The History of England, from the Accession of James II - Volume 2

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

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Genres: History, Nonfiction

449 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1848

About the author

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was an English poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history. He also held political office as Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841 and Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848.

As a young man he composed the ballads Ivry and The Armada, which he later included as part of Lays of Ancient Rome, a series of very popular ballads about heroic episodes in Roman history which he composed in India and published in 1842.

During the 1840s he began work on his most famous work, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, publishing the first two volumes in 1848. At first, he had planned to bring his history down to the reign of George III. After publication of his first two volumes, his hope was to complete his work with the death of Queen Anne in 1714. The third and fourth volumes, bringing the history to the Peace of Ryswick, were published in 1855. However, at his death in 1859, he was working on the fifth volume. This, bringing the History down to the death of William III, was prepared for publication by his sister, Lady Trevelyan, after his death.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

June 28th finished History of England from the ascension of James II vol. II by Thomas Macaulay.

This is the second book in a five volume series. This volume begins with James II being given the throne by the tories, and ends with his ignominious flight to France, leaving the throne vacant. The crown is formally offered to William and Mary the prince and princess of Orange by a free Parliament. In between these two momentous events is a blow by blow description of the reign of James the II. He is a catholic prince reigning over a protestant people, and he systematically infuriates and alienates his entire population of subjects. Broken promises and outraged, misused people are characteristic of his rule; the stupidity of this king was surreal. Macaulay is undoubtably a biased historian, and very likely painted the picture more vividly than reality, but he is a master storyteller, and his readers are almost convinced to his views despite knowledge to the contrary.

[Robert B. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second installment in the majestic five-volume survey of British history highlights the best and worst of Macaulay's work. The prose is simply marvelous. Nineteenth-century historians embraced narrative and story-telling, and no one does it better than Macaulay.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I recall, the preceding volume gave me more cause for pause, showing me, with McCauley's help the patterns of how people relate to each other and the forces of social conformity. Unless you specifically want to know about this timeframe, I would skip the book. If you do, there might be more recent sources taking advantage of perspective and material unavailable to this author.

[Dan Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review of volume 1

[Stacy Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about James II

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume ends with the completion of the Glorious Revolution. I don't know the history well, so it's like reading a novel for me. I worry a bit that less will be at stake now that James II is gone. The high point continues to be Macaulay's prose style.

[Sandra]

I will probably never read this, except for reference purposes, because occasionally you want to know what they thought of William of Orange back when my copy was published in 1865.