THE EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE
A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ENGLAND

BY
MARY PARMELE




PREFACE.


Will the readers of this little work please bear in mind the
difficulties which must attend the painting of a very large picture,
with multitudinous characters and details, upon a very small canvas!
This book is mainly an attempt to trace to their sources some of the
currents which enter into the life of England to-day; and to indicate
the starting-points of some among the various threads--legislative,
judicial, social, etc.--which are gathered into the imposing strand of
English Civilization in this closing 19th Century.

The reader will please observe that there seem to have been two things
most closely interwoven with the life of England. RELIGION and MONEY
have been the great evolutionary factors in her development.

It has been, first, the resistance of the people to the extortions of
money by the ruling class, and second, the violating of their religious
instincts, which has made nearly all that is vital in English History.

The lines upon which the government has developed to its present