The reign of Henry III. is not only one of the longest but one of the most difficult in English history. It contains more than one great crisis, and coincides in time with an epoch of vast progress; but the critical importance is by no means equally diffused, and the rate and fashion of the progress are matter for minute study, rather than for vivid illustration. The reign covers more than half of one of the most eventful and brilliant centuries of the world’s history; a century made famous by the actions of some of the greatest sovereigns, the most illustrious scholars, the wisest statesmen; the most noble period of architecture; the last act of the Crusades, the last struggle of the Papacy with the yet undiminished strength of the Empire. The life which, on the Continent, runs in these streams is not without its purpose in England. [Sidenote: Character of Henry III. ] England also looks on the thirteenth century as her great architectural age, the age of her great lawyers and some of her greatest divines. She also has her weight in European affairs, her struggles with the Papacy, her attempts at sound government. But the real interest of English history lies in minute constitutional steps of progress, which are to be estimated rather by their later and united effects, than by the actual and momentary appearance of growth. For during this time, England has no guiding or presiding genius. Her king is a man by no means devoid of all the picturesque qualities of his forefathers, and possessed of some negatively good qualities which they had not; but on the whole a degenerate son of such great ancestors, degenerate from their strength and virtues as well as from their faults and vices. Henry III. is perhaps a better husband and father, a more devout man, than any of his predecessors; he is not personally cruel or regardless of human life; he has no passion for war, no insatiable greed for the acquisition of territory, such as in the case of his ancestors had cost so much bloodshed. He is content for the most part to be king of England, and his success in retaining some part of his Continental dominion, is the result far more of the honesty of his adversary than of any ambition, skill, or force of his own. In these respects, England might have been expected to fare better under Henry, than she had done under John or Richard or Henry II.; better even than she was to fare under Edward I.; yet she can scarcely, even viewed in the results, be said to have done so. The long reign was a long period of trouble, suffering, and disquietude of every sort. We have no reason to suppose that Henry was deficient in personal courage, or in skill in arms, such as a brave knight might possess without being a great captain in fieldwork or in sieges; or that he was wanting in the desire to be thought a splendid and magnificent sovereign--as, indeed, he was thought--for he reaped the advantages of the political position which Henry II.