[Cover Illustration] =“_History is a pageant,_= =_and not a philosophy._”= =AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.= [Illustration: =Henry the Eighth and Cardinal Wolsey.= (_From the picture by Sir John Gilbert, R.A., in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London._)] =THE PAGEANT OF= =BRITISH HISTORY= =DESCRIBED BY= =J. EDWARD PARROTT, M.A., LL.D.,= =AND DEPICTED BY= =THE FOLLOWING GREAT ARTISTS= =_J. M. W. Turner_, _G. F. Watts_, _Benjamin West_, _Lord Leighton_,= =_Sir John Gilbert_, _Daniel Maclise_, _C. W. Cope_, _John Opie_,= =_William Dyce_, _Sir L. Alma-Tadema_, _Sir John Millais_,= =_Paul Delaroche_, _W. Q. Orchardson_, _E. M. Ward_,= =_Stanhope Forbes_, _F. Goodall_, _Seymour Lucas_,= =_Ford Madox Brown_, _W. F. Yeames_,= =_Clarkson Stanfield_,= =_etc._, _etc._= =[Illustration]= =T H O M A S N E L S O N A N D S O N S= =London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York= =1908= [Illustration] F O R E W O R D . _The Master of the Pageant spurs into the arena; he waves his baton, and the trumpets sound. In the distance you see a long procession begin to wind its way across the greensward, and as it draws nearer and nearer you recognize the form and fashion of men and women whose names are writ large in the annals of our land. Here they come—king and queen, statesman and priest, warrior and merchant, poet and man of law, shipman and craftsman, yeoman and peasant—a motley throng, all sorts and conditions of men and women, high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, noble and base, hero and craven; yet each in his or her several degree a maker of history. These are the “counterfeit presentments” of the men and women who through twice a thousand years have made us what we are, and our glorious land what it is._