The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 5Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 5
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Great Britain -- History -- James II, 1685-1688; Great Britain -- History -- William and Mary, 1689-1702
the Sacred Band, to form a standing army. Their business was war. They
encamped in the citadel; they were supported at the expense of the
community; and they became, under assiduous training, the first soldiers
in Greece. They were constantly victorious till they were opposed
to Philip's admirably disciplined phalanx at Charonea; and even at
Chaeronea they were not defeated but slain in their ranks, fighting to
the last. It was this band, directed by the skill of great captains,
which gave the decisive blow to the Lacedaemonian power. It is to be
observed that there was no degeneracy among the Lacedaemonians. Even
down to the time of Pyrrhus they seem to have been in all military
qualities equal to their ancestors who conquered at Plataea. But their
ancestors at Plataea had not such enemies to encounter.]
[Footnote 3: L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 7/17, 1697.]
[Footnote 4: Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1697. L'Hermitage, Dec 7/17.]
[Footnote 5: L'Hermitage, Dec. 15/24., Dec. 14/24., Journals.]
[Footnote 6: The first act of Farquhar's Trip to the Jubilee, the
passions which about his time agitated society are exhibited with much
spirit. Alderman Smuggler sees Colonel Standard and exclaims, "There's
another plague of the nation a red coat and feather." "I'm disbanded,"
says the Colonel. "This very morning, in Hyde Park, my brave regiment, a
thousand men that looked like lions yesterday, were scattered and looked
as poor and simple as the herd of deer that grazed beside them." "Fal al
deral!" cries the Alderman: "I'll have a bonfire this night, as high as
the monument." "A bonfire!" answered the soldier; "then dry, withered,
ill nature! had not those brave fellows' swords' defended you, your
house had been a bonfire ere this about your ears."]
[Footnote 7: L'Hermitage, January 11/21]
[Footnote 8: That a portion at least of the native population of Ireland
looked to the Parliament at Westminster for protection against the
tyranny of the Parliament at Dublin appears from a paper entitled The
Case of the Roman Catholic Nation of Ireland. This paper, written in
1711 by one of the oppressed race and religion, is in a MS. belonging to
Lord Fingall. The Parliament of Ireland is accused of treating the Irish
worse than the Turks treat the Christians, worse than the Egyptians
treated the Israelites. "Therefore," says the writer, "they (the
Irish) apply themselves to the present Parliament of Great Britain as
a Parliament of nice honour and stanch justice... Their request then is
that this great Parliament may make good the Treaty of Limerick in all
the Civil Articles." In order to propitiate those to whom he makes this
appeal, he accuses the Irish Parliament of encroaching on the supreme
authority of the English Parliament, and charges the colonists generally
with ingratitude to the mother country to which they owe so much.]
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