Excerpt from British Historical Political Operatins: From the Xiith to the Xxth Century Oratory is the lay-clerk of history, and this book, unlike most of its kind, attempts to trace the line Of national and political events in the speeches they helped to inspire. The chronicle that depends on the Spoken word is bound however to have its gaps, for at times the great occasion comes and the orator is not there, or if he does appear he proves too voluble or pedantic for the matter in hand. But in the main it is true that the crisis, the moment of reform or reaction, will find its voice, and the eloquence of the spokesman is often a sure sign of the force Of the event. When John Ball spoke to the rebels at Blackheath or when Peter Wentworth in I 576 declared the Liberty of the Commons, when Fox told the same Commons that every blow you strike in America is against yourselves or, to hark back again, when James I. Spoke to the Parliament on the State of Monarchy with an accent that the Kaiser might envy him we feel that the hour and the man were in tune. At such times the emphatic word is the clue to the yet more emphatic move ment in the commonwealth. The want Of a Hansard or a Daily Mercury makes the account difficult when carried some centuries away from news papers and the daily reporter. We are lucky to have Ethel red's speech to the pious invaders of Britain, who followed St. Augustine over in the sixth century; and because of its brevity we are inclined to reckon it with John Ball's speech and Lincoln's famous terse enunciation of democracy, as among the models of what we may call the epitome speech. William of Normandy's address to his troops before the Battle Of Hastings sounds like a more sophisticated item, which had gone through its changes, like the ballad of Patrick Spens, before it found a scribe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.