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CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

FROM THE

FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN

TO THE PASSING OF

THE CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL IN 1829.

BY C. ST. GEORGE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.- -VOL. I.

LONDON:

SAMUEL MAUNDER, NEWGATE-STREET

AND TO BE HAD OF

KEATING AND BROWN, DUKE-STREET, MANCHESTER-SQUARE.

MDCCCXXX.

LONDON:

Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,

Stamford-street.

INTRODUCTION.

As I feel it may be expected that a person should give a reason for offering to the public a new History of England when there are already so many excellent productions on the subject, I beg leave to state that my motive originated from observing the facility with which every branch of education is now acquired, through the judicious mode of blending amusement with the principles on which they are taught. With this conviction on my mind, and with a belief that many very material points in English history had been either overlooked, or unfairly represented, by those who had gone before me, I undertook the compilation of the present work; how far I may have succeeded, I leave to an indulgent public to judge.

I have not knowingly omitted any historical fact of importance. Among the several historians I have quoted, I have had recourse to the works of Mr. George Courtney Lyttleton and the Reverend Dr. Lingard most frequently. The first, on account of the variety of anecdote with which his history is interspersed; the second, from the known respect paid to his authority, and because his being the most recently written history, it possesses the superior advantage of lapse of time in its development of political events. In giving the reign of George the Third, I consulted the Reverend Dr. Bisset's Life of his late Majesty, and other writers of that period. That part which relates to the royal branch of

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