1066 and all that

COMPULSORY PREFACE
(This Means You)

histories have previously been written with the object of exalting their authors. The object of this History is to console the reader. No other history does this.

History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.

This is the only Memorable History of England, because all the History that you can remember is in this book, which is the result of years of research in golf-clubs, gun-rooms, green-rooms, etc.

For instance, two out of the four Dates originally included were eliminated at the last moment, a research done at the Eton and Harrow match having revealed that they are not memorable.

The Editors will be glad of further assistance towards the elimination, in future editions, of any similarly un-historical matter which, despite their vigilance, may have crept into the text.

They take this opportunity of acknowledging their inestimable debt to the mass of educated men and women of their race whose historical intuitions and opinions this work enshrines.

Also, to the Great British People without whose self-sacrificing determination to become top Nation there would have been no (memorable) history.

History is now at an end (see p. 123); this History is therefore final.

W. C. S,
R. J. Y.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

A first edition limited to one copy and printed on rice paper and bound in buck-boards and signed by one of the editors was sold to the other editor, who left it in a taxi somewhere between Piccadilly Circus and the Bodleian.

W. C. S,
R. J. Y.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

the Editors acknowledge their comparative indebtedness to the Editors of the Historical Review, Bradshaa, the Lancet, La Vie Parisienne, etc., in which none of the following chapters has appeared. Their thanks are also due to their wife, for not preparing the index wrong. There is no index.

PRESS OPINIONS

'This slim volume...' - Bookworm

'. . . We look forward keenly to the appearance of their last work.' - Review of Reviews of Reviews

'... vague...' - Vague

ERRATA

p. II For Middletoe read Mistletoe,

p. 17 For looked 4th read looked forth,

p. 50 For Pheasant read Peasant, throughout,

p. 52 For sausage read hostage.

Author's Note

Several portions of this book have appeared in Punch, and are reprinted here by courtesy of the Proprietors of that paper.