Cloth binding. Black lettering with gilt title on front cover. A nice clean book.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. With an introduction by Henry Morley. First published in 1889

PEOPLE William Cecil Burghley Baron (1520-1598), John Hampden (1594-1643), Horace Walpole (1717-1797)

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, FRS FRSE PC (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician. He is considered primarily responsible for introducing the Western education system in India. He wrote extensively as an essayist, on contemporary and historical sociopolitical subjects, and as a reviewer. His The History of England was a seminal and paradigmatic example of Whig history, and its literary style has remained an object of praise since its publication, including subsequent to the widespread condemnation of its historical contentions which became popular in the 20th century.

Macaulay served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. He played a major role in the introduction of English and western concepts to education in India, and published his argument on the subject in the “Macaulay’s Minute” in 1835. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers. This led to Macaulayism in India, and the systematic wiping out of traditional and ancient Indian education and vocational systems and sciences.

Macaulay divided the world into civilised nations and barbarism, with Britain representing the high point of civilisation. In his Minute on Indian Education of February 1835, he asserted, “It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England”. He was wedded to the idea of progress, especially in terms of the liberal freedoms. He opposed radicalism while idealising historic British culture and traditions.

Horatio Walpole 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician.

He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes.

The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford on his nephew’s death in 1791. His barony of Walpole descended to his first cousin once removed of the same name but Baron Walpole of Wolterton. Horatio Walpole the younger was later created a new Earl of Orford.

Strawberry Hill had its own printing press, the Strawberry Hill Press, which supported Horace Walpole’s intensive literary activity.

John Hampden (c. June 1595 – 24 June 1643) was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War.

After war began in August 1642, Hampden raised an infantry regiment, and died of wounds received at the Battle of Chalgrove Field on 18 June 1643. His loss was considered a serious blow, largely because he was one of the few Parliamentary leaders able to hold the different factions together.

However, his early death also meant he avoided the bitter internal debates later in the war, the execution of Charles I in 1649, and establishment of The Protectorate. This makes him a less complex figure than Cromwell or Pym, a key factor in why his statue was erected in the Palace of Westminster to represent the Parliamentarian cause in 1841.

A reputation for honest, principled, and patriotic opposition to arbitrary rule also made him a popular figure in North America; prior to the 1774 American Revolution, Franklin and Adams were among those who referenced him to justify their cause.

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley KG PC (13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598) was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–1553 and 1558–1572) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. In his description in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Albert Pollard wrote, “From 1558 for forty years the biography of Cecil is almost indistinguishable from that of Elizabeth and from the history of England.”

Cecil set as the main goal of English policy the creation of a united and Protestant British Isles. His methods were to complete the control of Ireland, and to forge an alliance with Scotland. Protection from invasion required a powerful Royal Navy. While he was not fully successful, his successors agreed with his goals.^] In 1587, Cecil persuaded the Queen to order the execution of the Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, after she was implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth.

He was the father of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and founder of the Cecil dynasty (Marquesses of Exeter and of Salisbury) which has produced many politicians including two Prime Ministers.

Burghley House is a grand sixteenth-century English country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire. It is a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, built and still lived in by the Cecil family. The exterior largely retains its Elizabethan appearance, but most of the interiors date from remodellings before 1800. The house is open to the public on a seasonal basis and displays a circuit of grand and richly furnished state apartments. Its park was laid out by Capability Brown.

The house is on the boundary of the civil parishes of Barnack and St Martin’s Without in the Peterborough unitary authority of Cambridgeshire. It was formerly part of the Soke of Peterborough, an historic area that was traditionally associated with Northamptonshire. It lies 0.9 miles (1.4 km) south of Stamford and 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Peterborough city centre.

The house is now run by the Burghley House Preservation Trust, which is controlled by the Cecil family.