The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain: Nineteenth Century EuropeCramb, J. A. (John Adam)
History
The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain: Nineteenth Century Europe
Cramb, J. A. (John Adam)
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration -- History -- 19th century; Imperialism; War
the king of Prussia.
[8] The same delight in power, the same glory in dominion, pulsate in
the Lusiads and in the dramas of Marlowe, but Marlowe was by far the
wider in his intellectual range. Worlds were open to his glance beyond
the Indies and Cathay that were shut to Camoens. Yet Camoens is a
heroic figure. He found it easy to delineate Vasco da Gama; he had but
to speak with his own voice, and utter simply his own heart's desires,
hates, musings, and Vasco da Gama's sister would have turned to listen,
thinking she heard the accents, the trick, the very manner that
betrayed the hero.
[9] Burnet is incredibly vain, unredeemed by Boswell's hero-worship;
yet his book reflects the medley, the fervour, the vehemence, crimes,
hopes of this time. In one sentence nineteen religions are named as
co-existing in Scotland.
[10] The _Mare Clausum_ was framed as an answer to Grotius' _Mare
Liberum_, which had been printed, perhaps without Grotius' consent, in
1610. Selden's tract, printed in November, 1635, is a folio of 304
pages, in which, setting forth precedent on precedent, he claims for
England, as by law and ancient custom established, that same supremacy
over the high seas as the Portuguese had exercised over the eastern
waters, and Venice over the Adriatic. The King's enthusiasm was
kindled. The work was issued with all the circumstance of a State
paper, and it came upon foreign courts like a declaration of policy,
the resolve at length to enforce the time-honoured and indefeasible
rights of England. Copies were with due ceremony deposited in the
Exchequer and at the Admiralty. A fleet was equipped, and as an
atonement for the wrongs done to the elder Northumberland, the King
gave the command to his son, whose portrait as Admiral forms one of the
noblest of Vandyck's canvases. But Northumberland, though brave to a
fault, was no seaman, and the whole enterprise threatened to end in
ridicule. Stung to the quick, Charles again turned to the nation. But
in the nine intervening years since 1628 the nation's heart had left
him. To his demand for supplies to strengthen the fleet came Hampden's
refusal. The trial was the prelude to the Grand Remonstrance, to
Naseby, and to Whitehall, where, as if swept thither by the crowded
events of some fantastic dream, he awoke from his visions of England's
greatness and the empire of the seas, alone on a scaffold, surrounded
by a ring of English eyes, looking hate, sullen indifference, or cold
resolution.
Leave him still loftier than the world suspects,
Living or dying.
After all he was a king, and in his veins the blood of Mary Stuart
still beat. An English version of Selden's treatise appeared in the
time of Cromwell. The translator was Marchamont Nedham. The
dedication to the Supreme Authority of the Nation, the Parliament of
the Commonwealth of England, is dated November 19th, 1652.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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