The aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of the English people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks on that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more closely for themselves the journey taken. For the long march teems with adventure and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage, pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the centuries left behind.
The British Influence--"Government of the People, by the People, for the People"--The Foundations of Democracy--British Democracy Experimental not Doctrinaire--Education to Democracy
THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN
The Great Churchmen--Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy--Thomas à Becket and Henry II.--Stephen Langton and John--The Great Charter
THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
Democracy and Representative Government--Representative Theory First found in Ecclesiastical Assemblies--The Misrule of Henry III.--Simon of Montfort, Leader of the National Party--Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295--The Nobility Predominant in Parliament--The Medieval National Assemblies--The Electors of the Middle Ages--Payment of Parliamentary Representatives--The Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages--No Theory of Democracy in the Middle Ages
General Results of Popular Risings--William FitzOsbert, 1196--The Peasant Revolt and its Leaders, 1381--Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450--The Norfolk Rising under Ket, 1549
Parliament under the Tudors--Victory of Parliament over the Stuarts--The Democratic Protest: Lilburne--Winstanley and "The Diggers"--The Restoration
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT
Government by Aristocrats--Civil and Religious Liberty--Growth of Cabinet Rule--Walpole's rule--The Change in the House of Lords--"Wilkes and Liberty"
The Witness of the Middle Ages--The "Social Contract" Theory--Thomas Hobbes--John Locke--Rousseau and French Revolution--American Independence--Thomas Paine--Major Cartwright and the "Radical Reformers"--Thomas Spence--Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE PEOPLE