s Walt Whitman and Mr. Edward Carpenter have been the chief singers
of democracy. But a whole volume at least might be written on the part the
pen has played in the struggle towards democracy.

Again, there is no mention of Ireland in this short sketch. A Nationalist
movement is not necessarily a democratic movement, and the Irish
Nationalist Party includes men of very various political opinions, whose
single point of agreement is the demand for Home Rule. In India and Egypt
the agitation is for representative institutions. Ireland might, or might
not, become a democracy under Home Rule--who can say?

The aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of the
English people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks on
that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more closely
for themselves the journey taken. For the long march teems with adventure
and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we
may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage,
pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the
centuries left behind.

J.C.

HAMPSTEAD,
_September, 1911._

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The British Influence--"Government of the People, by the People, for the
People"--The Foundations of Democracy--British Democracy Experimental not
Doctrinaire--Education to Democracy

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN

The Great Churchmen--Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy--Thomas a
Becket and Henry II.--Stephen Langton and John--The Great Charter

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION

Democracy and Representative Government--Representative Theory First found
in Ecclesiastical Assemblies--The Misrule of Henry III.--Simon of Montfort,
Leader of the National Party--Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295--The
Nobility Predominant in Parliament--The Medieval National Assemblies--The
Electors of the Middle Ages--Payment of Parliamentary Representatives--The
Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages--No Theory of Democracy in
the Middle Ages

CHAPTER III

POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND

General Results of Popular Risings--William FitzOsbert, 1196--The Peasant
Revolt and its Leaders, 1381--Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450--The Norfolk
Rising under Ket, 1549

CHAPTER IV

THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN

Parliament under the Tudors--Victory of Pa