HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. ΤΟ THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 1603-1642 BY SAMUEL R. GARDINER, LL.D. HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON; CORRESPONDING THE ROYAL BOHEMIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES IN TEN VOLUMES VOL. IX. 1639-1641 LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1884 с All rights reserved THE PREFACE ΤΟ NINTH VOLUME. If I have striven, in the present volume, and in the one which will succeed it, to take a broader view of the deeds of the great men who made this England in which we live, and to realise and measure the greatness of Pym, as I have formerly attempted to realise and measure the greatness of Strafford, it must not be forgotten that this has been in great measure rendered possible by the amount of new material which has come into my hands, and which till very lately was entirely inaccessible. The invaluable diary of Sir Symonds d'Ewes, and the State Papers in the Public Record Office, have indeed been studied by previous inquirers, though I have found amongst them gleanings not wholly despicable. The Clarendon MSS., the Carte and Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library have also been helpful. But even if these mines had been more thoroughly worked than they have been, little or nothing would have been found in them to fill up the great deficiency which every previous historian of the period must have felt. The suspicions entertained of Charles I. by the Parliamentary leaders form the most prominent feature of the history of the Long Parliament. |