The “Historical Society” was established in 1868, and was authorized in 1872, by the permission of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen to use the title:—

“Royal Historical Society.”

In presenting their Report on the past year to the General Meeting of the Fellows, the Council of the Royal Historical Society gladly give the first place to their expression of thanks to the Committee of Inquiry (appointed 18th November, 1880), for their valuable assistance, for although nearly every suggestion of theirs for the future management of the Society has been anticipated in resolutions already passed by the Council, still they feel that had not such a Committee been instituted they would probably not have had it in their power to have obtained the information on which the resolutions have been based. The Council have further to report that on the 5 th January, 1881, the Rev. Charles Rogers asked the Council to be permitted to resign the appointments of Historiographer and Secretary of the Society then and there, and under the circumstances he was permitted to do so, and the resignation was accepted. His connection with the Society in any capacity therefore ceased.

Six years ago I had the pleasure of reading a paper “On the Possibility of a strictly Scientific Treatment of Universal History,” and that which was at that time a mere aiggestion, has since become a firm conviction, based on indefatigable study, and the collection of innumerable facts.

When called upon at the first meeting of the Council of the Royal Historical Society this session, to read an inaugural paper before the Fellows, I thought I could not do better than bring this conviction before you, so as, if possible, to make it your own.

This subject has been ignored by the majority of writers of English history. Some have assumed that the unfortunate persons who suffered death and lesser penalties for their religion during this reign, were also guilty of what we should admit to be acts of treason against the State. This theory is not supported by facts. Modern research (and the word “ modern,” in this case, means that of the last ten or fifteen years) has proved beyond question the utter falsity of Coke's statement, “That in the reign of Elizabeth there was put to death for religion not one.” The most has been made of the persecution under Queen Mary, and the names of the sufferers have become as household words, yet even now but little is generally known of similar deeds that were done in the reign of her sister.

IT is singular that no attempt had been made to gather up these documents so fertile in suggestion and still more rich in definite evidence on many disputed critical and historical questions prior to the publication of my ‘Shakespeare Manual” in 1876. Collier had printed many lists in his «History of the Stage,” but had not compared them or arranged them for comparison. My own former attempt is incomplete, partly because at that date I had no access to public libraries, and had to work on imperfect materials; partly because additional lists have been still more recently discovered. I have not wittingly neglected any data for the present essay, which, whatever its faults may be, claims at any rate to be the only thing of its kind at present existing.

In calling the attention of the fellows to some of the leading points in the history of one of the most remarkable confederations which the world has ever seen, and in endeavouring to arrange these into an harmonious and intelligent narrative, I feel that I owe no apology, except at least to the extent to which my labours may be found deficient or defective: for it is in the direction of such original inquiries as the present that our Society may perform its more useful offices. England played a most prominent part in the history of the Hanseatic League; but in this regard has found heretofore no historian, while Germany has several. Hence the present attempt, the results of which, gathered from many sources, are presented without further preface.

What angler has not been, if he be not still, a reader of Izaak Walton? And what reader of Izaak Walton has not observed his frequent quotations from Dubravius, and been amused by that wonderful account of the victory of a frog over a pike, of which Dubravius declares he was himself an eye-witness, but which reads far more like a dream than a reality? And the name of this same Dubravius has lately been brought before the public by Mr. Frank Buckland, as that of the author of an excellent recommendation in the management of fish-ponds, a means of producing food so sadly neglected in this country, viz.: to draw off the water every third or fourth year and sow a crop of oats on the rich mud collected at the bottom. It may not therefore be uninteresting, if I give a brief account of the life and writings of Dubravius, who was a man of considerable mark in his day in the political and ecclesiastical, as well as in the pisci-cultural world.

The influence of Christianity on the Roman Empire, and so ultimately on modern Civilization, was immediately felt, as we first observed, in its action on the social system; and eventually in the formation of better public opinion in morals and Religion. The ideas of individual right and personal freedom (absolutely essential to the new faith which had appeared as the teacher of conscience), found their echo, and also in some sense a defined limit, in the advancing Roman Law; but the more active relations of the gradually-formed Christian Society to the State in which it took its mission would, as we saw, be much determined by the course of events, and by the action and development of the State itself.

In the previous papers which I have had the honour of reading before the Royal Historical Society, I have tried to elucidate the first adventures of the Norse pirates in the west, as related in the contemporary Frank and Irish annals, and have thus laid the foundation for an examination of the earlier story as contained in the Sagas. This is a singularly difficult field of inquiry, and one which has baffled many explorers. I can only hope to throw a few more rays of light into a very dark and perplexed subject. The Sagas are divided by Mr. Laing into two classes, historical (including biographical) and fabulous. Of the former, the most important were the Sagas, included in the works of Saxo Grammaticus, and Snorro the son of Sturle—two works of world-wide repute, and which have been (especially the former) a riddle and puzzle to most inquirers. Before we grapple with the problem before us, we must first dissect these two famous compilations.

During the varied events of the Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century, a constant struggle for power in central Europe was maintained between the Emperor of Germany, whose seat of government was at Vienna, and the King of France.

The history of civilization generally, and of the mode of life of our forefathers, embraced by the present paper, is a record rather of progress than of actual change in the condition of this country. No external circumstances operated to affect the latter through invasion by a foreign foe, as was the case during each of the periods of history considered in my former discourses. Civil war between contending parties for the crown of England, had now ceased; but contests not less fierce followed, arising out of differences of opinion in religious matters, which were productive of great moral and social results. To these succeeded angry political contentions, and a long and bloody civil war, which occasioned also extensive changes in the general condition of the nation. Happy it is for us who live in the present age, that, although contests rage as fiercely as ever in the political world, the only weapon used against an adversary is that fiery, unruly, and untameable assailant, termed the tongue. Parties are nowadays, as in the times of which I am about to speak, by turns overthrown; but waste of breath only, instead of waste of blood, is the worst calamity that ensues.