CHAPTER XII
GEORGE III TO GEORGE V, 1815–1911
The last ninety-six years.The period of English History which remains for me to tell you about will bring us down to our own days. It is a much more difficult story to understand than any that I have already told you. It is also much more difficult to write about.
For people hold such diverse opinions about the events of the present day and of the last hundred years. These opinions are very often the result of their upbringing; ‘we have heard with our ears and our fathers have told us.’ Men are still alive who were born before Waterloo was fought. As you get older you will form opinions about these events for yourselves; and so it is desirable for me, in this last chapter, rather to state what did take place than to try to guide your opinions. And it will be easier to do this if you, my readers, will allow me to treat the period as all one, rather than narrate the events year by year.
Progress towards Democracy.On the whole, the progress of Great Britain during the past ninety-six years has been towards what is called ‘Democracy’, a long word meaning ‘Government by the people’. This form of government may be said to be still ‘on its trial’. Let us hope that it will prove a great success. It will only do so if all classes of the people realize that they have duties as well as rights, and if each class realizes that every other class has rights as well as itself.
Five sovereigns in these ninety-six years; George IV, 1820–30.Five sovereigns have reigned and died during these ninety-six years, and the sixth is now upon the throne.