Living Nations of the World to-Day (part 1)

The world as it is known to-day comprises six great divisions or parts, namely, Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania or Australasia. The most dependable statistics estimate their area and population as follows:

AREA AND POPULATION OF THE EARTH BY CONTINENTS

Continental
Divisions Area in
Square
Miles Inhabitants

Number Per
Square
Mile

Africa 11,632,000 127,312,000 10 .9

America, N. 7,146,641 136,939,000 19 .1

America, S. 7,344,508 55,444,000 7 .55

Asia 17,470,282 842,100,000 48 .20

Australasia 3,456,290 8,000,000 2 .31

Europe 3,671,624 458,795,000 124 .9

Polar Reg. 6,970,000 300,000 .04

Total 57,691,345 1,628,890,000 28 .2

POPULATION OF THE EARTH ACCORDING TO RACE

Race Location Number

Indo-Germanic or Aryan (white) Europe 775,000,000

America

Persia

India

Australia

Mongolian or Turanian (yellow and brown) Asia 600,000,000

Semitic (white) Africa 65,000,000

Arabia, etc.

Negro and Bantu (black) Africa 130,000,000

Malay and Polynesian (brown) Australasia 33,000,000

American Indian, North and South (red and half breeds) 25,000,000

Total 1,628,000,000

At the opening of the European war in 1914 the human race was subject to fifty-four independent and five quasi-independent governments. The British Empire and Russia are the largest two, while Monaco with its eight square miles and San Marino with its thirty-eight square miles of territory are the smallest two. The absolute monarchies are Abyssinia, Afghanistan, Morocco, Siam, Oman, and Monaco; the limited monarchies are Albania, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Bhutan, British Empire, Bulgaria, Denmark, German Empire, Greece, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Persia, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey; the republics are Andorra, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Salvador, San Marino, Santo Domingo, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.

PRINCIPAL LANGUAGES SPOKEN

There are said to be 3,424 spoken languages or dialects in the world, distributed as follows: America, 1,624; Asia, 937; Europe, 587; Africa, 276.

Languages Number of Persons
Spoken by Proportion
of the
Whole

1801 1916 1801 1916

English 20,520,000 160,000,000 12.7 27.3

French 20,520,000 160,000,000 12.7 27.3

German 30,320,000 130,000,000 18.7 22.2

Italian 15,070,000 50,000,000 9.3 8.6

Spanish 26,190,000 50,000,000 16.2 8.6

Portuguese 7,480,000 25,000,000 4.7 4.3

Russian 30,770,000 100,000,000 19.0 17.1

Total 161,800,000 585,000,000 100.0 100.0

RELIGIOUS POPULATION OF THE WORLD BY CONTINENTS

Religion Europe Asia Africa North
America South
America Oceania Total
Followers

Catholic Churches:

Roman Catholic 183,760,000 5,500,000 2,500,000 36,700,000 36,200,000 8,200,000 272,860,000

Eastern Catholic 98,000,000 17,200,000 3,800,000 1,000,000 ... ... 120,000,000

Protestant Churches 93,000,000 6,000,000 2,750,000 65,000,000 400,000 4,500,000 171,650,000

Total Christians 374,760,000 28,700,000 9,050,000 102,700,000 36,600,000 12,700,000 564,510,000

Confucianism and Taoism ... 300,000,000 30,000 100,000 ... 700,000 300,830,000

Hinduism ... 210,000,000 300,000 100,000 110,000 30,000 210,540,000

Mohammedanism 3,800,000 142,000,000 51,000,000 15,000 10,000 25,000,000 221,825,000

Buddhism ... 138,000,000 11,000 ... ... 20,000 138,031,000

Judaism 9,950,175 484,359 404,836 2,144,061 50,000 19,415 13,052,846

Animism ... 42,000,000 98,000,000 20,000 1,250,000 17,000,000 158,270,000

Shintoism ... 25,000,000 ... ... ... ... 25,000,000

Unclassified 1,000,000 6,000,000 130,000 8,000,000 ... 150,000 15,280,000

Total Non-Christians 14,750,175 863,484,359 149,875,836 10,379,061 1,420,000 42,919,415 1,082,828,846

Note.—The Coptic Church has 706,322 followers (Egyptian census 1907); Nestorians 80,000; Jacobites 70,000.

Independent Countries of the World Today

The separate nationalities grouped under their respective hemispheres and continental divisions. On account of the European war the boundaries and statistics of the nations engaged will, doubtless, be subject to important changes within the next decade.

COUNTRIES Population Square
Miles Capitals Present Official Head
and
Date of Birth Title and Date
of Accession Salary
or
Budget

EASTERN HEMISPHERE

(1) Europe

Albania 825,000 11,000 Durazzo Essad Pasha (b. ...) President (1914) ...

Andorra 6,000 175 Andorra ... Consul ...

Austria-Hungary 50,000,000 260,034 Vienna Charles (b.1887) Emperor (1917) $ 4,520,000

Belgium 7,571,387 11,373 Brussels Albert (b.1875) King (1909) 623,600

Bulgaria 4,755,000 43,000 Sofia Ferdinand (b.1861) Czar (1887) 250,000

Denmark 2,775,076 15,388 Copenhagen Christian X. (b.1870) King (1912) 262,500

France 30,601,509 207,054 Paris Raymond Poincaré (b.1860) President (1913) 140,000

German Empire 66,715,000 208,780 Berlin William II. (b.1859) Emperor (1888) 3,700,000

King (1888)

Great Britain See page 467 ... ... George V. (b.1865) King (1910) 2,350,000

Greece 5,000,000 46,522 Athens Constantine (b.1868) King (1913) 260,000

Holland or Netherlands 6,500,000 12,648 Amsterdam Wilhelmina (b.1880) Queen (1898) 250,000

Italy 35,240,000 110,623 Rome Victor Emmanuel III. (b.1869) King (1900) 2,650,000

Luxemburg 268,000 999 Luxemburg Marie (b.1894) Grand Duchess (1912) ...

Monaco 20,000 8 ... Albert (b.1848) Prince (1889) ...

Montenegro 520,000 5,650 Cettinje Nicholas (b.1841) King (1910) 24,000

Norway 2,459,000 124,129 Christiania Haakon VII. (b.1872) King (1905) 185,000

Poland ... ... ... ... ... ...

Portugal 5,957,985 35,490 Lisbon Dr. Bernardino Machado (b.1850) President (1915) ...

Roumania 7,600,000 54,000 Bucharest Ferdinand (b.1865) King (1914) 227,520

Russian Empire 171,000,000 8,647,657 Petrograd Nicholas II. (b.1868) Emperor (1894) 12,000,000

San Marino 10,655 38 ... ... President (....) ...

Servia 4,600,000 34,000 ... Peter (b.1844) King (1903) 225,000

Spain 19,588,688 190,050 Madrid Alfonso XIII. (b.1886) King (1886) 1,344,000

Sweden 5,476,441 172,876 Stockholm Gustaf V. (b.1858) King (1907) 416,500

Switzerland 3,741,971 15,976 Berne Dr. Shulteis (b. ...) President (1917) 3,000

Turkey (Europe) 1,892,000 11,000 Constantinople Mohammed V. (b.1884) Sultan (1909) 7,500,000

(2) Asia

Afghanistan 6,000,000 250,000 Kabul Habibulla Khan (b.1872) Ameer (1901) ...

Arabia 3,500,000 1,000,000 ... ... ... ...

Bhutan 250,000 20,000 Punakha ... ... ...

China 400,000,000 2,169,200 Pekin Li Yuan Hung (b. ...) President (1916) ...

Japan 52,985,423 147,655 Tokio Yoshihito (b.1879) Emperor (1912) 2,250,000

Nepal 4,000,000 54,000 Khatmandu Dhiraja Tribhubana Sh’sher Jang (b.1906) Maharaja (1911) ...

Oman 750,000 82,000 Muscat Seyyid Taimur bin Turkee (b. ...) Sultan (1913) 250,000

Persia 9,000,000 628,000 Teheran Ahmed Mirza (b.1897) Shah (1914) ...

Siam 6,000,000 220,000 Bangkok Vagiravudh (b.1880) King (1910) 2,000,000

Turkey (Asia) 19,382,000 699,224 ... ... ... ...

(3) Africa

Abyssinia 8,000,000 390,000 Adis Ababa Lij Ey-assu (b. ...) Emperor (1914) ...

Liberia 2,060,000 41,000 Monrovia D. E. Howard (b. ...) President (1912) ...

Morocco 6,500,000 200,000 Fez Muley Yusoef (b.1875) Sultan (1912) ...

WESTERN HEMISPHERE

(1) North America

Costa Rica 420,180 23,000 San Jose Alfredo Gonzalez (b. ...) President (1914) ...

Cuba 2,383,000 44,164 Havana Mario G. Menocal (b. ...) President (1913) 25,000

Dominican Republic 700,000 19,325 San Domingo Ramon Baez (b. ...) President (1914) ...

Guatemala 2,119,165 48,290 Guatemala Manuel Estrada Cabrera (b.1856) President (1911) ...

Haiti 2,000,000 10,204 Port-au-Prince Gen. Dartiguenave (b. ...) President (1915) 24,000

Honduras 600,000 46,250 Tegucigalpa Dr. Bertrand (b.1867) President (1913) ...

Mexico 15,063,207 765,535 City of Mexico Venustiano Carranza (b. ...) President (1915) 50,000

Nicaragua 500,000 49,200 Managua Adolfo Diaz (b. ...) President (1911) ...

Panama 427,000 32,380 Panama Belisario Porras (b. ...) President (1912) 24,000

San Salvador 700,000 7,325 San Salvador Carlos Melendez (b. ...) President (1913) ...

United States 112,445,000 3,743,312 Washington Woodrow Wilson (b.1856) President (1913) 75,000

(2) South America

Argentina 8,000,000 1,153,418 Buenos Ayres Victorino de la Plaza (b. ...) President (1914) 36,000

Bolivia 2,267,925 708,195 La Paz Ismael Montes (b. ...) President (1913) ...

Brazil 24,000,000 3,292,000 Rio de Janeiro W. B. Pereira Gomes (b. ...) President (1914) 40,000

Chile 5,000,000 292,100 Santiago Juan Luis San Fuentes (b. ...) President (1915) 7,000

Columbia 5,500,000 438,000 Bogata Jose Vicente Concha (b. ...) President (....) ...

Ecuador 1,500,000 116,000 Quito Leonidas Plaza (b. ...) President (....) 12,000

Paraguay 800,000 196,000 Asuncion Eduardo Schaerer (b. ...) President (1912) 9,500

Peru 4,000,000 680,000 Lima Jose Pardo (b. ...) President (1915) 12,000

Uruguay 1,300,000 72,210 Montevideo Feliciano Viera (b. ...) President (1915) 36,000

Venezuela 3,000,000 393,976 Caracas Juan Vincente Gomez (b. ...) President (1915) ...

Wealth of Nations

These are the latest estimates: United States, $188,000,000,000; Great Britain and Ireland $85,000,000,000; Canada, $7,000,000,000; India, $15,000,000,000; total British Empire (including possessions not here stated), $130,000,000,000; Germany, $80,000,000,000; France, $50,000,000,000; Russia, $40,000,000,000; Austria-Hungary, $25,000,000,000; Italy, $20,000,000,000; Belgium, $9,000,000,000; Spain, $5,400,000,000; Netherlands, $5,000,000,000; Switzerland, $4,000,000,000; Portugal, $2,500,000,000.

The Continent of Europe

From its political and historical importance Europe has always been regarded as one of the great divisions of the earth’s surface though it is not a separate and independent mass. It is, rather, a great peninsula of what is sometimes called Eurasia—i.e. the continent of Europe and Asia combined—that extends westward its many arms between the Arctic Ocean on the north, the Atlantic on the west, and the Mediterranean Sea on the south.
Its name seems to have been derived from the Semitic word ereb, meaning “the land of the setting sun,” and came into use among the Greeks and Latins in very early times as Europa.
Outline and Extent. The most striking feature of its outline is that of its great irregularity, the deep inlets and gulfs of the ocean which penetrate its mass, and the peninsulas which run from it.
The greatest distance between its extreme north and south points—the North Cape of Norway and Cape Matapan in Greece—is about twenty-four hundred miles; and from east to west—from Cape La Roca, or the “Rock of Lisbon,” to Cape Apsheron, the eastern extremity of the Caucasus range, on the Caspian—about three thousand miles.

European Gulfs and Inlets

On the north the White Sea, so called from the ice and snow which bind it up for more than half the year, reaches in from the Arctic Ocean. From the Atlantic, the shallow North Sea, or German Ocean, and the English Channel (called La Manche, or “The Sleeve,” by the French) break in to separate the British Isles from the mainland; and from the former the Skager Rak, “the crooked and boisterous strait,” leads through the Kattegat, the “Cat’s Throat,” and the “Belts” of the Danish islands, to the Baltic, or the “East Sea” of the Germans, and its continuations, the Gulfs of Bothnia, Finland, and Riga.
Farther southward, the stormy Bay of Biscay, named from the Basque province of Vizcaya, sweeps in along the northern coast of Spain, and beyond the Peninsula the narrow Strait of Gibraltar leads into the great Mediterranean, which stretches eastward for twenty-three hundred miles.

The Mediterranean and Its Arms

Among the many branches of this great basin are the Gallic Sea, running north toward Gaul, between Spain and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, forming the stormy Gulf of the Lion and that of Genoa; the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Sardinia and Italy; the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic running north from it, between Italy and the Balkan peninsula, towards the ancient seaport of Adria, perhaps the oldest in Europe.
Beyond Greece, the island-studded Ægean leads north to the narrow inlet of the Dardanelles, opening into the little Sea of Marmora, named from its marble-yielding islands, and from that by the Bosporus or Oxford (the canal of Constantinople), into the second great Mediterranean basin, the Black Sea or Euxine, with its offshoot the shallow Sea of Azof. The Caspian Sea, forms part of the natural frontier between Europe and Asia.
The indented seaboard of Europe measures not less than sixty thousand miles.

Peninsulas of Europe

Between each of these branches of the sea there run out corresponding promontories and peninsulas of the mainland. These are most numerous on the south side, where we find the Crimea, Turkey and Greece, Italy and Spain, bordered by the islands of the Archipelago, by Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and the Baleares.
The western or Atlantic side presents the greatest peninsula, that of Scandinavia, and the most important island group, that of the British Isles. The Danish peninsula is remarkable as the only one in Europe, and indeed in almost any part of the world, that points northward.

Surface Characteristics

The great lowland of Europe lies toward the east, embracing the vast continental area of Russia, and sending out arms westward round the Gulf of Bothnia and the Swedish side of the Baltic, and through North Germany and Denmark, to form the lowlands of Holland and Belgium and of Western France, along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, as far as the rise of the Pyrenees.
The vast central area of the Russian lowland has almost everywhere the same character, woods and marshes alternating with cultivated land, affording a superfluity of grain, which is sent down by the rivers to the seaports of the Baltic and the Black Sea; but along its northern border, next the icy Arctic Sea, lie the moss-covered swamps called the Tundras, the soil of which is never thawed for more than a yard’s depth; all its southern margin toward the Black Sea and the Caspian is a treeless steppe, over which at some seasons the grasses shoot up above a man’s height, concealing the pasturing herds.

Remarkable Surface of Finland

Finland is one of the most remarkable regions of the great European plain; its granite floor, elevated above the sea-level probably in a recent geological period, is worn into thousands of angular lake-basins, which form a perfect network over its surface; to the sailor on the Baltic its margin presents a girdle of steep cliffs guarded by a fringe of rocky islets or skerries. The cliffy Aland Islands are detached fragments of this remarkable formation.

Lowlands of Western Europe

The eastern portions of the North German plain, as far as the Oder, have the same character, the same corn-yielding clay soil, as the adjoining lowlands in Russia; but farther west, round the capital city of Berlin, the plain becomes less fertile, in some parts sandy and bare. Beyond the Elbe, in Hanover, the Lüneburg heath covers a large part of the plain; next it lie the moors, marshes, and fens of Oldenburg and the borders of Holland, where cattle and horses are the wealth of the land; and beyond these the highly cultivated lowlands on each side of the Rhine delta, separated by the heaths and moors of Brabant, which run out toward the lower Scheldt like a dividing wedge between Holland and Belgium.
Passing into France, and across the broad river basins of its lowlands which open to the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, we come upon the great wine-yielding lands, such as Champagne and the vineyards of the Gironde, with the corn country of Brie northeast of Paris, and of Touraine, on the Loire between these; and lastly, at the extremity of this branch of the European plain, to the Landes along the coast between the mouth of the Gironde and the Pyrenees, composed of sandy heaths and marshes.

Isolated Lowlands of Europe

Of these, two of large extent occur in the basin of the river Danube, separated by the gorge of the “Iron Gate,” formed where the Balkan and Carpathian ranges approach most closely. The upper plain, circled about on all sides by mountains, is that of Hungary, over which corn fields interchange with pastoral steppes well stocked with horses and cattle, sheep and swine, merging in some parts into marsh lands or into dusty sand flats. Where the plain begins to rise to the sunny hills, the Hungarian grape ripens to yield its famous wines. The lower plain of the Danube, which might be called a branch of the vast Russian lowland, is that of Roumania, with its far-stretching treeless heaths and pasture lands supporting great herds of cattle and horses, passing into wide reed swamps which characterize the delta of the Danube.
Corresponding to the Roumanian plain is that of Lombardy, perhaps the most productive region of Europe, in which the irrigated meadows may be six times mowed in the year, and where wheat, maize, and rice, and wine and dairy produce, are yielded in vast quantity.

Mountains and Highlands

Europe presents two great mountain regions; a southern, extending along the northern border of the Mediterranean from Turkey to Spain, in continuation of the chief line of the heights of Asia; and a northern, appearing in Scandinavia and Britain, separated from the former by the western branch of the great lowland that we have been noticing.

The Alpine Region

The Alps rise as the central mass of the southern mountain region of Europe. The many groups comprised in this series of heights which curve round the plain of Lombardy arrange themselves into three generally recognized divisions:—The Western Alps, the groups lying between the Gulf of Genoa and the Little St. Bernard Pass; the Central Alps, extending from the St. Bernard to the pass named the Stilfser Joch; and the Eastern Alps beyond this. The central mass is the highest, rising with majestic forms from deep valleys up to sharp riven peaks, high above the line of permanent snow; its wings to east and west decrease in elevation towards the Gallic Sea and the plain of the Danube on either side. All the less jagged heights are mantled in snows, from which glacier streams descend. The largest of these ice streams are the Aletsch glacier from the group of the Finsteraarhorn, and those of the frequented valley of Chamounix, descending from Mont Blanc, the monarch of the Alps.

Famous Alpine Passes

The passes of the Alps have always had importance as the gates of traffic from North Italy to the rest of Europe; some of them, such as the two St. Bernard Passes, are under the protection of friendly monks; but railroads have now been constructed to pass the great barrier by the tunnels of Mont Cenis in the west, of St. Gothard in the center, and the Simplon farther east (opened 1906), by a line over the Brenner Pass from Innsbruck to Bozen, and by an eastern road over the Semmering from Vienna to Graz.
Southward the Alps fall steeply to the low plain of Lombardy, but a mass of lesser highlands and plateaus extends northward from them over central Europe to the border of the plain of Northern Germany.

Outlying Spurs of the Alps

The first division is the long limestone range of the Jura, with its magnificent pine forests. Beyond, bordering the Rhine valley, rises the Schwarzwald, or Black Forest, then the Odenwald and the Rhön mountains, leading into the Vogelsberg and Taunus, and to the outlying Harz, the farthest north of the central European heights. Turning eastward, we reach the Thüringerwald, the Fichtel Gebirge, and the metalliferous or Erz Gebirge; then across the Elbe, in Saxon Switzerland, come the Riesen Gebirge (the Giant Range), and the Sudetic Mountains, extending to the Oder. Turning south again towards the Alps, the Mährische Höhen (the Mavorian heights) are reached, and joining with these to close in the high valley of the Upper Elbe, the high Böhmerwald, the forest mountain of Bohemia. Almost all the area of South Germany, including Würtemberg, Bavaria, and Bohemia, enclosed by these heights, which extend northward from the Alpine mass, is high plateau land.

Highlands of France

Westward of these central European heights, beyond the Rhone, rises the range of the Cevennes in France, extending from near the Pyrenees northward through the Forez and Côte d’Or to the plateau of Langres, to the Vosges and Hardt, the undulating plateau of Ardennes covered with beech and oak wood, and the volcanic group of the Eifel, skirting the Rhine valley. More centrally in France, contrasting with the adjoining long range of the Cevennes, the volcanic cones and domes of Auvergne rise from bare lava-covered plateaus.

Pyrenees and Spanish Peninsula

Shut off from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees whose high and close barrier admits easy passage only round its flanks, is the Spanish Peninsula, which, excepting in its river valleys, and along some parts of the seaboard, is a continuous highland. A number of mountain ranges, supporting broad plateaus between, traverse it from east to west. Along its northern edge the Cantabrian mountains prolong the high line of the Pyrenees; centrally rise the Sierras of Guadarrama and Estrella; farther south the Sierra Morena, and along the Mediterranean border the Sierra Nevada of Granada. Throughout the summer the table-lands of Castile, bare and treeless, are burned up by the hot sun, but through the chilly winter they are swept by violent winds. The herdsman who wears a broad-brimmed hat for protection against the excessive heat during the day, a few hours later puts on his thick warm cloak; in the same way, after the almost rainless summer, follows a cold winter with ice and snow.

Mountains of Italy and the Balkans

The Apennines prolong the Maritime Alps, and run like a backbone through the peninsula of Italy. Cleared of its natural wood, and scorched by the southern sun, this range is generally dreary and barren in aspect, like a long wall, with few peaks or salient points to recall the magnificent forms of the Alps. The volcano of Vesuvius, the only active one in all the continental part of Europe, rises over the coast plain of Campania.
The lines of the eastern wing of the Alps are prolonged north-eastward across the Danube by the grand curve of the wooded Carpathians and Transylvania Alps, circling round the plain of Hungary. Southeastward they branch into the many ranges which support between them the confused mass of highlands of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro, of Servia and Albania. Farther on these heights take more definite shape in the range of the Balkan which runs east to the Black Sea, in the mass of the Rhodope mountains extending south-eastward to the Ægean Sea, and in the Pindus range, which gives shape to Greece, and runs out into the Mediterranean in the peninsulas of the Morea.

Mass of the Caucasus

Distinct from all the rest of the southern highlands of Europe stands the huge mass of the Caucasus, the natural frontier of Europe on the southeast, rising like a wall from the flat isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian. Its close parallel chains are united by high plateaus cut into by deep narrow transverse gorges of extreme depth. Though attaining far greater heights than the Alps and reaching several thousand feet above the limit of perennial snows, the glaciers and snow-fields of the Caucasus are small and insignificant in comparison with those of the Alps. This is owing to the dryness of the region in which they stand, and the small snowfall over them.

Scandinavian Mountain Groups

In the north European mountain region the mass of heights which form the Scandinavian peninsula are by far the most important. These present no definite range, but are rather a collection of broad plateaus topped with moor or snow-field, cut into by long steep-walled “fiords” on the Atlantic side, and resembling the Alps in the pine woods of their slopes, in their lakes and extensive glaciers, though they are nowhere of very great altitude.
The main field, which is applied to most of the Scandinavian mountain groups, suggests their plateau form; the Hardanger Field, Ymes Field, and Dovre Field, with the Jostedals Brae (or ice-brae—glacier), are the most prominent of the southern heights of Norway; in the north the broken heights which run along the Atlantic and Arctic borders of the peninsula have the general name of the Kiölen. The heather-covered hills of Scotland—the Grampians and west coast mountains—as well as those of Cumberland and Wales farther south in Great Britain, belong to the same system as that of the Scandinavian heights.

Surface of European Islands

We have formerly noticed that almost all the European islands are high. In the Mediterranean we find the island of Crete reaching to upwards of eight thousand feet in Mount Ida; Sicily, with its volcano of Etna nine thousand six hundred and fifty-two feet; Sardinia with Mount Gennargentu (six thousand two hundred and ninety feet); Corsica, with Monte Rotondo (nine thousand and sixty-five feet); Iceland, on the border of the Arctic seas, recalling Norway in its grand fiords, rises high in its mass of volcanic jökulls (Oræfa, six thousand four hundred and eight feet; Hecla, five thousand one hundred and ten feet), covered in between with accumulated snows and glaciers; Spitzbergen’s black peaks, which give its name, also rise high from its white glacier fields.

Chain of the Ural

Separate and distinct in character and direction from the mountains of the rest of Europe, is the long chain of the Ural, rich in gold, platinum, iron, and copper. It takes its name probably from the Tartar word meaning “belt,” which well expresses the length and continuity of this remarkable line of heights, stretching along the eastern border of the great European plain for more than twelve hundred miles. In height, however, the Ural is insignificant. Another separated height, that of the forest-covered Valdai hills in Western Russia, would scarcely be worthy of mention among the European highlands if it did not form the water-parting of the greatest of European rivers, the Volga.

For the height of the chief mountain peaks and ranges, consult the tables on page 74 and following.

Rivers of Europe

European rivers flow in part to the Atlantic and its Mediterranean branches, partly to the Arctic Sea, and partly to the Caspian, which last belongs to the “continental” system of drainage, or the area from which no rivers escape to the open ocean.
The Volga, the largest European river, is the principal feeder of the Caspian, and the great highway of commerce of Central and South Russia.

The Don, Dnieper, Dniester, and Danube all flow into the Black Sea. The last-named is the second of European rivers, and forms, with its navigable tributaries, the route for traffic between Central Europe and the East.

The Po, the Rhone (the most rapid European river, though of little value for navigation), and the Ebro flow into the Mediterranean.
The chief rivers (all of immense importance) draining into the Atlantic, are: the Tagus (with its port of Lisbon), the Douro (Oporto), the Gironde (Bordeaux), the Loire (Nantes), and the Mersey (Liverpool); while of less importance are the Guadalquivir, Guadiana, Tagus, and Douro in Spain; the Garonne, Loire, and Seine in France. Into the North Sea flow the Thames (London), the Meuse (Rotterdam), the Rhine and the Elbe, giving uninterrupted water-way to Switzerland and into the heart of Bohemia; and into the Baltic, the rivers Oder, Vistula, Niemen, and Dwina, more or less important for purposes of transport.
On account of the great historic, political and scenic importance that attaches to the Rhine and the Danube, in addition to the fact that their courses are not confined strictly to any one country, these rivers call for more detailed descriptions. The other European rivers of importance are described in connection with the country to which they either wholly or in great part belong.

The Rhine

THE RHINE (Ger. Rhein), is probably the most famous river in the world, and, except the period between 1697 and 1871, always a purely German possession. It is usually divided into the upper, middle, and lower parts, the first lying within and along part of the boundary line of Switzerland, the second between Basel and Cologne, and the third between Cologne and the sea.

THE UPPER RHINE AND
ITS SOURCE

A large number of rivulets, issuing from Swiss glaciers, unite to form the upper Rhine; but two are recognized as the principal sources—the Nearer and the Farther Rhine. The former emerges on the northeast slope of the St. Gotthard pass (seven thousand six hundred and ninety feet above sea-level), the other side of which is the cradle of the Rhone; the Farther Rhine has its origin on the flank of the Rheinwaldhorn, seven thousand two hundred and seventy feet high, not far from the Pass of Bernardino. The two mountain torrents meet at Reichenau, six miles southwest of Coire (Chur), in the Grisons canton, Switzerland, after they have descended the Nearer Rhine five thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven feet in twenty-eight miles, the Farther Rhine five thousand three hundred and forty-seven feet in twenty-seven miles.

LAKE CONSTANCE AND THE
FALLS OF SCHAFFHAUSEN

After plowing its way north for forty-five miles between Switzerland and Austrian Vorarlberg, the river enters the Lake of Constance, soon after leaving which, its water a deep transparent green, it plunges down the falls of Schaffhausen, nearly seventy feet, in three leaps, and flows westward to Basel, separating Baden from Switzerland. In this stretch the river (four hundred and ninety feet wide), receives from the left the waters of the Aar. At Basel (seven hundred and forty-two feet), now two hundred and twenty-five yards wide, it wheels round to the north, and traversing an open shallow valley that separates Alsace and the Bavarian Palatinate from Baden, reaches Mainz, split into many side arms and studded with green islands. Navigation begins at Basel.

THE MIDDLE RHINE FROM BASEL
TO COLOGNE

Of the numerous affluents here the largest are the navigable Neckar and the Main from the right, and the navigable Ill from the left. A little below Mainz, the Rhine (six hundred and eighty-five yards wide) is turned west by the Taunus range; but at Bingen it forces a passage through, and pursues a northwesterly direction across Rhenish Prussia, past Coblenz, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Ruhrort, and Wesel as far as the Dutch frontier; here it is one thousand and eighty-five yards wide and thirty-six feet above sea-level.

THE FAMOUS STRETCH FROM
BINGEN TO BONN

The first half of this portion of the river from Bingen to Bonn is the Rhine of song and legend, the Rhine of romance, the Rhine of German patriotism. Its banks are clothed with vineyards that yield wine esteemed the world over; the rugged and fantastic crags that hem in its channel are crowned by ruined castles; the treasure of the Nibelungs rests at the bottom of the river (higher up, at Worms); the Bingerloch and the Mouse Tower of Bishop Hatto, the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, the rock of the siren Lorelei, the commanding statue of Germania (the trophy of German victory in 1870), and innumerable other features lend interest to this, the middle course of “Father Rhine.” Between Bingen and Bonn the steep rocky walls that fence in the river approach so close that road and railway have to find their way through tunnels. The Nahe enters the Rhine at Bingen, the Moselle at Coblenz; from the right side the Lahn enters above Coblenz. Gigantic rafts are floated down from the Black Forest to Dordrecht in Holland. Below Bonn the Rhine is joined by the Sieg, Wupper, Ruhr, and Lippe from the right.

PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE RIVER RHINE, THE MOST HISTORIC RIVER IN THE WORLD

Starting from the important city of Cologne and ascending the river. These pages and those immediately following give an almost photographic panorama of the entire Rhine valley as far as Mainz—the course of the river, its confluents, bridges, cities, villages, castles, fortresses, historic ruins and museums, and the general topography of the region through which river flows.

[Top left] Cologne Cathedral, the grandest Gothic church in the world. Begun in 1248, consecrated 1880. It has seven wonderful chapels.

[Bottom left] University Bldgs.

[Top right] Köln, or Cologne, sixth city in size in the German Empire, was originally an ancient Teutonic town and later an important Roman garrison. Its greatest ornament is the Cathedral. The city is encircled by a boulevard of great beauty. The Hahnentor Museum contains a famous collection of armor and weapon.

[Center right] Hahnentor in Cöln

[Center right] Bonn is 21 miles from Cologne, has a beautiful location, and is chiefly noted for its University, housed in the Electoral Palace built 1717-1730. It was a great Roman fortress and suffered many sieges. The Cathedral was founded by the mother of Constantine. In its cemetery are buried Niebuhr, the historian, Schlegel, Schumann, Arndt and Bunsen.

[Bottom right] Beethoven’s birthplace in Bonn was at 20 Bonngasse. There is a bronze statue of the great composer in Münsterplatz.

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[Top left] Godesburg Castle. A fine mediæval castle on a hill overlooking the Rhine. Splendid view.

[Top left] Rolandseck is half an hour’s sail above Königswinter on the right; and high on the hill above is the fragment of the castle said to have been built by Roland, paladin of Charlemagne, and rich in legends. See Bulwer’s “Pilgrims of the Rhine” for the story, which doubtless suggested Schiller’s ballad of “Ritter Toggenburg.”

[Center left] Rolandseck

[Center left] Remagen is renowned for its beautiful Gothic church on a hill just below the village. It was erected under the direction of Zwirner, the architect of the superb south portal of the Cologne cathedral and is adorned with large frescoes, which are masterpieces of Modern German art.

[Top right] Königswinter is beautifully situated at the foot of the Siebengebirge, or Seven Mountains, and nearest the castles crag of Drachenfels (Dragon’s rock). The Siebengebirge form a picturesque volcanic group, 1,000 to 1,500 ft. high, about 5m. square, covered with forests and ruins. The prospect from Drachenfels and from the Petersberg are among the finest on the Rhine. A funicular railway reaches the top of the Drachenfels and the Petersberg. See story of “Nibelungenlied.”

[Center right] A massive tower and ruined castle at Andernach memorialized in Longfellow’s “Hyperion.”
Hammerstein is a 10th century castle where Henry IV. took refuge. It was held during the Thirty Years’ war by Swedes, Spaniards and Germans.

[Bottom right] Andernach, with its ruined castle, ancient walls, and lofty watch tower is one of the most interesting towns on the Rhine. It was one of the 50 forts of Drusus; recaptured from the Alemanni by Julian in 339; a royal Franconian residence in the 6th century; an imperial town later; stormed by Cologne troops in 1496; and burned by the French in 1688. Nearby is the Benedictine Abbey of Laach, founded in 1093, with magnificent Romanesque church, on the vast crater-lake of the Laachser See.

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[Top left] Koblenz, the capital of Rhenish Prussia, is at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle, whence the Romans called it Confluentia. It is a powerful fortress, with heights crossed with enormous fortifications. The Palace contains interesting Electoral Hall and Festival Hall. The Rhine is crossed by a bridge of boats and by a very fine railway bridge. Across the Rhine is Ehrenbreitstein, (“Honor’s Broad Stone”), “The Gibraltar of the Rhine,” a vast fortress on a precipitous rock, 387 ft. above the river, and commanding a wonderful view. It has often been beleaguered but yielded only twice.

[Bottom left] STOLZENFELS.

[Top right] Stolzenfels (“Proud rock”), a fine castle of the middle ages, on a projecting rock overlooking the Rhine, belongs to the Royal Family of Prussia. It was presented by the city of Koblenz to King William IV. Here they say treasures are buried which Archbishop Werner acquired by his knowledge of alchemy. Fine view of the Lahn Valley and Koblenz.

[Center right] Ehrenbreitstein

[Bottom right] Braubach, an ancient little town, at the entrance of the valley that winds round the Marksberg, with a fine old Castle, the Marksburg, a fortress of the middle ages, one of the few ancient Rhine castles which escaped destruction.

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[Top left] St. Goarshausen is under the castle called The Cat, built in 1393, and blown up by the French in 1804. Above is the Lurlei rock, a precipice 433 ft. high, rising over whirlpools in the deepest and narrowest part of the Rhine, and the fabled seat of a siren who lured sailors to a tragic death.

[Bottom left] RHEINSTEIN

[Top right] St. Goar
St. Goaris overlooked by the grandest ruin on the river, the famous Rheinfels, dating from 1245; besieged often; now royal property.

[Center right] Die „Lurlei“
Oberwesel is charmingly situated in the midst of the finest scenery of the Rhine. The Church of Notre Dame, south of the town, is a fine specimen of 14th century Gothic, with curious old pictures and monuments. The Chapel of St. Werner, erected in the 13th century, commemorates one of the old stories of child-murder by the Jews. Above the town are the ruins of Schönburg, built about the 12th century.
Caub (left) is a little town with a big castle, Gutenfels, towering above it, and not far above, in the midst of the river is the Pfalz, built by Louis of Bavaria early in the 14th century.

[Bottom right] The Niederwald.

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[Top left] Mouse Tower.
The Mouse Tower (Mäuserturm) is situated on a rock in the middle of the Rhine, near Bingen. It is notable from the legend of Bishop Hatto’s tragic fate.

[Top right] The Niederwald, opposite Bingen, is the great National Monument commemorating the restoration of the German Empire in 1870-71. It stands 740 feet above the river, and consists of a colossal statue of Germania, 33 feet high, upon a sculptured pedestal 78 feet high.

[Center right] Bingen

[Center right] Bingen is at the junction of the Rhine and the Nahe. The river scenery above Bingen is less interesting, though it is here the fertile and beautiful wine region begins. Rüdesheim, just across the river, has rich wines, far-viewing heights, wild legends, and a Roman fortress. On the heights is the Castle of Johannisberg, where Prince Metternich once lived. It is amid the best vineyards on the Rhine and commands a superb view. At Riebrich, opposite Mainz, is the beautiful palace of the Duke of Nassau.

[Bottom right] Mainz. Mainz, or Mayence, with its magnificent cathedral, has been both a German and a French town. Thorwaldsen’s statue of Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, stands near the Cathedral. The Electoral Palace is a rich museum of Roman relics and an important picture gallery. The city is a noted wine center and trade emporium.

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THE LOWER RHINE FROM COLOGNE
TO THE SEA

At Bonn the river enters the plains, and almost immediately after passing the Netherlands frontier its delta begins. The principal arm, carrying two-thirds of the volume, flows under the name of the Waal, and later the Mermede, to Dordrecht, picking up the Maas (Meuse) from the left. At Dordrecht the river again divides for a bit, one branch, the old Maas, running out to sea; the other, the Noord, forming a loop by way of Rotterdam. The northern arm sends one branch, the Yssel, due north to the Zuider Zee; the other branch is the Lek, which runs into the Waal-Maas arm above Rotterdam.
A thin stream, called the “Winding Rhine,” leaves the Lek and splits at Utrecht into two channels, of which the Old Rhine, a mere ditch, manages with the help of a canal and locks to struggle into the North Sea at Katwyk, northwest of Leyden, while the Vecht flows due north from Utrecht to the Zuider Zee near Amsterdam. In the delta the streams have to be bordered by dykes.

THE RHINE IN EARLY
EUROPEAN HISTORY

The Rhine was the Romans’ bulwark against the Teutonic invaders and was long a boundary between the province of Gaul and the German tribes. Under Charlemagne the Rhine valley became the focus of civilization. Except between 1697 and 1871 the Rhine was always a purely German river; at the peace of Ryswick, Alsace-Lorraine was appropriated by France, and the Rhine became part of the dividing line between France and Germany. In 1801 Napoleon incorporated the whole of the left bank with France; in 1815 the arrangement in force before 1801 was restored; and after 1871 the Rhine became once more wholly German. It has often been crossed by armies; twice by Julius Cæsar; again in the Thirty Years’ war, and in the wars of Louis XIV., the Revolution, and Napoleon. Its navigation was declared free in 1868.
The Rhine is connected by canals with the rivers Danube, Rhone and Marne. There is a railway along both its banks, but a steamboat is greatly preferable for viewing the incomparable course between Cologne (Köln) and Mainz (Fr., Mayence) as shown in panoramic form on preceding page. Its beauties are better displayed, also, at most points, in ascending the river than in descending it.

The Danube

THE DANUBE (Ger., Donau), one of the most important rivers of Europe, and next to the Volga the largest, originates in two small streams rising in the Schwarzwald, or Black Forest, in Baden, Germany, and uniting at Donaueschingen, two thousand two hundred and sixty-four feet above sea level. The Germans occupy the entire upper basin, and portions of the middle and lower; the Slavs parts of both banks of the middle course; the Magyars the central portion of the valley; and the Roumanians the lower regions.

GENERAL COURSE OF THE
GERMAN DANUBE

The river flows first southeast and then northeast to Ulm, one thousand, five hundred and nineteen feet above sea level. At Regensburg it reaches its most northerly point, and from thence its course is generally southeast. Between Regensburg and Vienna the banks of the river are frequently remarkable for their romantic beauty. At Tuttlingen it contracts and the hills crowd close to the banks, while ruins of castles crown almost every possible summit. The scenery is wild and beautiful until the river passes Sigmaringen.

THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE, FAMED
IN HISTORY AND SONG

From Passau the Danube flows through Austria for a distance of two hundred and thirty-three miles. Closed in by mountains it flows past Linz in an unbroken stream; below, it expands and divides into many arms until it reaches the famous whirlpool near Grein, where its waters unite and flow on in one channel for forty miles through mountains and narrow passes. Between Linz and Vienna it is renowned not only for its picturesque beauty, but for the numerous historic buildings and ruins which crown its banks. The splendid Benedictine monastery of Melk, the ruins of Durrenstein, and the prison of Richard the Lion-hearted are among the most interesting.
Vienna, to defend the city against risk of inundation, the course of the Danube skirting it was, in 1868-81, diverted into an artificial channel. Similar works have been undertaken near Budapesth, in Hungary.

FROM VIENNA TO
THE IRON GATE

After passing Vienna and Marchfeld, the river cuts through a defile formed by the lower spurs of the Alps and Carpathians and enters Hungary at the ruined castle of Theben, a little above Pressburg, the old Magyar capital. Here, again, it gives off a number of branches, forming a labyrinth of islands known as Schütten, but on emerging it flows uninterruptedly southward through wide plains interspersed with pools, marshes, and sandy wastes. The principal affluents here are the Save, the Drave, and the Theiss.
Sixty miles before entering Roumania the river passes through a succession of rapids or cataracts which it has made in cutting a passage for itself through the cross chain of hills which connect the Carpathian Mountains with the Alps. The last of these cataracts, at Old Orsova, is called the Iron Gate. Between 1878 and 1898, the Hungarian government carried through, at a cost of seven million five hundred thousand dollars, extensive engineering works at the gorges of the Iron Gates for deepening the channel and cutting a canal.

ITS JOURNEY THROUGH THE BALKAN
COUNTRIES

The lower course of the Danube, in Roumania and Bulgaria, is through a flat and marshy tract, fertile but badly cultivated and thinly peopled. It forms the northern boundary of Bulgaria as far as Silistria; and from here it turns northward, skirting the Dobruja, and flows between marshy banks to Galatz, receiving on the way the Jalomitza and the Sereth. From Galatz it flows east, and, after being joined by the Pruth from the north, it continues southeast to the Black Sea.
The delta is a vast wilderness (one thousand square miles) cut up by channels and lagoons; the farthest mouths are sixty miles apart. Two-thirds of the Danube’s volume passes through the Kilia, which, like the southern or St. George branch, forms a double channel near the outlet; and so ships enter by the middle or Sulina mouth, deepened to twenty feet and straightened in 1858-1903. The steel cantilever bridge across the river at Tchernavoda is one of the great railway bridges of the world.

ITS CHIEF TOWNS AND COMMERCIAL
IMPORTANCE

The principal towns on the Danube are Ratisbon, Vienna, Pressburg, Budapest, Belgrade, and Galatz. The width of the river varies considerably, and at some points the opposite shore is hardly discernible. It is first navigable at Ulm, and, thanks to various improvements, is now navigable continuously from that point to its mouth. Engineering work to this end, undertaken at Vienna, Budapest, and the Iron Gates has already been referred to. The International Danube Navigation Commission, appointed in 1856, controls the lower portion of the river, and has done much to improve navigation at the delta. Sea-going vessels of six hundred tons can now go nearly as far as the Iron Gates, while vessels of twenty-five hundred tons can go above Galatz. By means of canals the Danube is connected with the Rhine and the Elbe.

ITS PART IN HISTORY AND
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

This mighty river is exceedingly rich in historical and political associations. For a long period it formed the frontier of the Roman Empire, and along its course are still found many notable Roman remains. Traces of the great wall erected by the Emperor Trajan are to be seen on the south side of the Hungarian Danube. At Turn Severin, east of the Carpathians, a tower and several piers of Trajan’s Roman bridge, a splendid piece of ancient engineering, are still standing; while his more marvelous road in the rocky Kazan defile is marked by a Roman tablet still visible.
The struggles of races and peoples in the lands bordering the Danube have been among the fiercest and strongest in all history. Finns, Kelts, Germans, Slavs, Greeks, Italians and Turks have all vied with one another in the race of conquest and possession; and even today the Balkan countries are still in the seething cauldron of new struggles for domination or independence.
The Lake Region of Europe lies round the Baltic. Ladoga, in Russia, is the largest fresh-water lake in Europe, as wide across as the English Channel, between Portsmouth and Cherbourg. Onega, and Peipus (Russia) are also of great size, as well as the lakes of Finland and Sweden, and some of those of the Alps. Chief of these are Wetter and Mœlar in Sweden; the myriad lakes of Finland; the beautiful lakes of the folds of the Alps, Geneva, Neuchatel, and Constance on the north side; and Maggiore, Como, and Garda in the Italian valleys. They will be noticed further under the countries to which they belong.

The Nations of Europe—The Great Powers

Of the nations of Europe it may be said that in point of rank Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, and Russia stand first as the “five great powers.” These include within their limits more than two-thirds of the entire population of Europe, and have for a long time controlled all continental questions. Second come Italy, Spain, and Sweden; in third rank are Turkey, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Portugal.
Another grouping on the basis of race stocks is frequently made beginning with the highest in culture, the Germanic; passing thence to the Romanic; concluding with the Slavonic, and the lands under the rule of the Turks, lowest in the scale, which are most closely connected with the Mongols of Asia. The Germanic, or Teutonic nations, include Great Britain; the German Empire; Austria-Hungary; Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark); Holland, or the Netherlands; Switzerland, and Belgium. The Romanic nations include France; Italy; Spain; Portugal; Greece, and Roumania. The Slavonic nations, Russia in Europe; Servia, and Montenegro. The Turkish or Mongol nations, Turkey in Europe; Bulgaria.
For various reasons the first grouping is adopted in the pages following.

Great Britain

The British Empire, Great Britain and England are often erroneously used in the popular mind for one and the same nation. In strict accuracy the British Empire consists of (1) The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; (2) India, and the British Colonies, Protectorates, and Dependencies. Great Britain proper includes only England, Scotland and Wales. What is really meant is the geographical group of the British Isles, including England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the adjacent islands. For here is the source of power and authority that holds together and controls this greatest of modern empires.

Geographical Features.—The British Isles belong distinctly to the mainland of Europe. If we imagine the sea level between England and Holland to fall sixty feet—the height of an ordinary house—the broad Dogger Bank, midway between England and Denmark, would begin to show its sands, and if a fall of two hundred feet took place one might walk dry shod across to the continent, to Belgium, Holland, or Denmark. From its shallows and banks, its stormy cross seas and frequent fogs, the navigation of the North Sea is dangerous; yet the traffic over it is enormous, for it is surrounded by countries, the inhabitants of which have been famous on the seas from the earliest times.

The great highways of commerce from it are Dover Strait, leading to the English Channel, in the south, and the stormy Pentland Firth, which separates Scotland from the Orkney Islands, in the north. The English Channel, though deeper than the North Sea, is also shallow; the enclosed Irish Sea, between England and Ireland, with St. George’s Channel and the North Channel leading out from it to the ocean, has been scoured deeper in its central lines; but there is a width of about fifty miles of shallow sea, or “soundings,” all round the islands, in the west, where they face the broad Atlantic.

Chief Islands and Divisions.—The main island of Great Britain, roughly triangular in shape, measures about six hundred miles in a straight line from its southwest corner, where the granite walls of Land’s End and the dark serpentine cliffs of the Lizard run out into the Atlantic, to the northern apex, the high red sandstone rocks of Dunnet Head, or its companion Duncansby Head, where John o’Groat’s House stood, on the beach of the Pentland Firth.

The base of the island, forming the north coast of the English Channel, measures only about half this distance, or three hundred and twenty miles; and the eastern side, from the chalk cliffs of the South Foreland, on the Strait of Dover, to the Pentland Firth, is about five hundred and forty miles long. No part of the interior of Great Britain is more distant than three or four days’ walk from the sea on one side or other. In the narrower parts of the north of Scotland, indeed, where the Moray Firth runs into the land, it is an easy day’s journey from the head of this inlet of the North Sea to that of one or other of the opposite sea lochs running in from the Atlantic.

The second island, Ireland, more rounded in general outline, measures three hundred miles from Malin Head, its northernmost point, to Mizen Head, its most southerly extremity, and two hundred miles from Carnsore Point, its southeastern corner nearest England, to Erris Head, its northwestern promontory on the Atlantic.

Smaller Islands.—The most extensive of the many island groups and islets are those which lie off the broken west coast of Scotland, the wild and rugged Outer and Inner Hebrides, of which Lewis, separated by the channel called the Minch, and Skye, Mull, Islay and Arran, in the inner group, are the largest. The Orkney group, separated from the north of Scotland by the turbulent Pentland Firth, consist of no fewer than fifty-nine rocky islets; and the Shetlands, forty miles farther north, comprise upwards of a hundred separate points. The high Isle of Man, in the middle of the Irish Sea; Anglesey, close to the Welsh coast; and now united to it by the famous railway tubes across the Menai Strait; and the Isle of Wight, “the garden of England,” in the English Channel, separated from the mainland by the busy Solent, are the others of importance. The Channel Islands, of which Jersey and Guernsey are the largest, belong politically to Britain, but are physically parts of France.

Surface: Mountains and Lowlands.—In the island of Great Britain the highest portions lie generally to north and west, the lowlands to south and east.

The heather-covered Highlands, which fill the north of Scotland, are divided by the great natural passage of Glen More, which runs in a straight line across the island from northeast to southwest into two chief groups, the northern and central.

The northern group consists of irregularly-distributed and often almost isolated masses, separated, it may be, by deep sea-fiords, and presenting every variety of contour, from that of the round mass of Ben Wyvis to the steep, wall-like sides of Suilvein or the sharp peak of Ben Stack. The Central Highlands or the Grampians, extending from the peninsula of Cantyre northeastward to the precipitous coast of Buchan on the North Sea, are far more massive and continuous.

Ben Nevis, a huge round mass ascending abruptly from the shores of Loch Eil at the mouth of the Great Glen, is the highest mountain of the British Isles.

The Southern Highlands of Scotland are more broken, and separated by river valleys. Mount Merrick, in the southwest, is their highest point; the Lowther Hills form their central group; the Pentlands, Moorfoot, and Lammermoor hills their more detached portions, on the northeast.

With the Cheviot Hills, the boundary range between Scotland and England, begins the long Pennine chain, which reaches due south into the heart of England. Cheviot Hill, in the north, Crossfell, and Whernside, and the Peak of Derby, in the south, mark the summits and direction of the chain. To the west of the Pennine chain rises the compact circular knob of slate mountains of Cumberland, of which Scawfell is the summit of England proper. And corresponding to this mass, near the opposite coast, are the eastern moorlands and wolds of Yorkshire.

Separated from the Pennine heights by the plain of Cheshire (west of England) rise the highlands of Wales, collectively called the Cambrian Mountains.

Across the Bristol Channel we come to the heights of the southwestern peninsula of England, with its three groups of Exmoor, Dartmoor, with its rugged granite tors, and the Cornish Heights. These are the more important mountain groups of Great Britain.

Over all the south and east of England the elevations are comparatively insignificant; broad, undulating, grassy uplands, called the South Downs and the Chiltern Hills, rarely attaining more than eight hundred feet of elevation, follow the chalk formation across Southern England as far as Beachy Head on the Channel and the Foreland Cliffs on the Strait of Dover. The limestone Cotswold Hills between these and the Welsh Highlands rise somewhat higher.

Almost all the lowlands of Great Britain lie to the east and south. Here we find the plain of the “New Forest” in Hampshire and the treeless Salisbury Plain, the broad open Valley of the Thames, the “Eastern Plain” of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, extending with rounded shores towards the North Sea; the low “Fen District” behind the shallow estuary of “The Wash,” from which many tracts have been reclaimed; the long “Plain of York” beyond; the valleys of the Tees and Tweed, the latter including the cultivated “Merse,” the march or border land of Berwickshire; the Scottish “Lowlands” between the Central and Southern Highlands; the “Carse” or alluvial plain of Gowrie, north of the Tay; “Strathmore,” the broad valley which extends between the Grampians and their southern outliers; the plain of Cromarty and the level moors of eastern Caithness farthest north of all. The only extensive lowlands on the western side of the island are the “Vale of Severn,” the “Plain of Cheshire,” between the Pennine chain and the Welsh Highlands, the lowlands round the estuary of the Solway, those of Ayrshire, and the Valley of the Clyde.

Crossing over to Ireland, though we find the lines of elevation running generally in the same direction as those of Great Britain, or from northeast to southwest, as shown in the peninsulas of the southwest coast, the mountains appear rather in detached clusters than in definite ranges, with shapes rather rounded than abrupt, forming a fringe round the coasts. The plateau of Antrim, which forms the precipice of Fair Head, the nearest point to the Scottish coast, contains the remarkable basaltic scenery of the Giants’ Causeway.

Giants’ Causeway.—This extensive and extraordinary assemblage of basaltic columns is in the county of Antrim, between Bengore Head and Port Rush. The name is sometimes given to the whole range of basalt cliffs along the coast, some of which reach the height of four or five hundred feet; but it is more properly restricted to a small portion of it where a platform of closely-ranged basalt columns from fifteen to thirty-six feet in height runs down into the sea in three divisions, known as the Little, the Middle, and the Grand Causeway. The last is from twenty to thirty feet wide, and stretches some nine hundred feet into the sea.

The Giants’ Causeway derives its name from the legend that it was built by giants as a road which was to stretch across the sea to Scotland. There are similar formations on the west coast of Scotland, on the island of Staffa.

In the southwest are the Mountains of Kerry, containing Cam Tual, the summit of all Ireland. The only important groups that lie centrally in the island are the mountains of western Tipperary.

Within the circle of these heights, and branching out between them at many points to the sea-coast, lies the Great Plain of Ireland, averaging perhaps two hundred feet in elevation above the sea. The highest point between Dublin and Galway, east to west across its center, is only three hundred and twenty feet above the sea-level. Many parts of it, such as that which surrounds Lough Neagh in the north, are scarcely fifty feet in elevation.

Rivers.—England and Ireland are very bountifully watered; Scotland rather less so, as the higher mountains of Great Britain rise in the west of the island, so the water-parting line following the greatest general height lies nearer the west than the east. The longer and gentler slope of the island is to the North Sea; the shorter and steeper to the Atlantic side. Hence most of the larger rivers belong to the North Sea drainage.

The Thames (Temz), the most important river of Great Britain, flows southeast by east across the southern portion of the country. It rises in the Cotswold Hills and follows a course of some one hundred and ninety miles to Gravesend, the head of the estuary, where it has a width of half a mile, gradually increasing then to ten miles at the Nore lightship about thirty miles farther. By the addition of its tributaries the Colne, Leach, and Churn, it becomes navigable for barge traffic at Lechlade, where the canal to the Severn leaves. Above Oxford the stream is frequently called the Isis. At Oxford the navigability improves, and river steamers ply between Oxford and points below it as far as London. Until the Tower Bridge, in London, was built, London Bridge was the lowest in the course, and ocean-going vessels still reach the latter.

Gravesend, twenty miles lower, grew up at the spot where vessels waited the turn of the tide; a little farther the Medway, by virtue of its estuary the most important tributary, enters; just inside this is Chatham, an important naval depot. Opposite Gravesend and on the north bank is Tilbury, the terminus of modern liners. The waters from the Tilbury docks to the Nore lightship are of great strategic importance, hence there is here a station for destroyers, torpedo-boats, and gun-boats. Sheerness and Shoreham as land defenses add to this.

From London Bridge downward the Thames is lined with docks and wharves, the former being now under the Port of London authority. At Woolwich, on the south bank, eight miles below London Bridge, is the arsenal, and a little farther up the river Greenwich Observatory.

Historically, the Thames is unsurpassed by any river of the world. A slight rise surrounded by marsh on the left bank formed the first point suitable for bridging a strategic site for London, the tide giving facilities to it as a port, while yet placed well up the river for defensive purposes. Still farther up, a dominating site in the lower valley was found at Windsor for the mediæval kings. In Anglo-Saxon times the kingdoms were divided by the river, and the break in the Chiltern Hills at Goring was a check in the line of aggression.

Above London the scenery is rich and beautiful, though not romantic, the numerous islands lending a peculiar charm. The Thames is the best beloved of English rivers for those who boat for pleasure. During the summer the Thames is a favorite holiday resort, house-boats being frequently the temporary homes of pleasure-seekers; and regattas are held at Henley, Kingston, and other places. For boat-racing, it divides the honors with the Tyne. The Thames watermen are renowned in song and story. Since Spencer’s days “the silver-streaming Thames” has been sung by England’s poets; Herrick calls it “Silver-footed Thamesis;” Denham’s apostrophe is famous; and Pope has word-painted much of the scenery of its banks.

Other British Rivers.—The next longest river to northward is the Great Ouse, navigable from the west for ninety miles to Bedford; then we come to the group of rivers which water the long plain of York, and unite in the estuary of the Humber, including the Trent from the south, navigable one hundred and five miles to Burton; the Yorkshire Ouse, navigable forty-five miles to the city of York, with its main tributary the Derwent. Farther north are the Tees and Wear, and the busy Tyne. Passing into Scotland, we reach the Tweed, valuable for its fisheries, but unnavigable; the Forth, winding in links through the fertile lowland, navigable to Stirling; the Tay, navigable to Perth; the rapid Dee and Spey from the Grampians, and the Ness from the lakes of Glenmore.

On the western or Atlantic side of Britain, the largest river, the second in drainage area in the island, is the Severn, drawing its upper tributaries from the Welsh mountains, and its chief lower affluent, the navigable Avon, from England, curving round to the British Channel; it is navigable to Welshpool, one hundred and twenty miles from its mouth. The Mersey, though a short river, forms one of the most important estuaries of the island, the “Liverpool Channel.” Scarcely less valuable in this respect is the lower Clyde, the most important commercial river of Scotland, navigable to Glasgow, and forming in its upper valley the largest falls in the island.

Almost all the river estuaries of Britain are great highways of commerce; the Solway Firth, between England and Scotland on the west coast, is the most important exception, its swift and strong tides, rushing in over the sands so fast that a galloping horseman can scarcely escape from them, being exceedingly dangerous to shipping. Besides these estuaries many natural harbors lie round the coast. Such are the sheltered Solent and Portsmouth harbor behind the Isle of Wight, Plymouth Sound farther west, and Milford Haven on the south coast of Wales, unsurpassed perhaps in the world as a deep and spacious harbor thoroughly sheltered from all winds.

British Lakes.—The lakes of South Britain are comparatively few and small. Bala Lake, only four miles long, is the largest in the Welsh Highlands; in England the only considerable group is that which clusters round the knot of mountains in Cumberland, known through the rare interest that has been added to this district by the group of illustrious poets who made it their home about the beginning of the nineteenth century.

English Lake District.—Within this area are grouped as many as sixteen lakes or meres, besides innumerable mountain tarns and streams. The district extends about thirty miles from north to south by about twenty-five from east to west, and contains within its compass the utmost variety and wealth of natural scenery, soft and graceful beauty ever alternating closely with grandeur and sublimity.

Windermere, the largest of the lakes (ten and one-half miles by one mile), lies in the southeast corner of the district and is connected with Rydal Water, Grasmere, Elther Water, and Esthwaite. To the west rises the Scawfell range, terminating in the Old Man of Coniston, which rises above Coniston Water, and to the east of the Scawfell range lies Wastwater (three miles long), the deepest of all the lakes. In the northeast is Ullswater, with the sequestered Hawes Water to the southeast. To the west of Helvellyn is Thirlmere, which is the reservoir for the water supply of Manchester, dammed in 1890-1894. The river Derwent, rising in the Scawfell range, flows north through Borrowdale and forms Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater, the most beautiful of the lakes. Westward from Borrowdale opens a valley in which lie Buttermere and Crummock Water, and between these and the Derwent valley is Ennerdale Water. There are several waterfalls, the chief, perhaps, being Lodore, near Derwentwater. Near Derwentwater lies Keswick, the chief town of the district, while Ambleside and Bowness (Windermere) and Hawkshead (Esthwaite) are other places of importance.

Of the lake school of poets, Wordsworth was the acknowledged head and founder, and his home for sixty years was in the Lake District. Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and De Quincey were the chief of the group, and Shelley, Scott, Carlyle, Mrs. Hemans, Matthew Arnold, Edward Fitzgerald, Tennyson, Gray, and Charles Lamb, although not directly associated with the school, were connected with the district.

Scotch Lakes.—Scotland abounds in lakes in all three Highland districts, and their number increases towards the north. Loch Lomond, twenty-four miles long, in the largest in Britain, Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Rannoch, and Loch Ericht, may be mentioned as the largest of those in the Grampian valleys. Loch Ness, twenty-four miles long and eight hundred feet deep, with Loch Oich and Loch Lochy, fills the deep trench of the Great Glen between the Grampians and the Northern Highlands; Loch Shin, twenty miles long and only one mile broad, and Loch Maree, are the largest of the Northern Highland region. On the western watershed of the Northern Highlands, however, lakes are so thickly sown that hundreds may be counted from a mountain top, and the Outer Hebrides are covered with a perfect network of them.

Irish Rivers and Lakes.—In Ireland, in contrast to Britain, the watersheds are more evenly divided toward all points of the compass; the greatest drainage, however, is westward to the Atlantic. On this side we find the largest river, the Shannon, one hundred and sixty miles long, draining an area second only to that of the Thames in extent, and affording a navigable highway over the central plain almost up to its source. The Erne is another large river of the western drainage of Ireland. Flowing northward we find the Foyle, and the Bann passing through Lough Neagh, and navigable for fifty-five miles. On the eastern watershed the Liffey, from the Wicklow Mountains, is the most important stream; the Barrow, navigable to Athy, seventy miles from its fine estuary of Waterford Harbor, receiving near its mouth the almost equally important Nore and Suir, is the chief river of the southern drainage; the Blackwater, affording twenty-two miles of navigation, and the Lee, flowing to Cork (Queenstown) Harbor, are the other notable rivers of this slope.

The lakes of Ireland, in contrast to those of Britain, belong rather to the plain than to the mountain regions. Lough Neagh, in the basin of the Bann in the north, is the largest of all in the British Islands, one hundred and fifty-four square miles in area, twenty miles in length. The lakes of the Erne, upper and lower, stand next in size; Loughs Corrib and Mask in Connaught, joined by a subterranean channel, are the largest in the west. The Shannon has three large expansions, Loughs Allen, Ree, and Derg. Most famous for their scenery, however, are the much smaller highland Lakes of Killarney, embosomed in the southwestern mountains of Kerry, and considered the finest in Great Britain.

Climate.—Their maritime situation has a favorable effect on the climate of the British Isles, making it milder and more equable than that of continental countries in the same latitude.

Peoples of the British Isles.—During the four centuries in which the Romans held the lowlands of South Britain, many of the native British tribes became Romanized, but the Celtic peoples of the mountain regions of Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and of the west of Ireland, have retained their language and more or less pure blood to the present day. After the fall of the Roman power the invading Anglo-Saxons and Jutes conquered the island, and to their strong Germanic element followed that of the brilliant Normans, or Northmen who had settled in Normandy, and who had there adopted the religion, language, and manners of the French.

Thus the population of these islands is a mixed Celtic, Germanic, and Romanic one, all its elements being more thoroughly amalgamated in the populous lowlands of Britain, the Celtic remaining purer in the highland regions, which are more difficult of access. In Ireland the Teutonic element prevails along the eastern margin; thence towards the western mountains the transition is gradual to the pure Celtic.

Religion.—In religion, rather more than half the population of England claims membership in the Church of England; the most prominent other bodies being the Wesleyan Methodists, the Independents, and Baptists. About a twentieth part of the population is Roman Catholic.

Cities.—The three largest cities in Wales are Cardiff, Rhondda, and Merthyr Tydfil. The capital of England and of the British Empire is London. The cities next in size (in order of population) are Liverpool, Manchester and Salford, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, Bradford, Nottingham, and Hull.

The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh. Glasgow is the industrial metropolis, followed by Dundee, and Aberdeen. After these come, in order of population, Paisley, Leith, Greenock, Coatbridge, Kilmarnock, Kirkcaldy, Perth, Hamilton, Motherwell, and Falkirk.

The capital of Ireland is Dublin; the other chief towns are Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Londonderry.

There are numerous other cities, towns, villages and districts notable for industrial, educational, historical, literary, or other associations.

THE VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON, WITH THE THAMES IN THE FOREGROUND

LONDON, the capital of the British Empire and the second largest city in the world, is situated in the southeast of England on both sides of the River Thames, which winds through it from west to east. The river is crossed by numerous bridges and is deep enough to allow large vessels to come up to London Bridge, the lowest of these (except the movable Tower Bridge), where it is two hundred and sixty-six yards wide. London may be said to stretch from east to west about fourteen miles, from north to south about ten.

The area embraced by the Metropolitan and City police districts, including all parishes within fifteen miles of Charing Cross, is spoken of as Greater London. The population of London roughly equals that of Scotland, Holland, Portugal or Sweden. Under the Act of 1899 London includes the municipal boroughs of Battersea, Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Camberwell, Chelsea, Deptford, Finsbury, Fulham, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Holborn, Islington, Kensington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Paddington, Poplar, St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, Shoreditch, Stoke Newington, Wandsworth, Westminster and Woolwich.

General Features.—The greater portion of London lies on the north side of the Thames, in the counties of Middlesex and Essex, mainly the former, on a site gradually rising from the river, and marked by several inequalities of no great height, except in the northern suburbs, where the elevation of four hundred and thirty feet is reached; on the opposite bank, in the county of Surrey and partly in Kent, the more densely built parts cover an extensive and nearly uniform flat, in some places below the level of the highest tides, while the outskirts are mostly elevated.

The nucleus of London was formed by what is still distinctively the City of London, situated in the heart of the metropolis on the north bank of the Thames. The City is a separate municipality, having a civic corporation of its own, at its head being the Lord-mayor of London. The City occupies only six hundred and seventy-one acres, and has a resident population of only twenty-seven thousand.

Westminster, another portion of old London, associated with the sovereigns, the parliaments, and the supreme courts of justice of England for over eight hundred years, borders with the City on the west; while across the river from the city lies the ancient quarter of Southwark, or “The Borough.” Besides these, London consists of a great number of well-defined quarters or districts, as well as many minor districts, the names of which are familiar to the outside world, such as Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Pimlico, Bloomsbury, Bermondsey, Belgravia, etc. Another loose division of London is into the West End or fashionable quarter, the residence of the wealthy, and the East End, the great seat of trade and manufactures.

PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, LONDON

The financial and business houses of the city are principally located to the east of St. Paul’s; the galleries, theaters, and places of amusement between St. Paul’s and St. James’s Park; the parks and residences of the nobility upon the western margin of the city. The railway stations are, with few exceptions, in the suburbs.

London, on the whole, may be called a well-built city, brick being the material generally employed, though many public and other edifices are built of stone. In some streets the brick fronts are made to imitate stone by being coated with cement. The streets are generally well kept and well paved and lighted, but, except in some of the more recent quarters, the general appearance of London is not attractive, much of the effect of the fine buildings being lost by overcrowding and the want of fitting sites.

What generally most strikes a stranger in London is its immense size, which can only be grasped by actually traveling about, or by obtaining a view from some elevation, as Primrose Hill in the northwest, or the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral near the center, the most conspicuous building in the metropolis. Other striking and also attractive features of London are the parks, especially Hyde Park and Regent’s Park, so valuable as breathing spaces; and the handsome and massive stone embankments along the Thames, forming wide roadways and promenades bordered by trees for long distances.

As the capital of the British Empire, London is from time to time the residence of the sovereign and court. It contains the buildings for the accommodation of parliament and all the great government departments. It is the chief intellectual center of Britain, and is equally great as a center of commerce, banking and finance generally.

Main Streets.—Although in the different districts of London, with the exception of the parts most recently built, there are numerous narrow and crooked streets, yet the whole extent of the metropolis is well united by trunk lines of streets in the principal directions, which render it comparatively easy for a stranger to find his way from one district to another. Picadilly and Pall Mall; the Strand and its continuation Fleet Street, Oxford Street and its continuations, Holborn, Holborn Viaduct, and Cheapside eastward, and Bayswater Road, Notting Hill High Street, and Holland Park Avenue westward, are among noteworthy streets running east and west; while of those running north and south, Regent Street, perhaps the handsomest street in London, and the location of fashionable shops, is the chief. Edgware Road, with its continuations, is an important thoroughfare running northwest. Kings-way and Aldwych, connecting Holborn with the Strand, were opened in 1905.

Many of the streets are closely associated with special trades, industries, pursuits, etc. Thus Bond Street is associated with jewelers, Oxford Street and Regent Street with milliners, the Burlington Arcade with fashionable haberdashers, Fleet Street with newspapers, Northumberland Avenue and the Strand with hotels, Long Acre with carriage builders, Shaftesbury Avenue with theaters, while Pall Mall is the especial center of clubland. Booksellers’ Row and the Lowther Arcade in the Strand, famous respectively for second-hand book shops and for toy shops, have both disappeared quite recently. The Thames Embankment on the north or Middlesex side, known as the Victoria Embankment, also forms a magnificent thoroughfare, adorned by important buildings, and at different points with ornamental grounds and statues.

Bridges.—A number of magnificent bridges cross the Thames. The lowest is the Tower Bridge, a “bascule” bridge opening by machinery so as to let ships pass through. The others most remarkable in upward order (exclusive of railway bridges) are London Bridge, nine hundred feet long, and built of Aberdeen granite; Southwark Bridge, and Blackfriars’ Bridge, all connecting the city with Southwark; Waterloo Bridge, one thousand three hundred and eighty feet long, consisting of nine elliptical arches of Aberdeen granite; Westminster Bridge, an elegant structure of iron, one thousand two hundred feet long, crossing the river from Westminster to Lambeth; Vauxhall Bridge (rebuilding completed in 1906), carrying an electric railway; Putney Bridge, and Hammersmith Bridge. A great traffic passes under the river in tunnels, some for electric railways. The old Thames Tunnel, two miles below London Bridge, now contains a railway. The great Blackwall Tunnel, farther down, is for general traffic.

Parks and Squares.—The chief parks are in the western portion of the metropolis, the largest being Hyde Park and Regent’s Park, which, together with St. James’s Park and the Green Parks, are royal parks. The most fashionable is Hyde Park, containing about four hundred acres. It is surrounded by a carriage-drive two and one-half miles long, has some fine old trees, large stretches of grass, and contains a handsome sheet of water sadly misnamed the Serpentine River. Kensington Gardens (three hundred and sixty acres), with which Hyde Park communicates at several points, are well wooded and finely laid out. St. James’s Park, eighty-three acres, and the Green Park, seventy-one acres in extent, adjoin Hyde Park on the southeast. Regent’s Park, in the northwest of London, north of Hyde Park, containing the gardens of the Zoological Society and those of the Royal Botanic Society, covers an area of four hundred and seventy acres. The Zoological Gardens contain the largest collection of living animals of all kinds in the world. Adjoining Regent’s Park to the north is Primrose Hill. There are, besides, Victoria Park in the northeast of London, Hampstead Heath in the northwest, the happy hunting-ground of the toilers of the city on “bank holidays.” Battersea Park in the southwest, West Ham Park in the extreme east, Greenwich Park at Greenwich, etc.

Of the squares the most central and noteworthy is Trafalgar Square, with Charing Cross adjoining. Most of the squares possess gardens, some public, such as Leicester Square, others private, as Grosvenor Square, Russell Square, Bedford Square, Tavistock Square, etc.

CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE, LONDON

Monuments.—Among the public monuments are “The Monument” on Fish Street Hill, London Bridge, a fluted Doric column two hundred and two feet high, erected in 1677 in commemoration of the great fire of London; the York Column, in Waterloo Place, one hundred and twenty-four feet high; the Guards’ Memorial (those who fell in Crimea), same place; the Nelson Column, in Trafalgar Square, one hundred and seventy-six and one-half feet high, with four colossal lions by Landseer at its base; the national memorial to Prince Albert in Hyde Park, probably one of the finest monuments in Europe, being a Gothic structure one hundred and seventy-six feet high, with a colossal statue of the prince seated under a lofty canopy; Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment; a handsome modern “cross” at Charing Cross; and numerous statues of public men. The Queen Victoria Memorial at Buckingham Palace, on a grand scale, was designed by Sir Aston Webb, R.A.

Public Buildings.—Among the royal palaces are St. James’s, a brick building erected by Henry VIII.; Buckingham Palace, the King’s London residence, built by George IV.; Marlborough House, the residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales; Kensington Palace, a plain brick building, the birthplace of Queen Victoria. These are all in the west of London.

Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is situated on the Surrey side of the river, while Fulham Palace, the residence of the Bishop of London, is in Fulham, near Putney Bridge.

On the north bank of the Thames stand the Houses of Parliament, a magnificent structure in the Tudor Gothic style, with two lofty towers. The buildings cover about eight acres, and cost fifteen million dollars. Westminster Hall, adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, a noble old pile built by William Rufus, was formerly the place in which the Supreme Courts of Justice sat, but is now merely a promenade for members of parliament.

In and near Whitehall in the same quarter are the government offices, comprising the Foreign, Home, Colonial, and India Offices, the new War Office, Horse Guards and Admiralty.

Somerset House, which contains some of the public offices, is in the Strand. The Postoffice in the city occupies spacious and handsome buildings. New Postoffice buildings are on the former site of Christ’s Hospital, the king having laid the foundation stone in 1905.

Adjoining the city on the east is the Tower, the ancient citadel of London, which occupies an area of twelve acres on the banks of the Thames. The most ancient part is the White Tower, erected about 1078 for William the Conqueror.

Other noteworthy buildings are the new Law Courts, a Gothic building at the junction of the Strand and Fleet Street; the Bank of England; the Royal Exchange; the Mansion House, the official residence of the lord-mayor; the Guildhall, the seat of the municipal government of the city; and the four Inns of Court; and Inner and Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn; and Gray’s Inn.

Churches.—Among the churches the chief is St. Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1710 by Sir Christopher Wren. It is situated in the City, occupies the summit of Ludgate Hill, and is a classic building, five hundred and ten feet in length, with a dome four hundred feet in height.

Westminster Abbey, one of the finest specimens of the pointed style in Great Britain, dates from the reign of Henry III. and Edward I. It adjoins the Houses of Parliament, is five hundred and thirty-one feet long, including Henry VII.’s chapel, and two hundred and three feet wide at the transepts. Here the kings and queens of England have been crowned, from Edward the Confessor to George V. In the south transept are the tombs and monuments of great poets from Chaucer downward, whence it is called “Poets’ Corner”; and in other parts are numerous sculptured monuments to sovereigns, statesmen, warriors, philosophers, divines, patriots, and others, many of whom are interred within its walls. Among many old churches are St. Bartholomew’s in West Smithfield; the Chapel Royal, Savoy; St. Andrew’s, Undershaft; St. Giles, Cripplegate; St. Margaret’s, Westminster; St. Stephen’s, Walbrook; the Temple Church, Bow Church, St. Bride’s in Fleet Street. The Roman Catholic Cathedrals at Westminster and in Southwark should also be mentioned.

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON

Places of Amusement.—These are naturally exceedingly numerous. Among the theaters may be mentioned: Covent Garden, the home of opera; Drury Lane, identified with melodrama and pantomime; His Majesty’s, famous for its efforts in the cause of the higher drama; the Haymarket, St. James’s, Criterion, Wyndham’s New, Duke of York’s, Garrick, Court, and others, for comedy; the Gaiety, Daly’s, Lyric, Prince of Wales’s, Savoy, and Vaudeville for musical comedy and comic opera. The “music-hall” is equally conspicuous among London’s places of amusement, variety entertainments being given at the Alhambra, Empire, Palace, Coliseum, Hippodrome, Lyceum, and a host of others. Among the more dignified concert halls may be mentioned the Royal Albert Hall (capable of holding an audience of eight thousand persons), Queen’s Hall, and Crystal Palace.

Museums.—The British Museum, the great national collection, in a very central position, is the principal one. It contains an immense collection of books, manuscripts, engravings, drawings, sculptures, coins, etc.

The South Kensington Museum is a capacious series of buildings containing valuable collections in science and the fine and decorative arts, and there is a branch museum from it in Bethnal Green, in the East End. The very extensive natural history department of the British Museum occupies a fine Romanesque building at South Kensington. The India and the Patent Museums are also at South Kensington, and here was built the Imperial Institute, partly intended as a museum of home and colonial products, but now also accommodating the University of London.

The Soane Museum contains many valuable objects of art. The chief picture-galleries are the National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery of British Art (known as the Tate Gallery), the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. Mention must also be made of the Wallace Collection, at Hertford House, Manchester Square, a magnificent collection of pictures, sculpture and objects of art, bequeathed to the nation by the widow of Sir Richard Wallace in 1897.

The chief libraries are the British Museum, Lambeth Palace library, the Guildhall library, Sion College library, the London library, London Institution library. Many free libraries have recently been established.

Shipping.—The port of London has been for many years the greatest in the world. The control and management of the business of the port was transferred in March, 1909, from the Thames Conservancy to the Port of London Authority. This new body controls the river from Teddington to Warden Point, fifty-one miles east of London Bridge. It also took over the India, Millwall, and Surrey Commercial docks. The total cost of the transfer was one hundred and twelve million dollars.

Its Cosmopolitan Population.—There are in London nearly 60,000 persons of Scottish birth and over 60,000 of Irish birth. Of 150,000 foreigners, 40,000 are Russians (including Jews), with 16,000 Russian Poles, 30,000 Germans, 12,000 French, 11,000 Italians, 6,000 Austrians, 6,000 Americans (U. S.), 4,500 Dutch, 45,000 Swiss, 2,500 Belgians, 1,800 Swedes, 1,000 Norwegians, and 1,000 Danes.

Commercial and Industrial Centers

In England and Wales.—Hull, the Tyne Ports (Newcastle, Gateshead, and Shields), and Sunderland, with London, form the great outlets of the east of England. Liverpool (with Birkenhead), ranking with London in maritime importance, and Bristol, are the great outlets and seats of commerce in the west of England, as Southhampton and Plymouth on the Channel are in the south.

The most important of all the textile industries of England is that of cotton, which has centered itself in Manchester and in its satellite cities on the coalfield of Lancashire and Cheshire (Preston, Blackburn, Oldham, Wigan, Bury, Rochdale, Bolton, Stockport, Macclesfield), drawing a dense population round these centers, with their thousands of factories, fed with raw material from abroad, and relieved of their manufactured products by Liverpool and the port of Manchester.

The woolen manufactories, next in importance, are on the opposite side of the Pennine chain, in the great towns of Leeds and Bradford, as well as in Halifax, Huddersfield, Wakefield, and Dewsbury, clustering round these. Linen manufactures center at Barnsley, farther south, also on this Yorkshire coalfield. Three outlying woolen manufacturing centers may be noted; these are Leicester, in a famous sheep-raising district, and Kidderminster, noted for its carpets, Stroud, Bradford, and other towns in the west of England, noted for the quality of their cloth. Newtown, in Montgomeryshire, is the center of the Welsh flannel trade.

Hardwares have two great points of production—the one round Sheffield, on the Yorkshire coal and iron field, the other round Birmingham and the towns on the South Stafford coal and iron field (Wolverhampton, Wednesbury, Bilston, Dudley, Walsall), called the “Black Country” because large parts of it are so completely cut up with collieries and ironworks that no cultivation exists.

In North Staffordshire, between the iron and the cotton manufacturing regions, lies the “Potteries,” a district which by supplying coal is able to maintain its staple industry. Stoke-upon-Trent is the center of the cluster of Pottery towns (Burslem, Longton, Hanley, Tunstall), all connected by lines of busy hamlets. Worcester, on the Severn, is also celebrated for its pottery.

English silk manufacturers give importance to three separate districts, those round Congleton and Macclesfield, in Cheshire; Derby; and Coventry, in Warwickshire. Nottingham town combines silk and cotton manufactures in hosiery and lace work. Stafford town supplies boots and shoes to all the manufacturing towns which lie round it.

The coal trade of North England centers in the Tyne Ports and Sunderland, which are also famous for their iron, ships and engines, and their chemical works. The South Wales iron and coal field has its heart in Merthyr Tydfil, one of the largest towns of Wales; Cardiff, with fine docks and iron shipbuilding yards, besides its large coal export trade; Swansea is the headquarters of copper and tin smelting, from ores brought thither from the most distant parts of the world; Milford Haven aspires to becoming the rival of Liverpool in the trade with America.

Among the few large towns besides London which lie outside the manufacturing and mining region of England, may be noted Norwich, in agricultural Norfolk, a seat of manufactures of the most various kind, introduced by about four thousand Flemings who fled thither in Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

In Scotland.—On the Scottish coal and iron field, Glasgow, favored by its position on the estuary of the Clyde, has risen to be at once the great commercial and manufacturing center of the country, carrying on a large trade with all parts of the world, in manufacturing cottons and machinery, and in building ships. A number of manufacturing towns (Paisley, noted for its shawls; Greenock, for its sugar-refining; Dumbarton, for its iron ships; Airdrie, in the midst of the collieries and iron works) have risen round Glasgow over the Scottish coalfield. Leith, the port of Edinburgh, is mainly engaged in the Baltic grain trade; Dundee, on the estuary of the Tay, owes much of its prosperity to its jute and hemp factories, and to its Greenland whaling and sealing trade.

In Ireland.—Owing to its poverty in coal and iron, the manufactures of Ireland have not attained an extent at all comparable with those of Britain. Its only extensive manufacturing district is that which lies round Belfast, in the northeast, where the flax, grown largely in the north of the country, is made into linen. The linen district extends to Armagh, on the west, and Coleraine, in the north.

Dublin, the capital, is noted for its poplins, stout, and whiskey; its quays afford excellent accommodation for shipping, and it takes the lead in the foreign trade of Ireland.

Cork, with its fine harbor the “Cove of Cork,” or Queenstown, in the south; Limerick, on the Shannon; Galway, the port of the west; Londonderry, in the north, are the other important centers of population in Ireland.

Educational, Historical and Literary Centers

Edinburgh (ed-in-bo-ro; Edwin’s burgh), the metropolis of Scotland, grew up originally beneath the protecting walls of its castle, and is not a manufacturing town, but derives its importance mainly from the law courts, its university and schools, and its printing and publishing trade. It is situated upon two ridges of ground, divided by a deep, narrow valley, formerly a morass, now made into a public park, through which the railways pass. To the north of this park is the New Town, composed of modern and elegant buildings—the principal street, Princes Street, bordering upon and overlooking the park. The principal hotels are on the opposite of Princes Street. The railway stations are in the valley. To the south lies the ridge of the Old Town, terminating, to the west in a rocky bluff, upon which stands the Castle in the heart of the city. The Old Town is the historic part of the city, the New being quite modern. The first Scottish Parliament was convened here by Alex. II., 1215.

The principal places of interest are Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Abbey and Calton Hill. Among the objects of less interest are the house of John Knox, High Street; St. Giles Church; Allan Ramsay’s Theater, the favorite resort of Burns; the Black Turnpike, the prison of Queen Mary, near the Iron Church; and the Heart of Midlothian, the site of an old prison. Annie Laurie was married in Iron Church two hundred and fifty years ago. John Knox is buried in the paved court between the Parliament House and St. Giles; marked by the letters J. K. in the pavement.

The Castle, stands on a precipitous rock about three hundred feet above the valley, accessible only from the east side. It is an extensive mass, of which the oldest portion—and the oldest building in the city—is St. Margaret’s Chapel, the private oratory of the Saxon Princess Margaret, queen of Malcolm Canmore. Another portion is a lofty range of old buildings, in a small apartment of which Queen Mary gave birth to James VI. in 1566; while in an adjoining apartment are kept the ancient regalia of Scotland. Here, also, is the old Parliament Hall, restored in 1888-1889. The castle as a fortress contains accommodation for two thousand soldiers, and the armory space for thirty thousand stand of arms. An old piece of ordnance built of staves of malleable iron, cask fashion, and known as Mons Meg, stands conspicuous in an open area.

Holyrood Palace and Abbey was founded by King David I., who is said to have been saved from the horns of a stag, driven to bay near this spot, by a luminous cross in the sky. In the northwest angle of the building are the apartments which were occupied by Mary, Queen of Scots, nearly in the same state in which they were left by that unfortunate princess.

Calton Hill (call-ton) is at the eastern end of Princes Street and has an altitude of about three hundred and fifty feet. Upon the hill, adjacent to the stairs, is Dugald Stewart’s monument at the left; to the north is the Old Observatory, and the New Observatory with a small dome. To the south is Nelson’s monument, one hundred and two feet high, surmounted by a time-ball. The unfinished colonnade is a part of a structure in honor of Waterloo, intended to be a copy of the Parthenon at Athens. The foundation was laid 1822, but, proving too costly, the project was abandoned.

The view from the summit of this hill is scarcely to be surpassed. To the north is what may be called New Edinburgh, extending toward Granton and the port of Leith. Across the Forth, is Fifeshire. Following down the Forth, is first, the islands of Inch Keith, Portobello, Bass Rock, and the Isle of May, farther at sea. Toward the south and west the Burns monument; Holyrood immediately below; Salisbury Craig and south, Arthur’s Seat, eight hundred and twenty feet high; thence to the north the Old Town, commanded by the frowning Castle.

VIEW OF EDINBURGH FROM THE CASTLE

Oxford, capital of Oxford county, and seat of one of the most celebrated universities in the world, is situated about fifty miles northwest of London, on a gentle acclivity between the Cherwell and the Thames, here called the Isis. Oxford, as a city of towers and spires, of fine collegiate buildings, old and new, of gardens, groves, and avenues of trees, is unique in England.

Of the university buildings the most remarkable are Christ’s Church, the largest and grandest of all the colleges, with a fine quadrangle and other buildings, and a noble avenue of trees. It was founded by Wolsey in 1525, and its magnificent chapel is the cathedral church of the see of Oxford. The hall is a noble room.

Merton College, founded about 1264, has a very beautiful chapel of the fifteenth century, and the library is the oldest in the kingdom.

New College, founded by William of Wykeham, in 1386, is one of the wealthiest of the colleges, and the chapel is very handsome.

The gardens of St. John’s College are much admired and the grounds of Magdalen College (perhaps the most beautiful college in Oxford) are no less attractive. The latter include “Addison’s Walk,” a shaded avenue that was his favorite resort when a student here. The Bodleian Library and Picture Gallery, the Theatre (built by Wren), the Ashmolean Museum (also by Wren), the Radcliffe Library and Observatory, the Divinity School (in the hall of which Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were tried in 1555), St. Mary’s Church, the Taylor Institute, the University Galleries and Museum, the Botanical Gardens, and the Martyr’s Memorial are also among the noteworthy things in Oxford. The High Street is the subject of one of Wordsworth’s sonnets; and Hawthorne calls it “the noblest old street in England.” Oxford depends mostly on the university, and on its attractions as a place of residence.

Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, is a pleasant town of Warwickshire, eight miles southwest of Warwick, twenty-two miles southeast of Birmingham, and one hundred and ten miles northeast of London. It stands on the right bank of the quiet Avon, which here is spanned by the “great and sumptuous bridge” of fourteen pointed arches, three hundred and seventy-six yards long, that was built by the Lord Mayor of London.

It is a quiet, old-fashioned place, with wide and well-kept streets, and many handsome mansions. The Town Hall was dedicated to the memory of the poet. Here is a statue of Shakespeare, presented by Garrick, on the pedestal of which are the lines from Hamlet; “Take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again.” Very interesting is the Shakespeare Memorial Building and Theater, in a charming situation by the Avon, the outgrowth of the feeling that the poet should have a suitable monument in his native town.

Shakespeare’s House, in Henley Street, became national property in 1847, and has been carefully restored. The room in which the poet is said to have been born seems to have undergone but little change since that day. In another room there is a small museum of Shakespearian curiosities.

Stratford Church, in which Shakespeare is buried, is on the bank of the Avon. It is a large and elegant structure, with a graceful stone spire one hundred and sixty-three feet high, erected in 1764 to replace a wooden one that had been taken down. The building has been judiciously restored in recent years. There is an elegant window illustrating Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages,” the contribution of Americans.

The grave of Shakespeare is in the chancel, covered by a plain flagstone, while above, on the wall to the left, is the monumental bust which is the most trustworthy representation of the poet. His wife lies near him, with his favorite daughter, “good Mistris Hall,” and Dr. John Hall, her husband. In the chancel there is also an elegant marble monument to John Combe, the poet’s friend.

Shottery, where Anne Hathaway lived before she became the wife of Shakespeare, is about a mile from Stratford, and may be reached by a footpath through the fields. The cottage that was Anne’s home has a timber and plaster front, and a thatched roof. The interior contains the oaken seat on which Shakespeare and Anne were wont to sit; many bits of venerable furniture; and, upstairs, a vast bed, on which many a Hathaway has drawn the last breath of life.

Stratford also possesses a memorial fountain, presented by George W. Childs of Philadelphia, and Harvard House, the birthplace of the mother of John Harvard, founder of Harvard University. It is still an important agricultural center; but its chief prosperity depends on the thirty thousand or so pilgrims who visit it yearly.

Ayr, forty miles from Glasgow, Scotland, by railway, is noted especially as the birthplace of Burns, the poet; as also the place where Wm. Wallace was imprisoned. The town is divided by the river Ayr, over which are the “twa brigs” of Burns. The Burns Cottage, or birthplace, the scene of his “Cotter’s Saturday Night,” is two miles south of the town, and is now used as a public memorial. It contains few articles associated with Burns.

Alloway Kirk, mentioned in “Tam O’Shanter,” or what remains of it, is one-half mile south of the Cottage. Near the church are the Burns monument, a circular shaft sixty feet in height, erected 1820, and the Doon, immortalized in the “Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon.”

Burns died at Dumfries, where he had lived three years, and was buried in the churchyard there. Nineteen years later, upon the completion of the monument to his memory, his body was exhumed and placed within the Mausoleum at Dumfries.

Melrose, in the county of Roxburgh, thirty-one miles southeast of Edinburgh, is celebrated for the abbey founded by King David in 1136; destroyed by Edward II. in 1322; rebuilt by Bruce in 1326, and partly demolished by the English in 1545. Sir Walter Scott has given it an enduring description in his Lay of the Last Minstrel.

The material of which it is built is a very hard stone, and much of the carving is as perfect as when fresh from the sculptor’s hand. Within its walls are the graves of kings, and nobles and priests of the olden time; among them Alexander II. of Scotland, and more than one of the renowned Earls of Douglas. Before the high altar the heart of King Robert Bruce is said to have been deposited. Sir David Brewster’s grave is in the churchyard.

Dryburgh Abbey, four miles from Melrose, was founded about the same time as Melrose, and, like that, was destroyed in 1322 by Edward II. Robert I. restored it, at least in part; but it was again destroyed in 1544. St. Mary’s aisle, the most beautiful part of the ruins, contains the tomb of Scott, buried here September 26, 1832; also the graves of his wife and his eldest son, and of his son-in-law Lockhart.

ABBOTSFORD, HOME OF SIR WALTER SCOTT

Abbotsford, two miles from Melrose, was long the home of the “Great Enchanter of the North.” The author’s study is the most interesting room. There the old writing-table, the plain leathern armchair, the reference books, seem to indicate that Sir Walter has but just left them. The Library (twenty thousand volumes) contains a bust of Scott, by Chantrey, and many miniatures. The roof is of carved oak, designed from models taken from Roslin Chapel. The Drawing-room, where Sir Walter died, and the little octagonal dressing-room contain many precious relics. The Armory has a fine collection of Scotch weapons.

Windsor, is in Berkshire, England, on the Thames, twenty-one and one-quarter miles from London. It contains a town hall, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1686, the church of St. John the Baptist, with fine examples of Grinling Gibbon’s wood-carving, and a fine Jubilee statue of Queen Victoria.

Windsor owes its chief importance to its castle, which stands east of the town on a height overlooking the River Thames, and is the principal royal residence in the kingdom. It was begun, or at least enlarged, by Henry I., and has been altered and added to by almost every sovereign since. The castle stands in the Home Park or “Little Park,” which is four miles in circumference, and this again is connected with the Great Park, which is eighteen miles in circuit, and contains an avenue of trees three miles in length.

STRATFORD-ON-AVON, IMMORTALIZED BY ITS ASSOCIATIONS WITH SHAKESPEARE

The chief features of interest in the castle are the old state apartments; St. George’s Chapel, where the Knights of the Garter are installed, and the vaults of which contain the remains of Henry VI., Edward IV., Henry VIII., Charles I., George III., George IV., and William IV.; the Round Tower or ancient keep; and the present state apartments.

Eton College is one-half mile from Windsor across the river. The stone chapel, one hundred and seventy-five feet long, is very handsome. There is also a bronze statue of Henry VI. The college was founded in 1440.

Stoke Pogis, the scene of Gray’s Elegy, and the burial-place of the poet, is near Windsor.

There is a fine monument to Gray in Stoke Park.

Cambridge, fifty-six miles from London, and on the Cam, a narrow stream that rambles all over the town. Tradition gives 630 as the date of the foundation of the University; but the oldest college, Peterhouse or St. Peter’s, can only be referred to 1257. The public buildings are the Shire Hall, Town Hall, University halls and library, and Fitzwilliam Museum.

There are seventeen colleges, inferior in architectural beauty to those of Oxford, though their associations are quite as interesting.

Trinity, was founded by Henry VIII. in 1546, and has three fine quadrangles; a splendid hall in the Tudor style; gardens; and an important library, with busts of Newton and Bacon, Thorwaldsen’s statue of Byron, Newton’s telescope and some of John Milton’s manuscripts.

Christ’s College, founded in 1442, was Milton’s college. In the gardens is Milton’s Mulberry-Tree. The quadrangle was rebuilt by Inigo Jones.

Jesus College (1496) and Chapel are very fine buildings, on the site of a Benedictine nunnery.

Caius (pronounced Kees) was founded in 1384, and enlarged in 1557 by Dr. Caius, physician to Queen Mary. Rebuilt lately, it is now one of the best.

Corpus Christi (1351) contains curious portraits, especially those of Sir Thomas More, Wolsey, Erasmus, and Foxe, the author of the Book of Martyrs.

Kings College (1441), founded by Henry VI., is the finest building in the University. The chapel is the finest specimen of perpendicular Gothic existing. The roof, unsupported by pillars, contains twelve divisions of exquisite lace-work tracery in stone. The twenty-four stained-glass windows, each fifty feet high, are beautiful.

The Fitzwilliam Museum, and some of the churches, especially the round chapel of St. Sepulchre, are of considerable interest. All Saints contains a monument, by Chantrey, to Henry Kirke White. Girton College, for women, founded in 1869, is about two miles northwest of the town. The walk along the Cam behind the colleges, with the view of the “Backs” and bridges, is the pride of Cambridge.

English History

The island of Great Britain in the remotest times bore the name of Albion. From a very early period it was visited by Phœnicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks, for the purpose of obtaining tin.

Roman Period.—Cæsar’s two expeditions, 55 and 54 B. C., made it known to the Romans, by whom it was generally called Britannia; but it was not till the time of Claudius, nearly a hundred years after, that the Romans made a serious attempt to convert Britain into a Roman province. Some forty years later, under Agricola, the ablest of the Roman generals in Britain, they had extended the limits of the Provincia Romana as far as the line of the Forth and the Clyde.

Here the Roman armies came into contact with the Caledonians of the interior, described by Tacitus as large-limbed, red-haired men. After defeating the Caledonians, Agricola marched victoriously northward as far as the Moray Firth, establishing stations and camps, remains of which are still to be seen. But the Romans were unable to retain their conquests in the northern part of the island, and were finally forced to abandon their northern wall and forts between the Clyde and the Forth and retire behind their second wall, built in 120 A. D. by Hadrian, between the Solway and the Tyne. Thus the southern part of the island alone remained Roman, and became specially known as Britannia, while the northern portion was distinctly called Caledonia.

The capital of Roman Britain was York (Eboracum). Under the rule of the Romans many flourishing towns arose. Great roads were made, traversing the whole country and helping very much to develop its industries. Christianity was also introduced, and took the place of the Druidism of the native British. Under the tuition of the Romans the useful arts and even many of the refinements of life found their way into the southern part of the island.

Creation of England and Scotland.—From the time of the Roman conquest, and still more decidedly after the Saxon invasions in the fifth century, the history of Britain branches off into a history of the southern part of the island, afterwards known as England, and a history of the northern part of the island, afterwards named Scotland. It was not till the union of the crowns in 1603 that the destinies of England and Scotland began again to unite; and it was not till the final union of the parliaments in 1707 that the histories of the two countries may be said to merge into one.

The Anglo-Saxon Period.—In 411 Honorius abandoned Britain, whose inhabitants, finding it impossible to defend themselves against the Picts, called to their aid the Saxons, who, in 449, assisted them so effectually that they took possession of the country and founded the four kingdoms of Essex, Wessex, Sussex, and Kent. The Angles, who followed them, established three other kingdoms, viz., East Anglia, Deira, and Mercia, 540-584. All these kingdoms ended by being reduced to one, under Egbert, the Saxon king of Wessex, in 827.

After 835 the Danes ravaged England from time to time, but in 871 Alfred the Great forced them to desist, and from thence till near the end of his reign in 900, the Danes left the island in peace. Returning in 981, the Danes succeeded, in 1013, in putting their king, Sweyn, on the throne, which was not recovered by the Saxon dynasty till 1041.

Norman Conquest.—When William of Normandy landed in England to claim the crown which Edward the Confessor had bequeathed to him, he found that the people had raised to the throne Harold, the son of a popular nobleman. The resources of the Saxons, however, had been wasted in domestic conflicts before the attack of William; and the battle of Hastings, in 1066 A. D., gave England with comparative ease to the Normans. The next twenty years saw the conquest completed, and nearly all the large landed estates of the Saxons pass, on every pretext except the true one, into the hands of the Normans. In the course of time the Normans were absorbed among the Saxons, their very language disappearing, though leaving many traces. From this union arose the English people and the English language as they now exist. The union of the Normans with the Saxons was not fully effected so long as the Normans retained their foreign possessions. In King John’s reign the whole of these were lost excepting Guienne and Poitou.

In the reign of Stephen occurred the civil war between the Empress Maud, daughter of Henry I., and Stephen; she finally retired to France, and concluded a peace with her adversary. The great struggles of the successors of William were with the ecclesiastics and with the barons. Sometimes in these the popular sympathies were with, and sometimes against, the crown. The Conqueror himself and his immediate successors had no difficulty in maintaining the superiority of the courts of justice over the ecclesiastics; but even a sovereign so bold and skillful as Henry II. was forced, after the outcry occasioned by the murder of Thomas à Becket (1170 A. D.) to yield the point. The right to nominate the higher ecclesiastics was also secured by the popes.

The Plantagenets.—Under the Plantagenets an era of progress, generally, opened for England. The reign of Henry II. gave to the country the constitution of Clarendon; Ireland was conquered, 1172; England was divided into six circuits for the better administration of justice, and a digest of the laws was made by Glanville about 1181. Richard I. did little for the internal good of the land, his chief exploits occurring on the field of battle in foreign lands.

Magna Charta.—Under John two important events occurred: Magna Charta was obtained, and the French possessions were nearly all lost—both unmitigated blessings; but otherwise John’s influence was cast against progress and reform. The degradation of the English monarchy was at its lowest when he consented (1213 A. D.) to hold the crown as a gift from Rome. From Henry II. something similar to the Great Charter had already been gained; but it was the Magna Charta of John which firmly established two great English principles—that no man should suffer arbitrary imprisonment, and that no tax should be imposed without the consent of the council of the nation.

During the reign of Henry III., England obtained her first regular parliament, and gold money was first coined in 1257. Edward I. was crowned 1272, and almost the first event of his reign was the conquest of Wales; Scotland also was subdued, but revolted again in 1297.

The reign of Edward II. was disastrous to himself and to England. The barons rose against his favorites, and Edward was murdered by the connivance of his wife. A new and vigorous era began with the reign of Edward III. The Scots were defeated at Halidon Hill; important victories were gained in France; the Order of the Garter was instituted, and, most important of all, law pleadings were ordered to be in English, instead of in the Norman-French tongue which had hitherto prevailed. Richard II. was crowned in 1377, and with his death in 1385, ended the line of the Plantagenets.

House of Lancaster.—Henry IV. was the first sovereign under this ill-fated house. His reign was disturbed by an insurrection of the Welsh under the Percies, but was otherwise peaceful. Henry V. invaded France and won the famous battle of Agincourt, and gained the French crown, 1420; but during the reign of his successor, Henry VI., all the French possessions were lost save Calais. He was deposed by Warwick the kingmaker, and the first representative of the House of York, Edward IV., was placed on the throne. The Wars of the Roses ensued, which continued through the two succeeding reigns of Edward V. and Richard III, ending with the death of Richard on Bosworth field, the coronation of Henry VII., 1485, and his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV.

The Tudors.—The union of the houses of York and Lancaster under Henry VII. begins a new period in English history. Under him England entered on her career of maritime discovery. He died, 1599, and was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII. Henry VIII. succeeded under the most favorable auspices. He found the alliance of his now important country courted by both of his contemporaries, Francis I., of France, and Charles V., of Germany. But the interest of the foreign complications of the reign merges in the courts of England and of Rome. Henry was frequently engaged in hostilities with foreign countries, and the great victory of Flodden was won by one of his generals over James IV. of Scotland, husband of his sister Margaret. He threw off his allegiance to the pope, and became head of the church in England. He was six times married, and two of his wives were beheaded and two were repudiated. In his reign the scaffold was occupied by victims from every class of society. He died January 28, 1547, and was succeeded by his only son, Edward VI., whose mother was Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife.

Edward was in his tenth year, and the government was vested in a regency. In this reign the church of England was established, and the nation placed on the Protestant side in the struggle then going on in Europe. When Edward VI. died, July 6, 1553, Lady Jane Grey, to whom Edward had bequeathed the crown, was queen for ten days, when her party was dispersed, and Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VIII., ascended the throne.

The marriage of Mary with Philip II. of Spain led to war between England and France, and an English army joined the Spanish force that invaded France. Mary was a devout Catholic, and caused Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and about three hundred other Protestants to be burned. Her death, November 17, 1558, left the throne to Elizabeth, who sided with the Protestants.

Elizabethan Period.—The reign of Elizabeth, which lasted nearly forty-five years, is one of the most brilliant in English history. She triumphed over her enemies, and raised her kingdom to the first place in Europe. She ruled over Scotland in fact, and put the queen of that country, the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, to death, after having held her in captivity nearly nineteen years. The Huguenots of France and Henry IV. received aid from her, and but for the assistance which she gave the Dutch they would have sunk under the power of Spain. She invited the Turks to join her in attacking the pope and Phillip II.; and over both those potentates she achieved a great triumph in 1588, when the Spanish armada was destroyed. The enterprise of Englishmen led them to circumnavigate the globe, to attempt colonization, to extend commerce, and to inaugurate trade relations with India. Elizabeth died March 24, 1603, and with her terminated the Tudor dynasty, after an existence of nearly one hundred and eighteen years.

House of Stuart.—Elizabeth was succeeded by James VI. of Scotland, the son of her victim, Mary Stuart, and first king of England of the Stuart line, who inherited the English crown in virtue of his descent from Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII., who had married his great-grandfather, James IV. The new king, under the title James I., was hailed with much satisfaction by the English; but he was a pedant and a tyrant, and soon lost his popularity. His first parliament, 1604, in reply to his assertion that all their privileges were derived from him, asserted all those principles for which the English constitutionalists contended as facts not to be questioned.

Then began that civil contest which lasted down to 1689 in full force, and which was not utterly at an end till 1746. The foreign policy of James was as vicious as his home policy, and England sank in the estimation of Europe. He died in 1625, and was succeeded by his son Charles I.

For eleven years (1629-1640) this ruler called no parliament, and England was ruled as despotically as France. His chief instruments were Wentworth, afterward earl of Strafford, and Laud, archbishop of Canterbury. Laud sought to fasten the English church policy on Scotland. War between the Scotch people and the English government followed, and Charles was compelled to call a parliament April, 1640, which was dissolved in a few days, and became known as the “short parliament.” Six months later assembled the famous “long parliament,” which proceeded to divest the king of much of his power.

Period of the Commonwealth.—The contest between the king and parliament under the lead of Vane, Cromwell and others, led to the great English Civil war, which began in the latter part of 1642. Cromwell was everywhere victorious in the field. The army became the source of all power. The king was tried, condemned and executed. Ireland was conquered by Cromwell, who was almost equally successful in Scotland. The battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, crushed the royalists for nearly nine years. In 1653 Cromwell dissolved the parliament by force, and was master of England for five years, as Lord Protector. After his death, in 1658, the military and civil republicans quarreled.

Restoration of the House of Stuart.—Richard, the son and successor of the great Protector, resigned, and the restoration of the Stuarts was effected in the person of Charles II., 1660, whose reign in law dates from the time of his father’s execution, January 30, 1649. The king’s popularity soon declined, mainly on account of his foreign policy. An unnecessary war with the Dutch produced much disgrace. The triple alliance with Sweden and Holland for a brief interval stayed the course of Louis XIV., but the king’s forces assisted in the war on Holland made by Louis, and afterward assistance was sent to the Dutch.

The peace of 1678 was followed by the excitement caused by the alleged popish plot. Parliament after parliament was elected, met, set itself in decided opposition to the government, and was dissolved. The leading object of the opposition was the exclusion of the duke of York, Charles’ brother, from the line of succession. Charles II. died in February, 1685, and his brother James II., an avowed Roman Catholic, came to the throne.

James II. was bent on the establishment of a despotism, by the destruction of the constitution in church and state. He punished Monmouth’s rebellion with excessive vindictiveness. The king prorogued parliament in November, 1685, and that body never met again. For three years he governed despotically, and a perpetual contest was waged between him and his people.

In June, 1688, it was announced that the king’s second wife had given birth to a prince, who was afterwards known as the pretender. It was generally believed that a supposititious child had been placed in the position of heir apparent.

In November, William, prince of Orange, who was the king’s nephew and had married his eldest daughter Mary, heir apparent to the British crown, landed in England at the head of an army. James fled, and William and Mary were proclaimed sovereigns.

War was declared against France in 1689, and was ended in 1697. Ireland was subdued. Mary died in 1694, and left William III. sole monarch till his death in March, 1702, when the succession passed to Anne, second daughter of James II.

In May war was declared against France, and after splendid victories achieved by Marlborough, it was ended by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The union of England and Scotland was effected in 1707. Anne died August 1, 1714, and the crown passed to the house of Hanover in the person of George I.

House of Hanover under the Four Georges.—The rebellion of 1715 in behalf of the Stuarts proved a failure. The bursting of the “South sea bubble” in 1720 placed Robert Walpole in control of the government, which he retained under George II. (who ascended the throne in 1727) till 1742. His fall was occasioned by a war with Spain, to which one with France was soon added, growing out of the question of the Austrian succession. In 1746 the contest between the reigning dynasty and the remains of the Stuart party was brought to an end at Culloden where the duke of Cumberland defeated Charles Edward. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 restored peace to Europe for a few years.

The Whigs continued to rule, headed by Henry Pelham, and after his death in 1754 by his brother, the duke of Newcastle. The renewal of the war with France in 1755 was followed by the formation in 1757 of the celebrated Pitt-Newcastle ministry, which carried on the contest with great vigor; so that when George II. died, October 25, 1760, his fleets and armies were everywhere triumphant. The foundation of the East Indian empire of England was laid at Plassey June 23, 1757. French America was conquered at Quebec, September 13, 1759.

The new king, George III. (the first English-born king of his house), grandson of George II., was by nature and education as despotic as the worst of the Stuarts. The attempt to tax the American colonies led to the American revolution. The English in the last years of the war had to fight the Americans, the French, the Spaniards, and the Dutch. The peace of 1783 left England in a low condition.

When France became convulsed by the revolution, England engaged in the war against her that soon followed, which lasted, with two brief intervals, till 1815, ending in the complete triumph of England and her allies. The legislative union between Ireland and Great Britain went into effect January 1, 1801. The exertions made by England, beginning with the administration of Pitt, were vast. Her fleets, chiefly under Nelson, achieved splendid victories over the French and Spaniards, and in the last years of the war her armies were greatly distinguished under the lead of Wellington, who, at Waterloo, inflicted the final defeat on Napoleon in 1815.

In 1810 George III. lost his reason finally, and his eldest son was prince regent till 1820 when he became king as George IV.

In 1812 England became involved in a war with the United States, growing out of the impressment and right of search questions. The contest was virtually terminated by the treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814. In 1829 the Catholic emancipation act was passed, under a ministry headed by Wellington and Peel. George IV. died in 1830, and was succeeded by his brother, the duke of Clarence, as William IV.

In March, 1831, a bill for parliamentary reform was introduced into the house of commons by Lord John Russell, and after long debates in parliament and intense excitement in the country, caused by the opposition of the house of lords, a bill making extensive changes in the constitution of the house of commons finally passed in June, 1832, under the ministry of Earl Grey.

The first reformed parliament, which met January 29, 1833, contained an overwhelming majority of reformers. Lord Grey retired from office in 1834, and was succeeded by Lord Melbourne. Toward the close of the same year the government was committed to Sir Robert Peel, who formed a conservative ministry. Peel continued in office until April 8, 1835, when he retired, having been repeatedly beaten on Irish church questions. Lord Melbourne returned to office, with many of his old colleagues. The king died on June 20, 1837, and was succeeded by his niece Victoria, the only child of Edward, duke of Kent, fourth son of George III.

The Victorian Period.—The accession of Victoria led to the separation of the crowns of England and Hanover, which had been worn by the same persons since 1714. In 1841 Melbourne resigned, and the conservatives under Peel came into power. In 1846 the Peel ministry brought forward an act to protect life in Ireland, but it was defeated in the commons on the same day that the Corn Laws were repealed, and the ministry came to an end, being succeeded by one at the head of which was Lord John Russell. The Russell ministry went out of office in 1852, and for several months the tories, led by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, were at the head of affairs. This ministry was followed by one composed of the coalesced Whigs and Peelites, headed by Lord Aberdeen.

Crimean War.—In 1853 the troubles on the Turkish question began, and war was declared against Russia by France and England in March, 1854. Large fleets and armies were sent to the East, and fleets to the Baltic. The Crimea was invaded, the victory of the Alma won by the allies, and Sebastopol partially invested. On September 8 Sebastopol was reduced, the French storming the Malakhoff, and peace was restored by a congress of the powers at Paris in March, 1856.

Indian Mutiny and Final Absorption of the Indian Empire.—Early in 1857 a formidable revolt broke out in England’s great Bengal army of sepoys. Delhi fell into the hands of the rebels, and the nominal Mogul emperor found himself once more a sovereign in reality. The mutiny spread rapidly, and in a short time the whole Bengal army had become hostile to the English. The military reputation of England was greatly raised by the successes of her armies in India, achieved under the lead of Sir Henry Havelock, Sir Colin Campbell, and others. In eight months after the breaking out of the mutiny there were nearly seventy thousand effective English troops there, and new native corps had replaced the sepoys. By the end of 1858 the revolt was totally suppressed. The rebellion resulted in the transfer of the immediate government of India from the East India company to the crown, the old directory sitting for the last time September 1, 1858.

In February, 1858, the Palmerston ministry was driven from office, and a new conservative ministry was formed, with the earl of Derby as premier, and Mr. Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This ministry soon resigned and Lord Palmerston resumed office in June, 1859. On May 13, 1861, Great Britain recognized the belligerency of the Confederacy during the American Civil war and the blockade of their ports, and proclaimed neutrality.

In 1868 Disraeli became Prime Minister in succession to Lord Derby, but was defeated in the general election of that year and resigned before the end of the year.

Disraeli was succeeded by Gladstone, who, during the five years of his ministry passed more measures than almost any previous one. Education became compulsory. Trade unions were legalized, the Ballot Act was passed. The Irish Church Act and a Land Act for Ireland were passed, and the state of Ireland at the time also necessitated Coercion Acts.

In 1874 Gladstone resigned, and the Conservatives were returned to power, having for the first time since 1841 a real majority in the House of Commons. The ministry formed by Disraeli was a brilliant one, and the Opposition was for a time weakened by the withdrawal into private life of Gladstone. The great question of Home Rule was gradually forcing itself to the front, and the Irish tactics in the House became obstructive. It was at this time that Disraeli put forward his imperial policy, and the ministry is chiefly noticeable for its attitude on foreign and imperial affairs.

From 1879 to the present time Irish agitation has been for Great Britain a source of serious disquiet. In 1882 Mr. Gladstone adopted a policy of conciliation, but the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and of Mr. Burke caused its abandonment and the immediate passing of a coercion law which virtually placed Ireland under martial law. In 1882 the Egyptian army, under the leadership of Arabi Bey, having revolted from the khedive’s authority, Great Britain sent a large naval expedition to Egypt, bombarded Alexandria, and defeated the rebellious forces. Since that date the Egyptian government has been under British suzerainty, and in 1896, a British expedition was sent up the Nile with the purpose of regaining the provinces of Egypt held by the mahdist forces.

Within the past quarter of a century Great Britain has largely extended its territory in Africa, bringing great areas in the south and east of the continent under its protection. During the same interval several subjects of dispute have arisen with the United States, which have all been peacefully settled. An imposing festival took place in London in June, 1897, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria’s accession, in which all sections of the empire took part.

Boer War.—October 11, 1899, war was declared by the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, the aim being the destruction of the British paramountcy in South Africa. This led to the annexation of those states by the British, after a fierce contest, in 1900. In 1900, a new parliament was elected, which again supported the Conservative ministry, with a slightly increased majority.

House of Saxe-Coburg.—Victoria died January 22, 1901, and was succeeded by her eldest son, Edward VII., who proved himself to be an active promoter of peaceful relations with other countries.

The Boer war was concluded in the middle of 1902 by the treaty of Vereeniging, and almost immediately afterward Lord Salisbury retired from office, being succeeded in the premiership by his nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour. The education act of 1902 did away with school boards where they existed, bringing the voluntary and former board schools alike under education committees in England and Wales, and the same change was made in London in 1903. The Irish land act of 1903 was a measure of the first importance, its object, being to transfer practically all the agricultural land of Ireland to farmers or peasant proprietors. In the autumn of 1903 Mr. Chamberlain resigned office in order to be free to advocate a change in the country’s fiscal policy, intended to unite the colonies more closely with the mother country—a change which many have regarded as meaning a return to protection.

In 1905 the Liberal party returned to power under the leadership of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, who was succeeded after his death in 1908 by H. H. Asquith.

On May 5, 1910, the illness of King Edward was announced, followed by that of his death the next day. His son, George V., succeeded to the throne May 6, 1910.

A lengthy battle had begun to be waged against the hereditary prerogatives of the House of Lords, to which the death of the king caused a temporary cessation, but, in August, 1911, the Upper House was finally shorn of its permanent veto. In September, 1910, the fisheries dispute with the United States, which had remained unsettled for more than a hundred years, was decided at the Hague.

Early in 1913 the Irish home rule question became the dominant issue and a bill favoring it was passed by the House of Commons by a large majority, only to be overwhelmingly rejected in the House of Lords. In February, 1914, King George urged mutual concessions in the controversy, and in the same year the Home Rule bill became a law without the approval of the Lords, but practically non-operative. Today (1917) home rule for Ireland is still the great unsolved problem of British domestic policy.

The year 1914 also marked the entrance of Great Britain into the great European war that has since engulfed practically the whole of Europe and one-third of the civilized world. England’s history since has been almost wholly bound up with the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of that titanic struggle, the real facts of which it will require more than a generation of dispassionate minds to verify, sift and assess at their true values. An attempt is made to give the leading features of this war, and the parts played in it by the various nations involved, under a separate heading.

Important Facts Concerning the British Empire

This title is usually given to the total territory governed or administered in the name of the British government centralized in London. It includes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the self-governing Dominions, Dependencies, Crown colonies and Protectorates whose inhabitants look to the king as their ultimate head. Of the whole area of the lands of the globe, the British Empire occupies nearly one-quarter, extending to every continent.

THE UNITED KINGDOM

Countries Area in Square Miles Population, 1911 How and When Acquired by England Character of Government

EUROPE:

England 50,839 34,043,076 ... - Constitutional Monarchy.
Constitute the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Wales 7,470 2,032,183 Conquest, 1282

Scotland 29,785 4,759,445 Union, 1603

Ireland 32,583 4,381,951 Conquest, 1172

Islands 302 148,934 ...

DEPENDENCIES AND COLONIES

EUROPE:

Gibraltar 2 23,553 Conquest, 1704 Military Governor.

Malta, etc. 122 215,879 Treaty cession, 1814 Governor; Councils.

ASIA:

India (including Burma) 1,800,258 314,955,000 - Conquest, begun 1757
Transfer from East India Co., 1858 - Viceroy; Council; Departments. Native rulers under Political Supervision.

Ceylon 25,365 4,038,456 Treaty cession, 1801 - Governor; Executive and Legislative Councils.

Cyprus 3,584 261,587 Convention with Turkey, 1878

Aden and Socotra 3,070 53,222 (Aden) Conquest, 1839

Straits Settlements 1,500 620,127 Treaty cession, 1785-1824

Hongkong 30.5 428,888 Treaty cession, 1841

Labuan 31 8,411 Treaty cession, 1846

British North Borneo 31,000 204,000 Cession to company, 1877 - Governor (British North Borneo Company).

AFRICA:

Union of South Africa (including Cape of Good Hope, Natal, The Transvaal, and Orange River Colony) - 473,184 5,938,499 - Treaty, conquest, and cession, 1588-1900 - The Union of South Africa—Governor-General; Executive Council; Senate; House of Assembly.

St. Helena 47 3,553 Conquest, 1673 - Governor and Executive Council.

Ascension 38 266 Annexation, 1815 Under the Admiralty.

Mauritius, etc. 1,063 373,336 - Conquest and cession, 1810, 1814 - Governor; Executive and Legislative Councils.

British East Africa (including the Protectorate of Nyasaland, East Africa, Uganda, Zanzibar and Somaliland) - 420,466 8,728,276 - Conquest and cession, 1870-1890 - Governor, Executive and Legislative Councils.

British West Africa (including Gambia, Gold Coast Colony, Northern Nigeria, Southern Nigeria, and Sierra Leone) - 495,490 17,442,772 - Conquest, annexation, cession, 1673-1872 - Governor; Executive and Legislative Councils.

AMERICA:

Dominion of Canada 3,745,574 ... - Conquest and settlement, 1670-1858 - Governor General; Parliament.

Ontario 260,862 2,519,902 Conquest, 1759-1760

Quebec 347,350 2,000,697 Conquest, 1759-1760

New Brunswick 27,985 351,815 Treaty cession, 1763

Nova Scotia 21,428 461,847 Conquest, 1627

Manitoba 73,732 454,691 Settlement, 1813

British Columbia 312,363 362,768 Transfer to crown, 1858

Alberta 253,540 372,919 Settlement

Saskatchewan (including Mackenzie, Ungava, and Franklin) - 250,650 453,508 Settlement

Northwest Territories 1,418,000 19,330 Charter, 1670

Yukon Territory 196,976 7,000 Charter, 1670

Prince Edward Island 2,184 93,722 Conquest, 1745

Newfoundland (and Labrador) - 42,734 - 230,000 Treaty cession, 1713 Governor; Parliament.

120,000

British Guiana 104,000 305,090 - Conquest and cession, 1803-1814 - Governor; Executive and Legislative Councils.

British Honduras 8,598 44,000 Conquest, 1798

Jamaica 4,207 831,123 Conquest, 1655

Trinidad and Tobago 1,868 358,641 ...

Barbadoes 166 196,287 Settlement, 1605

Bahamas 5,794 55,872 Settlement, 1629

Bermuda 19 19,289 Settlement, 1612

Other Islands 8,742 255,000 ...

AUSTRALASIA:

Commonwealth of Australia (including Australia, Tasmania, and Papua) - 3,091,496 5,140,393 Settlement - Separate State Legislatures and Governments (Governors); Federal Parliament and Government; Governor-General and Executive Council.

Dominion of New Zealand 104,471 982,926 Purchase, 1845 - Governor and Houses of Parliament.

Fiji 7,435 128,404 Cession from the natives, 1874 - Governor and Legislative Council.

Table of the Sovereigns of England

Names and Lineage of Sovereigns Began to Reign Years of Age L’gth of Reign Death Character Principal Statesmen Chief Warriors Events of Reign

ANGLO-SAXON KINGS

EGBERT (775?-837)—Son of Alcmund, descended from Inigisil, brother to Ina, king of West Saxons. 801 ... 37 Natural causes. Possessed all the qualities required in a warrior. ... The king.—Ethelwolf.—Kenneth. The kingdoms of the Heptarchy united, and take the name of England.

ETHELWOLF (—— -358)—Son of Egbert. 838 ... 20 Natural causes. Pious, wise, valiant and clement. A lover of peace, and zealous for religion. Athelstan. Wolfhere.—Ethelhelm.—Ceorle. Tithes instituted; London plundered by the Danes; England becomes tributary to the Holy See.

ETHELBALD—Son of Ethelwolf. 858 ... 2 Natural causes. Neither pious nor valiant. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester. Osric. Scots defeated by the Britons.

ETHELBERT—Son of Ethelwolf. 860 ... 6 Natural causes. Sweet-tempered, wise, pious and valiant. ... The king. Winchester burnt by the Danes.

ETHELRED I. (871).—Brother to Ethelbert. 866 ... 6 Killed in the battle of Wittingham. Pious, valiant, prudent, and just. ... Young Alfred. Battles of Aston and Basing—York taken.

ALFRED The Great (849-901).—Brother to Ethelred, and son of Ethelwolf. 872 22 28 By a contraction of the nerves. A great sovereign, warrior, legislator, politician and scholar. ... The king.—Oddune, earl of Devonshire. University of Oxford founded. Juries instituted. England divided into shires, tithings and hundreds.

EDWARD the Elder (870?-924).—Second son of Alfred the Great. 900 17 25 Natural causes. Equal to his father—his love for learning and lenity excepted. ... The king. Northumberland and East Anglia united to the crown. University of Cambridge founded. Battles of Temsford and Malden.

ATHELSTAN (895?-941).—Natural son of Edward the Elder. 925 20 16 Natural causes. Possessed uncommon virtues; wise, valiant, and just. Turketul, Chancellor. Guy of Warwick. Constantine III. of Scotland and six Irish and Welsh kings killed at battle of Brunanburh.

EDMUND the Pious (923-946).—Eldest legitimate son of Edward the Elder. 941 25 7 Assassinated by Leolf, while feasting at Puckle-kirk. Pious, valiant and just, and much respected by his people. ... The king. Cumberland and Westmoreland given up to Malcolm, king of Scotland.

EDRED (—— -955?).—Second legitimate son of Edward the Elder. 948 29 7 Natural causes. Pious and valiant, but too obsequious to his council. Aldheim, Archbishop of Canterbury. The king. Northumbrian Danes reduced.

EDWY (939?-959).—Eldest son of Edmund the Pious. 955 17 4 Died of grief on brother being set up in his stead. Hated the monks, and persecuted them, which caused a rebellion. Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury. Prince Edgar. Rebellion of the Mercians.

EDGAR (943?-975).—Brother to Edwy. 959 13 16 Natural causes. Pacific, active, wise, and industrious. Ethelwold. ... King of Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Man, recognize Edgar for their sovereign.

EDWARD the Martyr (961?-978).—Eldest son of Edgar. 975 15 3 Assassinated by order of his step-mother Elfrida. Amiable and sweet-tempered. Dustan. ... ...

ETHELRED II. (Sweyn) (—— -1016).—Brother to Edward the Martyr, and son of the beautiful Elfrida. 979 12 37 Natural causes. Cowardly, indolent, and avaricious. Siricius, Archbishop of Canterbury. Prince Edmund. Alfric. Arabic figures introduced. Sweyn, king of Denmark, conquers England.

EDMUND, Ironside (989-1017).—Eldest son of Ethelred II. 1016 26 1 Assassinated by order of Edric. Valiant and prudent. Edric, Earl of Wilts. ... Massacre of the Danes. England divided between Edward and Canute I.

DANISH KINGS

CANUTE I. (995-1035).—Son of Sweyn, King of Denmark. 1017 ... 19 Natural causes. A great king; humble, just, and truly religious. Thurkell, Duke of East Anglia.—Urick, Duke of Northumberland. Godwin, Earl of Kent. Parents prohibited selling their children. End of the Danish war of two hundred years.

HAROLD I. (1040- ——)—Second son of Canute I., by Queen Alfwen. 1036 30 3 Occasioned by intemperance. Impious, unjust, dissolute and mean. Earl Godwin. Godwin, Earl of Kent. Paper first used in England.

CANUTE II. (1019-1042).—Third son of Canute I., by Emma of Normandy. 1039 29 2 By excessive eating. To the vices of Harold I., he added that of cruelty. Earl Godwin. Leofric, Duke of Mercia. ...

SAXON KINGS

EDWARD the Confessor (1004-1066).—Son of Edmund Ironside. 1041 40 24 Natural causes. Honored as a great saint; of a mild and peaceful temper; was charitable, but had no great genius. Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury—Harold. Siward, Duke of Northumberland. Common law of England established. Westminster Abbey founded.

HAROLD II. (1022-1066).—Son of Earl Godwin, by the eldest daughter of Canute I. 1065 ... 1 Killed in the battle of Hastings. A valiant warrior. Morcar, Earl of Northumberland. Gurth and Leofwin, the king’s brothers. Battle of Hastings, Norman conquest.

NORMAN KINGS

WILLIAM the Conqueror (1027-1087).—Son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, by his mistress Harlotte. 1066 40 21 Death occasioned by heat at the burning of Mantes. Possessed great bodily strength, a great soul and an elevated mind, and a prodigious genius; and governed the English with a heavy hand. Odo, Bishop of Bayeaux. Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford. Malcolm, King of Scotland. Tower of London built. Doomsday book. Bishoprics created.

WILLIAM Rufus (1056-1100).—Second son of William the Conqueror. 1087 31 13 Accidentally shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell, in New Forest. Courageous and vicious to a high degree. Herbert—Lozinga. Earl of Northumberland—Duke of Normandy. First Holy War. Westminster Hall built. Reduction of the Welsh.

HENRY I. (1068-1135).—Brother of William Rufus. 1100 32 35 Death occasioned by eating too many lampreys. Handsome, brave, sober, cruel, avaricious, and unclean. Archbishop Anselm. Bishop of Salisbury. Earl of Flanders. Normandy conquered. First Parliament.

STEPHEN (1105-1154).—Son of Stephen, Earl of Blois, and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. 1135 31 19 Natural causes. In person majestic; his air placid and insinuating. Possessed great courage, an elevated genius, and sound judgment. William of Ypres. Earl of Gloucester. Canon law introduced.

PLANTAGENETS

HENRY II. (1133-1189).—Eldest son of Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, and of the Empress Maud. Heir to Henry I. 1154 21 35 Natural, before the High Altar at Chinon. Brave, generous, magnificent, clement, just, prudent, ambitious, lustful, and violent in anger. Thomas à Becket, Lord Chancellor. Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke. King takes possession of Ireland. Judicial circuits established.

RICHARD I. (1157-1199).—Second son of Henry II. 1189 33 10 Killed by a cross-bowman, at the siege of Chalus. Brave to a high degree; but possessed no other virtue. Bishop of Durham—Longchamp, Bishop of Ely. The king, surnamed Cœur de Lion. London divided into companies. King joins the Crusade.

King JOHN (1166-1216).—Brother to Richard I. 1199 33 17 Died of grief for having lost his rich baggage. Witty, hot-headed and hasty. After his first transports, soft, indolent, fearful and wavering. Archbishop of Hubert, Chancellor. Prince Arthur. Phillip II. of France takes possession of Normandy. War with the barons. Magna Charta signed.

HENRY III. (1207-1272).—King John’s eldest son. 1216 9 56 Natural causes. Inconstant, capricious and prodigal of his money; continent and averse to cruelty. William, Earl of Pembroke, Hugh de Burgh, Bishop of Winchester. Simon, Earl of Leicester. Prince Edward. Intestine wars. Westminster Abbey rebuilt.

EDWARD I. (1239-1307).—Eldest son of Henry III. 1272 33 35 Natural causes. A good king and father, a formidable enemy, and a great captain; chaste, just, prudent and moderate. Giffard Archbishop of York. Llewellyn, Prince of Wales. Wales united to England. Mariner’s compass invented.

EDWARD II. (1284-1327).—Eldest son of Edward I. 1307 23 20 Murdered by Gourney and Maltravers at Berkley Castle. Handsome shaped, but had neither the capacity of warrior, statesman, or man of genius. Pierce Gaveston—Hugh de Spencer. Guy, Earl of Warwick. King abdicates the throne. Courts of Nisi Prius established.

EDWARD III. (1312-1377).—Son of Edward II. 1327 14 50 Died of the St. Anthony’s fire at Sheen. An excellent prince; gentle, beneficent, and valiant. Mortimer, Earl of March. Edward, the Black Prince—Sir Richard Knowles. Battles of Cressy and Poictiers. Order of the Garter instituted.

RICHARD II. (1366-1400).—Son of Edward the Black Prince, and grandson of Edward III. 1377 11 22 Murdered by Exton, at Pontefract Castle, by order of Henry IV. Handsomest monarch in the world. Kind, magnificent, soft, timid, of little genius, and a slave to his favorites. Richard de Vere, Duke of Ireland. A. Neville, Archbishop of York. H. Percy, surnamed Hotspur—John of Gaunt. Wat Tyler’s insurrection. King deposed.

HOUSE OF LANCASTER

HENRY IV. (1366?-1413).—Son of John of Gaunt, and grandson of Edward III. 1399 32 14 Died of a dropsy. Courageous, prudent, vigilant, and extremely jealous of his throne, which he obtained by unwarrantable means. R. Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. Sir John Oldcastle. Battle of Shrewsbury.

HENRY V. (1388-1422).—Eldest son of Henry IV. 1413 24 9 Natural causes. A good soldier and politician; had an elevated genius; was extremely ambitious, and inclined to cruelty. Beaufort, Duke of Exeter. Duke of Gloucester, Wodehouse Gam. Battle of Agincourt. Siege of Rouen.

HENRY VI. (1421-1471).—Son of Henry V. 1422 9 m. 39 Dethroned. Afterwards killed, by order of Edward IV. Just, chaste, temperate, pious and patient; but had a weak mind. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Somerset. Joan of Arc, Duke of Bedford, Lord Talbot, R. Neville, Earl of Warwick. Battles of Crevant, Verneuil, St. Albans, and Towton. Siege of Orleans.

HOUSE OF YORK

EDWARD IV. (1441-1483).—Son of Richard, Duke of York; descendant of Edward III. 1461 19 22 Death occasioned by excessive eating. One of the handsomest men in England, but after crowned was a voluptuary. Earl Rivers. Admiral Coulon. Printing first in use.

EDWARD V. (1470-1483).—Eldest son of Edward IV. 1483 12 2 m. Smothered by order of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. ... Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Lord Hastings. Richard’s usurpation.

RICHARD III. (1452-1485).—Brother to Edward IV. 1483 30 2 Killed in the battle of Bosworth Field. Small, ugly and crooked backed; dissembling and cruel, yet sagacious and brave. Lord Stanley. Henry, Earl of Richmond. Duke of Buckingham. Battle of Bosworth Field.

HOUSE OF TUDOR

HENRY VII. (1457-1509).—Son of Margaret, Countess of Richmond; descendant of John of Gaunt. 1485 28 24 By consumption. A wise and able prince; pious, chaste, temperate and just; but insatiably covetous. Cardinal Morton, Sir Edward Poynings. Lord Lovell. Discovery of America.

HENRY VIII. (1491-1547).—Second son of Henry VII. 1509 18 38 Natural causes. Comely, but very corpulent; brave, candid and liberal; versed in music, philosophy, and divinity; yet was cruel and presumptuous. Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Fox, Cromwell. Duke of Norfolk—Earl of Surrey. Lord Maxwell. The Reformation. Monasteries dissolved.

EDWARD VI. (1537-1553).—Son of Henry VIII., by Jane Seymour. 1547 9 6 Of a consumption. Sweet tempered, and had a great genius. Seymour, Duke of Somerset—Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Lord Russell. Religious insurrection.

Queen MARY (1516-1558).—Daughter of Henry VIII., by Catharine of Aragon. 1553 38 5 Of a dropsy. Small capacity, bigoted, revengeful and cruel. Gardiner, Chancellor. Duke of Savoy. Catholic religion restored.

Queen ELIZABETH (1533-1603).—Daughter of Henry VIII., by Anne Boleyn. 1558 25 45 Natural causes. Tolerably handsome; had a noble air, and great affability; celebrated for her wit, judgment, economy, policy, sincerity, justice, liberality, and magnificence. Robert Dudley, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Burleigh. Admiral Howard—Sir Francis Drake. Sir F. Vere. Sir P. Sidney. Mary Queen of Scots executed. Spanish Armada destroyed. Protestant religion restored.

HOUSE OF STUART

JAMES I. (1566-1625).—Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; and great-grandson of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. 1603 37 22 Of an ague. Learned and pacific, but wavering and undetermined. Robert Car, Earl of Somerset. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Earl of Salisbury. Sir Horace Vere. Union of the crowns of England and Scotland. Gunpowder plot.

CHARLES I. (1600-1649).—Third son of James I. 1625 25 24 Beheaded near the windows of the banqueting house, Whitehall. Religious, sober, chaste, affable and courageous; had great penetration and judgment, but too fond of prerogative. Earls of Portland and Strafford—Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Earl of Essex. Sir T. Fairfax, Earl of Manchester. Battles of Edge Hill, Tadcaster and Gisborough.

COMMONWEALTH declared May 19. 1649 ... 11 ... ... Oliver Cromwell. Admiral Blake, General Monk. Charles I. beheaded. Royal power usurped. Battle of Dunbar.

HOUSE OF STUART

CHARLES II. (1630-1685).—Eldest son of Charles I. 1660 29 25 Supposed to have been poisoned. Extremely liberal and affable; had a sprightly and witty genius, and a wonderful conception. Earl of Clarendon. Duke of York. Earl of Sandwich. Restoration of monarchy. Plague and fire in London. Royal Society founded.

JAMES II. (1633-1701).—Brother to Charles II. 1685 52 3 Natural, having abdicated the throne. A kind father, husband and master; more pious than resolute, and too submissive to his ministers. Chancellor Jeffries. Duke of Monmouth. King abdicates the throne. Revolution.

WILLIAM (1650-1702) and MARY (1662-1694).—William, Prince of Orange, (Holland). Mary, eldest daughter of James II., by Anne Hyde. 1688 W. 37 M. 26 W. 14 M. 6 Mary died of the smallpox; William, by a fall from his horse. Mary, pious and amiable; had an air of grandeur, without pride or affectation. William, not comely in person, had a great genius, was a good statesman and warrior. Earl of Sunderland. Earl of Tankerville. Russell, Shovel, Ginkle. Bank of England established. Siege of Namur. Battles of Boyne and La Hogue. Treaty of Ryswick.

Queen ANNE (1685-1714).—Second daughter of King James II., and consort of George, Prince of Denmark. 1702 37 12 Natural causes. In private life, virtuous, charitable and pious; as a sovereign, easy, kind and generous. Lords Godolphin and Cowper—Earl of Oxford. Harcourt. Bollingbroke. Duke of Marlboro’—Sir G. Rook, Ormund—Benbow. Battles of Blenheim and Ramilles. Scotch union.

HOUSE OF HANOVER

GEORGE I. (1660-1727).—Eldest son of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, and Princess Sophia, daughter of Frederick V., of Bohemia. 1714 54 13 Died of a lethargic disorder, at Osnaburg. Unostentatious and familiar; a circumspect general; a wise and virtuous prince. Dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire. Lords Townsend and Carteret. Earl of Mar. Duke of Argyle. Lord Cobham. Insurrection in favor of the Pretender. Septennial parliament.

GEORGE II. (1683-1760).—Only son of George I., by Dorothy, daughter and heiress of the Duke of Zell. 1727 44 34 Died instantly, by a sudden rupture of the heart, while in good health. Well-shaped, fair complexion; hasty, of moderate abilities, humane, liberal, temperate, and a scientific warrior. Sir R. Walpole. Mr. Sandys. Earl of Huntington. Duke of Bedford. Duke of Cumberland. Lord Anson. Earl of Stair. Gen. Wolfe. New style introduced. Battles of Dettingen, Culloden, and Minden. Peace of Aix La Chapelle.

GEORGE III. (1738-1820).—Eldest son of Frederick and Augusta, Prince and Princess of Wales, and grandson of George II. 1760 22 59 By the gradual exhaustion of nature, having been in state of continual mental derangement for nine years. His figure uniting strength and comeliness; his manners unassuming and liberal; hair light flaxen, eyes grey, eyebrows white, of moderate genius, and very pious. Chatham. North, Pitt, Fox. Rodney, Howe, Abercrombie—Nelson, Wellington. French and American Revolutions. Union with Ireland. Battles of Leipsic and Waterloo.

GEORGE IV. (1762-1830).—Eldest son of George III., by his consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg. 1820 58 9 ... ... ... ... ...

WILLIAM IV. (1765-1837).—Third son of George III. 1830 65 7 Natural causes. A man of homely talents, immoral, tactless, but good hearted. Lord John Russell, Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne. ... Reform Bill passed by Parliament. Municipal Corporations Act. Establishment of the University of London.

Queen VICTORIA (1819-1901).—Daughter of Edward, fourth son of George III., and Victoria Maria Louisa, daughter of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg. 1837 18 64 Natural causes. A sagacious ruler, jealous of her royal prerogative, persistent, self-devoted, but greatly beloved. Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby, Disraeli, Gladstone, Rosebury, Salisbury. Generals Gordon, Roberts, Kitchener. Crimean war, Indian Mutiny, Zulu war, Boer war, Home Rule agitation. Australian Commonwealth bill. Imperialism strengthened. Marked literary achievements.

HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG

EDWARD VII. (1841-1910).—Son of Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. 1901 60 9 Natural causes. Lacked political training, but cultivated the arts of peace. Popular, but lacking in moral force. ... Lord Roberts, General Kitchener. King Edward and his Ministers were influential in establishing the Triple Entente, including England, France and Russia.

GEORGE V. (1865- ——).—Son of Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX. of Denmark. 1910 45 ... ... Without political training; like his father, his foreign policy almost wholly in the hands of a powerful ministry. Personally a notable sportsman and popular. Asquith, Lloyd-George, Cecil. Kitchener, French, Haig. England the leading and directing power of the Entente in the Great European war against the Germanic Allies.

Names and Lineage of Sovereigns Began to Reign Years of Age L’gth of Reign Death Character

ANGLO-SAXON KINGS

EGBERT (775?-837)—Son of Alcmund, descended from Inigisil, brother to Ina, king of West Saxons. 801 ... 37 Natural causes. Possessed all the qualities required in a warrior.

ETHELWOLF (—— -358)—Son of Egbert. 838 ... 20 Natural causes. Pious, wise, valiant and clement. A lover of peace, and zealous for religion.

ETHELBALD—Son of Ethelwolf. 858 ... 2 Natural causes. Neither pious nor valiant.

ETHELBERT—Son of Ethelwolf. 860 ... 6 Natural causes. Sweet-tempered, wise, pious and valiant.

ETHELRED I. (871).—Brother to Ethelbert. 866 ... 6 Killed in the battle of Wittingham. Pious, valiant, prudent, and just.

ALFRED The Great (849-901).—Brother to Ethelred, and son of Ethelwolf. 872 22 28 By a contraction of the nerves. A great sovereign, warrior, legislator, politician and scholar.

EDWARD the Elder (870?-924).—Second son of Alfred the Great. 900 17 25 Natural causes. Equal to his father—his love for learning and lenity excepted.

ATHELSTAN (895?-941).—Natural son of Edward the Elder. 925 20 16 Natural causes. Possessed uncommon virtues; wise, valiant, and just.

EDMUND the Pious (923-946).—Eldest legitimate son of Edward the Elder. 941 25 7 Assassinated by Leolf, while feasting at Puckle-kirk. Pious, valiant and just, and much respected by his people.

EDRED (—— -955?).—Second legitimate son of Edward the Elder. 948 29 7 Natural causes. Pious and valiant, but too obsequious to his council.

EDWY (939?-959).—Eldest son of Edmund the Pious. 955 17 4 Died of grief on brother being set up in his stead. Hated the monks, and persecuted them, which caused a rebellion.

EDGAR (943?-975).—Brother to Edwy. 959 13 16 Natural causes. Pacific, active, wise, and industrious.

EDWARD the Martyr (961?-978).—Eldest son of Edgar. 975 15 3 Assassinated by order of his step-mother Elfrida. Amiable and sweet-tempered.

ETHELRED II. (Sweyn) (—— -1016).—Brother to Edward the Martyr, and son of the beautiful Elfrida. 979 12 37 Natural causes. Cowardly, indolent, and avaricious.

EDMUND, Ironside (989-1017).—Eldest son of Ethelred II. 1016 26 1 Assassinated by order of Edric. Valiant and prudent.

DANISH KINGS

CANUTE I. (995-1035).—Son of Sweyn, King of Denmark. 1017 ... 19 Natural causes. A great king; humble, just, and truly religious.

HAROLD I. (1040- ——)—Second son of Canute I., by Queen Alfwen. 1036 30 3 Occasioned by intemperance. Impious, unjust, dissolute and mean.

CANUTE II. (1019-1042).—Third son of Canute I., by Emma of Normandy. 1039 29 2 By excessive eating. To the vices of Harold I., he added that of cruelty.

SAXON KINGS

EDWARD the Confessor (1004-1066).—Son of Edmund Ironside. 1041 40 24 Natural causes. Honored as a great saint; of a mild and peaceful temper; was charitable, but had no great genius.

HAROLD II. (1022-1066).—Son of Earl Godwin, by the eldest daughter of Canute I. 1065 ... 1 Killed in the battle of Hastings. A valiant warrior.

NORMAN KINGS

WILLIAM the Conqueror (1027-1087).—Son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, by his mistress Harlotte. 1066 40 21 Death occasioned by heat at the burning of Mantes. Possessed great bodily strength, a great soul and an elevated mind, and a prodigious genius; and governed the English with a heavy hand.

WILLIAM Rufus (1056-1100).—Second son of William the Conqueror. 1087 31 13 Accidentally shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell, in New Forest. Courageous and vicious to a high degree.

HENRY I. (1068-1135).—Brother of William Rufus. 1100 32 35 Death occasioned by eating too many lampreys. Handsome, brave, sober, cruel, avaricious, and unclean.

STEPHEN (1105-1154).—Son of Stephen, Earl of Blois, and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. 1135 31 19 Natural causes. In person majestic; his air placid and insinuating. Possessed great courage, an elevated genius, and sound judgment.

PLANTAGENETS

HENRY II. (1133-1189).—Eldest son of Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, and of the Empress Maud. Heir to Henry I. 1154 21 35 Natural, before the High Altar at Chinon. Brave, generous, magnificent, clement, just, prudent, ambitious, lustful, and violent in anger.

RICHARD I. (1157-1199).—Second son of Henry II. 1189 33 10 Killed by a cross-bowman, at the siege of Chalus. Brave to a high degree; but possessed no other virtue.

King JOHN (1166-1216).—Brother to Richard I. 1199 33 17 Died of grief for having lost his rich baggage. Witty, hot-headed and hasty. After his first transports, soft, indolent, fearful and wavering.

HENRY III. (1207-1272).—King John’s eldest son. 1216 9 56 Natural causes. Inconstant, capricious and prodigal of his money; continent and averse to cruelty.

EDWARD I. (1239-1307).—Eldest son of Henry III. 1272 33 35 Natural causes. A good king and father, a formidable enemy, and a great captain; chaste, just, prudent and moderate.

EDWARD II. (1284-1327).—Eldest son of Edward I. 1307 23 20 Murdered by Gourney and Maltravers at Berkley Castle. Handsome shaped, but had neither the capacity of warrior, statesman, or man of genius.

EDWARD III. (1312-1377).—Son of Edward II. 1327 14 50 Died of the St. Anthony’s fire at Sheen. An excellent prince; gentle, beneficent, and valiant.

RICHARD II. (1366-1400).—Son of Edward the Black Prince, and grandson of Edward III. 1377 11 22 Murdered by Exton, at Pontefract Castle, by order of Henry IV. Handsomest monarch in the world. Kind, magnificent, soft, timid, of little genius, and a slave to his favorites.

HOUSE OF LANCASTER

HENRY IV. (1366?-1413).—Son of John of Gaunt, and grandson of Edward III. 1399 32 14 Died of a dropsy. Courageous, prudent, vigilant, and extremely jealous of his throne, which he obtained by unwarrantable means.

HENRY V. (1388-1422).—Eldest son of Henry IV. 1413 24 9 Natural causes. A good soldier and politician; had an elevated genius; was extremely ambitious, and inclined to cruelty.

HENRY VI. (1421-1471).—Son of Henry V. 1422 9 m 39 Dethroned. Afterwards killed, by order of Edward IV. Just, chaste, temperate, pious and patient; but had a weak mind.

HOUSE OF YORK

EDWARD IV. (1441-1483).—Son of Richard, Duke of York; descendant of Edward III. 1461 19 22 Death occasioned by excessive eating. One of the handsomest men in England, but after crowned was a voluptuary.

EDWARD V. (1470-1483).—Eldest son of Edward IV. 1483 12 2 m. Smothered by order of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. ...

RICHARD III. (1452-1485).—Brother to Edward IV. 1483 30 2 Killed in the battle of Bosworth Field. Small, ugly and crooked backed; dissembling and cruel, yet sagacious and brave.

HOUSE OF TUDOR

HENRY VII. (1457-1509).—Son of Margaret, Countess of Richmond; descendant of John of Gaunt. 1485 28 24 By consumption. A wise and able prince; pious, chaste, temperate and just; but insatiably covetous.

HENRY VIII. (1491-1547).—Second son of Henry VII. 1509 18 38 Natural causes. Comely, but very corpulent; brave, candid and liberal; versed in music, philosophy, and divinity; yet was cruel and presumptuous.

EDWARD VI. (1537-1553).—Son of Henry VIII., by Jane Seymour. 1547 9 6 Of a consumption. Sweet tempered, and had a great genius.

Queen MARY (1516-1558).—Daughter of Henry VIII., by Catharine of Aragon. 1553 38 5 Of a dropsy. Small capacity, bigoted, revengeful and cruel.

Queen ELIZABETH (1533-1603).—Daughter of Henry VIII., by Anne Boleyn. 1558 25 45 Natural causes. Tolerably handsome; had a noble air, and great affability; celebrated for her wit, judgment, economy, policy, sincerity, justice, liberality, and magnificence.

HOUSE OF STUART

JAMES I. (1566-1625).—Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; and great-grandson of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. 1603 37 22 Of an ague. Learned and pacific, but wavering and undetermined.

CHARLES I. (1600-1649).—Third son of James I. 1625 25 24 Beheaded near the windows of the banqueting house, Whitehall. Religious, sober, chaste, affable and courageous; had great penetration and judgment, but too fond of prerogative.

COMMONWEALTH declared May 19. 1649 ... 11 ... ...

HOUSE OF STUART

CHARLES II. (1630-1685).—Eldest son of Charles I. 1660 29 25 Supposed to have been poisoned. Extremely liberal and affable; had a sprightly and witty genius, and a wonderful conception.

JAMES II. (1633-1701).—Brother to Charles II. 1685 52 3 Natural, having abdicated the throne. A kind father, husband and master; more pious than resolute, and too submissive to his ministers.

WILLIAM (1650-1702) and MARY (1662-1694).—William, Prince of Orange, (Holland). Mary, eldest daughter of James II., by Anne Hyde. 1688 W. 37 M. 26 W. 14 M. 6 Mary died of the smallpox; William, by a fall from his horse. Mary, pious and amiable; had an air of grandeur, without pride or affectation. William, not comely in person, had a great genius, was a good statesman and warrior.

Queen ANNE (1685-1714).—Second daughter of King James II., and consort of George, Prince of Denmark. 1702 37 12 Natural causes. In private life, virtuous, charitable and pious; as a sovereign, easy, kind and generous.

HOUSE OF HANOVER

GEORGE I. (1660-1727).—Eldest son of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, and Princess Sophia, daughter of Frederick V., of Bohemia. 1714 54 13 Died of a lethargic disorder, at Osnaburg. Unostentatious and familiar; a circumspect general; a wise and virtuous prince.

GEORGE II. (1683-1760).—Only son of George I., by Dorothy, daughter and heiress of the Duke of Zell. 1727 44 34 Died instantly, by a sudden rupture of the heart, while in good health. Well-shaped, fair complexion; hasty, of moderate abilities, humane, liberal, temperate, and a scientific warrior.

GEORGE III. (1738-1820).—Eldest son of Frederick and Augusta, Prince and Princess of Wales, and grandson of George II. 1760 22 59 By the gradual exhaustion of nature, having been in state of continual mental derangement for nine years. His figure uniting strength and comeliness; his manners unassuming and liberal; hair light flaxen, eyes grey, eyebrows white, of moderate genius, and very pious.

GEORGE IV. (1762-1830).—Eldest son of George III., by his consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg. 1820 58 9 ... ...

WILLIAM IV. (1765-1837).—Third son of George III. 1830 65 7 Natural causes. A man of homely talents, immoral, tactless, but good hearted.

Queen VICTORIA (1819-1901).—Daughter of Edward, fourth son of George III., and Victoria Maria Louisa, daughter of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg. 1837 18 64 Natural causes. A sagacious ruler, jealous of her royal prerogative, persistent, self-devoted, but greatly beloved.

HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG

EDWARD VII. (1841-1910).—Son of Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. 1901 60 9 Natural causes. Lacked political training, but cultivated the arts of peace. Popular, but lacking in moral force.

GEORGE V. (1865- ——).—Son of Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX. of Denmark. 1910 45 ... ... Without political training; like his father, his foreign policy almost wholly in the hands of a powerful ministry. Personally a notable sportsman and popular.

Names and Lineage of Sovereigns Principal Statesmen Chief Warriors Events of Reign

ANGLO-SAXON KINGS

EGBERT (775?-837)—Son of Alcmund, descended from Inigisil, brother to Ina, king of West Saxons. ... The king.—Ethelwolf.—Kenneth. The kingdoms of the Heptarchy united, and take the name of England.

ETHELWOLF (—— -358)—Son of Egbert. Athelstan. Wolfhere.—Ethelhelm.—Ceorle. Tithes instituted; London plundered by the Danes; England becomes tributary to the Holy See.

ETHELBALD—Son of Ethelwolf. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester. Osric. Scots defeated by the Britons.

ETHELBERT—Son of Ethelwolf. ... The king. Winchester burnt by the Danes.

ETHELRED I. (871).—Brother to Ethelbert. ... Young Alfred. Battles of Aston and Basing—York taken.

ALFRED The Great (849-901).—Brother to Ethelred, and son of Ethelwolf. ... The king.—Oddune, earl of Devonshire. University of Oxford founded. Juries instituted. England divided into shires, tithings and hundreds.

EDWARD the Elder (870?-924).—Second son of Alfred the Great. ... The king. Northumberland and East Anglia united to the crown. University of Cambridge founded. Battles of Temsford and Malden.

ATHELSTAN (895?-941).—Natural son of Edward the Elder. Turketul, Chancellor. Guy of Warwick. Constantine III. of Scotland and six Irish and Welsh kings killed at battle of Brunanburh.

EDMUND the Pious (923-946).—Eldest legitimate son of Edward the Elder. ... The king. Cumberland and Westmoreland given up to Malcolm, king of Scotland.

EDRED (—— -955?).—Second legitimate son of Edward the Elder. Aldheim, Archbishop of Canterbury. The king. Northumbrian Danes reduced.

EDWY (939?-959).—Eldest son of Edmund the Pious. Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury. Prince Edgar. Rebellion of the Mercians.

EDGAR (943?-975).—Brother to Edwy. Ethelwold. ... King of Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Man, recognize Edgar for their sovereign.

EDWARD the Martyr (961?-978).—Eldest son of Edgar. Dustan. ... ...

ETHELRED II. (Sweyn) (—— -1016).—Brother to Edward the Martyr, and son of the beautiful Elfrida. Siricius, Archbishop of Canterbury. Prince Edmund. Alfric. Arabic figures introduced. Sweyn, king of Denmark, conquers England.

EDMUND, Ironside (989-1017).—Eldest son of Ethelred II. Edric, Earl of Wilts. ... Massacre of the Danes. England divided between Edward and Canute I.

DANISH KINGS

CANUTE I. (995-1035).—Son of Sweyn, King of Denmark. Thurkell, Duke of East Anglia.—Urick, Duke of Northumberland. Godwin, Earl of Kent. Parents prohibited selling their children. End of the Danish war of two hundred years.

HAROLD I. (1040- ——)—Second son of Canute I., by Queen Alfwen. Earl Godwin. Godwin, Earl of Kent. Paper first used in England.

CANUTE II. (1019-1042).—Third son of Canute I., by Emma of Normandy. Earl Godwin. Leofric, Duke of Mercia. ...

SAXON KINGS

EDWARD the Confessor (1004-1066).—Son of Edmund Ironside. Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury—Harold. Siward, Duke of Northumberland. Common law of England established. Westminster Abbey founded.

HAROLD II. (1022-1066).—Son of Earl Godwin, by the eldest daughter of Canute I. Morcar, Earl of Northumberland. Gurth and Leofwin, the king’s brothers. Battle of Hastings, Norman conquest.

NORMAN KINGS

WILLIAM the Conqueror (1027-1087).—Son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, by his mistress Harlotte. Odo, Bishop of Bayeaux. Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford. Malcolm, King of Scotland. Tower of London built. Doomsday book. Bishoprics created.

WILLIAM Rufus (1056-1100).—Second son of William the Conqueror. Herbert—Lozinga. Earl of Northumberland—Duke of Normandy. First Holy War. Westminster Hall built. Reduction of the Welsh.

HENRY I. (1068-1135).—Brother of William Rufus. Archbishop Anselm. Bishop of Salisbury. Earl of Flanders. Normandy conquered. First Parliament.

STEPHEN (1105-1154).—Son of Stephen, Earl of Blois, and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. William of Ypres. Earl of Gloucester. Canon law introduced.

PLANTAGENETS

HENRY II. (1133-1189).—Eldest son of Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, and of the Empress Maud. Heir to Henry I. Thomas à Becket, Lord Chancellor. Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke. King takes possession of Ireland. Judicial circuits established.

RICHARD I. (1157-1199).—Second son of Henry II. Bishop of Durham—Longchamp, Bishop of Ely. The king, surnamed Cœur de Lion. London divided into companies. King joins the Crusade.

King JOHN (1166-1216).—Brother to Richard I. Archbishop of Hubert, Chancellor. Prince Arthur. Phillip II. of France takes possession of Normandy. War with the barons. Magna Charta signed.

HENRY III. (1207-1272).—King John’s eldest son. William, Earl of Pembroke, Hugh de Burgh, Bishop of Winchester. Simon, Earl of Leicester. Prince Edward. Intestine wars. Westminster Abbey rebuilt.

EDWARD I. (1239-1307).—Eldest son of Henry III. Giffard, Archbishop of York. Llewellyn, Prince of Wales. Wales united to England. Mariner’s compass invented.

EDWARD II. (1284-1327).—Eldest son of Edward I. Pierce Gaveston—Hugh de Spencer. Guy, Earl of Warwick. King abdicates the throne. Courts of Nisi Prius established.

EDWARD III. (1312-1377).—Son of Edward II. Mortimer, Earl of March. Edward, the Black Prince—Sir Richard Knowles. Battles of Cressy and Poictiers. Order of the Garter instituted.

RICHARD II. (1366-1400).—Son of Edward the Black Prince, and grandson of Edward III. Richard de Vere, Duke of Ireland. A. Neville, Archbishop of York. H. Percy, surnamed Hotspur—John of Gaunt. Wat Tyler’s insurrection. King deposed.

HOUSE OF LANCASTER

HENRY IV. (1366?-1413).—Son of John of Gaunt, and grandson of Edward III. R. Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. Sir John Oldcastle. Battle of Shrewsbury.

HENRY V. (1388-1422).—Eldest son of Henry IV. Beaufort, Duke of Exeter. Duke of Gloucester, Wodehouse Gam. Battle of Agincourt. Siege of Rouen.

HENRY VI. (1421-1471).—Son of Henry V. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Somerset. Joan of Arc, Duke of Bedford, Lord Talbot, R. Neville, Earl of Warwick. Battles of Crevant, Verneuil, St. Albans, and Towton. Siege of Orleans.

HOUSE OF YORK

EDWARD IV. (1441-1483).—Son of Richard, Duke of York; descendant of Edward III. Earl Rivers. Admiral Coulon. Printing first in use.

EDWARD V. (1470-1483).—Eldest son of Edward IV. Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Lord Hastings. Richard’s usurpation.

RICHARD III. (1452-1485).—Brother to Edward IV. Lord Stanley. Henry, Earl of Richmond. Duke of Buckingham. Battle of Bosworth Field.

HOUSE OF TUDOR

HENRY VII. (1457-1509).—Son of Margaret, Countess of Richmond; descendant of John of Gaunt. Cardinal Morton, Sir Edward Poynings. Lord Lovell. Discovery of America.

HENRY VIII. (1491-1547).—Second son of Henry VII. Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Fox, Cromwell. Duke of Norfolk—Earl of Surrey. Lord Maxwell. The Reformation. Monasteries dissolved.

EDWARD VI. (1537-1553).—Son of Henry VIII., by Jane Seymour. Seymour, Duke of Somerset—Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Lord Russell. Religious insurrection.

Queen MARY (1516-1558).—Daughter of Henry VIII., by Catharine of Aragon. Gardiner, Chancellor. Duke of Savoy. Catholic religion restored.

Queen ELIZABETH (1533-1603).—Daughter of Henry VIII., by Anne Boleyn. Robert Dudley, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Burleigh. Admiral Howard—Sir Francis Drake. Sir F. Vere. Sir P. Sidney. Mary Queen of Scots executed. Spanish Armada destroyed. Protestant religion restored.

HOUSE OF STUART

JAMES I. (1566-1625).—Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; and great-grandson of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. Robert Car, Earl of Somerset. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Earl of Salisbury. Sir Horace Vere. Union of the crowns of England and Scotland. Gunpowder plot.

CHARLES I. (1600-1649).—Third son of James I. Earls of Portland and Strafford—Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Earl of Essex. Sir T. Fairfax, Earl of Manchester. Battles of Edge Hill, Tadcaster and Gisborough.

COMMONWEALTH declared May 19. Oliver Cromwell. Admiral Blake, General Monk. Charles I. beheaded. Royal power usurped. Battle of Dunbar.

HOUSE OF STUART

CHARLES II. (1630-1685).—Eldest son of Charles I. Earl of Clarendon. Duke of York. Earl of Sandwich. Restoration of monarchy. Plague and fire in London. Royal Society founded.

JAMES II. (1633-1701).—Brother to Charles II. Chancellor Jeffries. Duke of Monmouth. King abdicates the throne. Revolution.

WILLIAM (1650-1702) and MARY (1662-1694).—William, Prince of Orange, (Holland). Mary, eldest daughter of James II., by Anne Hyde. Earl of Sunderland. Earl of Tankerville. Russell, Shovel, Ginkle. Bank of England established. Siege of Namur. Battles of Boyne and La Hogue. Treaty of Ryswick.

Queen ANNE (1685-1714).—Second daughter of King James II., and consort of George, Prince of Denmark. Lords Godolphin and Cowper—Earl of Oxford. Harcourt. Bollingbroke. Duke of Marlboro’—Sir G. Rook, Ormund—Benbow. Battles of Blenheim and Ramilles. Scotch union.

HOUSE OF HANOVER

GEORGE I. (1660-1727).—Eldest son of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, and Princess Sophia, daughter of Frederick V., of Bohemia. Dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire. Lords Townsend and Carteret. Earl of Mar. Duke of Argyle. Lord Cobham. Insurrection in favor of the Pretender. Septennial parliament.

GEORGE II. (1683-1760).—Only son of George I., by Dorothy, daughter and heiress of the Duke of Zell. Sir R. Walpole. Mr. Sandys. Earl of Huntington. Duke of Bedford. Duke of Cumberland. Lord Anson. Earl of Stair. Gen. Wolfe. New style introduced. Battles of Dettingen, Culloden, and Minden. Peace of Aix La Chapelle.

GEORGE III. (1738-1820).—Eldest son of Frederick and Augusta, Prince and Princess of Wales, and grandson of George II. Chatham. North, Pitt, Fox. Rodney, Howe, Abercrombie—Nelson, Wellington. French and American Revolutions. Union with Ireland. Battles of Leipsic and Waterloo.

GEORGE IV. (1762-1830).—Eldest son of George III., by his consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg. ... ... ...

WILLIAM IV. (1765-1837).—Third son of George III. Lord John Russell, Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne. ... Reform Bill passed by Parliament. Municipal Corporations Act. Establishment of the University of London.

Queen VICTORIA (1819-1901).—Daughter of Edward, fourth son of George III., and Victoria Maria Louisa, daughter of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg. Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby, Disraeli, Gladstone, Rosebury, Salisbury. Generals Gordon, Roberts, Kitchener. Crimean war, Indian Mutiny, Zulu war, Boer war, Home Rule agitation. Australian Commonwealth bill. Imperialism strengthened. Marked literary achievements.

HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG

EDWARD VII. (1841-1910).—Son of Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. ... Lord Roberts, General Kitchener. King Edward and his Ministers were influential in establishing the Triple Entente, including England, France and Russia.

GEORGE V. (1865- ——).—Son of Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX. of Denmark. Asquith, Lloyd-George, Cecil. Kitchener, French, Haig. England the leading and directing power of the Entente in the Great European war against the Germanic Allies.

France

Location and Extent.—France occupies the narrowest part of the great western peninsula of the European continent between the Mediterranean on the one side, and the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel on the other. As both coasts have many harbors, the situation between two seas is a very advantageous one. In extent it is fully three and a half times larger than England, measuring about six hundred miles each way across it.

Most of its frontiers are natural. On the south the high barrier of the Pyrenees rises between it and Spain; on the east the Alps and Jura separate it from Italy and Switzerland and part of the Vosges mountains forms the boundary towards Germany. On the northeast alone the political limit towards Germany and Belgium is artificially drawn, and has to be guarded by a line of fortresses.

Since 1768, France had held the Mediterranean island of Corsica, a rugged pyramid of forest-covered mountains.

Divisions of the Country.—Previous to the French Revolution, France was divided into provinces, which bore the names of the separate territories out of which the state had been gradually built up. These are accordingly of much greater historical interest than the present division into eighty-seven departments, which are almost universally named after the river basins in which they lie. The provincial names are also those which are still most in use in ordinary life in France.

The following are the provinces, with the dates of their incorporation as parts of France, and the departments they include:

Ile de France, the original kernel of the state round Paris (Departments—Seine, Seine et Oise, Seine et Marne, Oise, Aisne).

Champagne (part of France since 1285) to the east of the former (Ardennes, Marne, Haute-Marne, Aube).

Lorraine (since 1766), east of Champagne (Meuse, Meurthe et Moselle, Vosges, and territory of Belfort).

Flanders (since 1677), on the border of Belgium (Nord).

Artois (since 1640), on the Channel (Pas de Calais).

Picardy (original), adjoining Ile de France on N. (Somme).

Normandy (since 1203), along the Channel (Seine-inferieure, Eure, Calvados, La Manche, Orne).

Brittany (since 1532), the western peninsula (Finistere, Morbihan, Cotes-du-Nord, Ille et Vilaine, Loire-inferieure).

Poitou (since 1375), southeast of Brittany (Vendee, Deux-Sevres, Vienne).

Anjou (since 1202) north of Poitou, across the Loire (Maine et Loire).

Maine (since 1202), between Anjou and Normandy (Mayenne, Sarthe).

Angoumois, Aunis and Saintonge (since 1242), south of Poitou, along the Bay of Biscay (Charente and Charente-inferieure).

Touraine (since 1256), across the Loire, east of Anjou (Indre et Loire).

Orleans (original), south of Ile de France (Loire et Cher, Eure et Loire, Loiret).

Nivernais (since 1707), southeast of Orleans (Nievre).

Bourbonnais (since 1559), south of Nivernais (Allier).

Marche (since 1531), southwest of Bourbonnais (Creuse).

Berri (since 1100), between Marche and Orleans (Cher, Indre).

Limousin (since 1369), southwest of Marche (Haute-Vienne and Correze).

Auvergne (since 1531), west of Limousin (Cantal, Puy-de-Dome).

Lyonnais (since 1307), northeast of Auvergne (Loire, Rhone).

Burgundy (since 1476), south of Champagne (Ain, Saone et Loire, Cote d’or, Yonne).

Franche Comte (since 1674), nearest Switzerland (Haute-Saone, Jura, Doubs).

Dauphine (since 1349), between the Alps and the Rhone Channel (Isere, Drome, Hautes, Alpes).

Savoie (since 1860), south of Lake of Geneva (Savoie, Haute-Savoie).

Languedoc (since 1271), along the Mediterranean, west of the Rhone (Ardeche, Haute-Loire, Lozere, Gard, Herault, Tarn, Haute-Garonne, Aude).

Guyenne (since 1453), in the basin of the Garonne, southwest (Aveyron, Lot, Dordogne, Tarn et Garonne, Lot et Garonne, Gironde).

Gascogne (since 1453), in the southwest, old Aquitaine (Landes, Gers, Hautes-Pyrenees).

Bearn and Navarre (since 1607) (Basses Pyrenees).

Foix (since 1607) next Spain, in the south (Ariege).

Roussillon (since 1642), in the southeast (Pyrenees-Orientales).

Avignon, Vennaissin, and Orange (since 1791), near the Rhone delta (Vaucluse).

Provence, Roman Provincia (since 1245), in the southeast along the Mediterranean (Bouches-Du-Rhone, Basses-Alpes, Var, Alpes-Maritimes).

Corsica (since 1768), in the Mediterranean (Corse).

Surface and Mountains.—Within France the long curve of the Cevennes Mountains in the southeast, prolonged northward by the Cote d’or, the Plateau of Langres, and the Vosges, determines the slope of the country. Between them and the Alps lies the deep valley of the Rhone, with a southward fall to the Mediterranean. But these high lands, ramifying outward with gentler descent to north and west, give direction to the drainage of the longer slope to the Atlantic coast, the Bay of Biscay, the Channel, and the North Sea.

Mont Blanc, the highest point in Europe, rises within France, near the point of union of its boundary with that of Italy and Switzerland; the Pic de Nethou, the highest point of the Pyrenean barrier, stands just outside the boundary on the Spanish side; centrally in the country, the highest point is Mont Dore, in the volcanic group of the mountains of Auvergne, embraced by the curve of the Cevennes. The lowlands of France are not level plains like those of Belgium and Holland, but for the most part undulating districts; they lie along the Atlantic border (excepting where the heights of Normandy and Brittany run out into the ocean) and in the Mediterranean valley of the Rhone.

Chief Rivers.—The main direction of the drainage of France is from southeast to northwest over the long slope of land. The Garonne, receiving the numerous gaves, as the streams from the Pyrenees are called, and its tributary the Dordogne, from the mountains of Auvergne, forming the estuary of the Gironde in the south; the Loire, curving through the center of the country from the Cevennes to the Atlantic,—the longest river of France; the Seine, from the Cote d’or, flowing northwest to the English Channel; and the Meuse, from the Vosges, passing out to join the Rhine in the Netherlands. All are navigable, forming with their tributaries the natural waterways of France, which possesses a river navigation of about five thousand five hundred miles. The great southern river, the Rhone, from the mountains of Switzerland, receiving its chief tributary, the Saone, from the southern Vosges, is comparatively valueless to navigation from the rapidity of its current.

Climate and Soil.—Occupying a middle position between northern and southern Europe, France enjoys one of the finest climates of the continent. Toward the northeast it becomes more continental, toward the northwest more maritime and like that of southern England; in the warm south the hot winds from the African deserts may occasionally be felt, and in contrast to these, in the Rhone valley, the chilly northeast wind known as the Mistral at times descends from the Alpine Heights with great violence; but the greater part of the country is within the area of the westerly winds.

Products of Soil.—Very few parts of the country are unadapted for cultivation; only some parts of the Pyrenees, the Landes, and of the Vosges, can be thus characterized.

The destruction of natural timber in France within the past two centuries has been enormous. About a sixth part of the surface is wooded, the most extensive remaining forests being those of Orleans and Fontainebleau, between the northern curve of the Loire and Paris; of the hills of Var in the extreme southeast; and of the Jura and the Vosges. Much of the department of Vaucluse, in the lower valley of the Rhone, is covered with Truffle oaks, from about the roots of which enormous quantities of this fungus are obtained. The western promontory of Brittany is now barest of all, but here, as in the mountains of Auvergne, the Cevennes, the Pyrenees, and the Alps, replanting has begun.

The vine is grown in all parts of France excepting the northwestern departments; more than one thousand four hundred varieties of grapes are recognized; the finest growths being those of Champagne and Burgundy in the east, and of the basin of the Gironde (Bordeaux) in the southwest. Wheat, flax and beet-root for sugar, are the staple products of the north; olives of the extreme southeast. Apples and pears are widely grown in Normandy for cider and perry; oranges, citrons, and pomegranates come from the Mediterranean departments.

In pastoral wealth, in cattle and sheep rearing, France is far behind England and Germany in proportion to its extent.

Industries and Trade.—Agricultural and pastoral pursuits occupy the larger share of the people of France. The trade of the Champagne wine district centers at Reims and Chalons-sur-Marne, east of Paris; that of the Burgundy wines at Dijon, in the Saone valley, on the east; that of the Gironde wines, or claret, at Bordeaux, on the southwest. The subsidiary products of vinegar and brandy are made most largely, the one at Orleans, on the Loire, the other at Cognac, a small town on the Charente, north of Bordeaux.

The French People.—To the aboriginal Iberian and Celtic peoples of France came the Romans chiefly in the south and east; the descendants of this intermixture being the small dark and lively Frenchman of the south; in the north, in some degree, the Germanic element became interwoven; hence the Frenchman of the northern parts of the land partakes more of the character of his neighbors, is taller, blonde, blue-eyed, and less volatile than the southerner. Hence also the old division of the Romanized French language into the Langue d’oc (or Provençal) of the south; and the Langue d’oil (or Roman Walloon) of the north, from which the many dialects now spoken have descended.

The Celtic element remains almost pure in Brittany, and the Iberian in the Basques of the western Pyrenees. Italians appear in the southeast and in Corsica, Flemings on the Belgian frontier, and Germans toward Lorraine and Alsace, though, in this direction, the boundary drawn long the Vosges and round Lorraine since the war of 1871 follows as nearly as possible the meeting points of the German and French inhabitants of the northeast.

Religion and Education.—France is a Roman Catholic country. Protestants form but a small proportion, and the most numerous in the southwest between the Loire and the Pyrenees. Public education is entirely under the supervision of the Government, and no longer in the hands of the clergy. The percentage of illiterates is least in the districts which lie nearest to Germany, and greatest in the Atlantic coast-lands of the west and southwest.

There are state universities at Aix, Algiers, Angers, Bordeaux, Caen, Clermont, Dijon, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseilles, Montauban, Montpelier, Nancy, Nantes, Paris, Poitiers, Rennes, and Toulouse.

Cities and Towns.—More than 8,000,000 people live in the seventy-one chief cities. Fifteen cities have populations of more than 100,000:

Paris 2,888,110

Marseilles 550,619

Lyon 523,796

Bordeaux 261,678

Lille 217,807

Nantes 170,535

Toulouse 149,576

St. Etienne 148,656

Nice 142,940

Le Havre 136,159

Rouen 124,987

Roubaix 122,723

Nancy 119,949

Rheims 115,178

Toulon 104,582

There are besides twenty others of over 50,000 inhabitants.

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE, PARIS, UNDER GIANT SEARCHLIGHTS

Paris (Fr. pron. Par-ee´), capital of France, and the largest city in Europe after London, is situated on the river Seine, about one hundred and ten miles from its mouth. It lies in the midst of the fertile plain of the Île-de-France, at a point to which converge the chief tributaries of the river, the Yonne, the Marne, and the Oise; and is the center of a great network of rivers, canals, roads, and railways.

France has long been the most highly centralized country in Europe, and Paris as its heart contains a great population of government functionaries. It is a metropolis of pleasure, and attracts the wealthy from all parts of the world; hence it is a city of capitalists and a great financial center.

The Seine and its Bridges.—The Seine divides the city into two parts, and forms the islands of La Cite and St. Louis, both covered with buildings. This river is navigable by small steamers. The quays or embankments, which extend along its banks on both sides, are built of solid masonry, protect the city from inundation and form excellent promenades. The Seine, within the city, is fully five hundred and thirty feet in width, and is crossed by numerous bridges, the more important being Pont Neuf, Pont de la Concorde, Pont Alexandre III., Pont d’Iena, and the Pont de l’Alma.

THE MADELEINE, PARIS

This splendid edifice, begun in 1764, is modeled after the Parthenon at Athens. In 1806, Napoleon decreed its completion for a Temple of Glory. Louis XVIII. proposed converting it into an expiatory chapel to Louis XVI. and XVII. and Marie Antoinette. It was completed, 1842, at a cost of nearly $3,000,000.

Environs and Fortifications.—Paris is surrounded by a line of fortifications twenty-five miles long; outside of this is a chain of fortresses, while beyond that again are the detached forts. These form the two main lines of defense. The inner line consists of sixteen forts, the outer line of eighteen forts besides redoubts; the area thus inclosed measuring four hundred and thirty square miles, with an encircling line of seventy-seven miles.

Montmartre, within the fortifications is four hundred feet high; the city is encircled at a distance of from two to five miles by an outer range of heights, including Villejuif, Meudon, St. Cloud, and Mont-Valerien (six hundred and fifty feet), some of which are crowned by the detached forts which now form the main defenses of the city. At the fifty-six gates in the walls of Paris are paid the octroi dues.

Streets and Boulevards.—The houses of Paris are almost all built of white calcareous stone, and their general height is from five to six stories, arranged in separate tenements. Many of the modern street buildings have mansard roofs, and are highly enriched in the renaissance manner. In the older parts of the city the streets are narrow and irregular, but in the newer districts the avenues are straight, wide, and well-paved.

The central point of the city is Place Royal, along which passes the great thoroughfare of the city from southeast to northwest. Beginning at the Place de la Nation, at the southeast margin of the city, this grand avenue, from Place de la Nation to Place de la Bastille, is called Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine; from Place Bastille to near Hotel de Ville it is called Rue St. Antoine; from Hotel de Ville, past the Louvre, to Place de la Concorde, Rue de Rivoli; from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, Avenue des Champs Elysees; and beyond the Arch, Ave. de la Grande Armée.

The Center of Parisian Life.—That which is specifically called The Boulevard extends in an irregular arc on the north side of the Seine, from the Place de la Bastille in the east to the Place de la Madeleine in the west and it includes the Boulevards du Temple, St. Martin, St. Denis, des Italiens, Capuchins, and Madeleine, and its length is nearly three miles. Here may be noted also the triumphal arches of the Porte St. Denis and the Porte St. Martin, the former of which is seventy-two feet in height.

On the south side of the Seine the boulevards are neither so numerous nor so extensive, the best-known being the Boulevard St. Germain, which extends from the Pont Sully to the Pont de la Concorde.

After the boulevards among the best streets are the great new streets formed in the time of Napoleon III. are the Rue de Rivoli, two miles in length, the Rue de la Paix, the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, the Rue Royale and twelve fine avenues radiating from the Place de l’Etoile.

Squares and Parks.—The most notable public squares or places are the Place de la Concorde, one of the largest and most elegant squares in Europe, adorned by an Egyptian obelisk, fountains, and statues; Place de l’Etoile, in which is situated the Arc de Triomphe, a splendid structure one hundred and fifty-two feet in height; the Place Vendôme with column to Napoleon I.; Place des Victoires, with equestrian statue of Louis XIV.; Place de la Bastille, with the Column of July; Place de la République, with colossal statue of the Republic.

A REMARKABLY INFORMING PANORAMA OF PARIS AND IMMEDIATE SUBURBS, SHOWING THE PLAN OF THE CITY, THE COURSE OF THE RIVER SEINE, CHIEF BOULEVARDS AND STREETS, AS WELL AS THE LOCATION AND ARCHITECTURAL OUTLINES OF THE PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS AND MONUMENTS.

Large map:
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ARC DE TRIOMPHE (ARCH OF TRIUMPH), PARIS

Within the city also are situated the gardens of the Tuileries, which are adorned with numerous statues and fountains; the gardens of the Luxembourg, in which are fine conservatories of rare plants; the Jardin des Plantes, in which are the botanical and zoological gardens, hothouses and museums, which have made this scientific institution famous; the Buttes-Chaumont Gardens, in which an extensive old quarry has been turned to good account in enhancing the beauty of the situation; the Parc Monceaux; and the Champs Elysees, the latter being a favorite promenade of all classes.

TROCADERO PALACE, PARIS

Built for the Exhibition of 1878, the Trocadero contains a fine collection of architectural and monumental casts. The building affords some of the finest views of Paris.

But the most extensive parks are outside the city. Of these the Bois de Boulogne, on the west, covers an area of two thousand one hundred and fifty acres, gives an extensive view toward St. Cloud and Mont Valérien, comprises the racecourses of Longchamps and Auteuil, and in it are lakes, cascades, ornamental cafes, and the Jardin d’Acclimatation.

The Bois de Vincennes, on the east, even larger, is similarly adorned with artificial lakes and streams, and its high plateau offers a fine view over the surrounding country.

The most celebrated and extensive cemetery in Paris is Père la Chaise (one hundred and six and one-half acres), finely situated and containing the tombs of many celebrities. The Catacombs are ancient quarries which extend under a portion of the southern part of the city, and in them are deposited the bones removed from old cemeteries now built over.

Cathedrals and Churches.—Of the churches of Paris the most celebrated is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, situated on one of the islands of the Seine, called the Île de la Cité. It is a vast cruciform structure, with a lofty west front flanked by two square towers, the walls sustained by many flying-buttresses, and the eastern end octagonal.

The church of La Madeleine, a modern structure in the style of a great Roman temple, with a peristyle of lofty Corinthian columns, stands on an elevated basement fronting the north end of the Rue Royale. It is considered by many to be the most beautiful edifice in Paris.

The Pantheon, or church of St. Geneviève, patron saint of Paris (1764) was begun as a church, but converted by the Constituent Assembly into a temple dedicated to the great men of the nation. Napoleon III. restored it to the church and rededicated it to St. Geneviève, but once more, on the occasion of the funeral of Victor Hugo (1885), it was reconverted into a valhalla. There are the tombs also of Voltaire, Rousseau, Marat and Victor Hugo.

PALACE OF JUSTICE, PARIS

The Sainte Chapelle, in the south court of the Palais of Justice is the most beautiful example of Gothic in Paris.

St. Eustache (1532-1637) is an interesting example of French Renaissance architecture; and others worthy of note are: St. Germain l’Auxerrois; St. Gervais; St. Roch; St. Sulpice; Notre Dame de Lorette; and St. Vincent de Paul. On the very summit of Montmartre is the Church of the Sacred Heart, a vast new structure in the Byzantine style which cost over five million dollars. The chief French Protestant churches are the Oratoire and Rédemption. There are several English, Scotch, and American churches, a Russian Greek church, and several synagogues.

THE PANTHEON, PARIS

It occupies a most commanding position near the Luxembourg Palace, and is one of the finest architectural structures of the city.

Palaces and Public Buildings.—Notable among the public buildings of Paris are its palaces.

The Louvre, a great series of buildings within which are two large courts, is now devoted to a museum which comprises splendid collections of sculpture, paintings, engravings, bronzes, pottery, Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities. The Venus de Milo, the Fettered Slaves of Michael Angelo, the Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci, and a noble group of the works of Raphael, Titian, and Veronese are the chief treasures. In one gallery there are twenty-one large pictures by Rubens. The Salon Carré contains the most striking works of art.

The palace of the Tuileries was set on fire in 1871 by the Communists. The ruins have been removed, but a few of the architectural details have been preserved.

The Palace of the Luxembourg, south of the Seine, since 1879 the meeting-place of the French senate, was built by Marie de Médicis in the Florentine style. Close to it a gallery has been constructed for the reception of the works of living artists acquired by the state.

The Palais de l’Élysée, situated in the Rue St. Honoré, with a large garden, is now the residence of the president of the republic. The Chambre des Députés—known under the Empire as the Palais du Corps Législatif—is the building in which the deputies meet.

The Hôtel de Ville, or municipal building, is situated in the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, formerly Place de Grève, on the right bank of the river. It was destroyed by the communists in 1871, but has now been re-erected on the same site with even greater magnificence. It is a very rich example of Renaissance architecture.

HOTEL DES INVALIDES, PARIS

Prepared as a tomb for Napoleon by Louis Philippe.

The Hôtel des Invalides, built in 1670, is now used as a retreat for disabled soldiers, and is capable of accommodating five thousand. The church attached has a lofty and finely-proportioned dome. It contains the burial-place of the first Napoleon.

The Palais de Justice is an irregular mass of buildings occupying the greater part of the western extremity of the Île de la Cité. Opposite the Palais de Justice is the Tribunal de Commerce, a quadrangular building inclosing a large court roofed with glass. The mint (Hôtel des Monnaies) fronts the Quai Conti, on the south side of the Seine, and contains an immense collection of coins and medals.

GRAND OPERA HOUSE, PARIS

This is the finest building of its class in the world.

Theaters and Places of Amusement.—Paris has numerous theaters. The leading houses are the Opéra, the Théâtre Français—chiefly devoted to classical French drama—the Opéra Comique and the Odéon, which receive a subvention from government. The new opera house, completed in 1875, cost, exclusive of the site, five million, six hundred thousand dollars.

Montmartre is the center of the bohemian life of Paris, and contains many cafés and places of amusement. It has upwards of forty theaters.

Latin Quarter and Its Institutions.—The chief institutions connected with the University of France, and with education generally, are still situated in the Quatier Latin.

The Sorbonne, the seat of the Paris faculties of letters, science, and Protestant theology, has been rebuilt and increased in size. The Sorbonne contains lecture-halls and class-rooms, and an extensive library open to the public. There gratuitous lectures are given and degrees are granted by the University of France.

Near the Sorbonne is the Collège de France, where gratuitous lectures are also delivered by eminent scholars and men of letters, as well as a large number of colleges and lycées, the great public schools of France for secondary instruction.

The Ecole Polytechnique, the School of Medicine and the School of Law, the Observatory, and the Jardin des Plantes, with its great museums of natural history, are situated in the same quarter of Paris.

The principal public library is Bibliothèque Nationale, which originated in a small collection of the books placed by Louis XI. in the Louvre.

Industries of Paris.—Paris cannot be described as a manufacturing town. Its chief and peculiar industries produce articles which derive their value not from the cost of the material, but from the skill and taste bestowed on them by individual workmen. They include jewelry, bronzes, artistic furniture, and decorative articles known as articles de Paris. In consequence of the intelligence and taste required in their trades the Paris workmen are in many respects superior to the machine hands of manufacturing cities.

STAIRWAY OF HONOR, GRAND OPERA HOUSE

Versailles (vér-sālz´ Fr. pron. ver-säy´), is situated eleven miles west-southwest of Paris. It contains a famous royal palace, a great part of which is now occupied by the Museum of French History, consisting of paintings; but some of the apartments are still preserved with the fittings of a royal residence. The chapel is well proportioned and sumptuous. The great gallery, called the Galerie des Glaces, is one of the finest rooms existing; it is two hundred and forty by thirty-five feet, and forty-two feet high, adorned with mirrors and gilding, and with ceiling-paintings by Lebrun representing the triumphs of Louis XIV.

Here King William of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor in 1871. The council-chamber, the bedroom of Louis XIV., the antechamber of the Mil de Boeuf, the Petits Apartements of the queen, and the theater are all historic and highly interesting.

The gardens are the finest of their kind. They abound with monumental fountains profusely adorned with groups of sculpture, and supplied the model for those of half the palaces of Europe.

St. Denis (saṅ-dė-nē´), two and one-half miles north of the fortifications of Paris, is chiefly notable for its abbey church, the historic burial-place of the kings of France. Dagobert built the church, which was the nucleus of one begun by Pepin, finished by Charlemagne in 775, and demolished and a larger one built on its ruins four hundred years later. During the Revolution the church was pillaged. It was restored by Viollet-le-Duc. Here Charlemagne was anointed; the Oriflamme was kept; Abélard dwelt; Joan of Arc hung up her arms; Henri IV. abjured Protestantism; and Napoleon I. was married to Marie Louise. The bones of the kings of France from Dagobert (630) to Louis XV. (1774) were buried here; and the mad Revolutionists tore them from their tombs, and buried them in a common ditch. They are now in the crypt, and superb royal monuments adorn the church, whose interior is lighted by splendid stained windows, and enriched with mosaics and statuary.

Among the monuments of greatest interest are those of Frédégonde, Dagobert, Pepin, Charlemagne, Clovis II., Charles Martel, Henry II., Catherine de Médicis, Francis I., Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, Henry IV., Louis XII., and Louis XIV.

Of the 167 sepulchral monuments, 53 are new or were brought from other churches. In 1817, Louis XVIII. caused the remains of Louis XVI. to be removed from the Madeline cemetery to St. Denis.

THE EIFFEL TOWER

Contains three stories, reached by a series of elevators. The platform at the summit is nine hundred and eighty-five feet above the ground. It cost about one million dollars.

Fontainebleau (Fong´tehn-blȯ´), near the Seine’s left bank, thirty-seven miles southwest of Paris, is chiefly famous for its royal château, and the beautiful forest that surrounds it. The château, said to have been founded by Robert the Good toward the end of the tenth century, was rebuilt in 1169 by Louis VII., and enlarged by Louis XI. and his successors. After being allowed to fall into decay, it was repaired and embellished by Francis I., Henry IV., Napoleon I., and Louis-Philippe.

PETIT TRIANON, VERSAILLES

This beautiful little palace was the favorite residence of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, after Louis XVI. came to the throne of France. It is now a museum of the personal relics of this beautiful and ill-fated Queen.

Barbizon (Bar-bee-song´), is close to the Forest of Fontainebleau. It is a great artists’ resort, and was the home and death-place of Millet. Corot, Diaz, Daubigny, and Rousseau were other members of the “Barbizon School” of painters.

Chief Industrial Centers.—Textile manufactures are the most important of the mechanical industries of France.

Lyons, the third city of France, at the junction of the Saône with the Rhone, is the center of the silk-growing region and the metropolis of the silk manufactures, in which the country stands unrivalled. St. Etienne (146,000), southwest of Lyons, comes second to it in this manufacture, after which come Nimes, near the delta of the Rhone, Tours, on the Loire, and Paris. Inland trade and manufactures in the south are most active at ancient Toulouse, on the Garonne, and at Montpellier, near the Rhone delta.

Woolen, linen, and cotton manufactures are almost entirely confined to the northern region. Foremost among these manufacturing towns of the north stands Lille, with its neighbor towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing, still nearer the Belgian manufacturing region; and Cambrai, Douai, Valenciennes, and St. Quentin, southeast of it. Rouen, on the Seine in Normandy, and Amiens, on the Sommer, between Rouen and Lille, Reims, in the Champagne district, Sedan, on the Ardennes and Nancy, in French Lorraine, still farther east, are the other chief manufacturing towns of the northern region.

At Sèvres, southwest of Paris, are the chief porcelain factories, which give the models and take the lead in this industry. Limoges is also a noted center of porcelain manufacture.

Glass is very extensively made in the northern departments. Paris itself excels in every kind of luxurious and fanciful manufacture. Besançon, the largest town near the frontier of Switzerland, is a great depot for the produce of the French half of that country, and manufactures watches largely.

The mining industries of France are comparatively limited. Coal is drawn chiefly from the basin of Valenciennes, which continues the Belgian coalfield on the north, from the basin of the Loire and Rhone, and from that of Creuzot, on the south of the heights of the Côte d’or. Iron occurs in eleven districts and is of excellent quality, but generally lies distant from the fuel necessary to smelt it, so that this metal must also be imported in large quantity. St. Etienne, southwest of Lyons, is the most noted center of the French hardware manufactures, especially of guns and machinery; Le Creuzot, in the midst of its coal basin, has also noted ironworks.

The trade of France is only inferior to that of Britain, Germany, and the United States; the position of the country, with coasts on three of the most frequented seas, is exceedingly favorable to its commerce. The great seats of maritime traffic with all the world are Marseilles, on the Mediterranean coast; Bordeaux and Nantes, with St. Nazaire, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay; Le Havre (at the mouth of the Seine), Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkerque, on the English Channel. All of these may in a sense be called the harbors of the central point of the life of the state, luxurious Paris.

Naval and Military Centers.—The naval arsenals of France, dockyards, and stations of the fleet, are at Cherbourg and Brest, on the northwest coast; L’Orient and Rochefort (south of La Rochelle) on the Bay of Biscay; and Toulon, on the Mediterranean. Nice and Cannes, on the Riviera, are favorite winter resorts.

France has more than one hundred fortified places; indeed almost every town along the northern and northeastern border is a fortress. Briançon, the highest town in the country, in the Alps, south of the pass of Mont Cenis into Italy, is the chief arsenal and depot of this mountain barrier, and is considered impregnable.

History

The name France first appears in history about the ninth century. Prior to that time the country which constitutes the greater part of modern France was occupied successively by Celts, Gauls and Franks.

Under the Romans.—When first known this country was called Gallia, and was the center whence swarms of plunderers poured over the mountains into Italy; but the Phœnicians and Greeks had a few trading cities on the Mediterranean coast—especially Marseilles—where in the seaport towns traces of descent from the Greeks are said still to be found.

In 125 B. C. the Romans formed in the east of the Rhone a settlement ever since called Provincia or “the Province,” whose capital was Aquae Sextiae (now Aix), and where corrupted Latin has never ceased to be the dialect, and their power and influence gradually spread. Between 58 and 51 B. C. Julius Caesar subdued the whole of Gaul, except the granite peninsula of the northwest. Later, refugees from Britain caused it to be called Brittany; and there to the present day the Celtic tongue has prevailed, and the habits have been peculiar. The Iberian or Basque tribes of the Pyrenees have likewise preserved their entirely different tongue, which is not even Aryan.

The Impress of Roman Rule.—Roman habits, civilization and speech were adopted all over the country, and Christianity became nearly universal. Many cities were founded as centers of government from the conquered population, and most of the great cities such as Arles and Lyons and many others date from this time. Nimes and Vienne show splendid monuments of Roman architecture. The Romans also made magnificent roads, and are said to have introduced the olive and the vine, to both of which the climate is eminently suitable.

Under Teutonic Invaders.—Continual warfare on the open frontier soon began between the Roman legions and the advancing Teutonic nations, of whom the Belgians, a mixed race, were the van. The city of Lutetia Parisiorum, now known by its tribal name, Paris, was the headquarters of Emperor Julian before his accession in A.D. 361, while he was struggling with these invaders. After his death, Gaul became a prey to the Teutons. They did not destroy the old population, but quartered themselves as guests on the proprietors of land; while the Roman cities kept up their self-government, and paid ransoms to escape pillage. Chief of these Teutonic tribes were the Goths, Burgundians and Franks.

Merovingians.—The Franks, whose dominion swallowed up those of both the foregoing tribes, had been long settled in the north; and Pharamond, their chief in 420, is considered the founder of the French monarchy, as he was of the first or Merovingian race of Frankish kings. In 485 Clovis defeated Syagrius, the Roman general, at Soissons, and finally extinguished the Roman power in the west, and in 507, by his victory over the Visigoths, he rendered himself master of the country between the Loire and Garonne, but was checked at Arles by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. He then settled in Paris, where he died. His chief aim was a united Frankish kingdom.

AMIENS CATHEDRAL

The most perfect specimen of Gothic architecture in France, dating from the thirteenth century. This splendid structure is embellished with a wealth of magnificent mediæval sculpture. Viollet-le-Duc happily calls this cathedral “the Parthenon of Gothic architecture.”

Clovis in 493 married Clotilda, a Christian Burgundian princess, and in 496 embraced her faith.

Though nominally Christians, the Franks brought their old hereditary Teuton customs of inheritance and chieftainship, which, as they had last come from the banks of the Yssel, were known as Salic laws—i.e. of the Salian Franks. Their German dominions were called Austreich (the eastern kingdom); their Gaulish Neaustreich (not Eastern) or Neustria; and both were Frankland. Their dynasty soon exhausted itself, and latterly their kings were called Fainéants or “Do-nothing” kings while the mayors of the palace really governed.

Carlovingians.—One of the mayors, a Teuton wholly in blood, Charles Martel, in 721 checked the tide of Saracen invasion, and saved Gaul by the great battle of Soissons. His son, Pepin, in 753 was elected king, and thence descended the line known as Carlovingians. Under Pepin and Charles the Great, called by the French “Charlemagne,” the country was relatively peaceful and prosperous; but after the latter’s death things returned to their original state of confusion.

Charlemagne was one of the really great monarchs of the world. His dominions reached from the Ebro to the Channel, from the Elbe, to the Atlantic, and included North Italy, and in 800 he was crowned by the Pope Emperor of the West. His power was too vast for a single hand of less power, and fell to pieces after his son’s death. The Western Franks fell to Charles the Bald, and it was then (about 870) that France became a recognized term for the country between the Channel and the Pyrenees.

The king had, however, very little power; his lands were cut up into divisions under dukes, marquises, and counts, who simply paid him a nominal homage, and were bound to follow him in war, but who ruled quite independently. Moreover, the Northmen or Normans were horribly ravaging the whole country; Paris was fortified against them under Robert the Strong, but, in 911, Charles the Simple found himself obliged to make to Rolla, the chief of the Northmen invaders, a grant of the Neustrian lands, which took the name of Normandy. The Carlovingians finally were deposed in 987, and their last sovereign, Louis V., retired to Lotharingia or Lorraine as duke.

Capetians.—The grandson of Robert the Strong, Hugh, became king. He was called Capet, apparently from the hood which marked him as guardian of the Abbey of St. Denis; and the name is used for his dynasty, which reigned for eight hundred years.

The German influences had passed away, though the king and nobility were of Frankish blood. The whole realm was parcelled out into feudal holdings, the great chiefs of which hardly owned the royal power, and the only place where the king really ruled directly was the county of Paris. There was much confusion and private warfare, and after the conquest of England in 1066, the Dukes of Normandy overshadowed the French kings.

Louis IV. (“the Fat”), in 1108, was the first king of any ability. He judicially overcame a robber count, and in his time (though not on any fixed principles) cities began to be allowed to purchase their power of self-government, such as the southern one had preserved from Roman times. This was called the right of commune. Except in these cities, the lot of the people of Gallo-Roman blood was wretched. They were called villeins, and, except that they were attached to the soil, were almost slaves, cruelly oppressed and downtrodden by their irresponsible lords, mostly Franks, who covered the land with fortified castles. There was, however, much religious zeal, which found its outlet in the Crusades, first proclaimed at Clermont, in Auvergne, in 1095, and in the religious orders, whose beautiful monasteries and splendid cathedrals still exist.

France was at its weakest under Louis VII., when Henry II. of England, by inheritance Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, had married the heiress of the great Duchy of Aquitaine, and obtained the heiress of Brittany for his son. Philip II., called Augustus, spent his life in undermining the power of the English kings, and when King John murdered his nephew Arthur of Brittany, Philip held a court of justice, cited him thither, and, on his non-appearance, adjudged him to have forfeited Normandy and Anjou, which easily were conquered, leaving only Aquitaine as the possession of John’s mother, and these lands, being held direct of the crown, much added to the royal power.

Under Louis IX.—The king, Louis IX., was the best and most blameless of French sovereigns. It was he who, in 1258, established the Parliament of Paris. In every Teuton nation the king was supposed to take counsel and do justice among the other nobles and freemen; but to attend courts of law in a large territory was a great vexation to the nobles, who would not come, and yet resented decisions made in their absence. Louis arranged that though every immediate vassal of the crown had a right to sit in it, yet in its working state it should only consist of men trained in the law, with just nobles enough to give authority. In this parliament the wills and edicts of the king, and the taxes he imposed, were registered. The provinces, likewise, had parliaments to serve as courts of law. Louis’s devotion led him to attempt two unfortunate crusades, and he died in the second, in 1270.

His grandson Philip IV. (“the Fair”), had a desperate quarrel with the Papacy, and by underhand means succeeded in forcing Pope Clement V. to reside in his dominions. The Popes fixed their residence at Avignon, in Provence, a province belonging to the Empire, and held at the time by Philip’s uncle, Charles, Count of Anjou, but near enough for French influence. Here the Papal court continued for seventy years. Philip V. was a violent and unscrupulous man, and the three sons who reigned in succession after him had not his force of character.

Philip was succeeded in turn by Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV. The rivalry between France and England, consequent upon the accession of Duke William of Normandy to the throne of the latter, came to a decisive crisis during the first half of the fourteenth century.

House of Valois and the “Hundred Years’ War.”—On the death of Charles IV. (1328) Philip of Valois succeeded to the throne, beginning the Valois dynasty; but Edward III. of England, by virtue of hereditary right derived from his mother’s side, claimed not only such provinces as had been taken from his ancestors, but the whole kingdom. In this way began the protracted conflict which French historians call the “hundred years’ war” (1337-1453), a period covering the reigns of John II. (1350-1364), Charles V. (1364-1380), Charles VI. (1380-1422), and the greater part of the reign of Charles VII. (1422-1461). In 1340 an English fleet destroyed the naval force of France at Sluis, on the coast of Flanders; in 1346, at Crécy, the English archers overcame the flower of French chivalry; and at Poitiers (1356) the Black Prince defeated King John and made him prisoner.

The States-General were also the scene of a deadly struggle between the regent and the third estate, and the peasantry of several districts broke out into a fearful insurrection, which was named the Jacquerie, and marked by all the horrors of a servile war. Charles V., with the help of his great constable, Du Guesclin, regained in a few campaigns almost all the English acquisitions in France. On his death, in 1380, his son Charles VI., surnamed the Well-Beloved, ascended the throne.

The reign of this sovereign was signally unfortunate. He fell into a state of insanity, which rendered him incapable of attending to the administration of the government, and in consequence regents were appointed, whose misconduct threw the kingdom into a civil war. During these calamities which afflicted France, Henry V. of England invaded the country, and gained the memorable battle of Agincourt. The consequence of this victory, and other advantages gained by Henry, enabled him to conclude a treaty by which his succession to the throne of France was acknowledged on the death of Charles. Henry and Charles both died shortly after this event, A. D. 1422.

Charles VII. and Joan of Arc.—Charles VII., surnamed the Victorious, asserted his right to the throne of his father, while at the same time the infant Henry VI. of England was proclaimed King of France under the regency of his uncle, the Duke of Bedford. The English laid siege to Orleans, a place of the greatest importance, and so successful were they in their operations against this and other places that the affairs of France began to wear a most gloomy aspect. The tide of misfortune, however, was successfully turned by one of the most extraordinary events recorded in history.

When the hope of saving Orleans was almost abandoned, a young girl named Joan of Arc, about seventeen years of age, who had lived an humble life in a village on the borders of Lorraine, presented herself to the Governor of Vaucouleur, and maintained with much earnestness that she had been sent by Divine commission to raise the siege of that city, and procure the coronation of Charles in the city of Rheims.

After undergoing a most rigid examination before a committee of persons appointed for that purpose, and also before the court and the king himself, she was intrusted with the liberation of Orleans. As she approached the city her presence inspired the inhabitants with confidence, while it spread dismay and consternation among the English, who hastily raised the siege and retired with precipitation, but being pursued by the heroine at the head of the French army, they were entirely defeated at Patay, with a loss of nearly five thousand men, while the French lost only one of their number. From this event Joan was called the Maid of Orleans.

The second part of her mission, which yet remained to be accomplished, was equally arduous and dangerous. The city of Rheims and the intermediate country being in possession of the English or their allies, presented apparently insurmountable difficulties. Charles, however, placing full confidence in her guidance, commenced his march, and as he advanced every obstacle disappeared; the citizens of Rheims, having expelled the garrison, received him with every demonstration of joy. After the coronation was performed, Joan threw herself at the feet of Charles, declaring that her commission was accomplished, and solicited leave to return to her former humble station; but the king, unwilling to part with her services so soon, requested her to remain for some time with the army, with which at length she complied. She afterwards attempted to raise the siege of the city of Campiegne; but her good fortune seemed to have deserted her; she fell into the hands of the English, who, to gratify their revenge for the many losses they sustained through her valour, condemned her, under a charge of various pretended crimes, and caused her to be burned in the public square at Rouen.

By this cruel measure the English hoped to check the success that had attended the operations of Charles. In this they were disappointed; such was the impulse which the heroine had given to the affairs of France, that the English in a few years were expelled from all their possession in the country, with the exception of Calais.

Charles passed the remainder of his reign in improving the internal condition of his kingdom. The close of his life was embittered by the unnatural conduct of his son, who attempted to poison his father. He died in 1464, a prince of acknowledged virtue, justice and discretion.

Louis XI. (1461-1483), the son and successor of Charles VII., annexed Burgundy and Picardy, and acquired Anjou, Maine, Provence, and the counties of Rousillon and Cerdagne; and France thus became one of the great powers on the Mediterranean. On the northwest, by the marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne of Brittany, she gained possession of that large province. Charles VIII. invaded Italy in 1494, and this was the first of a long series of Italian wars in which France was engaged for more than half a century. With Charles VIII., who died in 1498, the direct line of Valois ended, and Louis, duke of Orleans, grandson to a brother of Charles VI., became king under the title of Louis XII. He met at first with some success in Italy, but was at last driven out.

Wars of Francis I. and Charles V. of Germany.—Francis I. (1515-1547), his successor, being opposed by the emperor Charles V., of Germany, suffered a disastrous defeat at Pavia in 1525, and was carried a prisoner to Madrid, where in 1526 he agreed to a treaty by which he forfeited Burgundy, and all claims to Naples, Milan, Tournay, and Arras. No sooner was he set at liberty than he secured from the pope a release from his oaths, and renewed the struggle, but again with unfavorable results, and was compelled to make another disastrous peace at Cambrai (1529).

The Reformation had now begun, and Charles V. was obliged to turn his attention to Germany. Francis encouraged the Protestant princes in their opposition to the emperor, and in 1536 the war again broke out. It was ended in 1544 by the peace of Crespy, when the emperor was threatening Paris.

Francis I. died in 1546, and was succeeded by his son, Henry II., and the struggle soon began again. Henry recovered Calais for France. Under Francis II. (1559-1560) the Roman Catholic House of Guise obtained possession of the effective power in the state. Their adversaries, the House of Bourbon, headed the movement of the reformers. Under the weak kings Charles IX. (1560-1574) and Henry III. (1574-1589), who were under the influence of their mother, Catherine de’ Medici, this division in the French nobility resulted in the war of the League and wars of religion. The massacre of the Protestants on the night of St. Bartholomew (1572) raised to such a pitch the pride of the House of Guise that Henry III. fled to the camp of the Bourbon leader, where he was murdered by a fanatical monk. The name of Charles IX. remains associated with the horrors of the St. Bartholomew’s night, which witnesses the striking of a blow at the very heart of the nation.

The Bourbon Line.—The accession of the Bourbon prince, Henry IV. of Navarre (1589-1610), allayed the fury of religious wars, but his recantation of Protestantism in favor of Catholicism disappointed his own party, to which, however, he granted the free exercise of their religion by the edict of Nantes (1598).

Henry, however, meditated the humiliation of the house of Austria, and was on the eve of his departure for the army when he was assassinated by Ravaillac, May 14, 1610.

Under the regency of his widow, Maria de’ Medici, mother of Louis XIII., the kingdom was distracted by war between the queen mother and the young king. Cardinal Richelieu, who took the reins of government in 1624, consolidated the power of the monarch at home, and, while annihilating the power of the French Protestants, energetically supported the German Protestants against the house of Austria.

His successor, Cardinal Mazarin, pursued the same policy; and the treaty of Westphalia (1648) asserted the triumph of religious and political liberty in Germany, and the victory of France, which added to her territory the province of Alsace.

The troubles of the Fronde, a faint image of the old civil wars, detracted nothing from the influence gained abroad by the French government, and Mazarin concluded with Spain, in 1659, the treaty of the Pyrenees, which secured two other provinces to France—Artois and Roussillon.

Age of Louis XIV.—Under the personal rule of Louis XIV. France rose to the height of glory, while he himself was placed above all control. From the day of Mazarin’s death (1661) he assumed the direction of public affairs. In the first years of his administration the national wealth, promoted by the admirable efforts of Colbert, increased with unusual rapidity. Intellectual progress kept pace with material, and everything conspired to create a literary period of great magnificence.

The king’s military successes, too, achieved through Condé, Turenne, Luxembourg, and others, were brilliant; and he added to his kingdom Flanders, Franche-Comté, the imperial city of Strasburg, and several other important territories.

But the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 drove from the kingdom a large number of its best citizens, and crippled many branches of industry. The war of 1689-1697 against the league of Augsburg greatly exhausted the country, and that of the Spanish succession nearly reduced it to extremities; but after a contest of twelve years Louis succeeded, and by the treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt (1713 and 1714) the house of Bourbon, in the person of Louis’s grandson, Philip V., inherited the best part of the Castilian monarchy.

Louis XIV. died in 1715, after an unparalleled reign of seventy-two years. The burden which he had borne was far too heavy for his weak successors; and toward the end of Louis XV.’s reign France could scarcely be ranked among the great European powers. The four wars in which she then participated, against Spain (1717-1719), during the regency of Philip of Orleans, for the succession of Poland (1733-1735), for the succession of Austria (1740-1748), and finally the seven years’ war (1756-1763), were productive only of disgrace and disaster, including the loss of Canada.

Prelude to the Revolution.—Louis XV. died in 1774, and his grandson Louis XVI. ascended the throne at a period which was perhaps the most inglorious of French history. The kingdom was on the verge of financial as well as political ruin, and it seemed evident that a disastrous crisis was approaching.

An attempt to conciliate the people was made by the restoration of the parliament of Paris; but instead of promoting reform, this body proved a hindrance to it. Turgot and Malesherbes, associated with Maurepas in the ministry, acted with considerable efficiency in the endeavor to improve the state of affairs, but were deposed through the influence of the court party. Necker, who became minister of finance in 1777, at first seemed to improve matters slightly; but the opposition of the nobles and clergy to any scheme of general taxation, with other causes, led to his deposition.

His successor, Calonne, recklessly plunged the finances into a more hopeless condition than ever, and in 1786 the king was induced to call together the States-General, the really popular assembly of representatives, which had not met since 1614, and then in vain. Thenceforward there was a succession of barriers thrown down; madness set in upon the long-oppressed people, who wreaked the vengeance of a thousand years. Frightful mobs rose upon all whom they connected with their past misery. Nobles and clergy fell; the king was dethroned, and in 1793 was executed. A reign of terror set in, during which Robespierre and other fanatics, who thought they must destroy in order to build up, sent to the beheading machine, the guillotine, thousands of victims, and hoped to have swept away even the Christian religion, together with all the old abuses of power.

The Advent of Napoleon and the Directory.—When they fell in 1794, less sanguinary counsels prevailed, and, after sundry attempts at forms of government, Napoleon Bonaparte, of Corsican birth, climbed to supreme power. His course had been through victories. Belgium had been overrun, the Austrians forced back across the Rhine, the allied armies of England and Holland gradually pushed back, and Prussia and Spain forced to conclude peace. The new government began on October 28, the convention having been dissolved on the 26th. England, Russia, and Austria, in a new coalition, now began to carry on a more vigorous warfare; but Carnot’s strategic direction soon baffled it. Bonaparte was put in command of the army which was not to advance against the Austrians from Italy, and in 1796 and 1797 completely changed the condition of affairs. At the truce of Leoben (April 18, 1797) France controlled all Italy; Austria surrendered all rights in Belgium and recognized those republics which France established; and the history of France became almost wholly identified for nearly eighteen years with that of a single man, Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Consulate.—Bonaparte was chosen first consul for ten years, December 13, 1799; consul for life, August 2, 1802; then hereditary emperor, May 18, 1804. He reformed and reorganized legislation at home by the formation of the civil code, the organization of public instruction, and the improvements he introduced in all the branches of public service; while he added to his military and political glory by a new succession of triumphs, resulting in the treaties of peace signed at Presburg (1805), Tilsit (1807), and Vienna (1809).

He had now reached the height of his glory; he had placed his brothers on the thrones of Holland, Westphalia, and Spain, and his brother-in-law on that of Naples; but his power was shaken by the resistance which he met with in the Spanish peninsula (1808-1813); and his prestige was ruined by his expedition to Russia in 1812. The European nations united against him, and inflicted upon him at Leipsic, October 16-19, 1813, a blow from which he never recovered.

The Restoration.—Napoleon was dethroned in April, 1814, exiled to the island of Elba, and the brother of Louis XVI. received from the conquerors the sceptre of France, now restricted to her old limits. The sudden return of Napoleon from Elba, however, overthrew this new power; and for one hundred days, from March 20 to June 28, 1815, he was again the sovereign of France; but the battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815) destroyed his power forever, and the Bourbons once more ruled the kingdom.

Louis XVIII. granted a charter to his subjects, and died in 1824 in undisturbed possession of his throne. His brother and successor, Charles X., sought popularity by supporting the Greek insurrection against Turkey and conquering Algiers; but having attempted to suspend some of the most important guarantees secured by the charter, a formidable insurrection broke out, July 27, 1830, and he was obliged to abdicate.

House of Orleans.—After a few days’ interval the head of the younger branch of the house of Bourbon, Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, was appointed “king of the French” (August 9) by the chamber of deputies. The choice, being acceptable to the middle classes or bourgeoisie, was maintained; and notwithstanding some occasional outbursts of republicanism among the people, the July monarchy, as it was called, lasted for nearly eighteen years.

Revolution of 1848.—A political manifestation in favor of parliamentary reform brought on another revolution, February 24, 1848, and France became a republic, with a provisional government in which Lamartine played the most conspicuous part; but within a few months the majority of the constituent assembly, frightened by socialistic movements and a terrible civil struggle in the capital (June 23-26), became hostile to the new form of government. On December 10, 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I., was elected president, for a term of four years. On December 2, 1851, the president dissolved the assembly, assumed dictatorial powers, and appealed to the people to sanction his act by their votes. He was reëlected president for a term of ten years; a new constitution was promulgated; and finally, on November 7, 1852, the senate proposed the reëstablishment of the empire.

Second Empire.—The empire was proclaimed, December 2, 1852, and Louis Napoleon ascended the throne with the title of Napoleon III. The chief event of the early portion of this reign was the Crimean war, which largely increased the military prestige of the nation, as well as the popularity and strength of Napoleon’s rule. The war with Austria (1859) left France in a position of even greater authority than before in European politics. In 1860 Savoy and Nice were ceded to France by Italy. The emperor’s schemes for establishing the Hapsburg prince Maximilian on the throne of Mexico proved so ignominious a failure as to do much toward undermining the opinion of his power that had been held in Europe.

The course which Napoleon pursued during the Prusso-Austrian war in 1866 did not tend to restore confidence in him. In 1867 he aided in defending the power of the pope against the Garibaldians. In 1868 the growth of public opinion against the emperor was conspicuous; in 1869 much excitement was caused by the exposure of the confusion in financial affairs; and in 1870 popular disturbances, fomented by Rochefort, broke out on the acquittal of Pierre Bonaparte for the shooting of Victor Noir.

The demand for reforms was answered by a new constitution, which was finally confirmed by a plebiscite on May 8.

Franco-Prussian War.—In the spring of 1870 there were unmistakable manifestations of a hostile spirit on the part of the government against Prussia. The declaration of the candidature of the Hohenzollern prince Leopold for the throne of Spain furnished an immediate cause of war. The voluntary withdrawal of Prince Leopold followed the remonstrances of France, but the latter demanded also of the king of Prussia an explicit promise that no prince of Hohenzollern should ever be a candidate for the Spanish crown. This demand was refused, and war was declared by France, July 19.

On the 28th Napoleon went to Metz, where he personally took command of his forces; and on August 2 the king of Prussia, accompanied by Bismarck and Moltke, joined his army. On the latter day the French bombarded and took Saarbruck. On August 4 the German advance, under the crown prince, defeated the French at Weissenburg, and on the 6th totally defeated MacMahon at Worth.

On the 11th the three German armies under Steinmetz, Prince Frederick Charles, and the crown prince effected a junction on French territory, with headquarters at Saarbruck. By the 14th Steinmetz had advanced to near Metz, where the French army was concentrated under Bazaine, and on the afternoon of the same day won a victory at Courcelles; on the 16th Frederick Charles won a second battle at Mars-la-Tour; and on the 18th the combined forces under King William again defeated the French at Gravelotte.

Bazaine now drew within the fortifications, and the Germans, leaving a portion of their forces to invest the city, marched against MacMahon at Chalons. News reaching them of the advance of MacMahon to relieve Bazaine, they turned northward to intercept him. On the 30th they surprised a corps of General Failly near Beaumont, and fought a battle which resulted in the retreat of the French beyond the Meuse and their final withdrawal to Sedan.

The battle of Sedan was begun by the Germans September 1. After severe fighting they drove the French from all sides to that fortress, where, almost surrounded and without provisions or defenses, they were compelled to capitulate. The emperor surrendered to King William in person, September 2, and was carried a prisoner to Wilhelmshohe. In dead, wounded, and prisoners, the French thus lost in the last few days an army of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand men.

The Third Republic.—The news of Sedan created intense excitement at Paris, and the popular indignation against Napoleon and his party was without bounds. Gambetta proclaimed the republic; and a provisional government of national defense was at once formed, with General Trochu for president and Jules Favre for vice-president. The empress took refuge in England.

The German army entered Rheims on the 5th, and on the 15th they had closely approached Paris. A sortie by General Ducrot on the 19th was repulsed, and a few days later the actual investment of the city was begun. The German headquarters were established at Versailles. A portion of the French government of national defense remained in the capital; another portion, in order to be in communication with the provinces, was established at Tours. Toul surrendered on the 23rd. Strasburg capitulated in the night of September 27-28. Soissons and Schlettstadt capitulated respectively on October 16 and 24, and on the 27th Metz also yielded, Bazaine surrendering one hundred and seventy-three thousand men.

In the meantime the situation of Paris had become hopeless; and on January 28 arrangements for its capitulation had been concluded and provision made for a general armistice. On February 17, 1871, Thiers was chosen chief executive of the republic. On the 26th the preliminary treaty of peace was signed at Versailles, by which France ceded to Germany the greater part of Alsace and Lorraine, and agreed to pay as war indemnity five milliards of francs. The definitive treaty with Germany had been signed at Frankfort on the 10th of May.

In 1873 the Thiers administration was overthrown and replaced by one under Marshal MacMahon. In 1875 a Parliamentary Republic was established, and still remains under the guarantees of the constitution. In 1877 MacMahon was succeeded by Grevy. By this time the republic was fairly firmly established and withstood many attacks. A policy of colonial expansion was adopted, particularly in Egypt, but in spite of the dual control France and England established in 1879, France, in 1882, refused to help England in Egypt, and lost any control she had there.

The Triple Alliance of 1883 isolated France, but in 1890 she confronted the Triple Alliance with the Dual Alliance—between France and Russia—and made great attempts to establish colonial power.

The outstanding events of 1914, 1915 and 1916 were those connected with France’s participation in the European war as the leading military power of the Entente Allies. (See further under Great Wars of History.)

Books of Reference.—The chief histories are those of Henri Martin, Michelet, Dareste, Lavalee, Sismondi, Kitchin Lavisse, and Durny. These works cover the general history of France. See, in addition, Tocqueville’s The Ancient Regime; Taine’s French Revolution; Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution; Fyffe’s History of Europe; Hazlitt’s Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Colonies and Dependencies

The colonies and dependencies of France (including Algeria and Tunis) have an area roughly estimated at about 4,000,000 square miles with a population of about 41,600,000. Algeria, however, is not regarded as a colony but as a part of France, and Tunis is attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The area and population of the colonial domain of France at the beginning of the European war was as follows:

Colonies and
Year of Acquisition Area in
Sq. Mi. Population

In Asia:

India (1679) 196 277,000

Annam (1884) - 309,980 16,317,000

Cambodia (1862)

Cochin-China (1861)

Tonking (1884)

Laos (1892)

Total Asia 310,176 16,594,000

In Africa:

Algeria (1830-1902) 343,500 5,231,850

Sahara (——) 1,544,000 800,000

Tunis (1881) 45,779 1,500,000

Senegal (1637-1880) - 1,585,810 - 915,000

Upper Senegal & Niger (1893) 4,415,000

Guinea (1843) 1,498,000

Ivory Coast (1843) 890,000

Dahomey (1893) 749,000

Mauritania (1893) 400,000

Congo (1884) 669,280 5,000,000

Reunion (1649) 970 201,000

Madagascar (1643-1896) 226,015 2,701,000

Mayotte (1843) 840 96,000

Somali Coast (1864) 5,790 180,000

Total Africa 4,421,934 24,576,850

In America:

St. Pierre and Miquelon (1635) 96 6,000

Guadeloupe (1634) 688 182,000

Martinique (1635) 378 182,000

Guiana (1626) 34,000 27,000

Total America 35,222 397,000

In Oceania:

New Caledonia (1854-1887) 7,200 55,800

Tahiti, etc. (1841-1881) 1,544 30,000

Total Oceania 8,744 85,000

Grand Total 4,776,126 41,653,650

Sovereigns and Presidents of France

Giving, in order, the Royal Houses to which the French sovereigns belonged; Period of Rule in Chronological order; names of kings, emperors, regents and presidents; dates of birth and death of each; their genealogy or lineage; and other important personal facts.

THE MEROVINGIANS

420-428.—Pharamond (?-?); life obscure.

428-448.—Clodion (?-?); son of Pharamond; king of the Salic Franks.

448-457.—Merovaeus (411?-457); founder of the Merovingian Dynasty.

458-481.—Childeric (?-481); son of Merovaeus, king of the Franks.

481-511.—Clovis I. (465-511); son of Childeric; real founder of the Frankish monarchy. At his death his four sons divided the empire.

Childebert; Paris.
Clodomir; Orleans.
Thierry; Metz; and
Clotaire; Soissons.

558-561.—Clotaire I.; sole ruler (497-561); fourth son of Clovis. Upon his death the kingdom was divided between four sons: viz.

Charibert, ruled at Paris.
Gontram, in Orleans and Burgundy.
Sigebert, at Metz and Chilperic, at Soissons; both assassinated by Fredegonde.

575-596.—Childebert II. (570-596); son of Sigebert and Princess Brunehaut; ruled under the regency of his mother; poisoned.

613-628.—Clotaire II. (584-628); son of Chilperic I.

628-638.—Dagobert I., the Great (602-638); son of Clotaire II.; divided the kingdom between his two sons:

Clovis II., Burgundy and Neustria.
Sigebert II., Austrasia.

670-673.—Childeric II. (649-673); son of Clovis II.; assassinated, with his queen and his son Dagobert, in the forest of Livri.

687-714.—Pepin II., of Heristal (?-714); ruled the whole kingdom of the Franks during the reigns of Dagobert II., Clovis III., Childebert III., and Dagobert III.

715-720.—Chilperic II. (?-720); deposed by Charles Martel, mayor of the palace in 717, restored in 720, but soon dies at Noyon.

720-737.—Thierry IV. (712-737); son of Dagobert III.; reigned under the influence of Charles Martel who took the title “duke of the Franks.”

737-741.—Interregnum, till death of Charles Martel, 741.

742-752.—Childeric III. (?-755); son of Childeric II.; last of the Merovingians; made king by Pepin, 742; deposed by him, 752.

THE CARLOVINGIANS

751-768.—Pepin the Little (714-768); son of Charles Martel.

768-814.—Charlemagne, or Charles the Great (742-814); son of Pepin the Short; Charles crowned Emperor of the West, by Leo III., 800. Carloman reigned with him three years.

814-840.—Louis I., le Debonnaire (778-840); son of Charles the Great; emperor; dethroned, but restored.

843-877.—Charles the Bald (823-877); younger son of Louis le Debonnaire, king; emperor in 875; poisoned by Zedechias, a Jewish physician.

877-879.—Louis II. (846-879); son of Charles the Bald.

879-884.—Louis III. (863-882) and Carloman (?-?); sons of Louis II.; the former died 882, and Carloman reigned two years alone.

884-888.—Charles the Fat (839-888); son of Louis the German; usurps right of Charles the Simple.

888-898.—Count Eudes (?-898); Eudes, or Hugh, count of Paris.

898-922.—Charles the Simple (879-929); son of Louis the Stammerer; Charles III. (or IV.) was deposed, and died in prison in 929; he married Edgiva, daughter of Edward the Elder, of England, by whom he had a son, King Louis IV.

922-936.—Raoul (Rudolph of Burgundy) (?-?); Rudolph, or Raoul, duke of Burgundy; elected king, but never acknowledged by the southern provinces.

936-954.—Louis IV. (921-954); son of Charles the Simple; taken by his mother into England, died by fall from his horse.

954-986.—Lothaire (941-986); son of Louis IV.; ruled with his father from 952, succeeds him at fifteen years of age, protected by Hugh the Great; poisoned.

986-987.—Louis V. (966-987); son of Lothaire; poisoned (supposed by his queen, Blanche); last of race of Charlemagne.

HOUSE OF CAPET

987-996.—Hugh Capet, the Great (?-996); eldest son of Hugh the Abbot; usurps the rights of Charles of Lorraine, uncle of Louis IV. From him this race of kings is called Capetians.

996-1031.—Robert II. (971-1031); son of Hugh Capet; surnamed the Sage; died lamented.

1031-1060.—Henry I. (1011?-1060); son of Robert II.

1060-1108.—Philip I., the Fair (1052-1108); son of Henry I.; succeeded at eight years of age; ruled at fourteen.

1108-1137.—Louis VI. (le Gros) (1078-1137); son of Philip I.

1137-1180.—Louis VII. (1120-1180); son of Louis VI.; surnamed the Young; reigned with his father for some years.

1180-1223.—Philip II., Augustus (1165-1223); son of Louis VII.; succeeds at fifteen; crowned at Rheims in his father’s lifetime.

1223-1226.—Louis VIII. (1187-1226); son of Philip Augustus.

1226-1270.—Louis IX., or St. Louis (1215-1270); son of Louis VIII.; succeeded at fifteen, under his mother as guardian and regent; died in camp before Tunis.

1270-1285.—Philip III., the Bold (1245-1285); son of Louis IX.

1285-1314.—Philip IV., the Fair (1268-1314); son of Philip III.; king in his seventeenth year.

1314-1316.—Louis X. (1239-1316); son of Philip IV.; surnamed Hutin, an old word for headstrong, or mutinous.

1316-1321.—Philip the Hardy (1294-1322) second son of Philip IV.

1322-1328.—Charles IV., the Fair (1294-1328); youngest son of Philip the Fair.

HOUSE OF VALOIS

1328-1350.—Philip VI., of Valois (1293-1350); son of Charles of Valois.

1350-1364.—John II., the Good (1319-1364); son of Philip VI.; died suddenly in the Savoy in London.

1364-1380.—Charles V., the Wise (1337-1380); son of John II.

1380-1422.—Charles VI. (1368-1422); son of Charles V.

1422-1461.—Charles the Victorious (1403-1461); son of Charles VI.

1461-1483.—Louis XI. (1423-1483); son of Charles VII.; able but cruel.

1483-1498.—Charles VIII. (1470-1498); son of Louis XI.; the Father of his People; great-grandson of Charles V.

1498-1515.—Louis XII. (1462-1515); a descendant of the younger son of Charles V.

1515-1547.—Francis I. (1494-1547); son of Charles, Count of Angoulême; called the Father of Letters; great-great-grandson of Charles V.

1547-1559.—Henry II. (1519-1559); son of Francis I.; died of accidental wound by comte de Montmorency at the tournament for nuptials of his sister with the duke of Savoy.

1559-1560.—Francis II. (1543-1560); eldest son of Henry II.; married Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

1560-1574.—Charles IX. (1550-1574); second son of Henry II.; Catherine de’ Medici, his mother, regent.

1574-1589.—Henry III. (1551-1589); third son of Henry II.; elected king of Poland; last of the house of Valois; stabbed by Jacques Clement, a Dominican friar.

HOUSE OF BOURBON

1589-1610.—Henry IV., the Great (1553-1610); son of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre; son-in-law of Henry II.; assassinated by Francis Ravaillac.

1610-1643.—Louis XIII., the Just (1601-1643); son of Henry IV.

1643-1715.—Louis XIV., the Great (1638-1715); son of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria.

1715-1774.—Louis XV. (1710-1774); great-grandson of Louis XIV.

1774-1793.—Louis XVI. (1754-1793); grandson of Louis XV.; ascended the throne in his twentieth year; married the archduchess Marie Antoinette, of Austria, May, 1770; dethroned, July, 1789; guillotined, January, 1793, and his queen, October following.

.........—Louis XVII., son of Louis XVI., never reigned; and died in prison, supposed by poison, June, 1795, aged ten years two months.

THE FIRST REPUBLIC

1792-1795.—National convention; first sat September 21, 1792; it consisted of seven hundred and fifty members.

1795-1799.—Directory nominated. November 1, 1795; the Directory (Lareveillère Lepaux, Letourneur, Rewbell, Barras, and Carnot) nominated November; abolished, and Bonaparte, Ducos, and Siéyès appointed an executive commission, November, 1799.

THE CONSULATE

1799-1804.—Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821); Cambacérès (1753-1824); and Lebrun (1739-1824), appointed consuls, December, 1799. Napoleon appointed consul for ten years, May, 1802; for life, August, 1802.

THE EMPIRE

(Established by the Senate, May 18, 1804.)

1804-1814.—Napoleon (Bonaparte) I. (1769-1821), decreed Emperor, May 18, 1804. He renounced the thrones of France and Italy, and accepted the Isle of Elba for his retreat, April 5, 1814. Again appeared in France, March 1, 1815. Was defeated at Waterloo, June 18, 1815. Abdicated in favor of his infant son, June 22, 1815. Banished to St. Helena, where he died, May 5, 1821.

.........—Napoleon II. (1811-1832); never reigned; he was Napoleon’s son by his second wife, Maria Louisa of Austria, and later created Duke of Reichstadt, and King of Rome.

RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS

1814-1824.—Louis XVIII. (1755-1824); brother of Louis XVI.; married Marie-Josephine-Louise of Savoy; entered Paris, and took possession of the throne, May, 1814; obliged to flee, March, 1815; returned July, same year; died without issue.

1824-1830.—Charles X. (1757-1836); younger brother of Louis XVIII.; married Marie-Thérèse of Savoy; deposed July, 1830. He resided in Great Britain till 1832, and died at Gratz, in Hungary.

HOUSE OF ORLEANS

1830-1848.—Louis Philippe (1773-1850); son of Louis-Philippe, duke of Orleans, called Egalité, descended from Philippe, duke of Orleans, son of Louis XIII.; married, 1809, Maria-Amelia, daughter of Ferdinand I., king of the Two Sicilies; raised to the throne as king of the French, 1830; abdicated, 1848; died in exile, in England.

THE SECOND REPUBLIC, 1848

February 22 to December 19, 1848.—The revolution commenced in a popular insurrection at Paris, February, 1848. The royal family escaped by flight to England; a provisional government was established, monarchy abolished, and France declared a republic.

1848-1852.—Charles Louis Napoleon (1808-1873); declared by the National Assembly President of the Republic of France; and proclaimed next day, December 20, 1848; elected for ten years, December, 1851.

THE SECOND EMPIRE

1852-1870.—Napoleon III. (1808-1873); nephew of Napoleon I.; formerly president of the French Republic as Charles Louis Napoleon; elected Emperor, November, 1852; proclaimed, December, 1852; surrendered himself a prisoner to the King of Prussia at Sedan, September, 1870; deposed at Paris, September 4; died at Chislehurst, England, and buried there.

THE THIRD REPUBLIC

1870-1871.—Committee of Public Defense.

1871-1873.—I. Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877); appointed President of the French Republic by the National Assembly, 1871; resigned, 1873.

1873-1879.—II. Marshal M. E. Patrice Maurice MacMahon (1808-1893); elected president, 1873.

1879-1887.—III. François Paul Jules Grévy (1807-1891); elected president, January, 1879; reelected, 1885; resigned, December, 1887.

1887-1894.—IV. Marie-François Sadi-Carnot (1837-1894); elected president, December, 1887; assassinated, June, 1894.

1895-1899.—V. Jean Pierre Paul Casimir-Perier (1847-1907); elected president, June, 1894; resigned, January, 1895.

1899-1906.—VI. François Felix Faure (1841-1899); elected president, January, 1895; died, February, 1899.

1906-1913.—VII. Emile François Loubet (1838- ——); elected president, February, 1899.

1913- ——.— VIII. Raymond Poincaré (1860- ——); elected president, 1906.

German Empire.

GERMANY (from Lat. Germania) is the English name of the country which the natives call Deutschland, and the French L’Allemagne; while internationally it is known as the German Empire (Das Deutsches Reich), especially since 1871.

The German Empire is composed of a federation of twenty-five states, with one common imperial province, the names of which, with their areas and populations, are given on a subsequent page. Heligoland was ceded by Britain to Germany in 1890.

Divisions of the Empire.—The political divisions or states of the German Empire, together with their areas and population at the last census, are given in the subjoined table:

States Area in
Sq. Miles Population
at Last
Census

Kingdoms

1. Prussia 134,616 40,163,333

2. Bavaria 29,292 6,876,497

3. Saxony 5,789 4,802,485

4. Württemburg 7,534 2,435,611

Grand-Duchies

5. Baden 5,823 2,141,832

6. Hesse 2,966 1,282,219

7. Mecklenburg-Schwerin 5,068 639,879

8. Saxe-Weimar 1,397 417,166

9. Mecklenburg-Strelitz 1,131 106,347

10. Oldenburg 2,482 482,430

Duchies

11. Brunswick 1,418 494,387

12. Saxe-Meiningen 953 278,792

13. Saxe-Altenburg 511 216,313

14. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 764 257,208

15. Anhalt 888 331,047

Principalities

16. Schwarzburg-Sondershausen 333 89,984

17. Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt 363 100,712

18. Waldeck-Pyrmont 433 61,723

19. Reuss, Junior Branch 122 152,765

20. Reuss, Elder Branch 319 72,616

21. Schaumburg-Lippe 131 46,650

22. Lippe-Detmold 469 150,749

Free-Towns

23. Lübeck 115 116,533

24. Bremen 99 298,736

25. Hamburg 160 1,015,707

Reichsland

26. Alsace-Lorraine 5,604 1,871,702

TOTAL 208,780 64,903,423

Location and Extent.—This combination of Germanic States extends now from the Alps and the Bohemian mountains on the south to the Baltic on the north; and from the borders of France, Belgium, and Holland, on the west, to those of Russia on the east; the greatest distance across it from east to west and from north to south being about five hundred miles. The coast-line measures about nine hundred and fifty miles. The most remarkable features of the coast are the expansions of the river mouths in the Baltic; the lagoons called the Kurische Haff, Frische Haff, and Stettiner Haff; the estuaries of the Elbe and Weser; and the rounded inlets of Jade Bay and the Ems mouth, on the North Sea.

The mountains on the south and the sea on the north give natural frontiers for the most part, but west and east artificial boundaries are marked out, which correspond only in a few parts with the ethnographic limits of Germanic and Romanic peoples on the one side, and Germanic and Slavonic on the other.

Surface Characteristics.—The surface of the empire falls naturally into three divisions: the lowlands in the north, the table-land of the south, and the basin of the Middle Rhine.

The Lowlands are part of the Great European plain, and are largely occupied with sandy tracts, with here and there deposits of peat. They are well watered, and in certain districts fertile, while the monotony of their level is broken by two lines of hills whose heights vary from five hundred to eight hundred feet, and which may be said to extend roughly from the Mecklenberg to the Vistula, and from the moors of Lüneburg in Hanover to Silesia.

Table-lands.—In the southern plateau of Bavaria, the Fichtelgebirge is clearly the pivot round which the other mountain systems revolve. Thus, to its northwest there rises the Thuringian Forest and the Harz Mountains, and to the northeast the Erzgebirge, the Riesengebirge, and the Sudetic Mountains. Southwest radiate the Franconian and Swabian Juras and the Schwarzwald or Black Forest heights. Westward stretch the Taunus Mountains, while beyond these, and divided only by the Rhine, are the ridges of the Vosges. In the extreme southeast of Bavaria the Tyrolese or Noric Alps follow the northern bank of the Inn, and from this range rises the Zugspitze (nine thousand seven hundred feet), which is the highest summit in the whole empire. Between Basle and Mannheim, the Middle Rhine is splendidly sheltered by the Vosges and the Black Forest, which guard its course to left and right. (See further under the Rhine.)

Rivers.—By far the greater part of the country is drained northwards to the Baltic and the North Sea by its navigable highways, the Vistula, Oder, Elbe, Weser, and Rhine. The southeastern corner alone belongs to the upper basin of the Danube, flowing towards the Black Sea. (See Danube.)

The Vistula and the Oder are Baltic waterways, but more important from a commercial point of view are the Elbe, with its chief affluents the Mulde, Havel, and the Saale, and the great Rhine, which both empty into the North Sea, along with the smaller Ems and the Weser, which latter is the only purely German stream. This fact is worth noticing, as the sources of the Oder, Elbe, and Vistula must be traced in Austria, and sections only of the Rhine and Danube traverse the empire.

Climate.—Broadly speaking, the general contours are not favorable to climate; for the level exposed flats, north and east offer no resistance to the passage in winter of the dry, piercing winds from Siberia and the Arctic, while to the south and west the mountainous tracts form effectual barriers against the moist Anti-trades. Extremes of temperature increase eastward in proportion to the distance from the Atlantic. In the warmer latitudes of the south, the elevations counteract the natural tendency to grow hotter, so that Ratisbon has the same temperature as Hamburg. In the Upper Harz the rainfall reaches sixty-six inches, but the mean annual precipitation is only about twenty inches. On the whole the climate may briefly be described as continental. It should be noted that the general slope of the country is from the southeast to northwest, that is, away from the sun, and also that the Rhine valley is so delightfully sheltered that it reaps the full benefit of its warm latitude, and thus enjoys excellent weather conditions.

Internal Communications.—The commercial prosperity of the empire may in some measure be traced to the excellence of the railways, the majority of which are managed by the state. Berlin is splendidly provided with communications by rail, and it may with truth be said that it is within twenty-four hours’ reach of almost every point in the empire. Further, the trunk systems have many of them an international importance; for the great Oriental express from Paris to Constantinople traverses the line from Strassburg to Vienna through Munich, while Paris is linked with the remote Siberia by means of the lines from Cologne to Berlin and from Berlin to Warsaw. Berlin is also directly connected with Breslau, Hamburg, Danzig, and Königsberg. From Frankfort-on-Main, which is the trading center between north and south Germany, lines radiate to Cologne, Ostend, Antwerp, Flushing, Rotterdam, and Berlin northward, and in a southerly direction to Strassburg, Basle, Munich, and Vienna, while east and west it is joined up with Dresden, Breslau and Metz.

Domestic commerce has been further facilitated by an elaborate network of canals. By far the most important of these is the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal (sixty-one miles long), which unites the North Sea and the Baltic. The Dortmund-Ems (one hundred and fifty miles long) and the Elbe-Trave (forty-three miles long) have only recently been completed. Since the building of the Rhine and Rhone canal through Mulhaüsen, it has been possible for a barge to pass from Rotterdam to Marseilles without unloading.

The union of the Danube and Rhine is effected by the Ludwigs canal, and that of the Seine and Rhine by the Rhine and Marne Canal. A number of canals, including the Teltow (opened in 1906), serve to connect the Spree, and therefore Berlin, with the Oder and the Elbe, the Oder and Vistula being joined by what is known as the Bromberger Canal.

Productions and Industries.—Following this distribution of climate, the forests which still cover a great part of Germany, and form a feature of its landscapes, are chiefly of the hardier pines in the north and east, and of deciduous trees in the south and west. About sixty-one per cent of the surface of the empire is suitable for cultivation, the forests occupy twenty-five per cent, and the uncultivable moors and mountain tracts only eight per cent.

Agriculture.—There are sixty-five million acres of cultivated soil, and over twenty-one million acres of grass and pasture lands. Rye and oats are the chief grains, the former flourishing in the north despite the drawbacks of poor climate and soil. Almost as much land is devoted to potatoes as to rye; for the sandy plains of western Prussia and Pomerania seem to suit this crop equally well. Flax, hemp, and the beet—the last for the sugar industry—are grown in Saxony and in the Baltic provinces, especially in Hanover. The vine covers the dry, sunny slopes of the Vosges, and is also extensively grown along the Rhine. The rich alluvial soils of the sheltered valleys in the southwest are also favorable to the production of tobacco and hops, which are accordingly cultivated with success in Baden, Hesse, and Bavaria.

Minerals.—Germany is rich in minerals, especially in coal and iron. The great industrial activity of the country very largely depends on the fact that these two minerals are found together, and moreover in proximity to navigable water-courses. In the Rhine basin the coal beds follow the courses of the Ruhr, Saar, and Ill, and excellent iron ore is found in both the Ruhr and Saar coal fields. Coal is also found in Silesia, while the Saxon mines in the Elbe basin yield chiefly the lignite variety.

Almost one half of the zinc produced in the world is mined in Germany, the chief centers being at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), in Rhenish Prussia, and Königshütte, on the Oder coal fields, while nearly half the silver of Europe is produced from the silver, lead, and copper ores found in the Harz Mountains, Silesia, and the mines of Freiberg (Saxony). Most of the German copper comes from the Harz and Erzgebirge Mountains. Large quantities of rock and potassium salts are produced in Hanover, Saxony, Thuringia, and Anhalt. The mineral springs of Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Ems, etc., are world famous.

Manufactures.—The industrial development of the empire proceeded at an almost unprecedented rate throughout the last century. The following catalogue will give some idea of the local distribution of the various industries: Iron goods and machinery are manufactured in Prussia, Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine, and Bavaria; steel goods in Rhenish Prussia. Woolens and worsteds are produced in Saxony and the Rhine province; cotton goods in Prussia, Saxony, Baden, Bavaria and Alsace-Lorraine; silk at Elberfeld (Rhenish Prussia) and in Baden; and linen goods in Westphalia, Silesia, and Saxony. The Rhine and Moselle districts are important centers for light wines; Bavaria is famous for its toys, like Nuremberg for its watches and pencils, and Meissen, Dresden, and Berlin, etc., for their porcelain. Finally there are manufactories up and down the country of chemicals, beer, sugar, tobacco, leather (in Hesse-Darmstadt), and paper.

People and Language.—The German-speaking inhabitants of the empire are about ninety-three per cent of the total population; but a considerable proportion of these are not of the Germanic stock. Among the peoples retaining their own language (about four and one-fourth millions) are Poles (exclusively in eastern and northeastern Prussia), Wends (in Silesia, Brandenburg, and Saxony), Czechs (in Silesia), Lithuanians (in eastern Prussia), Danes (in Sleswick), French (in Rhenish Prussia, Alsace and Lorraine) and Walloons (about Aix-la-Chapelle in Rhenish Prussia). The Germans are divided into High and Low Germans; the language of the former is the cultivated language of all the German states; that of the latter, known as Platt-Deutsch, is spoken in the north and northwest. (See further, Teutonic peoples, in Book of Races.)

Education and General Culture.—Germany stands conspicuously foremost in the field of state education, and so far is without rival for the admirable systemization and for the variety and thoroughness of the technical trainings provided. It is established by law that every child from the age of six to fourteen must attend one of the elementary schools (“Volkschulen”), or some other recognized scholastic institution.

There are also a number of fully-equipped Technical High Schools, with the power of granting degrees, and some one thousand four hundred secondary schools (gymnasia, realschulen, oberrealschulen, etc.); numerous special schools of technology, agriculture, forestry, mining, commerce, military science, etc. There are twenty-one universities in the empire: at Königsberg, Berlin, Breslau, Greifswald (in Pomerania, southeast of Stralsund), Kiel, Halle, Göttingen, Münster, Bonn, Marburg, Rostock, Giessen, Jena, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Strassburg, Tübingen, Munich, Erlangen, and Würzburg. All of these have the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, and many are some of the oldest foundations of their kind in Europe.

Outside the country the best known are probably Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, and Bonn, which also have the largest numbers of undergraduates, and Göttingen, Strassburg, Heidelberg, and Jena. Four teach theology according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, while in four others the theological faculty is open to both Protestants and Roman Catholics; the remaining universities are Protestant.

Culture is further stimulated in the large towns by public libraries, learned societies, museums, art galleries, and observatories, whilst musical knowledge and appreciation diffuses itself from the highly-reputed conservatories at Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, Frankfort, and Berlin.

Religion.—The Constitution provides for entire liberty of conscience and for complete social equality among all religious confessions. The relation between Church and State varies in different parts of the empire. The Jesuit order is interdicted in all parts of Germany, and all convents and religious orders have been suppressed.

Protestantism predominates in the north and middle, and Roman Catholicism in the southeast and west, although very few states exhibit exclusively either form of faith. The Protestants belong chiefly either to the Lutheran confession, which prevails in Saxony, Thuringia, Hanover, and Bavaria east of the Rhine, or to the Reformed or Calvinistic Church, which prevails in Hesse, Anhalt, and the Palatinate. A union between these two churches has taken place in Prussia. There are five Roman Catholic archbishoprics and fourteen Roman Catholic suffragan bishoprics and six bishoprics immediately subject to Rome.

Defense.—Military service in Germany is compulsory and universal, with the usual exemptions.

Army.—By the regulations in force, every German who is capable of bearing arms must be in the standing army for seven years (generally his twentieth to his twenty-seventh year). Two years must be spent in active service and the remainder in the army of reserve. He then spends five years in the first class of the Landwehr, after which he belongs to the second class till his thirty-ninth year. Besides this, every German, from seventeen to twenty-one and from thirty-nine to forty-five is a member of the Landsturm, a force only to be called out in the last necessity. Those who pass certain examinations require to serve only one year with the colors, and are known as “volunteers.”

The wide stretches of unprotected borderlands have obliged the Germans to consider very carefully the question of frontier defenses. Thus the empire is at present divided into ten “fortress districts,” in which the following are the chief fortified cities: Danzig, Königsberg Posen, Neisse, Spandau, Magdeburg, Küstrin, Mainz, Ulm, Metz, Cologne, Koblenz, Kiel, and Strassburg.

Navy.—Rapid progress has been made in recent years in the formation of a German navy. Prussia took the initiative in gathering together a fleet, but by 1851 it had grown only to fifty-one vessels, thirty-six of which were small gunboats. However, an advance was made in 1867, when every vessel in the navy flew the national colors (black, white, and red), and during the last twenty-five years the measure of progress has been phenomenal. (See further, Armies and Navies of the World.)

Kiel is the chief naval station on the Baltic, and Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea, these two bases being connected by the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal across the Schleswig-Holstein peninsula. Other naval establishments are Danzig, Cuxhaven, and Sonderburg.

Museum of
Fine Arts Cathedral Royal Palace National
Monument

PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE HEART OF BERLIN, SHOWING THE MUSEUM OF ART, LUSTGARTEN, NEW CATHEDRAL, ROYAL PALACE, AND NATIONAL MONUMENT.

Large left-hand side of panorama (85 kB)
Large right-hand side of panorama (82 kB)

Chief Cities.—German cities and towns are officially distinguished as large cities (with one hundred thousand inhabitants and upwards); medium cities (twenty thousand to one hundred thousand inhabitants); small cities (five thousand to twenty thousand inhabitants); and country towns (two thousand to five thousand inhabitants). According to the latest census, the population of cities over fifty thousand was as follows:

Cities State Latest
Population

Berlin Prussia 2,070,695

Hamburg Hamburg 932,166

Munich Bavaria 595,053

Leipzig Saxony 587,635

Dresden Saxony, K. 546,882

Cologne Prussia 516,167

Breslau Prussia 511,891

Frankfort-on-Main Prussia 414,598

Dusseldorf Prussia 357,702

Nürnberg Bavaria 332,651

Charlottenburg Prussia 305,181

Hanover Prussia 302,384

Essen Prussia 294,629

Chemnitz Saxony, K. 287,340

Stuttgart Württemberg 285,589

Magdeburg Prussia 279,685

Bremen Bremen 246,827

Königsberg Prussia 245,853

Rixdorf Prussia 237,378

Stettin Prussia 236,145

Duisburg Prussia 229,478

Dortmund Prussia 214,333

Kiel Prussia 211,044

Mannheim Baden 193,379

Halle-on-Saale Prussia 180,551

Strassburg Alsace-Lorraine 178,913

Schoeneberg Prussia 172,902

Altona Prussia 172,533

Danzig Prussia 170,347

Elberfeld Prussia 170,118

Gelsenkirchen Prussia 169,530

Barmen Prussia 169,201

Posen Prussia 156,696

Aachen Prussia 156,044

Cassel Prussia 153,078

Brunswick Brunswick 143,534

Bochum Prussia 136,916

Karlsruhe Baden 134,161

Crefeld Saxony, K. 129,412

Plauen Prussia 121,104

Mülheim-on-Ruhr Prussia 112,602

Erfurt Prussia 111,461

Mainz Hesse 110,634

Wiesbaden Prussia 109,033

Augsburg Bavaria 102,293

Lübeck Lübeck 98,620

Mülhausen Alsace-Lorraine 95,041

Münster Prussia 90,283

Oberhausen Prussia 89,897

Hagen Prussia 88,625

Bonn Prussia 87,967

Darmstadt Hesse 87,085

Görlitz Prussia 85,790

Spandau Prussia 84,919

Würzburg Bavaria 84,387

Freiburg Baden 83,328

Ludwigshafen-on-Rhine Bavaria 83,297

Bielefeld Prussia 78,334

Offenbach Hesse 75,593

Linden Prussia 73,352

Zwickau Saxony, K. 73,538

Königshütte Prussia 72,642

Remscheid Prussia 72,176

Pforzheim Baden 69,084

Metz Alsace-Lorraine 68,445

Frankfort on O. Prussia 68,230

Beuthen Prussia 67,718

Harburg Prussia 67,024

Gleiwitz Prussia 66,983

Liegnitz Prussia 66,620

Fürth Bavaria 66,535

München Gladbach Prussia 66,410

Osnabrück Prussia 65,956

Rostock Meckl.-Sch. 65,377

Potsdam Prussia 62,224

Flensburg Prussia 60,931

Elbing Prussia 58,631

Bromberg Prussia 57,585

Dessau Anhalt 56,606

Koblenz Prussia 56,478

Ulm Württemberg 55,817

Kaiserslautern Bavaria 53,803

Brandenburg-on-Havel Prussia 53,595

Mülheim-on-Rhein Prussia 53,428

Cities of Prussia

Berlin, capital both of the Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia, is by far the most important center of population in Germany. It lies on both sides of the Spree, and by the Spandau and Tetlow canals to the Havel it is linked with the systems of the Oder and the Elbe. It is eighty-four miles from Stettin and one hundred and eighty miles from Hamburg, and is the center of the great Prussian state railway system. (See Internal Communications.)

The city itself is served by an Outer Circle (Ringbahn) and by the Stadtbahn, running east and west through the city. There are electric surface lines, an overhead, or elevated, electric railway, and a shallow underground railway.

On an island in the center of the city stands the Royal Palace, a foursquare pile built at different times between 1451 and the present day. It stands in the Schloss-platz, and is one of the few old buildings in Berlin, dating from the sixteenth century. It contains over six hundred rooms, including the great White Salon, and halls of the Black and Red Eagle orders.

Unter den Linden.—From this island stretches westward the noblest street in Berlin, Unter den Linden (“under the lime trees”). The triumphal arch at the west end of the street, the Brandenburg Gate (a copy, made in 1789-93, of the Propylæa at Athens), forms the entrance to the large park (six hundred and thirty acres) of the Thiergarten. In the east is the magnificent avenue of the Siegesallee or Avenue of Victory, adorned with thirty-two marble groups of the rulers of Prussia and Brandenburg. In the Unter den Linden are many splendid public edifices, among which are the Armory, the Opera House, the Royal Library, the new Town Hall, the University, the palaces of William I. and of Frederick III., and the monument to Frederick the Great by Rauch.

In the northeast of the Thiergarten stands the most imposing building of the city, the Imperial Diet or Parliament, erected from designs by Wallot, in 1884-94, at a cost of over five million dollars.

Business Quarter.—The Friedrichs-Stadt is the business center of Berlin, and the streets in this section are interesting. The banking street, Behrenstrasse, and the Wilhelmstrasse, the official quarter, where is the imperial chancellor’s palace, lie to the south. Fine shops and restaurants line the Friedrichstrasse, while Viktoriastrasse is one of the many thoroughfares of the fashionable district, southwest. Königstrasse and Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse are the business streets of the city proper.

The Tempelhofn Feld, also to the south, is the parade and review ground of the Berlin garrison.

The most striking bridge is the Schloss-brücke, or Palace bridge, by F. Schinkel, with colossal marble figures. It leads from Unter den Linden, to the Lustgarten, a park in which stands an equestrian statue of Frederick William III.

DRAMATIC THEATER, GENSDARMEN MARKT

The Opera Platz contains statues of five generals, by Rauch, and is bounded by the Palace, University, Opera House, and St. Hedwig’s Church, an imitation of the Roman Pantheon. The Schauspielhaus, the leading dramatic theater, is in Gensdarmen Markt. The Schauspielhaus, with the church on each side, is considered one of the finest architectural groups in Berlin.

Statues and Art Museums, etc.—No city has so many statues and monuments to the national heroes, kingly or military, or to those famed in literature, science and art.

GERMAN CATHEDRAL, GENSDARMEN MARKT

The Royal Library, once in the palace, is now in the new building, built in 1909 on Unter den Linden; it contains nearly five million printed books. The University Library is housed in the same building. There is a large public library and twenty-eight municipal libraries.

The Royal Museum, in the Lustgarten, north of the Schlossplatz, is divided into the Old and the New Museums, containing the treasures of classical and mediæval sculpture, the Egyptian collection, etc. The Old Museum is the finest building in the city, with a grand Ionic portico, adorned with colossal bronze groups, and richly frescoed halls. It has vast collections of antiquities; the halls of Greek, Roman, mediæval, and modern sculptures; and the Hall of the Heroes.

The New Museum is entered from the Old, and contains Kaulbach’s famous mural paintings, the Egyptian museum, an immense collection of casts, twelve cabinets of Northern antiquities four rooms of objects of art, and five hundred thousand engravings. It has a renaissance façade to the east. Opposite is the new Corinthian temple of the National Gallery, which contains a magnificent and world-renowned collection of ancient and modern paintings.