The Complaint of Peace

HISTORY OF ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
Ancient Britain—Cæsar's Invasion—Britain a Roman Province—Boadicea—Lyndin or London—Roman Legions Withdrawn—Angles and Saxons—Cerdic—Teutonic Invasion—English Kingdoms Consolidated
CHAPTER II.
Augustine—Edwin—Cædmon—Bæda—Alfred—Canute—Edward the Confessor—Harold—William the Conqueror
CHAPTER III.
"Gilds" and Boroughs—William II.—Crusades—Henry I.—Henry II.—Becket's Death—Richard I.—John—Magna Charta
CHAPTER IV.
Henry III.—Roger Bacon—First True Parliament—Edward I.—Conquest of Wales—of Scotland—Edward II.—Edward III.—Battle of Crécy—Richard II.—Wickliffe
CHAPTER V.
House of Lancaster—Henry IV.—Henry V.—Agincourt—Battle of Orleans—Wars of the Roses—House of York—Edward IV.—Richard III.—Henry VII.—Printing Introduced
CHAPTER VI.
Henry VIII.—Wolsey—Reformation—Edward VI.—Mary
CHAPTER VII.
Elizabeth—East India Company Chartered—Colonization of Virginia—Flodden Field—Birth of Mary Stuart—Mary Stuart's Death—Spanish Armada—Francis Bacon
CHAPTER VIII.
James I.—First New England Colony—Gunpowder Plot—Translation of Bible—Charles I.—Archbishop Laud—John Hampden—Petition of Right—Massachusetts Chartered—Earl Strafford—Star Chamber
CHAPTER IX.
Long Parliament—Death of Strafford and Laud—Oliver Cromwell—Death of Charles I.—Long Parliament Dispersed—Charles II
CHAPTER X.
Act of Habeas Corpus—Death of Charles II.—Milton—Bunyan—James II.—William and Mary—Battle of the Boyne
CHAPTER XI.
Anne—Marlborough—Battle of Blenheim—House of Hanover—George I.—George II.—Walpole—British Dominion in India—Battle of Quebec—John Wesley
CHAPTER XII.
George III.—Stamp Act—Tax on Tea—American Independence Acknowledged—Impeachment of Hastings—War of 1812—First English Railway—George IV.—William IV.—Reform Bill—Emancipation of the Slaves
CHAPTER XIII.
Victoria—Famine in Ireland—War with Russia—Sepoy Rebellion—Massacre at Cawnpore
CHAPTER XIV.
Atlantic Cable—Daguerre's Discovery—First World's Fair—Death of Albert—Suez Canal—Victoria Empress of India—Disestablishment of Irish Branch of Church of England—Present Conditions
CHAPTER XV
Death of Queen Victoria—Russo-Japanese War

HISTORY OF IRELAND
Pre-Christian Ireland—From Augustine to English Conquest—From Henry II. to Originally "Querela Pacis."

Desiderius Erasmus
has the personification of peace come to earth to deliver her verdict on
the human race. She chastises kings and princes, church leaders,
noblemen and ordinary soldiers alike for betraying their Christian values
by waging unjust and unnecessary wars.

Excerpt:
Peace speaks in her own person.
THOUGH I certainly deserve no ill treatment from mortals, yet if the insults and repulses I receive were attended with any advantage to them, I would content myself with lamenting in silence my own unmerited indignities and man’s injustice. But since, in driving me away from them, they remove the source of all human blessings, and let in a deluge of calamities on themselves, I am more inclined to bewail their misfortune, than complain of ill usage to myself; and I am reduced to the necessity of weeping over and commiserating those whom I wished to view rather as objects of indignation than of pity.