THE FOUNDATIONS OF ENGLAND

55 B.C.--A.D. 1066


"Ah, well," an American visitor is said to have soliloquized on the
site of the battle of Hastings, "it is but a little island, and it has
often been conquered." We have in these few pages to trace the
evolution of a great empire, which has often conquered others, out of
the little island which was often conquered itself. The mere incidents
of this growth, which satisfied the childlike curiosity of earlier
generations, hardly appeal to a public which is learning to look upon
historical narrative not as a simple story, but as an interpretation of
human development, and upon historical fact as the complex resultant of
character and conditions; and introspective readers will look less for
a list of facts and dates marking the milestones on this national march
than for suggestions to explain the formation of the army, the spirit
of its leaders and its men, the progress made, and the obstacles
overcome. No solution of the problems presented by history will be
complete until the knowledge of man is perfect; but we cannot approach
the threshold of understanding without realizing that our national
achievement has been the outcome of singular powers of assimilation, of
adaptation to changing circumstances, and of elasticity of system.
Change has been, and is, the breath of our existence and the condition
of our growth.

Change began with the Creation, and ages of momentous development are
shrouded from our eyes. The land and the people are the two foundations
of English history; but before history began, the land had received the
insular configuration which has largely determined its fortune; and the