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It must be said at the outset that there is no need for another history of England unless it can be given popular appeal.

History, on which people depended once for enlightenment and entertainment in reading, is now little read except in classrooms, and this is due to the stern limits which historians have set for themselves. Thomas Babington Macaulay, one of the very greatest of them but a rebel in the matter of the traditions of the craft, had this to say in his definition: “The writers of history seem to entertain an aristocratical contempt for the writers of memoirs. ... The most characteristic and interesting circumstances are omitted, or softened down, because, we are told, they are too trivial for the majesty of history.” He quarreled with the theory which brushed aside biography and the technique of biographers, and which sternly decreed that history must remain within narrow bounds. He was not content that the annals of mankind should deal with public affairs so much and with life so little. And, of course, he was right. If the high ideals and conceptions which Macaulay laid down could be followed, history would regain some at least of its lost position.

To evolve a popular record of the period covered in this volume is not an easy task. The chronicles of the century and a half which followed the Norman Conquest were written by monks who toiled in cloistered withdrawal and depended on hearsay evidence. Much of what they produced is legend and fable on the face of it; still more is at least, suspect. Industrious historians have found in the scant records room for much divergent theory. A single speech often has been translated in a dozen forms. It is hard, therefore, to keep the pen from wandering off into imaginative bypaths when dealing with material into which fancy has already entered so largely. But the greatest difficulty lies in the fact that the plodding fingers of the monks wrote with one-dimensional brevity.

How, then, may a history of the period be written which will have drama, color, and visual substance? I have always been convinced that it could be done and that various methods are available for the writer who undertakes the task.

First, there is the additional material which may readily be obtained by carrying research into unusual channels, ransacking old and forgotten histories, searching through memoirs and diaries and church documents and the proceedings of local historical societies, above everything else by reading what is available on such subjects as currency, minting, monastic life, sheep raising, weaving, heraldry, architecture, archery. In this way great quantities of fresh fact may be secured; enough, certainly, to clothe quite amply the loose-jointed frame of monkish chronicle.

Even more important is to act upon the suggestion of Macaulay and turn to biography. History, which has dealt with kings and statesmen and soldiers, may be broadened profitably by dealing adequately with the men and women of lesser stature who deserve so much of memory and are accorded so little, the monk and the schoolmaster, the architect and the builder, the thinker and the inventor, the poet and the painter.

There is need for something more, however, if history is to be made up, not of dry bones and locks of hair which crumble at a touch, but of blood and muscle and flesh with the tint of life. Obviously no stories may be invented, no speech may be put into the mouth of a historic character which cannot be authenticated. If the main actors have few scenes to play and brief lines to speak, how may a full-bodied drama be achieved? The answer is, by giving more scope to the players of minor roles (rewarding fellows, they always prove themselves) and by being lavish with scenery and sound effects and by having brisk drummers in the orchestra pit. It is my belief, as it has been that of many historians, that dramatization of certain non-essentials is within the right of the recorder of history. For instance, when it is known that Henry II met Thomas à Becket for the first time at Westminster on Christmas, it is surely not wrong to picture the holiday revelry in the royal palace that day, nor to say that Henry indulged his habit of sticking his thumbs in his belt when confronting the man who would become his chancellor and archbishop and would die under the axes of his knights. When it is known that Good Queen Mold introduced the fashion of letting the hair hang free, is it not permissible to depict her as wearing her golden locks down her back on the occasion when she rode to Lambeth Palace? This method I have adopted, but without invention of fact or incident or the putting of fictional speech in any mouth, believing it to be the only way of making the story of the period live for the casual reader. If this is a crime against the sacred code, then I must plead guilty. In that case, however, I must plead also that the time has come to amend the code.

The picture which emerges is, in my opinion, an honest and complete one. There has been no distortion of events to prove a point, and a sincere attempt has been made to study the men and women of those distant days through the mists which cloud them and to present them as human beings.

I have not weighted the saddle of every page with the lead of footnotes, and old Ibid., that ubiquitous Man Friday of the historian, has not been allowed to stick his long nose in once. The reader, I am sure, will welcome the omission of credit notes and the departure from historical precedent.

The present volume, complete in itself because of the rounding out of the period of the Conquest and its results, is offered with some hesitation, being my first venture into this field. It is my desire and hope, however, to go on with the story of the men and women who have played parts in the pageant of England, the noteworthy, the fantastic, the brave, the too often forgotten great people who made the island empire great. In succeeding volumes, which will deal with periods where the records are more full, it will be easier to accomplish the purpose with which I have begun.

Thomas B. Costain