The English and their History Quotes

“nor is public happiness to be estimated by the assemblies of the gay or the banquets of the rich. The great mass of nations is neither rich nor gay: they”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“Kings did not meet systematic opposition from barons, parliaments or peasants. With no police force or standing army, other than the household retinue, they could keep order and enforce the law only because their subjects, from earls to villeins, provided the muscle to do so.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“myths are rarely entirely fictitious.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“It seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we…should translate certain books, which are most necessary for all men to know, into the language that we can all understand, and…that all the young freeborn men…may be set to study…until a time when they are able to read English writing well.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“There are a few much older states in existence, particularly ancient empires and their successor states such as China or Iran.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“Saxon Chronicle, ‘except what was in captivity to the Danish men’.13 So he seems to have felt himself, inspired by Bede’s History. He referred to his people not as Saxons but as ‘Angelcynn’ – ‘Englishkind’ – a term first used in Mercia. Their language was ‘Englisc’. Alfred, at first described in royal charters and on coins as rex Saxonum, duly became rex Angul-Saxonum in recognition of the union of Mercia and Wessex. He pursued a policy of what today we might term nation-building: ‘he sought to persuade [his subjects] that he was restoring the English, whereas, albeit following a model provided by Bede, he was inventing them’.14 He commanded a law code combining the customs of Wessex, Mercia and Kent and decked out with biblical teachings and Church laws – an important symbol of unity and status more than an instrument of rule, as in practice most law was oral and customary – ‘folk right’. He sent English coins to succour the poor of Rome. He wanted to increase Christian piety so as to ward off divine punishment in the form of Viking invasion,”
― Robert Tombs, The English and their History

“Geopolitical, cultural, and ideological crises were shaking confidence in the authority of established Western civilization so severely that sensible people believed that the end of the world was nigh,”
― Robert Tombs, The English and their History

“In the words of the Cambridge don Roger Ascham, Elizabeth I’s tutor, one should “speak as the common people do…think as wise men do.” Thomas”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“Alone of the Germanic tongues, it had received a massive influx of words from Latin and French, which doubled its vocabulary. Between 1250 and 1450, of 27,000 new words identified, 22 percent were derived from French, and most others from Latin. English often acquired several words for the same concept. They were sometimes used in tandem to make meaning sure, or just for rhetorical purposes, as in “aiding and abetting,” “fit and proper,” “peace and quiet.” In due course they could acquire nuances of meaning, as with “kingly,” “royal” and “regal,” or “loving,” “amorous” and “charitable,” from English, French and Latin respectively. Linguistic flexibility was greatly enhanced by bolting together grammatical elements from each language. Prefixes and suffixes made word creation easy: for example, the Old English “ful” added to French nouns (beautiful, graceful); or French suffixes with Old English verbs (knowable, findable). It has been argued that this made it really a new language.37 But the basics remained, and remain, Anglo-Saxon: in modern written English, the hundred most frequently used words are all derived from Old English.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“Thus began what was later termed the Hundred Years’ War, which was soon under way from Scotland to the Pyrenees, with repercussions in Germany, Italy and even the Muslim world, as a projected Anglo-French Crusade was abandoned.66 Neither France nor England was prepared for the spiralling demands of this war. Edward”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“England’s political history since 1066 was that of a struggle to regain the “ancient constitution” from the Crown, and even from Parliament, which some saw as the voice of Anglo-Saxon liberties, but others as merely another part of the “Norman yoke.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“John Churchill, soon Duke of Marlborough, was a rare phenomenon: a brilliant English general. He”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“I don’t understand the age we live in, and what I understand I don’t like.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History

“In Bede’s account, the “English people” derived their special significance from their conversion. Their Germanic ancestors, who worshipped several deities, such as Woden, were the longest-lasting pagan peoples in the former Roman Empire. Yet during the 200 years following Augustine’s arrival they went from being pagan to being Christian. This is because conversion began at the top, with kings, queens and warriors.”
― Robert Tombs, The English and Their History