and events for granted; after all, in history, there are an awful lot of them. Readers wishing to check up on names so carelessly thrown out may, we hope, find them, and some guidance upon them, here. The lay reader, since history is so important and so all-embracing, will constantly come up against references to historical events, in newspapers, perhaps, or in novels, or in conversation: we hope he will be able to check up on these events here. But the serious student, too, cannot carry all relevant facts and dates in his mind: he or she, too, will be able to use this dictionary for reference. There are many topics which we, the editors, believe it would be good if you, the reader, knew something about. But this dictionary is not deliberately didactic in that sense. The entries, which come in straightforward alphabetical order, are intended to be the sort that the ordinary lay person would have occasion to want to look up. History is concerned with many other things than the organization and manipulation of power. It is concerned with social groups and social customsr-as well as with great men. There has also been particular emphasis upon ‘history-on- the-ground’: if we visit an old castle, a medieval town ora Roman villa, we want to know more about it; this dictionary tries to help. Also, because history belongs to everyman, and because many people have an interest in trying to practise it, in however a modest and local way, entries have been included on some of the technical terms and sources ofhistory: on ‘blue books’, for instance, and ‘wills’. On the whole, artistic and scientific developments are left out. The importance of visual sources — paintings, etchings, photographs — is increasingly being recognized: the illustrations in this dictionary are largely designed to show some of the potentialities of such ‘documents’. History depends upon both selection and interpretation. It is no more possible in this dictionary than it is in any history of Britain or any history of any particular period or topic to put in everything of significance. History is also, in the end, the historian’s own interpretation; there is never any God-given unchallengeable record. We try to present in our entries the accepted, uncontroversial facts. But still, even in the briefest entries, there must be some element of interpretation as well as selection. The longer the entry, the more scope there is for the legitimate interpretation of the individual contributor. But, of course, in a dictionary our aim must be to present what is widely accepted among the best authorities. Authorities, inevitably, disagree. This dictionary is no place for the provision of extended bibliographical information. But here and there, where we are citing an important interpretation which is particularly associated with one distinguished historian, we refer to that historian and give an example or two of his best-known work. More than that, a distinctive feature of this dictionary is the 22 ‘interpretative essays’ which make possible the exploration of an important topic not possible in the more basic treatment ot names and events. So that they do not get lost in the general alphabetical presentation, here at the outset is a list of them (note that Scotland and Ireland are not mentioned because they are dealt with in many separate entries): Prehistoric Britain (Charles Kightly) , Roman Britain (Charles Kightly) The church before the Reformation (Charles Kightly) Feudalism (Charles Kightly) Wales (Charles Kightly) Monarchy (Charles Kightly and Keith Wrightson) Law (Keith Wrightson) Parliament (Keith Wrightson) The Reformation (Keith Wrightson) The civil wars (Keith Wrightson) The Industrial Revolution (Keith Wrightson) The family (Keith Wrightson) The British empire (Christopher Harvie) The navy (Christopher Harvie) The army (Christopher Harvie) Transport since 1830 (Christopher Harvie) The women’s movement (Christopher Harvie) The Economy since 1870 (Christopher Harvie) World War I (Christopher Harvie) World War II (Christopher Harvie) The welfare state (Christopher Harvie) Class (Arthur Marwick) The authorship of the shorter entries has not been identified. Broadly, those up to 1500 have been written by Charles Kightly, those from 1500 to 1820 by Keith Wrightson, and those since 1 820 by Christopher Harvie. For what has been put in, these three contributing editors are largely responsible; for what has been cut out, I am solely responsible. The overall aim, within the limits set out above, has been comprehensiveness, but also compression within a dictionary of manageable size and tolerable price. Lastly, I would like to thank my publishers who, against my initial reluctance, persuaded me to take on this enterprise and who provided the logistic support necessary for carrying it through. Arthur Marwick ' /' 7