But what I wish now to point
out--since we are looking at the military aspect of the subject--is the
enormous advantage of what we may call the _strategic position_ of
England in the long mediaeval struggle between civilization and
barbarism. In Professor Stubbs's admirable collection of charters and
documents illustrative of English history, we read that "on the 6th of
July [1264] the whole force of the country was summoned to London for
the 3d of August, to resist the army which was coming from France under
the queen and her son Edmund. _The invading fleet was prevented by the
weather from sailing until too late in the season_.... The papal legate,
Guy Foulquois, who soon after became Clement IV., threatened the barons
with excommunication, but the bull containing the sentence was taken by
the men of Dover as soon as it arrived, and was thrown into the
sea." [15] As I read this, I think of the sturdy men of Connecticut,
beating the drum to prevent the reading of the royal order of James II.
depriving the colony of the control of its own militia, and feel with
pride that the indomitable spirit of English liberty is alike
indomitable in every land where men of English race have set their feet
as masters. But as the success of Americans in withstanding the
unconstitutional pretensions of the crown was greatly favoured by the
barrier of the ocean, so the success of Englishmen in defying the
enemies of their freedom has no doubt been greatly favoured by the
barrier of the British channel.
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