ABSTRACT
THE history of the monarchy in France under the first nine Capetians has been presented in this volume on the same scale as the history of the English monarchy. The reader has undoubtedly found a justification for this in the facts recorded. Throughout this period the lives of the two countries were bound up closely together. From the Conquest of 1066 the kings of England were of Norman and Angevin origin, they spoke French and almost all of them passed some part of their reign in France. Henry II and his sons ruled an empire that stretched from Scotland to the Pyrenees. The great problem for the kings of France had been how to resist their advance. Finally, it is easy to see legislative and administrative forms being borrowed from the opposite sides of the Channel. We have, no doubt, thrown a little more light on the history of the two peoples by the order we have adopted.
