mediaeval struggle between civilization and
barbarism. In Professor Stubbs's admirable collection of charters and
documents illustrative of English history, we read that "on the 6th of
July [1264] the whole force of the country was summoned to London for
the 3d of August, to resist the army which was coming from France under
the queen and her son Edmund. _The invading fleet was prevented by the
weather from sailing until too late in the season_.... The papal legate,
Guy Foulquois, who soon after became Clement IV., threatened the barons
with excommunication, but the bull containing the sentence was taken by
the men of Dover as soon as it arrived, and was thrown into the
sea." [15] As I read this, I think of the sturdy men of Connecticut,
beating the drum to prevent the reading of the royal order of James II.
depriving the colony of the control of its own militia, and feel with
pride that the indomitable spirit of English liberty is alike
indomitable in every land where men of English race have set their feet
as masters. But as the success of Americans in withstanding the
unconstitutional pretensions of the crown was greatly favoured by the
barrier of the ocean, so the success of Englishmen in defying the
enemies of their freedom has no doubt been greatly favoured by the
barrier of the British channel. The war between Henry III. and the
barons was an event in English history no less critical than the war
between Charles I. and the parliament four centuries later; and British
and Americans alike have every reason to be thankful that a great French
army was not able to get across the channel in August, 1264. Nor was
this the only time when the insular position of England did goodly
service in maintaining its liberties and its internal peace. We cannot
forget how Lord Howard of Effingham, aided also by the weather, defeated
the armada that boasted itself "invincible," sent to strangle freedom in
its chosen home by the most execrable and ruthless tyrant that Europe
has ever seen, a tyrant whose victory would have meant not simply the
usurpation of the English crown but the establishment of the Spanish
Inquisition at Westminster Hall. Nor can we forget with what longing
eyes the Corsican barbarian who wielded for mischief the forces of
France in 1805 looked across from Boulogne at the shores of the one
European land that never in word or deed granted him homage. But in
these latter days England has had no need of stormy weathe