Comic History of England

n unhappy period for legitimate business. How could trade, commerce, or even the professions, arts, or sciences, flourish while the entire population spread

ntry seeking for maids in distress. A pretty maid in those days who lived on the main road could put on her riding-habit, go to the window up-stairs, she

A PRETTY MAID

on and get her wraps hung up, when a rattle of gravel on the window would attract her attention, and outside she would see, with swellin

only introduction. Imagine a sweet girl, who for years had been under the eagle eye of a middle-weight chaperon, suddenly espying in the moonlight a disguised man under the window on horseback, in the act of asking her to join him for a few weeks at his shooting-box in the swamp.

ming to call for another, as it were. Thus, however, the expense of a wedding was saved, and the

CREST OF A PO

given him by lady admirers, so that the crest of a popula

n: THE "VIGI

h in some gloomy spot-a haunted one preferred-over the arms he was about to assume. The illustration representing this subject is wit

ed cap-a-pie, riding in each other's direction just as fast as possible with an uncontrollable desire to push one's adversary o

on: A JUDIC

uished, which made the castle paddock of a successful knig

d the right, charged upon the defendant with a charge which took away the breath of his adversary. This, of cou

n effect turned the matter over to Omnipotence; but still the man who had his back to

blet and hose. The shoes were pointed,-as were the remarks made by the irate parent,-and generally the shoes and remarks accompanied each other when a young trade

going to Congress or fussing with the currency, but wore a uniform

ed through the other professions, so that to-day in England, out of a good-sized family, the pulpit generally has to take what is left after the army, navy, politics, law, and golf have had the pick. It was a fatal error t

nfluence of stimulants, and who therefore did not realize what they ate. The Normans went in more for meat victuals, and thus the names of meat, suc

ns, and if the authorities did not like what was said, the author could be made to suppress the entire edition for a week's board

THE AUTHORS' CL

ate in France to the English dominions. In 1154, Henry Plantagenet was thus the most powerful monarch in Europe, an

mmon sneak thieves, and resolved to give the people a chance to pay taxes and die natural deaths. The disorderly nobles were reduce

d to leave it under penalty of having their personal possessions con

OREIGN MERCENARI

equal to the king himself, suddenly became extremely devout, and austerity characterized this child of fortune, insomuch that each day on bended knees he bathed the chapped and soiled feet of thirteen beggars. Why thirteen beggars should come around e

NESS BETWEEN THE KING

oolness, during which the king's pew grew gray with dust, and he had

o, and gave the prelates one more chance, which they decided to avail themselves of. Thus the "Constitutions of Clarendon" were adopted in 1164, an

ng, who condemned his old archbishop, and he fled to France, where he had a tall time. The Pope threatened to excommunicate Hen

laimed in his wrath, "Is there no one of my subjects who will rid me of this insolent priest?" Whereupon four loyal knights, who were doubtless of Scotch extraction, and who

t he agreed to make a pilgrimage barefoot to the tomb of à Becket; but even this did not place him upon a firm footing w

NRY WALKING TO TH