Ashley Maurice. Great Britain to 1688: A Modern History

University of Michigan Press, 1961. — 492 p.In England's past the modern world was born. Thomas a Becket cut down in Canterbury by servants of his king, Richard III betrayed by Lord Stanley and killed by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field, Charles I tried by his own people & executed for his crimes--these are the vital beginnings. Under the guidance of her peers--quickwitted Alfred, controversial King John, headstrong Henry VIII, redheaded Elizabeth, "Harry's daughter & England's Queen"--the island grew to empire, shaping by literature, language & deed her English-speaking heirs around the globe. From her parliaments came a tradition of democracy, from her courts a respect for law, from her commoners the right to liberty. Yeomen as well as kings paved the way for democracy & the welfare state. What made them cheer John Lilburne at his trials or follow the Duke of Monmouth into battle? Why had they rallied behind Wat Tyler or Robert Kett? How did the Norman Conquest change their lives? Were they better off under Queen Elizabeth I or under Charles II? In a succession of dramatic pictures Ashley shows the stuff of which the West was made: From a derelict port inhabited by squatters, London by 1688 had become the home of Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare & Milton. Sir Walter Ralegh had made Elizabeth the Queen of Virginia. Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe. Here aren't only historical headlines, but a picture of the nation & the people who again, twice in this century, set an example to the Western world. I became familiar with the British Historian Maurice Ashley (1907-1994) through his 1937 biography of Oliver Cromwell. Maurice Ashley also served as a literary assistant to Winston Churchill from 1929 during the research and writing of "Marlborough: His Life and Times, which I have also read. So I enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Ashley again in this book.